Guwahati: The Assam cabinet has approved the report of a Group of Ministers (GoM) on the long-pending demand for granting Scheduled Tribe (ST) status to six major communities of the state, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma announced on Wednesday.
The communities seeking ST status are Tai Ahom, Chutia, Moran, Motok, Koch-Rajbongshi and the Tea Tribes (Adivasis).
The decision comes amid sustained protests by these communities over their long-pending demand for granting ST status to these six major communities.
The GoM report will now be submitted by the Tribal Affairs Department to the state assembly, with the government requesting the Speaker to table it before the winter session concludes on Saturday, Sarma said after the cabinet meeting.
The report will subsequently be forwarded to the Ministry of Home Affairs.
“The report will be placed in the Assam Legislative Assembly and thereafter sent to the Ministry of Home Affairs. I hope that this report will represent the aspirations of all of us,” the chief minister said.
The three-member GoM was headed by Education Minister Ranoj Pegu, with Water Resources Minister Pijush Hazarika and Information and Technology Minister Keshab Mahanta as members.
In another major decision, the cabinet approved the modification and transfer of 99 acres of land from the Handloom, Textiles and Sericulture Department to the Cultural Affairs Department for the construction of a state-of-the-art museum.
The museum will house the historic ‘Vrindavani Vastra’, a 16th-century devotional textile depicting the life of Lord Krishna, created under the guidance of Assamese saint-reformer Srimanta Sankardeva at the request of Koch king Nara Narayan.
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The textile, currently with the British Museum in London, will be brought to Assam on loan for display. The museum project is being taken up as a priority heritage initiative, supported by JSW I&P Holdings Pvt Ltd under its Corporate Social Responsibility programme, the chief minister added.
