Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru (MS)
Bengaluru, Mar 23: The whole state of Karnataka is heated up with activities related to the Lok Sabha elections which are round the corner. However, in the five districts of the state the voters are disappearing even before the polling.
Hundreds of families from the districts of Raichur, Vijayapur, Ballary, Koppal and Yadagiri of northern part of the state have migrated to places like Bengaluru and Mumbai as there is severe drought in these districts coupled with the rise in mercury.
Migrating is not new to these districts, which consists mainly of people who are either agricultural labourers or farmers. But the trend of villages getting empties before the elections is something unheard of in the past. Excepting elderly people and children, no other able-bodied men and women are seen in these districts.
According to an estimate nearly 30,000 families of Raichur district, who have BPL card, have not collected their ration since three months. It is learnt that all these families have left their native place to greener pastures in search of livelihood.
Most of the people belonging to the five districts go to Bengaluru and Mumbai to work as construction labourers. Some go to districts like Hassan, Mandya and Haveri for harvesting of sugarcane crop.
More than 30 buses ply from the district of Raichur to Bengaluru every day. But even these many buses are not sufficient to take the large number of people from these districts that are migrating to the capital city. In addition to government buses, many families are travelling by private vehicle and trains also.
In northern parts of the state, most of the people live in Tanda (Banjara settlements), which do not have the basic infrastructure like water and sanitation. In addition, they suffer from malnutrition and other sickness as most of them are nomads and not skilled labourers, which makes them to live in abject poverty. Though CM Kumaraswamy visited Madabhavi Tanda in Vijayapur district in December 2018 and promised to take some Tandas under adoption for development, this promise has remained only as a word of mouth.
One of the migrant labourer, who is ready to go to the capital city from Raichur said, "We are daily wage labourers. In our district there is no guarantee of getting work every day. How much loan we can take? So I have taken my children out of school and we are going to Bengaluru in search of livelihood. If we work in Bengaluru atleast we will get a square meal a day."
It is really a pathetic situation in the northern part of Karnataka state when the other parts are just busy in celebration of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.