GUWAHATI: The Assam government has set up an eight-member sub-committee to examine and prepare a framework for the implementation of all clauses of the Assam Accord.
“The Governor of Assam is pleased to constitute a sub-committee to examine and prepare a framework for implementation of all clauses of Assam Accord in general with special emphasis on clause 6 (high-level committee report), clause 7, clause 9 and clause 10…” a notification issued by GD Tripathi, who is the Commissioner-Secretary to the Government of Assam, Implementation of Assam Accord Department, reads.
The sub-committee will also examine and prepare a framework for the updation of National Register of Citizens, issues of flood and erosion, rehabilitation of martyrs’ families and victims of Assam Agitation besides various problems being faced by the state and the potential of the state’s all-round development.
The members of the sub-committee are Ministers Atul Bora, Pijush Hazarika and Ajanta Neog, All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) president Dipanka Kumar Nath, its general secretary Sankar Jyoti Baruah and Samujjal Bhattacharya, Prakash Ch Das and Uddip Jyoti Gogoi (all of them advisors to AASU).
Sujata Suchibrata, Deputy Secretary to the Government of Assam, Implementation of Assam Accord Department, will act as the convenor of the sub-committee. The sub-committee will submit its report within three months for further course of action.
The clause 6 of the Accord says: “Constitutional, legislative and administrative safeguards, as may be appropriate, shall be provided to protect, preserve and promote the cultural, social, linguistic identity and heritage of the Assamese people”.
The Accord was signed between the then Rajiv Gandhi government and the AASU in 1985 at the end of six-year-long bloody Assam Agitation.
Earlier, the Centre constituted the High Level Committee for implementation of Clause 6 of Assam Accord. In due course, the committee had submitted its recommendations to the government.
In the first official reaction in February this year, the state’s then Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had stated the suggestions could not be implemented as they were “far from legal reality”.