JCILPS dismayed with draft bill on curbing migrants
Source: Hueiyen News Service
Imphal, February 18 2015:
When the Government of Manipur is gearing up to table the draft bill related to curbing the inflow of migrants into the state, serious differences have cropped up between the points included in the draft bill and the demands made by the Joint Committee on implementation of Inner Line Permit System (JCILPS) .
According to sources, there were at least five points of discord between the content of the draft bill and the demands.
It has been learnt that the requirement of specifying the period by those intending to enter Manipur as demanded by the JCILPS has been completely left out of the draft bill.
JCILPS also wants to replace the word "visitor" to "protection of indigenous people" in the draft bill which has been called the "Manipur Regulation of Visitors and Tenants' Bill" .
JCILPS pointed out that there were no provision to curb the selling of land to non-indigenous people as demanded.
Instead of this, the draft bill has allegedly allowed land transactions to be made without the approval of the State Government.
JCILPS sources informed that the proposed bill has not included the provision of identifying non-indigenous people based on 1951 as the cut off year.
The committee also alleged that the draft bill will in effect consider the 10 lakh non-indigenous persons since 1951 as legitimate residents and inhabitants of the State.
After the end of a meeting between the State Government representatives and JCILPS members, Committee Covener Ibotombi Khuman expressed dismay over the contents of the draft bill pointing out that it fell far short of the expectation of the people who have had a series of deliberations on the introduction of bill.