Assam cabinet exempts Tea Tribe, Moran-Motok, ST communities from State Population Policy

Guwahati (Assam) [India], October 23 (ANI): The Assam cabinet on Thursday decided to exempt members of the Tea Tribe, Moran, Motok and Scheduled Tribe communities from the provision of restricting the number of children to two under the State Population Policy.
The decision was taken in the state cabinet meeting held at Lok Sewa Bhawan in Guwahati under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma.
Announcing the cabinet decision, the Assam Chief Minister said, "We are relaxing two two-child norms for the tribal, tea tribes, and the Moran-Matak community people are concerned. Because they are a micro community. If we restrict their population, they may cease to exist after 50 years. So we have taken opinions from various social scientists and we have come to the conclusion that our strict population control policy needs to be relaxed so far as these four communities are concerned."
The state cabinet approved tabling of the Tiwari Commission Report, which probed the 1983 Nellie massacre, in the upcoming November session of the Assam Legislative Assembly.
"The cabinet has approved the increase in project cost of Assam Petro-Chemicals Limited's 500 TPD Methanol Plant and 200 TPD Formalin Plant from Rs 1,709.18 crore to Rs 2,267.22 crore, along with the additional equity contribution to be made by the state government," the Assam Chief Minister said.
He further said that the state cabinet held a detailed discussion on the proposal to grant land pattas to tea garden workers residing in labour lines and gave in-principle approval to the proposal.
"The service period required for regularisation of teachers working under Samagra Siksha Abhiyan (SSA), Assam, through a special recruitment drive has been reduced from five years to three years. This will benefit around 3,000 teachers currently serving under the Mission," CM Sarma said.
The cabinet also decided to reduce the mandatory service period at a station for the transfer of male teachers from 10 years to 7 years. (ANI)