Introduction

The Tibetan Rabgayling Settlement situated in Hunsur Taluk of Karnataka State was established in 1971 with the assistance from both the Central and State Government of India to rehabilitate initially a total of 2060 Tibetan refugees against 2000 acres of land out of which 1615 acres were allocated for cultivation. It is an agriculture based settlement with maize being the main crop. The farmers also cultivate plantation like banana, mango and silver oak tree to some extend. The fertility of the soil in this area is very weak compared to the other settlements. There are 13 and half villages under Rabgayling settlement and they are identified in alphabetical order and each village has 32 family quarters consisting of five members initially. The present population of the settlement is 1945 including monks in Gyumed Tantric University, Dzongchoe Monastery and Ugyenling Monastery. The settlement has one main school and two nursery schools with total of 260 children

Settlement Location:

The Rabgayling Tibetan Settlement is situated in a village called Gurupura that is 12 Km from Hunsur Town and 60 Km from Mysore city of Karnataka State. It is also 48 Km to Bylakuppe Tibetan Settlement and 160 Km to Kollegal Tibeatan Settlement. The maximum temperature is 34º C. Usually the area receives rainfall mainly during June, July, August and September. The rainfall during the 4 months is not uniform throughout and thus the uneven distributional pattern of rainfall poses a major obstacle in the development of agriculture.

2,320

Initial Population

1713

Present Population

Facilities in the settlement

School	One primary school up to 10th std. Two nursery schools
Health facilities	One modern allopathic hospital One Tibetan Medical and Astro institute
Monastery	The settlement has 3 monasteries
Co-operative Society	The settlement has one Co-operative Society which looks after the supply of seeds, fertilizers and tractar tilling service to their fields and the farmers repay these credit facilities in kind. The co-operative Society also helps market their produce, mainly maize. Like co-operative Societies in other refugee’s settlement, this co-operative is also consisted of self-team of, one co-operative secretary appointed by CTA, accountant cashier and in charges. Under the management of the Co-operative Societies there are five shops, a dairy farm and a mechanical workshop, dairy, truck section, low cost Building Center, Handicraft centers have been set up to provide employment, to preserve the Tibetan tradition carpet weaving, and to generate the income for the co-operative societies.

Administrative setup

Representative:
Each settlement has a settlement officer who is the Representative of the Department of Home appointed by Central Tibetan Administration (CTA), Dharamsala. Settlement officer is the principle post of the settlement. He is charged with overall control of running of affairs in the settlement. Under the Representative there are chief executive officer Co-operative society, appointed by CTA, Manager of the workshop and other small handicraft and also village leaders.

Representative acts as the liaison between the settlement and the Department of Home (CTA) and is the main source of information for the people in the settlement. The roles of Chief Diplomat, Chief Justice and Head of the settlement are all combined in one post. Daily task for the resentative range from adjudicating disputes to communicating with group leaders and outside authorities, and generally watching over the running of all aspects of the settlement.

Group Leaders:
The functioning or activities of every settlement are more or less similarly to each other. There are 14.5 villages in this settlement and each of these 14.5 villages possess an elected group leaders whose job is to act as an intermediary with relevant authorities, pass on information, settle disputes and collect money. Group leaders are not elected for their policy-making idea, nor do they campaign on certain issue. These group leaders are chosen on the basis of their strength of personality and once ability to stand before the interest of their village. The duty of the leader is more or less like the representative, but on smaller and more personal scale.