Staff Correspondent
The government has resumed ration for the indigenous refugees in the
Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) region after four months.
Distribution of ration in the three CHT districts -- Rangamati,
Khagrachhari and Bandarban -- resumed on October 25 as per a directive
from the prime minister, official sources said.
Earlier in July, the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) had asked the CHT
affairs ministry to stop ration for 65,000 indigenous refugees of 12,222
families and rehabilitate them permanently.
The PMO however asked the ministry to continue ration for 26,000
Bangalee families in cluster villages in the CHT.
Stoppage of ration led to agitation, road barricade and strike by the
refugees.
The prime minister then asked the CHT affairs ministry to provide them
ration from its emergency stock.
A high official at the ministry however said, "It is not possible to
fully meet the refugees' food grain requirement from the emergency
stock. Hardly can we meet half of their annual requirement."
Ministry sources said in the first phase, 3,778 tonnes of food grain
will be distributed among the refugees. Their annual requirement is
15,300 tonnes but the emergency stock has 8,000 tonnes.
Previously, the refugees used to get five kilograms of rice for an adult
and two and a half kilograms for a child a week.
The refugees returned from the camps in the Indian state of Tripura
following the CHT peace treaty in 1997 and mainly depend on ration as
most of them were not rehabilitated properly.
According to official statistics, 3,055 families out of 12,222 are yet
to get back their homesteads.
The process of rehabilitation was stalled after the four-party coalition
government took office, leaders of the indigenous people alleged.