Colombo, July 11: The Sri Lankan government has decided to grant citizenship to some 168,141 people of Indian origin who opted, but failed to return to their native country. Officials said the cabinet of ministers two days ago approved a plan to grant citizenship to 84,141 people who had obtained Indian passports to return home, but could not travel for various reasons since 1983.

Another 84,000 people of Indian origin born in Sri Lanka after year 1964 will also qualify for Sri Lankan citizenship, officials said. New Delhi and Colombo had agreed to send back hundreds of thousands of people of Indian origin back to India, but the island's escalated ethnic conflict since 1983 had stopped a ferry that took back batches of Indians.

The Indians had been brought to Sri Lanka at the end of the 19th century as indentured Labour by British colonial rulers to work in tea and coffee plantations.

Sri Lanka today has a distinct ethnic community known as the "Tamils of recent Indian origin" and they retain their own identity independent of Sri Lanka's indigenous Tamils.

Tamils of Indian origin form about 5.5 percent of the18.6 million population and are concentrated in the island's central region while Sri Lankan Tamils constitute about 12.5 percent. Bureau Report