Power Panch In Odisha

When Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik announced on April 19 that sarpanches would get district collectors’ powers to help fight COVID-19, little would he have imagined the destruction it would cause a couple of months later. On August 11, Hemakanti Munda, the sarpanch of Salebhata panchayat, Bolangir district, wielded her authority to requisition bulldozers and demolish six houses. The houses were being built for poor adivasi families under the Prime Minister’s Awas Yojana-Grameen (PMAY-G).

“I, along with my husband and a few other members of the village committee, demolished the houses as the government has granted me the powers of a collector,” she told a news channel. Her husband, Mohan Munda, and she were arrested on August 16

The demolition drive has rendered six families homeless. “With no roof over our heads, how will we survive?” asked one of them. They claimed that they had not violated any rules while constructing the houses allotted to them under the PMAY-G. Enquiries on the ground by Outlook corroborated their contention that they had started construction on vacant government land only after the panchayat and block administration allotted land to them on the recommendation of the local tehsildar.

“We received two instalments under the PMAY-G, which was enough to start the work, but not enough to complete it. We had to borrow money from a local moneylender to make sure the construction work did not stop midway. But everything has now been reduced to rubble,” said another.

Based on a complaint filed by the affected families, the Loisingha police registered a case against the 10 people who oversaw the demolition. A team led by DSP Ranjita Singh produced Mohan and Hemakanti in court and sent them to jail after their bail plea was rejected. The other eight named in the FIR are absconding.

But what made the sarpanch, an adivasi herself, demolish the houses of fellow adivasis? Reports suggest that petty politics was at play—the son of a former MLA instigated the sarpanch to act against the six families because they supposedly did not vote for the candidate he backed in the last election. He is among the eight people absconding since the incident came to light recently.

According to the rulebook, a sarpanch gets suspended if they are in jail for two consecutive days. Thus, Munda is all set to lose her powers, including the ‘collector’s power’. In such an event, the naib sarpanch presides as the acting sarpanch. Sources say the powerful political family backs the naib sarpanch and the demolitions could well be part of a plan they hatched for the naib sarpanch to take over.

By Sandeep Sahu in Bhubaneswar