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| Sunday, 29 June 2003 |
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Sigh of relief for the stateless by P. Krishnaswamy The UNF Government will shortly introduce legislation to grant citizenship to stateless persons of Indian origin, a bulk of who are plantation employees. Sources at the Legal Draftsman's Department said that drafting of the Bill in this connection had been completed and has been forwarded to the Ministry of Interior. The last legislation granting citizenship to stateless persons was enacted in 1988 by the UNP Government when Ranasinghe Premadasa was the President. A total of 179,860 persons who had not applied for Indian citizenship under the 1964 and 1974 agreements between the Governments of Sri Lanka and India were granted citizenship under the 1988 legislation. Those who did not receive citizenship under the 1988 legislation and those who having applied for Indian citizenship subsequently changed their minds, would become eligible for Sri Lankan citizenship under the new legislation, official sources said. There was an estimated 975,000 stateless persons of Indian origin at the time of signing the Indo-Ceylon Agreement four decades ago. Although India was to accept 600,000 of them and Sri Lanka 375,000 under the '64 agreement and the subsequent '74 agreement, only 506,000 had applied for Indian citizenship. Thus, there was a shortfall of 94,000 for India while the number of applicants for Sri Lankan citizenship was 625,000, an excess of 250,000. India repatriated 459,000 persons under a repatriation and rehabilitation programme phased over a period of 15 years beginning from April 1968. |
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