Guwahati: Assam chief minister Sarbanada Sonowal has assured that he would do everything possible to ensure speedy and proper implementation of the Clause 6 committee report.
“Will do everything within my means to ensure that the recommendations of the committee are implemented timely and in the best possible manner,” chief minister Sonowal said after receiving the report at an event held at his residence here on Tuesday.
He also felicitated members of the high level committee that was set up by the union home ministry in 2019 to suggest measure for implementation of Clause 6 of Assam Accord.
Three sealed copies of the report has been handed over to the chief minister. All the members of the state Cabinet were present at the report submission event.
“Chief minister is leaving for New Delhi today and it is likely that he would hand over the report to union home minister Amit Shah today evening,” member of the committee and senior journalist Wasbir Hussain said.
The over 170-page report has recommended a slew of measures to protect and preserve the language, culture, heritage and tradition of the Assamese people and ethnic group of the state.
Some of the key recommendations of the committee include suggesting 1951 as the base year and certain other criteria to define indigenous people of Assam who would be eligible for constitutional safeguards under provisions the Assam Accord. Introduction of Upper House in the Assam Assembly,
The All Assam Students’ Union (AASU), the main students’ body of the state, a key negotiator of the Assam Accord of 1985 and a key player during the Assam agitation and recent fight against CAA, decided to give the report submission a miss. AASU is part of the 14-member committee.
AASU leaders said that the state government played a negative role during the wide-scale CAA agitation and they feel that the state government has betrayed the sentiments of the common people of Assam.
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Clause 6 of the Assam Accord says:
“Constitutional, Legislative & Administrative safeguards as may be appropriate, shall be provided to protect, preserve and promote the cultural, social, linguistic identity and heritage of the Assamese people.”
The Union home ministry had set up this high-level committee on July 15, 2019 to recommend constitutional safeguards to protect the interests of the ethnic Assamese within six months. The term of the high-Level Committee had to be extended by a month up to February 15, 2020. The committee was headed by Justice (retd) Biplab Kumar Sarma and has some of the best minds from the field of journalism, law, art, culture and literature, administration and police.
