'Assam to create new dept to protect indigenous faith & culture': CM Himanta Biswa Sarma

In order to protect Assam's indigenous faith and culture, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Saturday informed that his cabinet has decided to create a new department to protect the culture and practices of people belonging to tribal and other indigenous communities.

The Assam CM asserted that the new department would ensure that the state's indigenous population gets to preserve their faith and traditions as the new department would provide requisite support to them.

''During the meeting, the Cabinet also agreed that financial and administrative reforms were necessary to remove red tape and ensure speedy implementation of schemes of the government,'' said Sarma while addressing a press conference.

Sarma further elaborated that departmental heads will be entitled to give approval for projects worth Rs 2 crore and below, and a finance committee headed by the Chief Secretary for those between Rs 2 crore and Rs 5 crore, as per the cabinet's decision.

Special standing finance headed by the finance minister will be approving projects that are worth anything between Rs 5 crore and Rs 100 crore, and only the cabinet gets to give a go-ahead to schemes that involve funds over Rs 100 crore, he added.

Assam to fast-track population control policy

Since taking over as Chief Minister of Assam Himanta Biswa Sarma has announced a slew of reforms aiming at the development of the state. The Assam government has decided to fast-track its population control policy and will issue a notification regarding the same in the month of August, Himanta Biswa Sarma informed.

While there are no plans to table the Population Control Bill/Two-Child Policy in the upcoming Assembly session, the government will bring out a notification in August after holding talks with leaders of the minority communities. 

Last week, CM Sarma held a meeting with 150 scholars of the Muslim community to get their views on the Population Control policy. The discussion titled 'Alaap Alochana Empowering the Religious Minorities' centred around socio-economic issues affecting the indigenous Muslim population of Assam. All the leaders agreed that the population explosion in some parts of the state has caused a real threat to the development of Assam, more particularly in the economic sense, according to Sarma.

Last month, he announced that the state government will implement strategies of population control to regulate the population growth in the state.

Himanta Biswa Sarma said the Assam government will gradually implement a population control policy for availing benefits under specific schemes funded by the state. He clarified that the population control policy benefits will not be available in all the schemes in Assam as many schemes are offered by the Centre.

Prior to announcing the population control policy, Sarma had urged the minority community to adopt a "decent family planning policy" for population control to reduce poverty, which leads to the shrinking of living space and consequent land encroachment. His comments had however drawn sharp criticisms from opposition such as the Congress and the AIUDF. 

"Immigrant Muslims in Assam are very poor and often their landholdings are also small. But the problem is that in one or two generations the average ratio of children is 6 to 12 in a family. In some families it is up to 20 children," he had said.

"With the division of property in every generation, the landholdings shrink and the community faces poverty which increases pressure on schools and hospitals," Sarma opined while adding that poverty alleviation programs do not succeed because of population explosion.