IMPHAL, April 13: The All Tribal Students`™ Union Manipur, ATSUM, said it is constrained to draw the attention of the Government to its agreement with ATSUM on October 22, 2014 on various long outstanding demands of the tribal communities.
Speaking to media person in a press meet at office of ATSUM, Maun Tombing president ATSUM said that It is a disgrace and dishonour that the Ibobi-led Congress government is still sleeping over the grievances of tribals to buy more time in spite of continuous pressure from the ranks and files.
Among these is the ST Commission assurance given by the Chief Minister, he said.
The Chief Minister had assured to set up and make this commission functional by New Year 2015, but now it has turned out to be a false promise, he said.
The ATSUM feels compelled to serve another ultimatum to set up the ST Commission on or before June 14, in the interest of the tribal communities and the benefits they would reap by the activation of such a commission, said Tombing.
He further said that the demands were mainly for the regularisation of contract lecturers, bifurcation of power to Additional Director (Hills), Education (S), halt to manipulation and exploitation of tribal quota in the Manipur Legislative Assembly, halt to transfer of land records and special recruitment drive in JNIMS.
As per the Government`™s agreement with ATSUM, the Cabinet on September 2, 2014 approved the regularisation of 705 contract lecturers in Higher Secondary School, but nothing has happened since. On October 22, 2014 the Government again reminded to complete the formalities of regularisation before the commencement of the academic session 2015-16.
`On October 22, 2014 during the discourse between the GoM and ATSUM team, Education Minister and Director of Education(s) had given the assurance to ATSUM team that order will be published in a gazette very shortly. Very unfortunately nothing has been implemented till today` the ATSUM president said.
Again, the Additional Director (hills) has been given neither the responsibilities of the hills nor the power to function as given in the order, he said.
To bring about a balance in employment patter in the Assembly secretariat, ATSUM had demanded ascertainment of the number of backlogged posts inclusive of detail information of employees and reservation of quotas against sanction posts. But Assembly secretariat has only furnished a bogus data which does not correspond to the data obtained from MIS, he said.
The government made promises several times but have been breaking them time and again, he said. All the backlogged posts of different grades which ought to be filled after the agreement with the government on October 22, 2014 are still vacant, he said.
Tombing appealed all the units of ATSUM to prepare for agitation.