Madhavikutty Amma was on stage, along with Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, to light one of the wicks on the inaugural lamp at the Putharikandam Maidan in Thiruvananthapuram. She is one of the two lakh poor people who have been given a house by the Kerala government’s LIFE mission that began as a project in 2016.
“I come from the Vilappilsala panchayat in Peyad. I didn’t have a home for 20 to 25 years and used to tell the panchayat member that I need a place, at least to keep my body when I die. He helped and so did the people of Vilappilsala to build this home. I live there with my son now,” says Madhavikutty Amma as she rushes to take a bus back home.
As many as 2,14,262 houses have been completed, as per the official announcement made at the function that was organised to celebrate the milestone. The project granted Rs 4 lakh to each of the persons identified by government officials as those who deserved homes.
CM visiting Chandran, life mission beneficiary
As thousands listened, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan wondered aloud why the opposition leader (Ramesh Chennithala) and the Lok Sabha member of the city (Shashi Tharoor) had refused to turn up for the event.
“They said they were boycotting it. But what are they boycotting? Why are they showing this cruelty to the poor? The opposition leader said that it was his United Democratic Front (UDF) government that had originally started the project. We accept that. They ruled from 2001 to 2005, then the Left Democratic Front (LDF) came into power for the next five years, and then again the UDF till 2016. But we didn’t check who ruled, we looked at how much work has been done and how much should be completed. They can take credit for all the houses completed in phase 1. But there was a phase 2 and a phase 3 after this, and we also completed the houses that you had started building,” the Chief Minister said.
Attacking the opposition further, the Chief Minister said they could have debates with the government on a lot of issues and leave it to the people to decide who is right and who to vote for. But they shouldn’t stay away when the issues are about protecting the Constitution and the secular values of the country, Pinarayi Vijayan said, referring to the recent protests against the BJP-ruled Centre government’s controversial exercises — the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC). The Congress-led UDF had initially joined the joint protest along with the state government against the CAA and the NRC but later stayed away.
All around the ground, a video was being played repeatedly, taking a dig at the Central government. As faces of the poor were shown, Pinarayi says in the video, “Did not ask their caste, did not ask their religion, did not ask their citizenship. Only asked if they had a home to call their own.”
Not having a shelter is only one of the problems faced by the people of this state, the Chief Minister said. And even that is not complete – there are more houses to be built and more poor people to be included in the list of those who deserve a home.
Padmavathy from the Malayinkeezhu panchayat, who came to attend the function, says that officials from the panchayat came home to ask her about her condition. “We were living in a dilapidated shed before this. I have a son and a daughter living with me. Two other children are married. When my husband died, I began working as an ayah in a nearby school. When it was time to leave the job, I got a pension of Rs 75,000. That, together with the four lakh rupees I got as part of this project, was used to build my home,” she says.
Padmavathy
There are other issues too — Ambili and Sreeja from the Chenkal panchayat say that even though they have a shelter now, there is still the water crisis that needs to be solved. “We live by the side of a river but cannot use the water for drinking purpose. We are tired of complaining to the panchayat, asking them to fix a pipeline,” Sreeja says.
Ambily and neighbours