Housing scheme for displaced civilians of North and East, announced by India last year, has failed to deliver, according to Tamil NGO and political circles in Jaffna. India had announced last year that it would construct 50,000 houses for the displaced in the North and East. However, only 53 houses have been constructed so far till October 2011, Tamil NGO sources said. Plans were afoot in Mannaar, Vavuniyaa, Ki’linochchi, Mullaiththeevu and Jaffna in North to construct houses for the war-displaced people. Earlier this year, when asked on the lack of progress of Indian announcement, Indian officials in the island responded that at least one thousand houses will be constructed before the end of 2011. The officials diluted the commitment further indicating that the numbers also included repair of existing houses.
In the meantime, Indian officials and the provincial education ministry in North have signed an agreement on constructing 79 schools in the war affected areas.
NGO officials and concerned Tamil politicians in Jaffna blamed the Sri Lanka and Indian authorities for carrying out structural genocide of Eezham Tamils in a large-scale with the Indian assistance adding that both establishments have miserably failed in delivering even the eye-wash assistance they had announced.
In November 2010, when Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met the visiting SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa, major projects including the rebuilding of railroad, KKS harbour, KKS Cement Factory and Palaali airport, were announced. The so-called development projects of India, taking place in the militarised zones in the SL military occupied Tamil homeland are in fact assisting and abetting Colombo’s structural genocide of Eezham Tamils, allege academic sources in Jaffna.
The Indian-assisted revival of the KKS cement factory and limestone quarrying in the SL High Security Zone of Valikaamam will be affecting the limestone groundwater as well as public health in Jaffna by causing respiratory problems in the densely populated Valikaamam region of the Jaffna Peninsula, water experts and health officials said.
The Indian “assistance” also includes an NTPC-CEB joint venture of a 500 MW Thermal Power Plant in Champoor in Trincomalee, where thousands of Tamil civilians are denied resettlement in their own land in the East.
Recently, the Sri Lanka Army has stepped up its harassment of the uprooted Champoor people, who demand resettlement in their own village.
Another Indian assistance of constructing railway lines is used by Colombo to link two strategic port cities of the Tamil country, Thalai Mannaar in the Palk Bay and Trincomalee in the Indian Ocean, through Sinhala territory .
Colombo is aiming to structurally wedge the Tamil country and to Sinhalicize the Tamil port cities while the Indian establishment thinks that the railway link would serve Indian interests as Trincomalee could be directly linked through land and a short ferry with the Indian railway network coming up to Raameaswaram.
While the assistance by the Indian establishment is aligned with its imperialistic designs, an eyewash effort of assistance to displaced Tamils has been showcased to Eezham Tamils.
Citing the recent example of how the Indian assistance of tractors intended to the resettling civilians of Vanni was diverted to Sinhala encroachers by Colombo, Tamil NGO circles in North alleged that the contracts to construct houses for resettling people in the North and East were being given to southern companies and that there were several layers of sub-contracting in the process, exploiting more than 40% of the total sum.
The expense to construct each house, budgeted to be constructed for 1 million rupee, is reduced to 600,000 rupee worth of construction as the process gets through several stages of subcontracting, concerned Tamil NGO officials monitoring the progress told TamilNet.
Indian assistance is also offered in clearing land mines in Vanni.
However, many of the areas, where mines have been cleared, have been taken over by the SL military, the NGO officials said, adding that the Tamil polity is not given any role in monitoring how the Indian assisted projects are being carried out.
The Indian assistance is only helping Colombo’s design of disintegration of Tamil homeland, a TNA parliamentarian told TamilNet on condition of anonymity.
The TNA politician blamed New Delhi for exerting pressure on the leadership of the TNA to extend uncompromising cooperation to the so-called negotiations taking place between the Rajapaksa government and the TNA according to New Delhi design.
“The SL government needs a few more years to complete its design of structural genocide of Eezham Tamils. India is simply providing the needed time to the Colombo establishment," the TNA MP frustrated with the Indian attitude further said.
“We will not be able to even exercise the meaningless devolved power which India is talking of now once Colombo’s design is completed and we are reduced to a minority in our own homeland,” the MP further said.
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