BENGALURU: In the hierarchy of presidency lexicon, the time period “sarkar” would possibly sign omnipotence. Not a lot the Bengali surname “Sarkar”, as 727 Hindu refugees from erstwhile East Pakistan settled in Karnataka would testify.

Vibhuti Sarkar, a 65-year-old farmer, is amongst those that have had their vested land holdings of many many years all of a sudden flagged as “sarkari”, or authorities property, in a bureaucratic bungle blamed on their “similar sounding” shared surname.
The change in possession from Sarkar to “sarkari” meant Vibhuti was denied insurance coverage final yr for the jowar crop he had sown on 5 acres in Sindhanur taluk of Raichur district.
Based on his grievance, an inquiry by the income division revealed that holdings of 726 different folks settled in three rehabilitation camps had been earmarked as authorities land within the information of rights, tenancy and crops. Updated information obtainable on Bhoomi, the Karnataka authorities’s land information portal, mirrored the change.

Prasen Raptana, a consultant of the 22,000-odd erstwhile refugees settled in 4 rehabilitation camps of Sindhanur taluk – RH2, RH3, RH4 and RH5 – took up cudgels for Vibhuti and wrote to the Raichur DC final December in regards to the “technical problem”. A month earlier, the assistant commissioner of Lingasugur had flagged the difficulty in a communication to the DC. TOI has a replica of that letter.
All the affected farmers are residents of RH 2, 3 and 4.
“We are having to contend with this strange problem for no fault of ours,” stated Pankaj Sarkar, one other of these caught within the land possession tangle triggered by an unwelcome “i” being added to their surname.
“We spoke to the tehsildar, who said it was a software problem and had to be fixed in Bengaluru. Why do we have to travel to Bengaluru to fix the problem created by the government?” he informed TOI.
Raptana stated the 727 farmers weren’t solely having to battle the forms, but in addition unable to get the MSP for his or her crops at authorities centres, mortgage land for loans and apply for crop insurance coverage.
Sindhanur tehsildar Arun stated the DC had already introduced the difficulty to the discover of the survey settlement and land information division for adjustments to be made within the Bhoomi portal.
Thousands of persecuted Hindus who had fled what was then East Pakistan in 1971 have been housed in refugee camps in seven states, together with Karnataka. Each household was given 5 acres of land to make a brand new starting.
For Vibhuti and his ilk, studying the distinction between “Sarkar” and “sarkari” greater than 5 many years later will surely depend as a contemporary begin.