ATSUM appeals to Amit Shah to set up a State ST Commission

IMPHAL, April 18: The All Tribal Students`™ Union Manipur (ATSUM) today has submitted a memorandum to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President, Amit Shah, highlighting the plight and grievances of the tribal populace living in Manipur.

In the memorandum the ATSUM drew the attention of the visiting BJP president the urgent need to set up a Manipur State Commission for Scheduled Tribe to oversee the implementation of various safeguards provided to Schedule Tribes under the Constitution of India.

As evidence, it said that the tribal quota in Manipur Legislative Assembly has been Manipulated and Exploited in as much as the tribal people are exploited adding that it is a reflection of the fact that the tribal are not treated as equal partner.

The end result of this discriminatory outlook a wide range of gap between the hill people and the valley dwellers in every sphere of life `“ simply because special provisions are granted in the constitution of India has been deprived by way of narrow interpretation and bureaucratic manipulation of reservation for weaker sections of the society, it said.

As necessitated to poise an equilibrium in posts and reservation in the Assembly secretariat, ATSUM had been demanding for filling up the backlog posts of ST in the Assembly Secretariat. As such, the Chief Minister instructed the officials representing the talk on October 22, 2014 at the Chief Minister`™s chamber to ascertain the number of backlog posts inclusive of detail information of employees and reservation of quotas against sanction posts.

However, Assembly secretariat has furnished a bogus data which does not correspond to the data obtained from MIS. As of fact, out of 316 post created only 19 ST employees were accommodated against the 200 points rosters of Manipur Reservation of vacancies in post and services for SC & ST, wherein scheduled tribes ought to get 52 number of posts, it alleged.

The non-existence of State Chief Information Commissioner has virtually left the RTI Act 2005 non- functional, it claimed adding that most of the information sought for by the RTI activists has been denied on a flimsy ground without citing proper justification or reason.

Substantiating its claim, the ATSUM said that the Information sought under section 6 (1) of RTI Act 2005 for furnishing information in the Manipur Legislative Assembly Secretariat on January 10, 2014 has received no response to his information requested within the specific time limits.

It further asserted that the Scheduled Tribes (STs) have historically suffered from an enormous disadvantage and development deficit as compared to the rest of the population.

The Government of India initiated the concept of Tribal Sub-Plan (TSP) in Fifth Five Year Plan with critical initiatives to bridge the developmental gap between STs and the rest of the population yet despite the guidelines issued by the then Planning Commission for effective implementation of TSP, Government of Manipur had deliberately defied the guidelines, it further alleged.

In education sector as well the discriminatory practice spread its wing said ATSUM.

It claimed that despite repeated request for recruitment of lecturers in higher secondary schools in the hills, no tangible has been done so far to regularize contract Lecturers.

It is not surprising that only 17 regular Lecturers are manning 14 (fourteen) Higher Secondary Schools in the hills, it said adding that when taken into account the record of comparison between the valley and hills lecturers of government higher secondary school, there is a huge disparity.

It continued that there are 17 numbers of regular lecturers and 259 lecturers who are engaged on contractual basis in 14 Government Higher Secondary School in the Hills while there are 434 regular lecturers and 455 contract lecturers with a total of 889 lecturers manning 25 numbers of Goverment Higher Secondary Schools in the valley.

Moreover, anywhere in the educational institutions functioning in the hills, there is an acute shortage of teaching faculties and rampant survey by the Union and the data collected from the respective ZEO`™s office reveals that, in total 778 arts graduate teacher 674 science graduate teachers and 262 Hindi graduate teachers are lying vacant in the hills.

It pointed out that as agreed upon the talks between the Government of Manipur and ATSUM, subsequently approved by the cabinet on September 2, 2014 for regularisation of 705 contract lecturers in Higher Secondary School and in continuation of the talk with Government of Manipur (GoM) on October 22, 2014, the GoM was reminded to complete the special formalities of regularisation before the commencement of the academic session 2015-16. But, nothing tangible is done so far.

Despite tabling the issue for regularisation of the 333 verified Adhoc teachers under Education (s), the state government has kept the Adhoc teachers`™ position in abeyance when the Hill schools are reeling under acute shortage of teachers since the past many decades, it said.

As enshrined in the constitution of India under Article 371-C, anything pertaining to the hills should be referred to the Chairman HAC to implement proper functioning of the Hill Area Committee. Unfortunately it has not been able to function despite repeated pressure from the public. The Manipur Government has done nothing in line with the Article 371 C till date, it said.

The ATSUM also alleged that the congress led SPF government of Manipur has failed to materialise the constitutional provisions enshrined for the protection and upliftment of the weaker sections of the state in respect of every spheres, especially in the above mentioned matters.

Taking into account the prolonged plight, ATSUM appealed the BJP president to do the needful in uplifting the tribal populace in Manipur.