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Imphal, March 28
Manipur State Cabinet held on Friday has decided to fix election for the six Autonomic District Councils (ADC) on coming May 30. Moreover, the cabinet has consented to recognise four tribal dialects and to allow them to include as a subject in the school curriculum upto Class VIII.The rather long cabinet meeting was chaired by CM O Ibobi and was held in the Conference Room of the Chief Minister’s Secretariat.
Giving an insight into the decisions taken in the meeting, government spokespersons and CAF & PD Minister M Okendra said that ADC elections will be held on May 30 and results will be out on June 8. Voting starts from 7 in the morning and will end by 4.30 pm. The Draft Electoral Roll of this election will be out in March 30. He added that anyone who wants to make changes in roll can make the necessary changes before April 13 and the Final Electoral Roll will be published on April 20. The formal Public Notification of the election will be made on April 30.
The spokesperson further stated that last date of filing nomination to contest by the willing candidates is May 6, and scrutiny will be done on the next day May 7. The last date of withdrawing candidature is May 11. If there rises the need of any repolling, it will be done on June 4. ROs concerned will count the ballot and will declare results on June 8. Any procedures related to this ADC election will be wounded up by June 15, he added.
It may be mentioned that the state cabinet meeting held on March 23 has agreed on to conduct the ADC election in time. Consequently, the State Election Commission had submitted the tentative schedules of the election and has been waiting for the consent from the government.
On the other hand, another major decision that was taken in today’s meeting was the recognition of Maram, Anal, Maring and Simte dialects to be included in school syllabus upto Class VIII.
Regarding this, minister Okendro said that out of the 39 tribal dialects of Manipur, 13 had been already recognised before. For a tribal dialect to be recognised, a minimum of 10, 000 people should speak the dialect as their mother tongue. Plus, the particular dialect should have its own books, publications, newspapers etc.
At present, findings reported that Maram community has 45, 255 persons ( 35 villages); Anal has 21, 242 (21 villages); 23, 238 (23 villages) for Maring and Simte has 11, 065 speakers ( 12 villages). This is a report confirmed by the Directorate of Planning and Implementation, the minister added.
Minister Okendra said that recognising a dialect and allowing it be studied as a subject in school will make the speakers of the language concerned proud of their own heritage and will allow them to study in the convenience of their mother tongue.
