Panel on ‘backwardness’

Nagaland Government has constituted a five-member committee to suggest a proper benchmark or yardstick for determining backwardness for the purpose of prescribing job reservations.
According to an official bulletin, the committee will be headed by Khrielie Kevichüsa, IAS (Retd) as chairman, joint secretary (P&AR) as member secretary, Tali Longkumer, IAS (Retd) as member, Dr K. Rajendra Singh, reader (Sociology) Nagaland University (NU) and T. Lorenthung Ezung, lecturer (Economies) NU as expert members.
The terms of reference of the committee are to evolve a set of objective criteria for identifying socio-economic backwardness of tribes in the state, to study the socio-economic conditions and status of nine tribes namely Chang, Khiamniungan, Konyak, Sangtam, Phom, Yimchunger, Chakhesang, Pochury and Zeliang as well as those of Sumis of Kiphire district, based on the set of criteria for determining the socio-economic backwardness.
The committee will also identify the tribes that are backward and to recommend the privileges such as job reservation, reservation in educational institutions etc and suggest suitable organizational mechanism at the Government level to identify or review the backwardness of the tribes/section of the tribe on a regular basis and to monitor the implementation of various privileges extended to the back ward tribes. The committee will submit its report to the government within four months from the date of constitution of the committee, the bulletin added.