The Centre has raised the issue of villagers living near the Indo-China border abandoning their homes due to security threat from China. The issue has been taken up by the National Security Council, which is slated to meet on Friday. According to sources, the Centre plans to announce a special package for settling in villages along the border with China.
Sources have told Zee News that the commission, constituted to study the issue of migration in Uttarakhand, will furnish details about the same before the council. Panel's chairperson Dr SS Negi is expected to give a presentation on the issue.
The NSC swung into action after reports of as many as 14 villages along the border being deserted — one in Chamoli district, eight in Pithoragarh and five in Champawat have turned into ghost towns. Apart from this, the population in at least eight villages has reduced to half over the past seven to eight years, and there are reports of Chinese soldiers entering into the Indian territory on a regular basis.
Despite both, the Congress as well as Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) governments, making big promises to check migration there has been no result on the ground.
In the 2017 Uttarakhand Assembly elections, BJP had even incorporated the issue in its manifesto. After coming to power, Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat formed a panel to look into the issue. It submitted reports to the government in several stages, but the gravity of the situation was revealed when the panel studied the villages along the Indo-China border. The panel said that the villagers were not migrating to bigger cities such as Delhi or Dehradun, but to nearby villages.
No One’s Home
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One village in Chamoli district in Uttarakhand lies empty, eight in Pithoragarh and five in Champawat
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| Population in at least eight villages has reduced to half over the past 7-8 years |
—Zee Media Newsroom
