Govt plans to improve conditions of Lankan, Tibetan refugees

The living conditions of Tibetan and Sri Lankan Tamil refugees would be improved with Home Minister Rajnath Singh directing officials to take steps for it, the home ministry said today.
The rehabilitation issues of Sri Lankan Tamilians staying in 107 camps and Tibetan refugees were reviewed at a high level meeting chaired by the home minister.
The freedom fighters and rehabilitation division of the home ministry, which handles the Sri Lankan Tamilian and Tibetan refugee issues, has been advised to handle the issues relating to Tibetan and Sri Lankan Tamil refugees to ensure good living conditions to the refugees, an official statement said.

There are around 1.50 lakh Sri Lankan Tamil refugees and 1.2 lakh Tibetan refugees in the country.
The meeting also decided that the distribution of pension through banks to the freedom fighters under the 'Swantratra Sainik Samman Yojana' should be further streamlined by strengthening pension distribution monitoring cell to reconcile on monthly basis.
It was informed in the meeting that 73 per cent of pension accounts have been linked to Aadhaar by the banks and the rest of the pensioners will be done at the earliest by coordinating with all 23 banks, the statement said.
The home minister also reviewed the progress of developmental activities for settling about 1,000 returnees from former Indian enclaves in Bangladesh and infrastructure development in 51 Bangladeshi enclaves in Cooch Behar District of West Bengal.

So far, Rs 413 crore has been released to the government of West Bengal for developing the infrastructure. The progress of the implementation should be monitored regularly to ensure timely completion of the project to rehabilitate the returnees, the statement said quoting the home minister.