Redtapism strips residents of their rights in Sushma Swaraj's constituency in MP

Correspondent

NewsBits.in

BHOPAL: They have been living on the same land for generations, their fathers and grandfathers owned and cultivated it, yet bureaucratic hassles have deprived them of their rights.

Meet residents of Gidgarh, a village in Sanchi block that falls in external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj's constituency.

Hundreds of families in this settlement are unable to get benefits of government schemes. They can't get ration cards or even avail support price for their crop, there is no Adhar card and no scholarship for children.

Forget schemes aimed at farmers--subsidy or crop insurance, they can't even get loans from banks or get Kisan Credit Card. Villagers of Gidgarh reached Bhopal on Monday and spoke to journalists, about their plight.

"It is a revenue village but strangely some part of the village was termed as forestland, and an official objected to its being a revenue land. This led to conflict and since then the bureaucratic redtapism led to the situation that revenue-cum-loan books (bhu-adhikar pustika) were not given to us", said Panna Lal, a villager.

"We have given hundreds of representations to politicians and bureaucrats, but nobody listens", he added. "Our village is part of the constituency from where former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee was elected (Shivraj Singh Chouhan too), yet no one bothered about our grievances", he said.

"It is an extraordinary situation. Neither forest department considers it forest village, nor revenue department considers it revenue village. In fact, government had given orders but bureaucrats are not implementing the order and this has resulted in this predicament", said Bhupendra Gupta, who heads intellectual cell of Congress.

"There are provisions to redress the situation. Strangely, even after 13 years, Shivraj Singh Chouhan government has failed to deal with this issue", he further said. Meanwhile, villagers have decided to start an agitation if the government fails to redress their grievance.