Ten thousand families displaced in Jaffna district

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 13 September 2006, 05:10 GMT]
More than 10 000 families in Jaffna peninsula, around 7000 from Thenmaradchchi and the rest from the islet villages of Allaipiddy, Mandaithivu and Naranthanai, and the coastal areas within the Jaffna Municipality, have been displaced because of the recent battles. This was revealed at a conference held at the Jaffna District Secretariat Tuesday.

The conference summoned to work out a scheme to provide relief to the displaced people, K.Ganesh, Government Agent of Jaffna district presided. All Divisional Secretaries of the peninsula and the General Managers of the Multi Purpose Co-operatives Societies participated in this conference where a decision was taken to issue the refugees dry rations from the month of August, according to instructions of the Government.

According to a government circular, a family with more than 5 persons will get dry rations worth of Rupees 1260, 4-member family gets Rs 840 and a single person gets Rs 168.

Since the amount of the money was fixed by the Government in 1991, 15 years ago, based on the then cost of living, the amount cannot feed the families at least one week in the present context as the prices of the provisions have increased many folds, officials of the NGO Consortium for Jaffna district said.

Even though, Douglas Devananda is the Minister for Social Services in the present government, he does not understand the grave situation, Consortium officials lamented.