Panel set up to implement Assam Accord

Special emphasis is on four clauses of 1985 pact.

Government representatives and the leaders of the All Assam Students Union and the All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad sign the Memorandum of Settlement on the Assam problem, in New Delhi on August 15, 1985, as Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, flanked by Union Home Minister S.B. Chavan on his left and Union Cabinet Secretary P.K. Kaul, looks on. The photograph also shows AASU president P.K. Mahanta and general secretary B.K. Phukan.

The Assam government on Saturday set up an eight-member sub-committee to examine and prepare a framework for the implementation of all clauses of the Assam Accord of 1985 .

“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 G.D. Tripathi, Commissioner-Secretary for the Implementation of Assam Accord Department, said.

The sub-committee has also been mandated to examine and prepare a framework for updating the National Register of Citizens, issues of flood and erosion, rehabilitation of martyrs’ families and victims of Assam Agitation besides 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 AASU advisors Samujjal Bhattacharya, Prakash Ch Das and Uddip Jyoti Gogoi.

Sujata Suchibrata, Deputy Secretary in the Implementation of Assam Accord Department , will be the convenor of the sub-committee that will submit its report within three months for further course of action.

 

The Clause 6 of the Accord pertains to the constitutional, legislative and administrative safeguards to “protect, preserve and promote the cultural, social, linguistic identity and heritage of the Assamese people”.

The Accord was signed between the Rajiv Gandhi government at the Centre and the AASU leadership to signal the end of the six-year Assam Agitation for driving out “illegal immigrants”. The agitation started in 1979.

The Centre had earlier constituted the high-level committee for the implementation of Clause 6 and submitted its recommendations to the government. In February this year, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma — then State’s Finance Minister — said the suggestions of this committee could not be implemented as they were “far from legal reality”.