Evacuees unwilling to leave West Bengal
By A Staff Reporter, Evacuees from Bangladesh are unwilling to go to other States leaving West Bengal. ! It was clearly indicated from the fact that from the 1,000 evacuees who boarded two trains at Basirhat and Baraset for Mana Camp in Madhya Pradesh on Tuesday as many as 800 refused to go.
Giving this information, Dr. Zainal Abedin, West Bengal Health Minister, said on Wednesday that it had been decided that these evacuees would not be allowed to live in camps and they would not be given ration.
Dr. Abedin said that the West Bengal Government had been informed by the Centre that accommodation for nearly 300,000 evacuees was available in Andhra Pradesh Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. The evacuees would be sent to these States as soon as the railways were able to make arrangements for special trains.
Dr. Abedin along with the State D.W.D. Minister Mr. Santosh Roy and the Chief Secretary left for North Bengal on Wednesday afternoon to see if camps for the evacuees would be set up there. They will visit Krishnagar Nadia, West Dinajpur and Jalpaiguri.
Dr. Abedin said that most of the evacuees are in West Bengal. He pointed out that the population of West Dinajpur, according to the last census, was close to 1.7 million and the number of evacuees who arrived there till Tuesday was 1.5 millions.
Immediately after their return to Calcutta Dr. Abedin, Mr. Tarun Kanti Ghose and the Chief Secretary will leave for Delhi to submit a scheme to the Central Government for making better arrangements for the accommodation of the evacuees in West Bengal.
The evacuees are likely to start moving to Mana camp, Madhya Pradesh, within a few days. Both the Eastern Railway and the South Eastern Railway have been asked to arrange for seven trains can move out 5,000 evacuees daily.
It is reported that both the railways like to be assured that there will be full train loads of evacuees when the trains leave for Mana. With shortage of trains the railways do not want a recurrence of what happened a few days ago when one train meant to take 1,000 evacuees to Mana left with only about 400 of them on board.
The officials of the Union Relief and Rehabilitation Ministry say that the West Bengal Government will have to make sure that the trains to relief camps outside the State run to full capacity.
One transport C-130 plane piloted by an all-American crew is arriving at Gauhati airport today. Shortly, three more will arrive. These planes are from the US Air Force and have been made available to India through the United Nations. Each of these can carry 10 tons of cargo or 100 men. 1. The plane which arrives first will make a trial “dry run” between Guwahati and Agartala and will then go into service. In each trip it will carry 10 tons of relief materials from Guwahati and bring 100 evacuees from Agartala for dispatch to various camp sites. Each plane will make about three trips a day.
Heavy rain has made it difficult to move the evacuees from Agartala to Dharmanagar, the rail-head. So they will have to be air-lifted to Gauhati for further movement by train. The Union Government expects that with four C-130 Turn to back page col. 8
Need to air-lift evacuees
Continued form page 1 col. 6,
Planes being in service, it will be possible to move 1000 evacuees daily from Agartala via Guwahati.
Mana camp is now being made ready to receive 50,000 evacuees. As the evacuees start arriving the capacity can be pushed up to 100,000 or even 200,000 it is gathered. The new arrivals at Mana will be given cooked food as their daily ration. But later they will cook their own food. The young and the able-bodied among them will be employed at the campsites to help pitch the camps and for Sunday other services in which they could assist.
The Orissa Government is understood to have tentatively agreed to accept 30,000 evacuees to provide them temporary shelter in camps, adds PTI.
These camps are proposed to be set up at Gorumahisani in Mayurbhanj district. Labour tenements abandoned by the Tata Iron and Steel Company following the closure of their iron one mines in the area are immediately available to provide shelter to the evacuees.
Meanwhile, bad sanitary conditions in the Salt Lake area are causing grave concern to the local population. Relief camps have been set up near the residential quarters making the local people terribly apprehensive of an epidemic in the area.
About 10,000 people have taken shelter here and there is absolutely no arrangement for sanitation. Only two scavengers have now been pointed to cleanse the area and this was obviously hopelessly inadequate.
About 500 refugees daily come to the Salt Lake area for shelter. Since no relief facilities are being given to the newcomers if they do not possess any medical certificate, they have no other alternative but to squat before relief centers making the place more crowded.
To increase the worry of local residents some persons have instigated the refugees to occupy their house. At least five cases of forcible occupation were reported to the police outpost. The police, however, took active steps as a result of which the occupiers had to retreat. But in every case they have been threatened by the Instigators.
The All-Indian Institute of Hygiene and Public Health, a Union Government organization had already submitted a report to the Center admitting that the situation so far as health and hygiene were concerned had gone beyond control. The experts feared that unless precautionary steps were immediately taken the majority of the people in the State would fall prey to the epidemic.
Sir Terene Garvey, British High Commissioner and the Australian High Commissioner, Mr. Patrick Shaw met separately with Mr. Ajoy Mukherjee at Writers Buildings.
Mr. Mukherjee wanted the Government of both the countries to pressurize Pakistan increating a condition in Bangladesh so that the huge number of evacuees sheltered in India could return.
Reference: Hindustan Standard, 10.06.1971