To remove the sense of alienation and bring the administration closer to the people, Hailakandi district administration in Assam embarked on a mass contact programme crisscrossing the district focusing on its inaccessible and far-flung areas.
Initiating the mass contact programme, district Deputy Commissioner Moloy Bora was touring different parts of Hailakandi starting with extremist-hit Riflemara village of Riang community concentration, 13 km deep inside dense forests close to the Assam-Mizoram border, a district administration press release today.
Riflemara with a population of around 5,000 is accesible after a three-hour trudge negotiating inhospitable and undulating terrain, rickety bamboo and log bridges, crossing over Dholeswar river by boat and a long precarious suspended bamboo bridge over river Balunala.
The DC along with Superintendent of Police Pranab Jyoti Goswami last week interacted with the villagers who expressed optimism that things will change for the better and they will enjoy the fruits of development with the visit of the top district officials to their remote area.
The Deputy Commissioner explained to the people that his purpose of coming to the backward village was to get first-hand account of the problems confronting them and find ways to redress their grievances.
The outreach programme gave him an opportunity to directly witness a wide range of problems faced by the masses, he said.
As the southern tip of Hailakandi district is plagued with extremist problem and Riflemara along with its adjoining villages falling under it, Bora urged the village headman and elderly to persuade the misguided youths to eschew violence and return to the mainstream with the promise to rehabilitate them into the mainstream.
Lauding the efforts of the Deputy Commissioner to connect with the people through the mass contact programme, the SP said it will go a long way in bridging the gap between the people and administration.
He believed that the mass contact programme has been able to take the administration to the midst of the people and help to wean away the misguided youth from the path of violence.
"Extremism will die down if the socio-economic issues
fuelling it are effectively addressed. And the best way to tackle extremism is to build bridges of understanding through mass contact programme," the SP said.
The Deputy Commissioner also appealed to the village headman and elderly to prevail upon the parents to send their wards to educational institutions.
To the villagers' complaints of being unable to change their old currency notes following demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes and with no nearest bank around, the Deputy Commissioner assured them that he would take up the matter with the bank authorities and request them to collect the invalid currencies from the village and transfer them to their bank accounts.
Besides people handing over petitions to the Deputy Commissioner seeking his intervention to end their woes, village headman Riang handed over a memorandum with several signatories about their demands of lack of road communication, health, education and drinking water facilities, the release said.
Boral also paid floral tribute at the memorial of Riflemara founder Chandra Moni Riang.
The Deputy Commissioner said that the development initiatives would be in consonance with the existing forest laws and norms without disturbing the ecological balance as Riflemara and adjoining villages fall the under Inner line Reserve Forest (ILRF).
As part of the mass contact programme, a medical camp was organised jointly by the district administration and Assam Rifles with a special immunisation drive for children.
