UMERKOT, May 24 A large number of peasant women who gathered in Kunri town on Monday to receive pieces of land at an open katchehry under the government's land distribution programme staged a sit-in on Umerkot-Kunri road, accusing Kunri mukhtiarkar of selling off their land to influential people.

They expressed distrust on method of land distribution but DDO (revenue) Nasir Khan rejected their allegations and said that 112 acres had been distributed among 25 landless peasants in Kunri taluka.

He said the department had tried its best to exercise transparency in distribution of land. He visited the sites personally, verified identification and location of woman peasant and confirmed it through their neighbours before finalising their names, he said.

He said that 18 acres had been set aside for watercourses, villages or graveyards which would not be distributed and distribution of further 25 acres had been withheld due to lack of verification.

A large number of women peasants attended the open katchehry which was marred by lack of facilities, proper mechanism for distribution and poor management, which mainly contributed to triggering protest.

According to an study carried out by an NGO, the process of distribution of land has some serious flaws, including litigation, occupation by influential landlords, waterlogging, poor demarcation and lack of transparency because of favouritism and nepotism.

The government appears to have paid heed to the NGO's recommendations to make the distribution process transparent and made it binding on revenue officials to visit the site personally and ensure transparency by holding open katchehris in the talukas concerned.

In first phase 769 acres of land was distributed among 132 beneficiaries in Umerkot district and in the second phase 2,177 acres were being distributed.

More than 700 women submitted applications at the open katchehry in Kunri for receiving land.

Besides, different NGO's established facilitation camps to educate and facilitate illiterate and poor women peasants who were to become masters of their land.

Siyani, a peasant woman, who is a mother of two minor sons suffering from thalassaemia, said that if she received land she would spend proceeds from its crops on treatment of her sons.

Latifan Rind was excited to get eight acres and said that she had never dreamed of owning the piece land which she had tilled as a peasant for 20 years.

Darya Khatoon who was awarded five acres said that for the first time she was going to be a Waderi (landlord). “It's reward for my hard work which I continued to do without caring for heat, cold or rains,” she said.