Periyapatna: While governments run by various political parties boast about several schemes they have launched for the welfare of tribal population and members of backward communities, here is a classic example in Periyapatna where it shows that many government schemes have just remained on paper, without reaching the deserving population.

The story we are narrating here is that of a woman who is forced to live atop a banyan tree as her hut has been ravaged by wild elephants. She has been living like a tree animal since months and her case proves that governments may come and governments may go but nothing changes on ground despite tall claims by elected representatives.

The woman is Latha, wife of late Ganesh of Karadibokke Tribal Hamlet on the border of Doddaharave Reserve Forest in Periyapatna, the Assembly constituency represented by Congress MLA K. Venkatesh, who is the Chairman of Bengaluru Development Authority. And Periyapatna falls in Chief Minister Siddharamaiah’s home district of Mysuru.  

Latha hails from Jenukuruba tribal community and there are over 22 Jenukuruba tribal families living at Karadibokke. The tribals are living there since the last 65 years and they depend on the meagre food facilities provided by the government. Most of the time, they depend on forest roots and edible forest produce for their living. Some of them visit other nearby villages in search of daily wage work.

Latha’s husband Ganesh died four years back owing to illness and she has two children Amulya and Vinu who are studying at the Abbalathi Tribal Ashrama School.

While Amulya is studying in fifth standard, Vinu is studying in the third standard.

As her children were studying, Latha had constructed a hut near the village and had used mud, bamboo, coconut frond, plastic sheets and dry paddy stock as construction material. A few weeks back, a herd of seven elephants surrounded her hut in the night and damaged the walls. She had stocked up some rice, vegetables and fruits inside her hut and the foraging elephants broke the hut’s roof and ate the rice and vegetables.

Latha said that she was sleeping when the elephant attack happened and somehow she managed to run away, saving her life. Having no other alternative, Latha built a small shelter-like bamboo structure atop a banyan tree. At present, she cooks her food inside the damaged hut and climbs the banyan tree to sleep after dark. “I can somehow manage and it is very difficult when my children come home. I have to cook food for them and there is a constant danger from wild elephants,” Latha says.

Latha said that she does not have a ration card and the facilities that have been given to other tribals have not reached her yet. “I eat lunch at the place where I go for manual labour and buy rice out of the meagre income I get,” she says. Latha adds that other tribals have got ration cards, Aadhaar cards and some of them have even got title deeds for the land on which they have built huts.  

Villagers and other tribals claim that the measures taken by the Forest Department including solar fences and boundary trenches to prevent the entry of wild elephants into human habitat have proved futile and elephants roam freely in the area.

The tribal hamlet comes under Naviluru Panchayat and the decision of the Panchayat to lay pipelines to provide drinking water to tribal hamlets was objected by the Forest Department. Still, the Panchayat went ahead and provided water connections, said Panchayat Development Officer (PDO) M.K. Devaraj.

He added that Latha’s name was registered as a ration card beneficiary and she was yet to get the ration card from the Food and Civil Supplies Department.

It may be recalled here that Star of Mysore had on Aug. 2 published a similar report titled “This man is living atop a Mango Tree since two years.” The report highlighted the plight of another tribal Gejja, also from Periyapatna, who had made the tree-top his home.

By H.D. Ramesh