This Article is From Nov 30, 2014

Four Months After Malin Tragedy, Displaced Villagers Live In Temporary Shelters

Government has provided temporary shelters to those displaced by the landslide.

Malin, Maharashtra: It has been four months since Malin, a remote village in Maharashtra's Pune district, was wiped out in a landslide.

151 people were killed in the tragedy; only 50 villagers survived it.

On the night of July 30, Krushna Zanjare, 78, was fast asleep. He woke up when he heard a loud thud. Within seconds, nine members of his family were buried alive in front of him.

The state government had promised rehabilitation for the villagers; but four months on, they are still waiting for new homes and a new stretch of land to farm in.

Going back to the village is out of the question for them.

"The whole village has been wiped away. How will I go back? There is no home left for me to go back to," said Zanjare.

The government has already provided them with a temporary shelter and monetary compensation, but no farmland has been allotted yet. The alternate farming sites offered by the government were rejected by the villagers, who say those options are simply not viable.

Laxman Pote, a farmer who survived the tragedy because he was not at home at the time of the tragedy, says the allotted farmland is too far.

"It will take at least half a day to travel to the site. How will we farm after that? Till the time we do not get a proper place for farming, we cannot start our life all over again," he says.

The state government is trying its best to rehabilitate the villagers, claimed Maharashtra Revenue Minister Eknath Khadse.

"We are trying our best to provide employment. They had been offered land at three different places in the neighbouring village but they didn't like it. Whichever piece of land they like, the government will buy that and take it under its control, so that the villagers can be rehabilitated," said Mr Khadse.

The villagers are now urging the government to provide them a permanent location for rehabilitation soon, as they are eager to start over.

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