The Brus had to flee to neighbouring Tripura after ethnic riots in the state in October 1997.
Mizoram government officials decided on this new programme at a meeting held in Mamit yesterday.
The meeting was attended by officer on special duty David H. Lalthangliana, additional home secretary T.V. Fambawl, Mamit deputy commissioner Zothankhuma and three leaders of the pro-repatriation Bru Coordination Committee.
A senior official of the Mizoram home department today said over phone from Aizawl that on January 12, as many as 1,000 families would be repatriated from their Kanchanpur camps in North Tripura in buses.
All the necessary arrangements for this repatriation programme will soon get under way.
The first two phases of the repatriation, which got off the ground on November 3 after a good many years of bickering, is likely to ensure the return of 101 families to their homeland.
The repatriation process became uncertain when a hard-line Bru organisation, the Mizoram Bru Displaced People’s Forum, threw a spanner in this humanitarian effort by the Congress government in Mizoram under the leadership of chief minister Lalthanhawla.
The Forum’s president, A. Saibunga, had demanded that all those Bru refugees now residing in the camps in Tripura should be sent across the border from the adjoining state without any pre-condition.
He had also demanded fullproof security by central forces to ensure the safety of the Bru returnees to Mizoram.
The earlier batch of returning refugees was accommodated in the camps in Kolailian and Sikiang in Mamit district in Mizoram.
The Mizoram government was forced to put the repatriation process on hold in the wake of the food shortage in the state’s public distribution network.
The monthly requirement of PDS rice is estimated at 10,868 tonnes a month. But in October, only 7,359 tonnes could be hauled by train wagons and trucks from Guwahati FCI terminus points.
However, the Mizoram government was encouraged to begin the formalities of the Bru repatriation again from Tripura after the food situation improved in the state in November.
The Centre had made it clear that it could feed the 35,000 Bru refugees now lodged in Tripura relief camps till March next year, a pledge which made the Brus to soften their stand.
The Centre has pledged to pay an amount of Rs 80,000 as the rehabilitation grant to each returning refugee family and promised to feed them for a year.
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