AGARTALA, Jan 18 - The Tripura Assembly has passed a unanimous resolution, urging the Centre to increase the number of seats of the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) from the existing 30 to 50. The move comes ahead of the polls to the council.
While moving the resolution, BJP MLA Arun Chandra Bhowmik said there must be an initiative to empower the State�s lone tribal council in order to ensure proper representation of all sections of people.
Tribal Welfare Minister Mevar Kumar Jamatia and other ruling party members including Arun Chandra Bhowmik, Diba Chandra Hrangkhawal and Sushanta Chowdhury criticised the previous Left Front Government for its alleged failure to empower the tribal council.
While Chowdhury said that the Left Front Government had never been reconciled to the idea of the tribal council, senior member Diba Chandra Hrangkhawal said that in August, 1984, when the TTAADC Bill was passed in the Lok Sabha, Left MPs Bajuban Reang and Ajay Biswas had abstained from the process.
All Treasury bench MLAs flayed the Left Front in keeping the TTAADC in a �dysfunctional condition�. CPI(M) legislator Prabhat Chowdhury also supported the resolution wholeheartedly. Tribal Welfare Minister Mevar Kumar Jamatia Jamatia said the tribal council was constituted in 1982. In 1985, it was included in the Sixth Schedule, but the number of seats has remained the same for the past 35 years.
�The State Government is actively considering to increase members of the TTAADC for the welfare of the people living under the jurisdiction of the tribal council. Of the State�s total geographical area, 67.18 per cent falls under the TTAADC and the tribal council is managing as many as 42 departments,� Jamatia said.
It was proposed that the TTAADC would have a total of 50 members, out of whom 44 would be elected while the remaining six would be nominated by the Governor. This will give greater representation to all the 19 ethnic tribes living in the State.
