Source: The Sangai Express / S Singlianmang Guite
Lamka, July 12 2010:
In a continuous allegation the Churachandpur District Students' Union has leveled against the State Government on the overlapping issue of the census exercise, a steering committee of the union presented a representation to the Chief Minister alleging exploitation of the native tribal and seeking his intervention thereof.
Over eighty-three tribal villages in the district, which was originally on the list of villages within the hill districts, were on the verse of emanating into the valley districts as a result of a dubious and protracted scheming, said the committee.
The census exercise being intended to ensure effective administration, is bound to adversely affect the existing administration if the overlapping villages were included in the valley districts, as it would entail to inclusion of the villages under a different administration, it allege and cites the case of Samulamlan TD block under Churachandpur sub-division that is all set to lost its very existence once it is enumerated by officials from Bishnupur district.
This will then entail to absorbing the entire TD block into Bishnupur where the Panchayati Raj institution prevail and the system does not recognize the tribal chieftainship.
The TD block will thus automatically adrift and the tribal chiefs will eventually lose their land, contended the committee.
It also argues that TD blocks within the hill districts are recently created for effective administration and development of backward areas which do not change the district boundaries.
The boundary of Churachandpur district was officially notified by the government's notification vide No.18/1/71-SC Dated 14 February, 1972 and that still stands effect till the 2010 district council election, it maintains.
Besides, the overlapping census will not only alter the existing district boundary but also adversely affect existing Autonomous District Council and Assembly constituencies in the affected areas.
This is an unscrupulous attempt to exploit the tribal and their land against all existing norms, rules, regulations and acts, it charged.
The overlapping fiasco also exposed the Government's inadvertent double standard administration of the affected areas, where the people were made to Hill House tax to the concern hill district, they are imposed to pay Land Revenue to valley district where their land records are craftily maintained, it added and explicitly articulate outrage over the distortion of district boundaries by Manipur Remote Sensing Applications Centre (MARSAC) in tune to the overlapping plot.
With all these allegations and assertions at hand the committee calls for enumeration of all overlapping villages by officials from the concern hill district, and data, if any, collected by other district should remain null and void.
Manipulation of district boundaries should be set aside and they should instead be drawn on the basis of originally administered village boundaries of concern hill district, while exploitation of innocent tribal through double taxing should be discontinued, and records of all overlapping villages should at once be maintained in the concern hill district.