GUWAHATI, Aug 13 - Having learnt lessons from the slow progress of implementation of the Assam Accord, the Committee for suggesting measures for implementation of Clause 6 of the Accord has given a time frame of two years for implementing its recommendations.
The Committee headed by Justice (Retd) Biplab Sarma submitted its report in February and peeved over the silence of the Central Government even after five months of submission of the report, the All Assam Students� Union (AASU) made it public on August 11.
The Committee, in its report, said, �the recommendations suggested in the report should be implemented at the earliest by drawing up a time bound programme and not later than two years from the date of submission.�
Talking to The Assam Tribune, AASU chief adviser Samujjal Bhattacharya, who was a member of the Committee, said that the decision to give a time frame was taken because of the lessons learnt from the Assam Accord. He said that there was no time frame for the implementation of the Accord and successive Governments at the Centre dragged its feet on implementation of the main clauses of the Accord. He said that the AASU decided to make the report public because the Centre was silent on it even after five months of submission of the report. �The Committee gave a time frame of two years for the implementation of the recommendations, but five months have passed since it was submitted and till date, the Centre has not cleared its stand,� he added.
Bhattacharya further said that the Committee decided to give a time of two years to the Government to complete implementation of the recommendations because of the fact that Constitutional amendments would be required and �we understand that it may take some time.�
Another major point was incorporated because of the lessons learnt from the Assam Accord. The Committee report said, �an appropriate body should be formed to monitor the execution of the recommendations and to reconcile any constitutional or legal challenges that may arise in their implementation. The Committee should be preferably headed by a retired Judge of the Supreme Court or High Court, with representatives from the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of Assam and All Assam Students� Union. The body should meet at least once in three months to monitor the progress.�
Justifying this point, Bhattacharya said that there was no institutional mechanism to monitor the progress of implementation of the Assam Accord. He said that though Union Home Ministry was made the nodal Ministry for implementation of the Assam Accord, there was no institutional mechanism to monitor the progress of implementation. He said that time to time, tripartite meetings involving the State and Central Governments and AASU were held to monitor the progress. But the meetings were held at the whims of the Centre and there were times when no review meeting was held for years.
The AASU chief adviser further alleged that the last review meeting at the level of the Prime Minister was held way back in 2005 and during his tenure as the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi could not find time to hold even a single meeting to review the progress of implementation of the Assam Accord, which shows lack of sincerity on the part of the Centre.
