Sikkim forms committee to study demand for inclusion of 12 communities in ST list

PTI, Gangtok, Nov 5, 2024 : The Sikkim government has set up a 12-member committee to conduct a study and make recommendations to the Centre for the inclusion of 12 communities in the list of Scheduled Tribes (STs).

Anthropological Survey of India Director BV Sharma will be the chairman of the committee, while JNU's senior professor Mahendra P Lama will be its vice chairman, according to a notification issued on Monday by Chief Secretary VB Pathak.

The committee will prepare a comprehensive ethnographic and anthropological report of the 12 left-out Sikkimese communities -- Bhujel, Gurung, Jogi, Kirat Khambu Rai, Kirat Dewan (Yakha), Khas (Chettri-Bahun) Mangar, Newar, Sanyashi, Sunuwar (Mukhia), Thami and Majhi, it said.

It will meticulously spell out the grounds and substantive socio-cultural, historic geographical, ecological and legal-constitutional justification as to why these 12 left-out Sikkimese communities deeply qualify for the ST status, it added.

The committee will also examine and elucidate the tri-junctional benefits that accrue from the inclusions of these left-out communities in the list of Scheduled Tribes in terms of socio-economic upliftment and cultural-ecological conservations of these and other tribes spread over the entire Indian Himalayan region and more specifically in the eastern Himalaya, consisting of Sikkim and Darjeeling Hills, the notification said.

The committee will make recommendations to the Centre for the inclusion of the 12 left-out communities on firm ethno-historical and geographical-ecology grounds.

The committee shall submit a report to the state government within three months, the notification said.