An agreement was signed recently among the Bru leaders and the Governments of India, Tripura and Mizoram.

About Brus:

• The Bru or Reang are a community indigenous to Northeast India, living mostly in Tripura, Mizoram and Assam.
• Bru depend on the wild for vegetables and some of them practice Slash-burn cultivation and they live in makeshift bamboo thatched huts.

About Bru Agreement:

• The Agreement gives the Bru community their choice of living in either the state of Tripura or Mizoram.
• All Bru currently living in temporary relief camps in Tripura will be settled in the state, if they want to stay on.
• The Bru who returned to Mizoram in the eight phases of repatriation since 2009, cannot come back to Tripura.
• To ascertain the number of those who will be settled a fresh survey and physical verification of Bru families living in relief camps will be carried out.
• The centre will implement a special development project for the resettled Bru; this will be in addition to the Rs.600 crore fund announced for the process, including benefits for the migrants.
• Bru will receive Rs.1.5lakh as housing assistance, Rs.4 lakh as a one-time cash benefit for sustenance and a monthly allowance of Rs.500 and free rations for 2 years from the date of resettlement. All cash assistance will be through Direct Benefit Transfer(DBT).