The Odisha government on Thursday announced a relief package for Malkangiri district, which witnessed communal violence between tribals and Bengali settlers following the murder of 52-year-old tribal woman Lake Padiami.
As per the announcement, the family of Lake Padiami, who was killed on December 1, will receive an ex gratia of ₹10 lakh from the chief minister’s relief fund.
The area witnessed unrest after Padiami’s death in the first week of December. Following the arrest of a Bengali settler in connection with the murder, tribal groups attacked Bengali settlers, triggering tension.
In the aftermath, deputy chief minister K.V. Singh Deo and animal resources development minister Gokulananda Mallik visited Malkangiri district headquarters and held discussions with members of both tribal groups and Bengali settlers to assess the ground situation.
Deputy chief minister Singh Deo on Thursday announced a relief package aimed at restoring normalcy. As per the announcement, each partially or fully damaged house in MV-26 village will receive financial assistance of up to ₹75,000. Shop owners who lost their shops during the violence will receive ₹20,000 each.
The collector will conduct a review of pending land and housing cases every fortnight and update the revenue divisional commissioner (southern) on progress. Expedited measures will be taken to provide permanent pattas (land records) under the Forest Rights Act (FRA) and Orissa Government Land Settlement (OGLS) Act.
Permanent pattas (land deals) will also be given to families displaced by the Machhkund irrigation project. The revenue and disaster management department, in coordination with the water resources department, will work towards a long-term solution in this regard.
The additional chief secretary, revenue and disaster management department, will conduct quarterly reviews of revenue-related matters in Malkangiri and report findings to the government.
The state government will also fill vacant multilingual education teacher posts in Koya, Didayi and Bonda tribal languages at the primary level.
Efforts will be made to ensure tribal applicants benefit from schemes such as the chief minister’s agriculture development scheme, PMEGP (Prime Minister’s Employment Generation Programme) and PMFME (Pradhan Mantri Formalisation of Micro Food Processing Enterprises).