Mahendranagar, Feb 12:

The government has begun providing land ownership certificates to the freed kamaiyas.

Altogether 58 households of kamaiyas of Daiji, Jhalari and Krishnapur camps got land ownership certificates at a programme organised in Mahendranagar today.

The government formed after the Jana Andolan-II had formed a committee for the resettlement of the kamaiyas.

“Each Kamaiya household in Kanchanpur got five katthas of land,” the committee coordinator, Chhabilal Pant, said, adding, “Land has been provided to those kamaiyas enlisted in the data collected in 2001.”

The land ownership certificates have it that the kamaiyas cannot sell the land for 10 years. “Now on, nobody can chase us from our land,” kamaiyas said after getting the land ownership certificates.

“W are happy to get the land in our names though the government-given land won’t be enough to eke out a living,” they said.