Displaced families from East Pakistan get land to settle, Yogi ends decades-long wait
63 Bengali Hindu families will be rehabilitated in the sanctioned land.
The Uttar Pradesh government led by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has handed over letters of allotment to 63 displaced Bengali Hindu families who had migrated to Hastinapur in Meerut during the troublesome period of 1970-71 from the erstwhile East Pakistan which is now Bangladesh. Each of the family will be allotted two acres of agricultural land along with a separate plot of 200 square feet for residential purposes. An amount of Rs 1.20 lakhs has also been given for the construction of houses under the Mukhya Mantri Awas Yojana where each house will also be inclusive of a toilet.
At the program hosted by the Revenue Department at Lok Bhavan in Lucknow, CM Yogi said, “The long wait of 38 years is over. In 1970, about 407 families came to India from East Pakistan. They were given jobs in a cotton mill in Hastinapur. The cotton mill was shut down in 1984. After that, some families were resettled in different parts of the country, but 65 families kept waiting for their resettlement since then.” Out of the total 65 families, 2 families have either perished or have relocated as their whereabouts are unknown. The remaining lot will be resettled in Rasulabad area of Kanpur Dehat district.
It has now come to the notice that the families which migrated to India back in 1970 were given employment at a cotton mill in Hastinapur in the Meerut district but after the mill’s closure in 1984, most of these families have been constantly facing difficulties to make their ends meet and therefore members of these families had no choice other than resorting to working as daily wage labour.
Yogi also accused the previous Uttar Pradesh governments of being insensitive towards their rehabilitation and stated that the past governments did little to help these families overcome their livelihood crisis. The present area allotted will be developed as a smart village which will come with facilities such as school, hospital, drinking water and community centre among many others.
The event was also attended by Deputy chief ministers Keshav Prasad Maurya and Brajesh Pathak. So far 1.08 lakh houses have been provided to such families in Uttar Pradesh since PM Modi passed the order to give citizenship to the minorities who had migrated from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.
