Agartala: Left front govt of Tripura has been accused of unnecessarily delaying the process of delegating more power to Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) despite having the view of ADC administration about six months ago.
Talking to media on Monday leader of the Opposition Ratan Lal Nath alleged that the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) had sought views of Northeastern states on draft amendment of the 6th schedule to the Constitution (Amendment) Bill, 2012 in a letter on December 6, 2012 but still the state government did not send any comment.
“Since the proposed bill was regarding delegating more powers to ADC, the state tribal welfare department had sent it to ADC administration seeking their view on the issue on December 21 and on December 22, ADC forwarded their view accepting almost all the proposals of handing over more power to ADC including changing the name of ADC to Tripura Territorial Council but afterwards the state government did not take any action,” Mr Nath alleged.
Neither did they accept the view of ADC administration nor took any step to modify the proposal but rather kept it in abeyance for more than six months, that clearly indicated the attitude of the state government over the bill, he pointed out.
Nath alleged that northeastern states had been fighting for delegation of more power including direct funding to the ADC from the Centre over the past two decades and finally, the MHA took the initiative of amendment of the Act.
Assam, Mizoram, Nagaland and Meghalaya had already sent their opinions on the draft bill but MHA could not proceed further because of non-action from Tripura government, Mr Nath claimed and added that Left parties were also at loggerheads on delegation of more powers to the ADC.
‘Though most of the senior leaders of the party were in favour of the proposed amendment of the Act, the Chief Minister and a section of tribal leaders are opposing it for their narrow political gains taking the advantage of under development and state sponsored development of ADC areas,’ Mr Nath further said. (UNI)