Tribal family waging lone battle for patta

Joint inspection of site by govt departments fails to resolve issue

For the past 16 years, Yeshoda Narayanan and her family, living on a plot of land inside the Aralam farm in Kannur district, has been fighting a lonely battle for the land title (patta) for the piece of land that they had settled on. The pleas of the family, who belong to the Karimbala tribal community, have fallen on deaf ears all these years.

In 2006, Ms. Narayanan, along with her ailing husband and three daughters, settled on plot number 513 of the Aralam farm during the tribal agitation. However, during the pattaya mela in 2013, they were issued a patta for plot number 566. To their surprise, the land had been already allotted to another tribal family belonging to the Paniya community.

“The issue was raised with the authorities and they asked the family to share the land with us. But they refused to part with the land for which they had received the patta,” she said.