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Tamil Nadu
K. Anbazhagan CHENNAI: There is no move to send Sri Lankan refugees to their homeland forcibly, but if they wanted to return home, the State government would not stand in their way, Finance Minister K. Anbazhagan said on Friday in the Assembly. Replying to the debate on demands for grants on the Public Department, Mr. Anbazhagan said neither the Centre nor the State government was for sending the refugees back to Sri Lanka. But if they wanted to rejoin their relatives in the island, the government would not prevent them from doing so. Explaining the various steps taken by the government to improve the basic amenities at various refugee camps in the State, the Minister said that in the current year the government had allotted Rs. 55.48 crore for providing assistance to the refugees. It had incurred an expenditure of Rs. 44.34 crore during 2008-09 towards relief measures for the refugees and sanctioned Rs. 15.98 lakh towards infrastructure development in the camps. It had also submitted proposals to the Centre to the tune of Rs. 16 crore for improving amenities at the camps for its concurrence. The Minister said the State had always been generous in providing assistance to the Sri Lankan refuges. It had sent relief materials for the affected Lankan Tamils which were distributed through the International Red Cross. It had constituted the ‘Sri Lankan Tamils Relief Fund’ for providing assistance to the war-affected Sri Lankan Tamils and Rs. 50.84 crore had been mobilised up to March this year. Besides, the Chief Minister had been writing to the Prime Minister time and again appealing to him to provide necessary assistance to the suffering Tamils in the island and the Prime Minister also replied explaining various steps taken by the Centre. Recently, the Centre had sanctioned Rs. 500 crore for rehabilitating internally displaced Tamils in Sri Lanka. The Minister said electronic voting machines would be used in the forthcoming by-elections to Assembly constituencies in the State. Ruling out the possibility of tampering of the EVMs, Mr. Anbazhagan said it was impossible to tamper with all the machines as polling agents belonging to all political parties were present in the booths. The Election Commission had already replied to doubts raised by various political parties about the efficacy of the EVMs. He said rigging was possible even in conventional ballot boxes, he added.
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