Deferment of house listing work meaningless: MMTU
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, March 30 2026: The MMTU has asserted that the deferment of house listing process by five months in the midst of the collective demand to first identify illegal immigrants before going ahead with the census exercise is meaningless.

Speaking to media persons at Manipur Press Club here today, MMTU organisation secretary T Parijat asserted that it is illogical to conduct census exercise and delimitation without first correcting the flawed and erroneous census data of 2001 and 2011 .

The growth witnessed in around 27 sub-divisions of hill districts was humanly impossible, he said.

Taking serious note of the gross errors in the census data, the High Court passed an order directing authorities to conduct re-census in nine sub-divisions.

The 2011 census report was withheld with respect to three sub-divisions but the order to withhold it was revoked in 2014 without any correction.

Moreover, 260 unrecognised villages were included in the census operations, he said.

Within a shot span of time, around 2500 villages sprang up in different hill areas of the State and many of these villages were given recognition under surreptitious manner.

Granting recognition to a village should be done under the Manipur Villages Authority in Hill Areas Act 1956 .

But many villages were given recognition by mere SDOs/SDCs.

In some instances, villages were given recognition by DFOs of the Forest Department, he said.

While conveniently sidelining the issue of illegal immigrants, politicians have been using the illegal immigrants as their vote banks, he said.

Parijat pointed out that the Government has not implemented anything on the ground with regard to the agreements signed between the Government and AMSU after long and hard struggle in 1980 and 1994.In addition to granting Indian citizenship, illegal immigrants from Myanmar are given protection and privileges in the name of Scheduled Tribe.

This was made possible by adopting very vague terms like Any Kuki Tribe/Any Mizo Tribe.

The Government's policy of patronising immigrants at the cost of indigenous people has landed all the indigenous people in a very insecure situation, he said.

On the other hand, CPI Manipur State Council has urged both the Central Government and the State Government to defer the census exercise until all illegal immigrants residing in Manipur are identified and deported.

Annual conferences of seven local councils of CPI were held today and the conferences adopted a common decision to launch a strong protest movement in case the Government goes ahead with the census operations without first identifying the illegal immigrants.

Pointing out that tens of thousands of people have been living in relief camps after their houses were burnt down in the May 3, 2023 violence, CPI MSC has questioned how Government officials could conduct house listing under the existing situation.

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