In a significant move, the Government has decided to extend the benefits of Indira Awaas Yojana (IAY) to exiled Tibetans living in India, which is home to over one lakh Tibetans.
The move is part of the Tibetan Rehabilitation Policy (TRP) 2014, announced by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) last year in October. Tibetan refugees have already been given right to vote in Indian elections.
Pointing out that the benefits of various development schemes of the Government have to be extended to the Tibetan refugees, a senior official from the Union Rural Development Ministry said that suitable amendments have been made in the IAY guidelines to accommodate the new category.
“We have asked all the States to include the new category under the scheme,” the official said.
launched in 1985, the IAY aims to provide houses to homeless poor families and those living in dilapidated and kutcha houses.
Currently, under the IAY, priority is given to women in difficult circumstances such as widow or divorced and households with a single girl child, mentally challenged persons, transgenders, households where a member is suffering from leprosy or cancer, HIV positive people, and BPl families.
In fact, according to the TRP 2014, besides the IAY scheme, Tibetan refugees can also now avail the benefits of State and Centrally sponsored programmes like the Public Distribution System (PDS), NRHM and MNREGA, etc. They can also pursue jobs across sectors as per their professional qualifications like nursing, teaching, chartered accountancy, medicine and engineering.
As per the policy, the State Governments will also provide subsidies for education of Tibetan children in schools and universities for pursuing professional courses like engineering, medical
science, etc.
The policy also states that the land that has been given to Tibetan refugees for rehabilitation should be leased to His Holiness Dalai lama’s Central Tibetan Relief Committee to be used for educational, cultural, residential or commercial purposes.
Exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai lama, has lived in the country since fleeing a failed uprising against the Chinese rule on his homeland in 1959. Dharamsala and its nearby areas have 16,000-18,000 exiled Tibetans, as per an estimate.
Around 1,10,095 Tibetans are living in 45 settlements in ten States, including Karnataka, Arunachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, West Bengal and Delhi. Many others live outside the settlements.
According to an estimate, the Home Ministry has spent around Rs 18.81 crore on rehabilitation of thousands of Tibetans who had fled from Tibet following His Holiness, the Dalai lama to India.