11,133 houses burnt down : CM
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, August 05 2024: Chief Minister N Biren has stated that 11,133 houses were burnt down in the course of the violent crisis which erupted on May 3, 2023 .

Out of all the families whose houses have been burnt down, financial assistance (first instalment) of Rs 25,000 each has been given to 2792 families through Deputy Commissioners.

The Chief Minister made this statement in the State Assembly during question hour in response to a question raised by Opposition MLA K Ranjit.

N Biren said that the State Cabinet gave consent to give financial assistance of Rs one lakh to each of the families whose houses have been burnt down.

The total number of displaced people belonging to both the Meitei and Kuki-Zo communities is 59,564, Biren said.

For families whose verification process has been already completed, financial assistance would be released in the next couple of days.

So far, financial assistance has been given to nine families of Imphal West, 115 families of Imphal East, 512 families of Bishnupur and 2156 families of Kangpokpi district, he said.

As for the remaining families, there are certain problems because of lack of clarity on land ownership, he said.

People displaced by the violence but whose houses escaped arson have been given Rs 1000 each four times.

Some of them who possess Labour Cards have also been given Rs 5000 each, Biren said.

As of now, there is no proposal to give financial assistance to those people who deserted their homes out of fear even though their houses were not torched or attacked, the Chief Minister said.

Replying to a question raised by K Meghachandra, CAF&PD Minister L Susindro said that the supply of LPG to consumers plummeted sharply as there was movement of POL and LPG convoys only for 10 days in June, 14 days in July and none in August till date.

But there is no question of engineering artificial scarcity of LPG, he added.

He said that the shortage of LPG would be ameliorated to some extent soon as the POL and LPG transporters start to resume service from Tuesday.

Meanwhile, a team has been set up to check sale of LPG in black market, the CAF&PD Minister said before appealing to all the Members to inform him if they come across sale of LPG in black market.

Replying to a query raised by K Ranjit, Agriculture Minister Th Biswajit said that there is no survey record of disappearance of agricultural land under the Agriculture Department.

But the department has identified 1473 numbers of paddy fields where paddy can no longer be cultivated due to construction of different structures, Biswajit said.

As per the agriculture census report of 2015-16, the total cultivable area in the hill districts is 77,150.98 hectares while there are 95,031.19 hectares of cultivable land in the valley.

According to the provisional report of the 11th agriculture census carried out in 2021-22, there are 1,80,194 hectares of cultivable land in the State including 1,14,349 hectares in the hills and 65,845 hectares in the valley, he added.

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