New machinery to arrange evacuee accommodation
By A Staff Reporter, The West Bengal Government has decided to set up a new machinery for tackling the problem of Bangladesh evacuees. Arrangements were now being made to accommodate 5 lakh evacuees from Bangladesh in different districts of the State.
The scheme prepared by Mr. Ananda Mohon Biswas, Minister of State, Relief and Rehabilitation, has received green signal from the State Government and the Center. At least 5,000 hands will be appointed very soon on a temporary basis by the State Government to work in different camps where the above number of evacuees will be accommodated. The entire expenditure will be borne by the Centre.
|Mr. Biswas said on Tuesday that it was impossible to accommodate such a huge number of evacuees in this State and the Center must take initiative to find accommodation for them in other States.
The Chief Minister, Mr. Ajoy Kumar Mukhergee, in course of informal talk with newsman on the day Indicated that he would discuss this question with the Prime Minister, Mrs. Indira Gandhi during her coming visit to Calcutta on Saturday, The main purpose of Prime Minister’s proposed visit was to discuss this problem with the State Government.
Mr. Biswas said that the Defense Department had agreed to hand over their six abandoned air ports in West Bengal for construction of tents for the evacuees. The – district authorities had been directed to acquire vacant lands for this purpose.
Mr. Biswas said that he had decided to request the Principals of different medical colleges of the State to send their students as volunteers for work among the evacuees. He cherished the hope that different chambers of commerce would come forward to send medicines and other materials for the evacuees.
CAMPS
The Gandhi Peace Foundation will hold camps for selected Bangladesh evacuees to give them a brief course on the whole situation especially with a view to keeping up the morale of the people in the camps. Chairman of the Foundation R. R. Diwakar told UNI here.
Mr. Diwakar said after visiting refugee camps it was not merely a question of their number which was of course too vast to be handled by West Bengal alone or by Assam and Tripura together. It was the socio-economic consequence of the influx which was far more important.
The endeavor would be to give the evacuees something by which they would feel they must go back and bear the present difficulties in order that their future might be bright in their homeland.
Each camp would last about a fortnight and selected evacuees would be addressed by eminent citizens.
An international conference was also proposed to be held in Delhi in September to mobilize world opinion in favor of the people of Bangladesh. This idea had already been welcomed by Central Ministers.
Reference: Hindustan Standard, 02.06.1971