NCSC vice-chairperson Arun Halder visits Manipur, holds meeting

Imphal: Arun Halder, vice-chairperson, National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC), India visited Manipur on the Monday and met representatives of Schedule Caste government employees and civil society bodies representing Schedule Caste communities and interacted with them for understanding their concerns.

Arun Halder will be visiting a few Schedule Caste villages and interact with the villagers during his stay.

The NCSC is a Constitutional body set up under Article 338 of the Constitution of India. One of the mandates of the commission is to investigate and monitor all matters relating to the safeguards provided for the Scheduled Castes under the Constitution or under any other law for the time being in force or under any order of the Government and to evaluate the working of such safeguards as well as to inquire into specific complaints with respect to deprivation of such rights/safeguards of the Scheduled Castes.​

The commision vice-chairperson held a meeting with senior officers of the government including the director general of police, administrative secretaries of OBC and SC, Home, Education (S), and MAHUD departments, directors of OBC and SC, MAHUD, Education (S), and Social Welfare departments, deputy commissioners of Imphal West, Thoubal, Kakching and Bishnupur districts, convener of State Level Banker’s Committee, regional manager of SBI, and heads of other banks in the state.

A brief overview of the various schemes for Scheduled Caste communities implemented under the department of OBC and SC was presented before the chairperson.

In the meeting, Arun Halder informed that the NCSC has statutory powers of a Civil Court trying a suit including summoning and enforcing the attendance of any person from any part of India and examining him on oath, requiring the discovery and production of any document, receiving evidence on affidavits, requisitioning of any public record or copy thereof from any court of office, and issuing commissions for the examination of witnesses the documents.

He emphasized the need to spread the awareness of the statutory provisions of the Commissions, the Prevention of Atrocities (PoA) Act to ensure that the interests of the Scheduled Castes communities are safeguarded. He also emphasized the importance of social, political and economic upliftment of the Scheduled Caste Communities.

He advised the senior officials of the stakeholder departments of the state to conduct grassroot level awareness and sensitization programmes including meeting with various leaders of the Scheduled Castes communities, and district level officers such as the deputy commissioners and the superintendents of Police of all the 16 districts of the state. He also advised the bank officials to facilitate the micro-financing of Scheduled Castes communities to bring about a holistic change in their socio-economic status from the grassroot level.

Secretary (OBC and SC), Manipur appraised the vice-chairperson that the state government is in the process of constituting a Loi sub-committee to address the claims and counterclaims for recognition as Scheduled Castes.