The tribal body demanded eviction all illegal land settlers from tribal belts and blocks, appointment of two representatives from All Tribal Sangha in all district and sub-divisional level Land advisory committee(LAC) of Assam,
Kokrajhar
By Rinoy Basumatary
The Coordination Committee of Tribal organisations today carried out 3 hrs dharna near the Kokrajhar deputy commissioner office today on various issues related to the tribal communities of Assam.
The demand includes implementation of Scheduled Tribe and other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognisation of Forest Right) Act. 2006, eviction of all illegal encroaches from tribal belts and blocks area and filling up of backlog vacancies meant for scheduled tribes in various state govt department etc. It also opposes the inclusion of six advance communities of Assam in the ST category.
Organised by the apex tribal body All Assam Tribal Sangha, hundreds of tribal people representing various tribal organisations like All Bodo Students Union(ABSU), All Assam Tribal Youth League, etc, with placard, festoons and shouting slogans participated in the protest demonstration from 11 am to 1pm. Similar protest was also held in sub-divisional level across the state.
A memorandum was submitted to the chief minister ofAssam Sarbananda Sonowal through the Deputy Commissioner office, Kokrajhar.
Participating in the rally, ex-president of central committee of All Assam Tribal Sangha Ranjit Kumar Borgoyary, said the state govt departments have failed to filled up backlogs meant for ST(P) and ST(H) in various departments despite the dateline set by the WPT & BC department. He said there are 12,155 numbers of backlogs vacancies adding that the state govt machinery are not at all interested in proper implementation of reservation policy and rights of tribal people.
Saying that land issues are of foremost importance, he said “There is an internal strategy to grab tribal land and drive away the tribal people from their land. Major chunk of land from tribal belt and block have already been grabbed by non-bona-fide people or sometimes by the government itself and alienation is still going on unabated’.
The tribal body demanded eviction all illegal land settlers from tribal belts and blocks, appointment of two representatives from All Tribal Sangha in all district and sub-divisional level Land advisory committee(LAC) of Assam, creation of new tribal belts and blocks covering tribal populated areas and creation of new tribal sub-plan areas covering tribal populated revenue villages.
It also demanded immediate implementation of Scheduled ribe and other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognisation of Forest Right) Act. 2006.
He tribal body also opposes the inclusion of six advance communities of Assam in ST category saying that ‘these communities are educationally and economically advanced, populous (each group claiming to have 50 lakhs plus population) and there is no way the existing Scheduled Tribes can compete with these advanced groups.
