Vikramaditya
Port Blair, Dec 06: Protest by nearly 242 Sri Lankan Tamil Settler families of Katchal Island will enter 20th day tomorrow while the relay hunger strike by them will enter 15th day.
The present protest by Sri Lankan Tamil Settler families has been intensified today to press their long pending demands of resettlement from Katchal Island to South Andaman region.
“We organized black day today. Nearly 500 people today organized a rally wearing black dress and black ribbon. Black flags were raised in our houses in protest against the delay from the side of Administration to respond. Even after so many days of protest the DC of Nicobar District has not come to Katchal Island to meet us and listen to our problems,” said Mr. Lawrence George Thomas, the Joint Secretary of Katchal Settlers’ Welfare Association

Vikramaditya
Middle Strait, Dec 04: For the second time in this week, MVF Kadamtala developed technical problems this morning following which the vehicle ferry was withdrawn from service at Middle Strait, putting entire pressure of ATR on MV North Bay.
As usual MV North Bay takes nearly 40 to 45 minutes for a return trip between Middle Strait and Nilambur Jetty of Baratang and hence, operation of only MV North Bay not only delayed ATR journey of many commuters and commercial vehicles but also put the lone vehicle ferry MV North Bay under tremendous pressure of breakdown.
However by 3 PM MVF Kadamtala was repaired but by that time the ATR commuting time was over. It is learnt that as all the vehicles at Middle Strait and Baratang could not cross the creek by 3.00 PM, hence special permission was taken from Secretary Tribal Welfare to clear the stranded vehicles today.
Earlier yesterday also the vehicle ferry MVF Kadamtala suffered similar breakdown.
When contacted, an engineering staff of MVF Kadamtala said that the fault was successfully repaired today. However, he insisted that the vehicle ferry was out of service only for two hours from 12 noon to 2.00 PM while ATR commuters complained otherwise.
Few weeks back, the Shipping Services was operating three vehicle ferries at Middle Strait, which was a huge relief for ATR passengers, as presence of three vehicle ferries shortens ATR journey timing of commuters, especially for those who travel upto Mayabunder or Diglipur. General Public requests the Secretary Shipping and Director of Shipping Service to send three vehicle ferry at Middle Strait, which is the busiest creek among the two creeks of ATR.

 

Trinath
Port Blair, Dec 03: Villagers or Rangat allege that most of the time staffs of Rangat’s Civil Supplies office remain missing during office hours, causing bagful of problems for general public.
Public of Rangat area shared a picture of the office taken on 27.12.2020 at 11.15 AM, which shows that the office is completely empty.
According to public, who are going to Civil Supplies office to make corrections and update their Aadhaar Cards, because of absence of staffs, they have to wait for several hours infront of the office.
When Andaman Sheekha reported about this matter to Dr. Angel Bhati Chauhan, the Deputy Commission of North and Middle Andaman, she assured to examine the matter and take necessary action in this regard.

 

John Wilbert & Sarthak Kanjilall

Port Blair, Dec 02: Updating and correcting details in Aadhaar Card has become a herculean task for many, as according to the public, due to lack of clearly, unfriendly behavior of dealing staffs and total chaos, they are facing inconvenience.

Public complain that there is no one in the office of Directorate of Civil Supplies and Consumer affairs to guide general public, especially those who are coming from remote villages, that how to fill the Aadhaar Card update and correction form correctly.

“For example to update details one has to take a passport size photo with light colour dress but this is not communicated to public. So when they submit forms with dark colour dress, their forms are rejected. There are many such DOs and DON’Ts, which must be communicated to public, while filling forms,” said Mr. Balaji a social worker.

Because of such mistakes some people have to fill forms three to four times, he said.

Public also allege that staffs dealing with public are also not polite which makes things further difficult for them.

“The dealing staffs do not even reply properly if asked about some doubts. How a person, with little knowledge about official works, will get help?” questioned an old man.

When contacted Mr. Rajesh Kumar, Nodal officer of Aadhaar Enrollment said that the process of update and correction in Aadhaar takes too much time because of various factors.
He said that his team is having limited staff and only four computers to perform the task and deal with large number of people everyday.

According to him each update or correction in Aadhaar Card takes atleast 15 minutes and hence it takes long time for the pubic too.

Mr. Rajesh Kumar added that despite link issue and staff shortage his team is doing its best. To deal with confusion regarding filling up forms, he said that the department is also planning to issue a press releases for public information so that there is more clarity among public.

Sarthak Kanjilal & John Wilbert

Port Blair, November 27: There is good news for the people dependent upon Kerosene Oil in South Andaman region, as Kerosene oil is now available in Port Blair market.
For nearly four months Kerosene oil was not available in the market which brought tremendous difficulties particularly for the business people who required kerosene for their machines and generators on a daily basis.
Talking to Andaman Sheekha, Mr. Mohammed Jadwet, Owner, Jadwet Trading Company, one of the distributors of Kerosene Oil in the Islands confirmed that they are going to get the stock of Kerosene oil from IOCL today, and hence there will be the availability of kerosene oil in the market.
After the Andaman Islands declared free from domestic Kerosene that was available in the market at subsidized rates till the 01st September 2019, the administration anyhow managed to avail the stock of Kerosene Oil in the market rates, for the needy.
However, even after doing so, there was a huge crisis of Kerosene in the market. The complaints of non-availability of Kerosene in the market, for purposes other than cooking, were also on the rise.
The Printing Press owners were worst hit, who require Kerosene for cleaning purposes of printing machines as the only alternative to that is a liquid chemical, which is three time more costlier than Kerosene and also is not available in Andaman easily.
The distributors earlier alleged that they weren’t given Kerosene from the IOCL, while the senior authorities of Indian Oil Trading Corporation claimed that they have sufficient stock of Kerosene. The uncertainty among the distributors and the IOCL affected the supply and people were badly affected.

 

Port Blair, Nov 26: As the Sri Lankan Tamil Settlers have now intensified their protest for their resettlement from Tribal Island of Katchal of Nicobar District to South Andaman area, the A & N State BJP unit has written letter to the Prime Minister of India in this regard, demanding immediate intervention.

Mr. Ajoy Bairagi, the State President, Bharatiya Janta Party, Andaman and Nicobar Islands has written a letter to the Prime Minister of India Mr. Narendra Modi, the Union Minister for Home Affairs, Mr. Amit Shah, The Union Minister of Tribal Affairs, Mr. Arjun Munda and the Minister of State for Home Affairs Mr. G Kishan Reddy demanding immediate resettlement of Sri Lankan Tamil Settler Families from Katchal Island to other non-tribal area with adequate amount of land as decided in the Island Development Authority (IDA) meeting of 2003 or to de-notify the area of residence of these Sri Lankan Tamil Settlers in Katchal from the ANPAT Regulation.

Mr. Ajoy Bairagi in his letter explained the issue to the PM and other minister being faced by the Sri Lankan Settlers because of being settled in Katchal, a tribal area by the A & N Administration in the 1970’s without de-notifying the area from the ANPAT Regulation 1976.

Mr. Bairagi mentioned in his letter that these settlers are not able to avail any benefits of the Central Govt. Schemes and cannot even open a bank account. He further added that these settlers were settled in Katchal Island in Govt. Quarters which is now 50 years old and the same is without toilet facility.

He also explained that the settlers have been petitioning the Govt. of India and the Andaman and Nicobar Administration for their resettlement to a non-tribal area since the year 1995.

He further explained how, the then Prime Minister of India Late Atal Bihari Vajpayee had instructed the A & N administration to resettle them with 1.5 Hectors of land in line with other Sri Lankan settlers who were settled here.

At present a protest is going on at Katchal Island since 18th of November 2020 and later a relay hunger strike also started by the Sri Lankan Tamil Settlers to press for their demands of re-settlement to a non-tribal area.

Mr. Ajoy Bairagi requested the PM to give appropriate directions to the Andaman and Nicobar Administration to either resettle these settlers in a non-tribal area or to de-notify the area of their residence in Katchal Island from ANPAT Regulation.

He further requested that immediate relief should be given to these families by construction of proper toilets and adequate shelters for them until any decision is taken.

 

Vikramaditya
Katchal, November 23: Protest by nearly 242 Sri Lankan Tamil Settler families of Katchal Island will enter ninth day tomorrow and the relay hunger strike by them will enter fourth day.
Today three ladies from Sri Lankan Tamil Settler families sat on relay hunger strike to press their long pending demands of resettlement from Katchal Island to South Andaman region.
Talking to Andaman Sheekha today over phone Mr. Lawrence George Thomas, the Joint Secretary of Katchal Settlers’ Welfare Association said that nearly 300 members of Sri Lankan Tamil Settler families have today written individual letters to the Lt. Governor demanding his personal intervention in this matter. He added that more people of the community will also write similar individual letters to the Lt. Governor in coming days.
“We do not have any clue about the present status of our resettlement from Tribal area to non-Tribal area. Until and unless we get a deadline from the administration that how long it will take to resettle us from Katchal Island to South Andaman, we will continue the protest,” Mr. Lawrence said.
A total of 48 families of Indian origin were settled in the tribal areas of the island under a pact signed between then Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri and Sri Lankan Prime Minister Srimao Bandaranayke in 1964. At the time of settlement between 1974 and 1976, they were given half an acre of land, a single bedroom house and employment for two members of a family in the rubber plantation on daily wages.