Sheekha Bureau
Port Blair, Dec 14 : Members of nearly 161 families of Sri Lankan Tamil Settlers have intensified their protest against Andaman and Nicobar Administration demanding a respectable package for their permanent settlement.
The Government of India under the rehabilitation package scheme under the Sasthri- Srimao Bandaranayaka pact of 1964 had settled 48 Sri Lankan Tamil families, in tribal Island, Katchal of Nicobar Groups, in the year 1974 and 1976 and given employment in daily wages in Andaman and Nicobar Plantation Rubber Board.
Over the years the Rubber Plantation became a loss making unit leaving these families, who are now total 161 in number, in total distress.
Moreover being a Tribal Island, for the third generation decedents of the Sri Lankan Tamil Settlers it has become impossible to carry out any kind of business or purchase a land for the secure future.
After 2004 Tsunami, life for these outsiders has become more difficult because of added restrictions over outsiders in the Tribal Island Katchal.
Demanding a permanent settlement package, like other groups of settlers have been given by the Government, these Sri Lankan Settlers had moved to court in 2010, after which the court had ordered the A & N Administration to prepare a proper settlement package for them but Andaman and Nicobar Administration failed to follow the order.
“We moved to court again in 2013 claiming contempt of court and after several years of fight now the Administration seems to have finalized a package for us which is nothing but peanuts for us and an eyewash for the court,” said Lawrence George Thomas, a member of Sri Lankan Settler family of Katchal.
Lawrence said that the present package reportedly planned by the local Administration offers them only a 200 sq mtr land with a one bedroom and kitchen house, built over 80 sq mtr of land and a job for one member of each family for just one year.
“This is nothing compared to the package given earlier to other settler families. Moreover the land allotted for our package is in remote Little Andaman Island, that too, in a very interior place,” he added.
To express their anger member of all members of 161 families have organised a protest on Friday last in Katchal Island.
“We don’t want temporary jobs in package. Give us adequate land for our settlement, which will become a permanent source of income for us,” said Haridas George Thomas, another protesting Sri Lankan Tamil Settler.
The four decades old struggle for these Sri Lankan Tamil Settlers in remote Islands of Andaman and Nicobar Islands have been a very tiresome one but the Settlers are hopeful that near future they will surely get justice.
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