New Delhi: The Uttar Pradesh government on Tuesday handed houses, agricultural land and residential plots to 63 Hindu families displaced from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).
Each family was given two acres for agriculture purposes, a residential plot measuring 200 sq metres and a house in Kanpur Dehat district, PTI reported.
Speaking on the occasion, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath blamed previous governments for the plight of such families.
"Your 38-year-long wait is over today. I am happy while granting two acres of land, 200 sq metres residential patta to each of the 63 families in the Rasulabad area of Kanpur Dehat district," Adityanath said.
The event was also attended by deputy CMs Keshav Prasad Maurya and Brajesh Pathak and Jal Shakti Minister Swatantra Dev Singh.
"All these families had migrated from East Pakistan in 1970s and were given jobs in a yarn mill in Hastinapur town of Meerut district," PTI quoted Adityanath as saying.
The CM said the yarn mill was shut in 1984 but around 64 families kept waiting for their rehabilitation. Adityanath said previous "insensitive" governments never took them seriously.
"We converted 38 villages of Vantangiya into revenue villages and they voted for the first time in the Assembly elections after the Independence," he said.
Originally brought from Myanmar for afforestation activities during the British period, the Vantangiya community has been living in forests since then. Their villages lacked the revenue village status that makes them eligible for welfare schemes.
After becoming the UP chief minister in 2017, Adityanath had granted the revenue village status to many Vantangiya people.
"When Prime Minister Narendra Modi passed the order to give citizenship to the minorities migrating from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, we started searching for such people in UP also and traced the families," the CM further said.
So far, 1.08 lakh houses have been provided to such families.