GUWAHATI, March 9 � The Government is spending more than Rs 23.46 lakh for deportation of one foreign national from Assam. This startling revelation came out in the reply given by the Minister in charge of Assam Accord Implementation, Dr Bhumidhar Barman in reply to a question by Ramendra Narayan Kalita (AGP) in the Assembly today.
Dr Barman informed the House that during the period from 2000-01 to 2009-10, the Government spent an amount of Rs 4129.53 lakh on the Foreigners Tribunals, but during the same period , only 176 foreigners could be deported from the State. He said that during the period from 2001 to 2010, as many as 14,072 foreigners were detected and only 176 of them could be deported, while, 55 persons declared as foreigners have been kept in detention camps. During the same period, 2222 re-infiltrators were pushed back. He said that the State PWD has completed 98 per cent of the work of the portion of border fencing entrusted to it and the job would be completed by the end of this month.
The Accord Implementation Minister today faced a number of questions on the issue of detection and deportation of foreigners and in reply to a question by Jyoti Prasad Das (AGP), he said that up to the end of December, 2009, as many as 33,922 foreigners were missing.
Dr Barman said that at present, 32 tribunals set up under the provisions of the Foreigners� Act are functioning and the Government has given approval for creation of four new tribunals. He, however, admitted that at present, 13 tribunals do not have Judges. He said that the Government has decided to increase the upper age limit of the Judges of the tribunals to 67 to solve the problem of shortage of Judges.
The Minister admitted that very often, the persons declared as foreigners by the tribunals manage to escape and to do away with the problem, the Government has already decided to set up two detention camps, one in Mankachar in Dhubri district and another in Mahishashan in Karimganj district. However, as the setting up of such camps would take some time, the Government has notified Goalpara jail as a detention camp for detaining persons declared as foreigners by the tribunals, while, Kokrajhar and Silchar jails would be notified as detention camps soon.
Earlier, several members of the State Assembly expressed concern at the slow progress of detection and deportation of foreigners. Brindaban Goswami (AGP) said that only setting up of tribunals would not help if the Government fails to appoint Judges and provide necessary infrastructure to the tribunals. He alleged that most of the tribunals are facing problems because of shortage of staff and there have been instances when the staff are not getting their salaries regularly.
