Several hill villages in Manipur wrongly included in valley districts: ST panel

A report by the NCST said that “Manipur has wrongly included several hill villages under valley districts” and that the issue had been flagged to the State government

A report by the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST) has observed that several hill villages in Manipur were wrongly included in the valley districts during the Census 2011 exercise. 

It said that in the Booklet of Census of India 2011 and Administrative Atlas, “Manipur has wrongly included several hill villages under valley districts” and that the issue had been flagged to the State government by the office of the Registrar General of India in 2017.

Following this, the Revenue department of Manipur had in October 2022 asked the deputy commissioners of the districts concerned to rectify the list of hill villages (around 400) overlapping between the districts of Kakching, Tengnoupal, Kangpokpi, Imphal West, Bishnupur Districts, the NCST report noted.

The NCST’s report was prepared on a State review of Manipur conducted in December 2022. During the review, the NCST team met with officials of the Manipur government and also took representations from the All Tribal Students Union Manipur (ATSUM) and the Joint Coordination Committee on Tribal Rights in Imphal (JCCOTR). 

The report had also noted that the withdrawal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), 1958 from the hill areas of Manipur needs to be reviewed taking into account the ground reality of the hill areas as they have become peaceful, as the AFSPA has been withdrawn from 15 police stations of valley districts in the State.

The NCST report, from December last year, had also flagged that reserve forest, including pocket settlements, in Kangpokpi district were moved to the Imphal East district in October 2022 by the Revenue department without specific approval from the Hill Areas Committee (HAC), recommending that this order should be reviewed. 

The NCST further said that the definition of “Hill Areas” was clear in the First Schedule of the Manipur Legislative Assembly (Hill Areas Committee) Order, 1972, and that all boundary disputes had to be settled as per this definition. Hence, it proceeded to recommend that any order, notification or legislative action issued without the express approval of the HAC needed to be “reviewed/rescinded”.