Ministry of Home Affairs joint secretary (Northeast), Satyendra Garg on Friday said that the point of view of the people of Meghalaya, the State Government and Autonomous District Councils (ADCs) will be kept in mind while moving forward with the proposed amendment to the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution.
Garg visited Meghalaya where he attended a meeting with the State Government, ADCs and representatives of various groups and discussed on the proposed amendment to the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution.
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Meghalaya Deputy Chief Minister, Prestone Tynsong chaired the meeting at the main secretariat.
The meeting was held at the suggestion of the Chief Minister, Conrad K Sangma, who urged the Centre last month to send some MHA officials to Meghalaya to hear views and suggestions of the stakeholders on the proposed amendment to the Sixth Schedule.
Stating that amendment to the Sixth Schedule is very important especially when the entire Meghalaya is under Sixth Schedule, Garg said that whatever suggestions put forth by the State Government, the Ministry wanted to be very sure as to what exactly it is meant on every rules and sub rules.
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“We have discussed and could finalize most of the things. We will take all these discussions back to our Ministry and we will be able to finalize the amendment,” Garg said.
He said that some amendment is required to the Sixth Schedule including Article 280 of the Constitution and different paragraphs of the Sixth Schedule.
“We will keep the point of view of the people of Meghalaya, the State Government and district councils and move forward with the amendment by keeping the ground reality in mind,” the MHA official stated.
Asked about the views of the government and ADCs, Garg said, the three councils and the state government were on board on many issues except in one or two, and views of the State Government were based on views of the Councils too.
“In almost all issues, they have identical views except on strengthening of the Jaintia Hills Autonomous District Council. The council has different views, and the government got different views and we will take a call on this,” he said.
Meanwhile the three ADCs also asked the Meghalaya government to take them into consideration before finalising its proposal that would be submitted to the Centre on the proposed amendment to the Sixth Schedule.