The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Refugees' journey from riches to rags

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Apr 26, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Refugees' journey from riches to rags

By Ramesh Susarla

GUNTUR, APRIL. 25. At the peak of the conflict for the Tamil Eelam between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Government forces a group of Sri Lankan Tamils, who fled their country to live in peace, settled in Sattenapalli in Guntur district in the early 1980s.

The 390 Lankan settlers, who had witnessed political unrest in their homeland, are now peacefully settled as Indian citizens with voting right, but are economically crestfallen after having witnessed many ups and downs in their lives. Leaving behind all their small land holdings and established jobs, they began their lives from the rags.

The State Government then set up the Satavahana Spinning Mills and majority of them were employed in that. These refugees from Uvva Territory of Sri Lanka had a bright patch in their lives for about a decade from 1983 to 1992 when the mills ran profitably.

Today all of them are victims of crass neglect of irrigation facilities, lack of support for the sick industries, improper screening of ration cards and little effort to make drinking water available to the residents in rural areas.

Prior to the closure of the mills in the fiscal 1992-93 each worker used to get Rs. 80 on an average, says Mari Muttu, once a skilled hand in the mills and now a farm labourer.

The young and skilled took voluntary retirement and found their way into new jobs in Nellore and Hyderabad.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Andhra Pradesh