Government Decisions to Rehabilitate Freed Kamaiyas

The freed Kamaiyas identification and rehabilitation central coordination and monitoring committee that met here on Sept. 18 under the chairmanship of the committee chairman and deputy prime minister Ramchandra Poudel approved of the recommendations included in the reports prepared after the inspection visits to Dang, Banke, Bardiya, Kailali and Kanchanpur, the districts where the freed kamaiyas are concentrated in.

The reports were presented at the meeting by Member-Secretary of the committee Yoddha Shaha.

The meeting decided to recommend to His Majesty's Government to extend the term of the central and district level coordination and monitoring committees formed to work on the identification and rehabilitation of freed Kamaiyas till April 13, 2001 and rename the district level committee as freed Kamaiyas identification and rehabilitation district committee. The terms of the existing central and districts committees expire on Sept. 25.

According to a the National News Agency (RSS) report, the meeting also decided to implement an emergency food assistance programme for the freed Kamaiyas in Kailali and Kanchanpur, and assign a joint team of one government officer and one accountant to distribute the relief materials (foodstuff) in a planned and transparent manner under the direct observation of the district rehabilitation committee.

As decided at the meeting, the committee will recommend to the government to include representatives of Nepal Red Cross Society, ingos, and ngo Federation in the central and district level committees, immediately start distributing identification cards to the homeless freed Kamaiyas and establish a regional office with an gazetted first class officer as project chief in Nepalgunj to coordinate and implement the Kamaiya skill development and rehabilitation programme in a planned manner.

It also decided to instruct the district committee to identify and do the mapping of the illegally usurped government/public land and bring such land into government control with the help of the local administration, and activate the landless settlers problems resolution commission so as to distribute such land to the homeless freed Kamaiyas.

The meeting also decided to instruct the Kailali district development committee to do the mapping of the government land in Geta vdc Kailali and Dhangadhi municipality ward no. 11 without any delay and distribute such land to the homeless freed Kamaiyas.

The meeting was attended by minister for land reforms and management Siddha Raj Ojha and minister of state Gopal Rai, minister of state for women, children and social welfare Mrs Kamala Pant, member of national planning commission Harishankar Tripathi, the secretaries at the ministry of land reforms and management and the ministry of physical planning works, and other seniors officers of other ministries.