Kokrajhar, May 26: The Kokrajhar District Tribal Sangha has demanded creation of new tribal belts and blocks on plains of Assam. In a memorandum to Dilip Singh Bhuria, chairman of the National Commission for Scheduled Areas and Scheduled Tribes, the tribal body also demanded eviction of “illegal encroachers” from the existing tribal belts and blocks in the state.
The memorandum said largescale influx of Bangladeshis and other non-tribal people of the state into the existing 45 tribal belts and blocks in the plains has made the tribals a minority in their own land.
Transfer of land to non- tribals in these blocks is prohibited.
The memorandum blamed the government for not implementing provisions of the relevant act in this regard. “In many places, the tribals have been forced to vacate their ancestral land by the majority non-tribals,” it said.
“Successive governments of Assam have always been playing in the hands of majority non-tribals and till date have not taken any serious step to evict the illegal encroachers from the tribal belts and blocks. Ironically, the government is itself violating the law by allotting land to non-tribal tea planters within the tribal belts and blocks,” the memorandum said.
It also demanded creation of an independent, powerful government machinery to implement the provisions of Chapter X of the Assam Land Revenue Regulation and declaration of forest areas inhabited by tribal people as revenue villages under the same provisions.
The organisation further demanded filling up of backlog vacancies according to the quota for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes under the Assam SC and ST (Reservation of Vacancies in Services and Posts) Act, 1978.
The memorandum demanded recognition of the Karbis, Dimasas and Man Tai-speaking people living in the plains as Scheduled Tribes (Plains) and the Bodos and Tiwas in the hills as Scheduled Tribes (Hills).
Opposing the move to grant ST status the Koch Rajbongsis, the memorandum said the community is an advanced one with a total population of more than 70 lakhs.