Hundreds of coffee estate labourers from Assam and West Bengal stuck in ‘no man’s land’

Kodagu accounts for 1,07,089 hectares of the 2,44,785 hectares coffee plantations in Karnataka. Now, over 41,526 hectares of coffee plantations have been destroyed in Kodagu. With the top soil and all nutrients lost due to landslides, the existing land is of little use to the owner.

While coffee plantation owners and landlords who have lost vast swathes of land due to floods and landslides in Kodagu are piecing together their lives bit-by-bit, trying to start from a scratch, landless labourers, tribals and migrant workers from places like Assam and West Bengal are staring at bleak future.

Still housed at various relief camps, these people do not have anywhere to go. While their children run around in the narrow verandas of a Government School where a relief camp has been set up, a group of older men and women squat on the steps of the building indulging in deep conversation about their future.

There are hundreds of people from Assam, West Bengal and even Bangladesh who had come to Kodagu two to three years back to work in coffee estates. They have tagged along their families as the requirement is large in labour-short Kodagu. They were rather leading a comfortable lives within the confines of coffee estates in the line houses provided by their estate owners.

However, their lives were literally displaced as thousands of acres of coffee estates were washed away in landslides where mountains came crashing and earth caved-in. Their services were greatly valued as Kodagu faces a severe shortage of labour especially during coffee picking season. As fate willed it, now they are unwanted resources. Even the District Administration seems to have washed its hands off when it comes to these migrant workers.

Officers manning the relief centres told Star of Mysore that they would ask the coffee planters to take back the workers. But if they refuse, the migrant workers have no choice but to return to their native places. “We cannot force the landlords to take back the workers as they themselves are staring at uncertain future as their estates are buried deep under soil,” said a Panchayat Development Officer (PDO).

Landslides have brought tonnes of debris, including boulders and slush and thousands of acres of coffee plantation have been destroyed. Kodagu accounts for 1,07,089 hectares of the 2,44,785 hectares coffee plantations in Karnataka, the State which accounts for over 53% of India’s coffee production, according to a May 2018 report by the Coffee Board of India.

“Over 41,526 hectares of coffee plantations have been destroyed. With the top soil and all nutrients lost due to landslides, the existing land is of little use to the owner,” said Nanjappa, a small estate owner at Madapura.

In Somwarpet taluk, nearly 500 families, who were residing at Diddahalli, have been shifted to Bhydahatti and Basavanalli. Their houses are under construction and the Government is constructing over 174 houses Basavanalli and 354 houses in Bhydahatti.

Most of the residents of Diddahalli are tribals and they depended on daily wages for survival and now the situation is they do not have work. They can stay at the relief camps till the Government constructs houses to them. But what next, they ask.

THE DAMAGE ASSESSED SO FAR

• Deaths: 14 in Madikeri taluk, four in Virajpet, two deaths in Somwarpet Taluk. 82 cattle-heads have died.
• 2,568 houses damaged incurring a loss of Rs.24.4217 crore
• 22,760 hectares of paddy and jowar crop lost
• Silt deposits have been found in 348 hectares of agricultural fields
• 41,526 hectares of coffee destroyed incurring a loss of Rs.386 crore
• 8,690 hectares of pepper razed, causing a loss of Rs.53.5 crore
• 1,804 hectares of areca nut destroyed incurring a loss of Rs.22.56 crore
• 784 hectares of banana crop destroyed causing a loss of Rs.5.48 crore
• 559 hectares of ginger buried under debris incurring a loss of Rs.71 lakh
• Out of 60.71 kilometres of National Highway 275, 25.314 kilometres fully damaged. Loss: Rs.531 crore
• 74 kilometres of town roads damaged, causing a loss of Rs.7.5 crore
• 805 kilometres of State Highway and other roads damaged, incurring a loss of Rs.446.4869 crore
• 1,792.43 kilometres of rural roads damaged, causing a loss of Rs.591.8548 crore
• 406 government buildings damaged, 84 schools, 63 primary health centres, 160 anganawadi buildings and 99 panchayat buildings damaged incurring a total loss of Rs.35.2696 crore
• 2,900 electricity poles, 657 transformers damaged and connections of 20.88 kilometres have been snapped, incurring a total loss of Rs.7.8344 crore