Agartala, June 30: The Young Mizo Association (YMA) and the Jampui Mizo Convention (JMC) have decided to launch an agitation in Jampui hills of North Tripura to protest the state government’s apathy towards the problems of the Mizos living in the state. As part of the programme, the two organisations will call a 24-hour bandh in the 10 Mizo- dominated villages in Jampui hills bordering Mizoram.
This was decided at a meeting of the YMA held in Saboal village on June 15.
Former member of the district council Lianjuala Sailo alleged that the area was totally cut off from the rest of the state. “Till December, there was one bus of the Tripura Road Transport Corporation and a private bus plying between Vangmun, headquarters of Jampui hills, and the subdivisional headquarters in Kanchanpur. However, the corporation bus was withdrawn without notice in January and three weeks later, the other bus also stopped plying.
“We are now left with no viable transport to Kanchanpur even though we have to visit the town every day. Agartala is practically a foreign land for us,” Sailo said.
He said the private jeeps that ferry passengers to and from Jampui hills are too expensive for the common people. “The fare for a one-way journey to Kanchanpur, a distance of over 25 km, is Rs 60 per head,” Sailo said.
The condition of the road between Vangmun and Kanchanpur and between Vangmun and remote Saboal on the Mizoram border is very poor.
Sources said it is only during the orange festival in October that the roads are repaired to enable VIPs reach the place.
They alleged that telephone connectivity was virtually non-existent in the Jampui hills and development programmes initiated by the state government and the Autonomous District Council had come to a standstill.
Sailo said over 5,000 Mizo families had settled in the Jampui hills in the beginning of the 20th century. They made a living through cultivation of orange. However, the orange plants were struck by a virus in the nineties, which led to a collapse in the economy.