Why not early Autonomous District Council Election in Manipur?

G S Oinam *

(Excerpt from the Report of the Expert Committee, Sept 2007, Ministry of Panchayati Raj, Government of India.)

Manipur, like Tripura, has areas that are covered under Part IX of the Constitution, namely valley area, and the Hill areas. However, unlike Tripura, these hill areas are not covered under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution, but under a state legislation, the Manipur Hill Area District Council Act, 1971.

This Act has provisions similar to that contained in the Sixth Schedule and has established six Autonomous District Councils in Manipur, covering 5 districts (Senapati, Churachandpur, Ukhrul, Tamenglong and Chandel)

Article 731C of the Constitution contains special provision with respect to the state of Manipur, which reads as follows:

1. "Notwithstanding anything in this Constitution, the President may, by order made with respect to the state of Manipur, provide for the constitution and functions of a committee of the legislative Assembly of the State, for the modifications to be made in the rules of the business of the government and in the rules of procedure of the Legislative Assembly of the state and for any special responsibility of the Governor in order to secure the proper functioning of such committee."
2. The Governor shall annually, or whenever so required by the President, make a report to the President regarding the administration of the Hill Areas in the State of Manipur and the executive power of the Union shall extended to the giving of directions to the State as to the administration of the said areas.

Explanation:-
In this article, the expression " Hill Areas " means such areas as the President may, by order, declared to be Hill areas.

Elections to the Autonomous District Council constituted under the Manipur Hill Areas District Council Act, 1971 were first held in 1973 and the Councils were constituted on 1st august 1973. However, elected District Councils were suspended and their administration was entrusted to the District officials of the District concerns as on
SenapatiADC-17-10-1998,
Sadar Hills ADC-17 -10-1988,
ChurachandpurADC-20-12-1990,
Ukhrul ADC -29-12-1990,
Tamenglong ADC-20-12-1990 and
Chandel ADC-18-03-1989.

Since then, election were not held to the District Councils on the expiry of their five year term of office as the Hill Area Committee set up under article 371C of the constitution unanimously resolved on 20-12-1990 that elections to the District Councils should not be held until and unless the Provisions of the VI Schedule are extended to the present District Councils of Manipur.

After a protracted consideration of the resolution of the Hill areas Committee, it is reported that the state cabinet in its meeting held on 28-03-2001 decided that the state government had no objection to the extension of the provisions of the sixth Schedule to the tribal areas in the Hill Districts of Manipur with certain local adjustment and amendments. The state government constituted a Cabinet sub committee to go into the details of the matter. However, the final report of the Cabinet Sub Committee is still awaited.

Eight members Expert Committee under the chairmanship of Shri V.Ramachandran, former Vice Chairman Kerala state planning board are of viewed that there might be a fear that constituting of elected district councils might dilute the demand for six schedule status. In this regard, the Committee emphasizes that the demand of sixth schedule status can be examined independently of the priority to immediately constitute elected District councils in terms of the existing state laws.

However, there is need to immediately constitute elected district councils, whatever the future course of action on the matter of inclusion of these areas under the sixth schedule might be. Since the elections to the district councils were stopped on the basis of a resolution of the Hill area Council, this matter ought to be reconsidered by them.

The committee suggests that given the passage of time and the fact that new initiatives such as NREGA, NRHM etc are to be implemented, any further delay in the constitution of elected councils might hamper development and work against the interests of the tribal communities. Detailed discussions need to be held with the concerned groups to explain and drive home and adverse results of the status quo.

The required Road map of State Government before District Council election:

1. A. Independent body has to be formed to examine the possibility of sixth schedule status.
2. State government has to prepare a guideline for District planning
3. Scope of district council to undertake development work is to be identified.
4. Committee has recommended that Village level development bodies be constituted forthwith for accelerating development. There are two ways in which this could be commenced. First, to operationalise the provisions of the Hill Village Authority Act 1957, after discussions with the traditional tribal chiefs and second, in case these discussions make no headway, to put in place an interim arrangement by adopting the village level planning and implementation mechanism that ought to be put in place for the implementation of NREGA.
5. Harmonization between traditional Councils and Village development bodies. Committee suggested village level committees must be constitute even there is strong divergence of views on Village committee under Village Authority Act 1956.
6. Suggestions on decentralized planning
7. Annual plan allocations: An arrangement for informing the district administration the annual plan allocations will need to be put into place so that approvals of project and the arrangement for the release of these funds to the district implementing agencies can also be work.
8. Currently, since the DC is the coordinating officer, there might not be any conflict between the implementation of SSA and MDM schemes, but if these schemes continue to implement outside the District Councils when they are elected, there is scope for confusion, conflict and duplication of efforts. The time to harmonize the implementation of SSA and MDM with the District Council is now, before these conflicts emerge.
9. Hill council who is elected from the District concern may be made the head of the district planning body.
10. A Technical Advisory Committee should be constitute to strengthen project formulation capabilities
11. Delivery Monitoring Unit and evaluation study should be very sound.
12. like Panchayati Raj institute, District council has to empower to levy tax and revenue collection.

Difficulty level of the Government:

1. A. Time consuming to prepare the road map
2. Security level in the hill districts is to be check up / increase to prevent from the fund diversion to the hand of UGs with reference to law and order in the State.
3. Kukis traditional chieftain system should be rechecked / considered / discussed before programme implementation / election.
4. Amendment bill if require. (Village defines under Hill village Authority Act 1956 is 20 household only. Expert committee has opinions to increase the threshold of the numbers of household for the notification of village.)

Note:
The Naga Traditional System:- In the Naga traditional system, the Khulakpa, this is headed by the traditional chief. Only men can be appointed to this council. The traditional Chief post is a hereditary one. Land is owned by the community at large and decisions on its appointment are taken by the authority at large. While some of these lands have been surveyed through cadastral surveys and settled, that is to say that they have been assigned individual title, the majority of the land continues to be community owned. The traditional chiefs have their own council.

The Kuki Traditional System:- Kuki village are typically much smaller than Naga villages and could compromise of as few as 20 families. These villages are more shifting in nature. The traditional form of governance of the Kuki is much more' chief 'oriented than that of the Nagas.

The Chief of the village, whose position is hereditary, is the owner of all land in the village and traditionally is the repository of all powers of administration in the village. Apart from Haosa (chieftain) of the village and the custodian of village land, there is the Semang (The village Administrator), the Paochong (In charge of defence, of social organization and relief), the Lhangsam (in charge if information) and Thuching (secretary and record keeper).

None of the lands in Kuki villages have been 'settled', through surveys and assignments of title. The Chief allots land to the village people for cultivation and establishing homesteads. Such land cannot be sold. If a family migrates to another village, the land automatically vests again in the chief. The villagers as also the Village chief opposed the Hill Village Authority Act.1956, which provides for elected chief. But this Act provides democratic election and provides reservation of women representatives, much manner of the Panchayati Raj.

Disadvantage in the development of hill districts:

Under the 11th finance commission, Rs. 426 lakhs was the annual allocation to the state from 2000-05. However, this amount was not released to the state due to non- conduct of elections in the state. The position has hardly improved during the period of the 12th finance commission. The state's entitlement of funds under the 12th finance commission grants is Rs. 46 crores for the period 2005-10.

However, the state has not drawn its annual allocation of Rs. 9.2 crores fully. It has only drawn Rs. 2.116 crores, pertaining to the Panchayat areas. The annual allocation under the 12th Finance Commission of Rs. 4.96 crores pertaining to the Hill Councils has not been released as elections has not been conducted.

During 2006-2007, the State Plan assistance to the local councils consisted of Rs. 970.00 lakhs only, inclusive of Rs. 300 lakhs as Special Plan assistance. Why no tribal elected leaders rise up early election of Autonomous District Council before the Assembly Budget Session. This is very unfortunate for our hilly people.

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* The author is a journalist based in New Delhi and contributes regularly to e-pao.net. He can be contacted at gitchandraoinam (at) yahoo (dot) co (dot) in. This article was webcasted on September 24th, 2009.

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