Orissa govt to bring legislation to regulate caste certificates

With the issue of fake caste certificates being one of the major reasons behind tribal unrest in Orissa, the state government today accepted a Tribal Advisory Council(TAC) proposal to formulate a special legislation to regulate issuance and verification of caste certificates.

The state government gave its acceptance to the TAC which held its meeting here under the chairmanship of chief minister Naveen Patnaik, official sources said.

"We will soon introduce a special legislation to regulate the issuance and verification of caste certificates to regulate the scheduled tribe, schedule caste and backward class citizens in the state," said L B Himirika, the newly appointed ST & SC Development, Minorities and Backward Classes
Welfare department minister.

Resolving that fake certificate issue was a major cause of concern for the tribal population, who feel that their rights were being hijacked by others, the TAC suggested the state government to immediately address the problem.

The issues relating to fake caste certificates and land dispute were two major factors behind large scale ethno-communal violence in Kandhamal, it said.

This apart, the state government also accepted the TAC's suggestions of substituting 'Kui' with 'Kui (Kond)' at serial number 31 in the ST list of Orissa in the Presidential Order in order to prevent any non-tribal (any non-Kui/Kondh) from taking the advantage of the term by claiming as belonging to Kui tribe.

"The rest of the entries at the serial number 31 representing the synonyms and various sections of Kandha in the Presidential Order for ST in Orissa wil remain unchanged," said ST & SC Development secretary Santosh Sarangi.

The TAC meeting also resolved to constitute a committee under the chairmanship of the department minister to demand including Putiya community in the ST list of the state. Though Putiya community is in the ST list in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, it did not get the benefits in Orissa due to non-inclusion in the list.

It also decided to upgrade at least one high school in each block to Plus-II level in order to facilitate higher education to tribal students.

"The government also accepted TAC's suggestions of recommending the Centre on inclusion of Ho tribal language in English Schedule of the Constitution of India," the sources said adding the language has now its own script 'Warang Chiti' and a number of books, journals are written in this script.