KOKRAJHAR, April 18— About 3250 families, residing in relief camps since the outbreak of ethnic riots in Kokrajhar, have been recently sent back home under a rehabilitation package by the Kokrajhar district administration. Their rehabilitation has been made possible after the release of Rs 3 crore in February. So far, about 5,100 families have been rehabilitated. According to Kokrajhar deputy commissioner Dr Ashish K Bhutani, the recently rehabilitated families have been drawn from the Sapkata, Dorogaon, Patgaon, and Sonapur relief camps. The rehabilitation process was completed in the first week of this month. However, some 31,000 families still continue to languish in the 44 relief camps. The number of relief camps, at the initial stage, was 54.
Over 1.8 lakh people in Kokrajhar were rendered homeless during the ethnic riots in the district during 1996 and 1998. In effect, it meant that a fifth of the total population of the district were in the relief camps. Of them, 1.4 lakh were Adivasis while the Bodos were about 40,000. Dr Bhutani told The Assam Tribune that about Rs 32 crore was still needed to rehabilitate all the affected people. The rehabilitation process in the district is being undertaken with money being spent by the State Government which is reimbursed by the Centre subsequently. Last year Rs 2 crore was released in June. Bhutani said that the entire rehabilitation process can be completed by six months provided the funds are made available. Currently, Rs 90 lakh is being spent every month to run the relief camps.
But even that money is not enough to ensure proper living conditions in the camps where squalor and disease rule the roost. Dr Bhutani admitting the challenge posed to the officials running the relief camps said that the sheer magnitude of the task itself makes it virtually impossible to ensure spick and span conditions in the camps. Nonetheless, safe drinking water has been made available in all the camps, he said. Besides this, there are regular medical interventions too.
Dr Bhutani said that most of the camp inmates are keen to go back home. “They want to do something of their own rather than depending on the doles handed out by the government,” he said. That dole, however, is minimal with rations for ten days of a month being given to each of the inmates. Smaller relief camps have been closed down, the DC stated. According to Dr Bhutani, three issues— land, money and security— were taken into consideration while formulating the rehabilitation package. About 80 per cent of the affected people in the camps had lands of their own when they were attacked. The Government of India has committed itself to provide the rehabilitation funds. The only area of care is security. For that, there has been several rounds of meetings between the civil and police officials and the leaders of the relief camps before the package was drawn up.
Dr Bhutani said that about 19,000 families can be sent back home without extra security measures. These people have been selected for the initial phase of the rehabilitation programme. In the next phase are the people who would need security pickets covering five-six villages. Those families, deemed to be most at risk, are covered under the third phase of the rehabilitation process. They will require extra security pickets. If there is any problem of rehabilitation, it comes from the 7,000 odd families who were basically encroachers in forest lands. For their rehabilitation, the administration has to find out suitable lands, said Dr Bhutani.
The DC said that a lot of follow-up work has to be undertaken after the refugees are rehabilitated. ‘A lot of infrastructure activities have to be undertaken’, he stated. The administration has identified schools whose buildings will be repaired. The schools are the ones which will be attended by the children of the rehabilitated families. Road building and rural development projects are also being undertaken in the areas where people have been rehabilitated, he informed. Dr Bhutani said that with the return of peace in the district, the people in Kokrajhar are no longer under threat of violence.