Tribal people cheated out of land and compensation during relocation process from MTR stage protest in Ooty

Tribal people of Gudalur staging a demonstration at the Collector’s office in Udhagamandalam on Monday.
| Photo Credit: M. SATHYAMOORTHY

Tribal residents, who were relocated from the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve (MTR), staged a protest in front of the District Collector’s office on Monday, demanding that a list of 17 demands be fulfilled.

The residents, who were part of a government effort to relocate them away from the tiger reserve, alleged that they were cheated by Forest Department staff, lawyers and land brokers during the relocation process.

K. Mahendran from the Tamil Nadu Tribal People’s Association said a total of 574 families had been relocated so far from the tiger reserve in multiple phases, with 108 families still residing inside the reserve and refusing to move out. He said despite the Madras High Court directing the government in 2007 to ensure that the people were moved out within a year, that the Forest Department only began the process in earnest in 2016.

The activists claimed that the government did not follow rules laid down by the Wildlife Protection Act, the Forest Rights Act and the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act while undertaking the relocation of the tribal families.

They called on the government to expedite the proceedings against the Forest Department staff, lawyers and land brokers who have been booked under the Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe (SC/ST) Prevention of Atrocities Act, and against whom a case has been ongoing since 2019. The men were booked for cheating the Kattunayakan and Paniya residents from villages within the reserve.

They also wanted the government to help get them documents to the land that had been sold to them by the accused in the case. Another one of their demands was to stop demanding the relocation of the remaining tribal villages within the reserve, provide compensation to the children of residents who are now 18 years of age, increase compensation to ₹25 lakh to the people relocated from ₹10 lakh that was promised in 2008, among others.