For the thousands of Sri Lankan Tamil refugees accommodated in the government run refugee camps across Tamil Nadu, refugee return remains the strongest hope of finding an end to their protracted refugee situation. During the consultation process across the camps, it soon became clear that refugees recognized their right to return home as the durable solution. Having overcome the dilemma of “whether to stay back in India or return to Sri Lanka?”, they are expecting the right time to return back to end very long exile.
Refugees worked out a rehabilitation package to ensure a well considered, safe, dignified voluntary and sustainable return. The return, resettlement and rehabilitation package is estimated approximately for a family comprising of four members and is classified into seven components.
1. Preparation
The returnee families should be assisted with documentation including essential civil documents (birth, marriage certificates, etc) and academic skill and work experience certificates. Once their return plan is ready, the family would need support with the packing of household and other belongings. Refugees have accumulated essential belongings including household items, furniture, equipments, clothes and electronic items in the course of their life in India. In order to carry those materials with them at the time of their return, they need support with the wooden packing boxes, suitcases and bags for packing such items for transporting to Sri Lanka by sea. The budget for the preparation stage of their return is estimated at Rs.30,000/- per family.
2. Travel from camp to the port of embarkation
This component includes the travel for the family and the charges for transporting materials from the camps to the airport. The materials include household items and rehabilitation items provided by the governments of Tamil Nadu and India. They should make the declaration of items which they are taking. The budget estimated for this component is Rs.12,000/-.
3. Disembarkation (Transit from India to Sri Lanka)
This part includes the air travel, cargo container ship and cargo clearance process. The family would travel to Sri Lanka either by flight or ship. In the flight or ship, they could only carry limited quantity of their belongings. The materials that they have accumulated were huge and therefore, special measures should be made to take their materials by the cargo container in the ships. This part also includes meeting the harbour and agency expenses including the customs clearance. At this stage, the officials at the place of disembarkation would undertake verification against the declaration. The estimated budget for this process is Rs.2,40,000/- per family.
4. Travel from the landing port to the native village
The returnee family would need the support for traveling to their native places from the port where they are landing in. In addition, they would visit the landing port again to undertake paper work to claim their baggage. Therefore, they would need the support to visit Colombo again and stay there for completing the paper work. Rs.51,000/- is estimated for this process. They would require support for clearing unaccompanied baggage and transporting belongings to their native place.
5. Setting up a new home and Restoring life
The returnee family will require resettlement support to ensure their successful restarting of their lives back in their homeland. The basic thrust of this support is to bring about socio-economic transformation in order to improve their quality of life. The resettlement support includes temporary shelter on arrival, grant of homestead land, clearing the land, barbed wire fencing of their plot of land, digging well/water source for drinking water, permanent housing and providing livestock. The estimated budget for this section is Rs.12,68,700/- to be provided directly to their bank account in installments.
6. Subsistence
On arrival, the returnee families would need subsistence for maintaining their family until regular livelihood is ensured. In order to support their survival, the returnee family will be supported with the cash dole for a period of three years and dry ration materials. They would also be supported with the provision of household materials including kitchen items, electrical items and other equipments to support their basic living in Sri Lanka. The estimated budget for this subsistence support per family is Rs.6,35,497/-. In addition to this, the families would also need initial support for admitting their children in schools and colleges and the estimated budget for this support is Rs.79,500/-. The documentation support is estimated as Rs.33,500/- whereas the support for medical insurance, on need basis, is estimated as Rs.2,00,000/-.
7. Livelihood
The returnees face problems with the livelihood opportunities that can support their daily survival. A survey should be conducted to assess the livelihood skills of the returnees and based on that, the returnees should be supported with the livelihood schemes. Several livelihood schemes including agriculture, fishing, poultry/animal husbandry, carpentry, painting, masonry, etc is suggested for the returnee families as per their livelihood skills and area of resettlement.
The returnee families would be joined in small groups and provided grants or grant available for livelihood in the home areas and loans to benefit from the different livelihood schemes. They would be assisted initially with the livelihood grant to purchase equipments such as out boat engine finding gear, masonry/carpentry tools, agricultural equipments, etc and then, very low interest loans to improve their livelihood. Approximately, Rs.10,00,000/- is estimated for the family’s livelihood.
Conclusion
Having lived in India for two to three decades, Sri Lankan Tamil refugees are concerned about the challenges likely to be faced by the returnees at the time of return. Sri Lankan Tamil refugees will greatly benefit from substantial support provided by the host governments (Tamil Nadu and Indian governments) in the form of return and rehabilitation package to make this return a success.
Voice of Sri Lankan Tamil Refugees in India