Centre set to send aid to Mizoram to help those displaced from Manipur
The central government will provide material support in the form of food and medicines instead of cash compensation to people displaced by ethnic violence in Manipur
The central government will provide material support in the form of food and medicines instead of cash compensation to people displaced by ethnic violence in Manipur, the Union home ministry has told the Mizoram home department, officials aware of the matter said.
“The home ministry has informed us verbally, and no formal letter for the assistance has been given to us. The state home department requested all district collectors to prepare a list of requirements,” Mizoram’s home commissioner H Lalengmawia said on Sunday. “In our proposal to the ministry, we have prepared a list of requirements for six months supply of rice, pulses, potato, edible oil, onion, medicine, medical equipment and others.”
The home department has sent the proposal to the ministry on September 22, he said.
A large number of people have fled their homes in Manipur rocked by ethnic violence between the Meitei and Kuki communities to the neighbouring state of Mizoram. Close to 12,000 people have taken shelter in Mizoram, according to official data.
The response to the plea for assistance came after four months since Mizoram chief minister Zoramthanga on May 23 wrote a letter to Union home minister Amit Shah, seeking assistance of ₹10 crore to provide aid to the internally displaced persons seeking shelter across the 11 districts of Mizoram.
The state finance department had disbursed ₹5 crore from the exchequer for humanitarian assistance and relief to the displaced persons, according to officials of the home department. The executive committee of displaced persons in Mizoram has also received donations of over ₹81 lakh from Mizoram’s government employees.
After ethnic conflict erupted between Meitei and Kuki communities in Manipur on May 3, Mizoram has seen a massive influx of people fleeing violence in the neighbouring state. Some districts have established relief camps, while those taking shelter in the capital district of Aizawl are put up at Young Mizo Association Halls. The office of the Central Young Mizo Association is being used as a transit camp.
The state’s food, civil supplies and consumer affairs department had also issued several quintals of rice to the displaced people. Mizoram hosts 11,973 displaced persons from Manipur as on September 23.
