Responding to the notice given to the communities
For nearly three or more decades some even close to five, people have been living along the Railway Line. Being victims of floods and other natural calamities they fled to the city – Patna, in search of sheer livelihood. Over the years they have found a piece of land, filled it up, cleared it and made it habitable. In the process they found work for themselves in order to earn a livelihood.
They settled down and procured all the necessary documents to prove their identity and citizenship, their children have been enrolled in the schools in the town. Now all of a sudden the land on which they had been residing belonged to the Railway, till then they had no problem. Now the government of Bihar has procured the land as they plan a six lane road…
Announcements were made by the DM in the running train asking the people to evacuate the place. Efforts have been made to meet with the administration and the government officials but to no avail. Finally, a notice has been issued to some of the people and they have been invited to meet with the SDO on the 21st August at 11.00.
This was a very important meeting to sit with the people and ask what they wanted and how they plan to respond to the notice sent by the government. People are very distressed and do not know where to go and how to respond to this dilemma. They say they have been living for decades. One very elderly woman came forward and offered that she would like to address the SDO. She is a fisher worker and she began to say, that I will ask where we should go??
A very interactive session as we found that the women were really under stress and did not find any other alternative but to face the officials and to tell them that they may need the land for development, it’s true the land belongs to the government but as people of Bihar where should they go??