A survey team coordinated by Constituent Assembly member Hari Shripaili has not yet finalized its report on the overall condition of the Haliya since their emancipation. “We have almost finished the survey in the far-western region,” Shripali told myrepublica.com. “But we are yet to get started in the mid-west.”
The survey has been completed in Kanchanpur, Doti, Achham, Dadeldhura and Bajhang districts of the far-western region. However, it has yet to be completed in four other districts. Shripaili assured that the survey in Baitadi, Darchula, Bajura and Kailali will be completed very soon.
The survey has so far put the number of freed Haliya households in the far-western region at 14,460. The number will go up once the survey is completed in all the districts. However, the survey team has not yet started work in the hill districts of mid-western region though this was supposed to have been completed by mid-July, 2009.
The inordinate delay in carrying out the survey on all aspects of the freed Haliya populace has plunged the rehabilitation program into uncertainty. The government cannot introduce any rehabilitation package unless the survey team finishes its work in all districts where the Haliya system existed.
Haliya -- one of the remnants of slavery -- was abolished by the government last year following years-long agitations. Haliya people had first stood up against the system in the late 1970s. The Maoists boosted their agitation to an extent during their ´people´s war´ by forcing landlords to write off loans owed by the Hailya.
Under this system, the Haliya are forced to work at local landlords´ houses to pay interest on loans taken by their forebears. The Haliya system flourished in hill districts in the far and mid-western regions of the country and was based on the caste hierarchy in Hindu society.
Dalits and untouchables are believed to comprise over 90 percent of the Haliya. Local landlords belonging to the so-called upper castes lend them money at as high as 5 percent per month interest rate. They can never pay off the debts and are forced to work the landlords´ fields throughout their lives.
On September 6 last year, the government formed a commission to recommend approaches to rehabilitating Haliya families. The commission recommended a thorough survey to establish the exact numbers and socio-economic conditions of the Haliya before rehabilitating them.
The sluggishness of bureaucracy, however, has marred the Haliya survery. “We are supposed to collect data on Haliya families through the District Development Committees (DDCs),” says Chakra BK, a member of the survey team. “But, the DDCs function pretty slothfully as always.”
According to Chief District Officer of Baitadi Keshav Raj Ghimire, the survey was delayed due to the remoteness of the villages where the Hailya live. “We had deployed volunteers in all 62 Village Development Committees (VDCs),” Ghimire told myrepublica.com. “But in as many as 15 of the remote villages the volunteers did not go where they were deployed, citing the remoteness.”
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