CHENNAI: In a first-of-its-kind gesture by the state government to Sri Lankan Tamil refugees, Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa on Tuesday passed an order to ensure that all those staying in refugee camps across Tamil Nadu receive a monthly pension of Rs 1,000 from hereon.Fulfilling a promise made by the AIADMK government in the Governor’s address recently, the Chief Minister extended existing pension schemes being implemented by the Social Welfare Department to the Lankan Tamil refugees, covering 5,544 people in all. The Lankan Tamils will now be eligible for the monthly payment under the Old Age Pension Scheme, the Destitute Differently-abled Pension Scheme, the Destitute Widows Pension Scheme and a pension scheme for destitute women.The Chief Minister has been taking efforts to ensure a peaceful life for Lankan Tamils ever since the government headed by her assumed office. On June 8, she moved a resolution in the State Assembly asking the Central government to impose economic sanctions on Sri Lanka in association with other countries until the island nation resettled all internally displaced Tamils to their native places and accorded them rights on par with the Sinhalese. The resolution also urged the Centre to ask the United Nations to declare all those who had committed atrocities during the war against Lankan Tamils as war criminals.Recently, Jayalalithaa also raised the problems faced by Lankan Tamils with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who called on her at the Secretariat here.
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