Alarmed by the mass exodus of villagers from interior areas following reprisals by militant groups in the wake of the February 26 election, the Tripura government has drawn up an innovative plan to resettle at least 2,000 tribal families in more accessible areas.

Chief Minister Manik Sarkar told rediff.com:  "More than 2,000 families have been forced to leave their homes in the state's interior and inaccessible areas because of militant activities. But we cannot just sit helplessly. So we are drawing up a comprehensive plan to rehabilitate them near main roads by regrouping villages in secured clusters."

Sarkar, his cabinet colleague, Jitendra Choudhury, who looks after the tribal welfare portfolio and other senior ministers were briefed about the scheme last weekend by Chief Secretary V Thulasidas, who prepared the comprehensive plan.

Speaking to rediff.com Thulasidas said: "The idea is to get these displaced tribals in one place where the government will find it easy to deliver the basic services like employment, health care and education to the people. More importantly we will be able to provide security to them since the area of resettlement would be near important road heads."

Tripura has nearly 10 lakh indigenous tribals who live in abject poverty in the hilly and often inaccessible areas of the state. The two banned militant groups -- All Tripura Tigers Force and the National Liberation Front of Tripura -- who have bases in Bangladesh across the porous international border, have stepped up their activities in the past two-three months.

According to Tripura's Additional Director General of Police Pranay Sahay at least 120 civilians have been killed in the state between January 1 and May 15 this year. Besides, 86 people have been kidnapped during this period. Both the factions have different reasons to step up their activities, Sahay says. "The NLFT, which directly tried to influence the February assembly election and failed, is now targeting the villages which it thinks voted for the ruling Left Front. The ATTF on the other hand, is trying to make its presence felt by killing inncocent villagers," Sahay said.

The militant activity has resulted in more than 2,000 tribal families fleeing the interior areas and camping along the main roads.

Chief Minister Manik Sarkar is keen that the tribals, who have remained poor and backward all these years, should get the benefit of rural development schemes. "Despite our best efforts over the past five years, we have not been able to reach all the interior villages so the benefits of development have not reached them. This time we are determined to find a new way to develop the tribals." 

The plan of regrouping villages would be all-inclusive, Chief Secretary Thulasidas said. "Once we identify suitable land along the main roads, we would give these displaced tribals official settlement. We are also in discussion with the Union Ministry of Forest and Environment to allow the tribals to carry out their traditional method of jhum cultivation in earmarked areas. This way we would have control over the use of forest and at the same time provide livelihood to the tribals."

The chief secretary also revealed that through the Joint Forest Management scheme, controlled use of forest would be allowed.

The government sees long-term benefits in this plan and is therefore pushing it through expeditiously. For one, if the experiment were successful, more tribals living in remote locations would feel encouraged to relocate to accessible areas. And for another, the government will find it easier to provide security to these tribals. "Right now, our problem is the scattered nature of tribal hamlets which prevents us from providing enough security to the tribals. The militants normally take advantge of the inaccessibility and force the vikllagers to give them food and shelter much against their wishes," Thulasidas points out.

"The onus of making this new plan a success is therefore entirely on the administration. Once the tribals are convinced about the efficacy of the plan, more people will follow making it easier for us to service them and at the same time isolate the militants," Thulasidas says.

Clearly, the government is moving away from traditional methods of combating militancy.