On March 21, Chittagong Hill Tracts Repatriated Jumma Refugees Welfare Association sent an application to the prime minister through the deputy commissioner of Khagrachhari requesting her to allocate six more months of food grain for them. Otherwise it would be impossible for them to celebrate Baisabi, the application said.

Baisabi, the biggest festival of the hill people, begins April 12.

Nearly 65,000 indigenous people were repatriated from refugee camps of India's Tripura after signing of the CHT peace treaty in 1997.

These refugees have to make do with only six months of ration every year after the government withdrew their yearly ration aid of 15,000 metric tons of food grains from last year's budget and instead sanctioned half of that amount from the CHT emergency fund.

Moni Swapan Dewan, deputy minister for CHT affairs, said the emergency fund is all but exhausted already.

"The small amount of food grain that still remains in the fund is for Jumma farmers who face a famine-like situation after April. So I could not give any fund for Baisabi celebrations," the deputy minister said.

Ministry sources said 7,700 metric tons of food grains have been distributed already, leaving only 65 metric tons and Tk 2,20,000 in the emergency fund.