Nagaland Government Backs ENPO’s Demand for Separate Entity in a New Proposal to Centre

The government of Nagaland has reportedly said it is ready to support and forward the ENPO proposal to the Centre.
Nagaland Government Backs ENPO’s Demand for Separate Entity in a New Proposal to Centre
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KOHIMA: There had been a long stand-off between the Eastern Nagaland Peoples Organization and the State Government of Nagaland before any headway could be made on ENPO's demand for an administrative body. The government of Nagaland has reportedly said it is ready to support and forward the ENPO proposal to the Centre.

ENPO and the Eastern Nagaland Legislative Union (ENLU) together submitted the proposal, announced Nagaland Minister KG Kenye. According to him, the proposal was delayed earlier so that ENPO and ENLU had time to discuss and agree on specifics, a process that took the last five weeks.

According to Kenye, it is meant to function within Article 371 (A) of the Indian Constitution, which provides special provisions for Nagaland. This arrangement will not include separation from the state of Nagaland and rule out autonomy as defined in the Sixth Schedule. The Sixth Schedule, on the whole grants autonomous statehood to some of the northeastern tribal areas in Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, and Mizoram but the above feature has not been mooted for incorporation into the new framework. The above framework instead will retain an "original regional council" identical to Article 371 (A).

Nagaland Minister and Spokesperson CL John indicated some of the administrative changes in specific areas under the new framework. For instance, he suggested decentralization of responsibilities in departments, for example, in the case of Environment and Forests where matters at the district level will be dealt with by the State Government, while community-conserved and reserved areas in the rural zone will be dealt with by a local administrative group called the Frontier Nagaland Territorial Council (FNT).

Similarly, National Highway maintenance will be looked after by the PWD, and rural infrastructure locally by the FNT. This bifurcation will ensure that no single independent departments are bifurcated but instead are going to bifurcate and delegate certain roles given regional needs.

"There will be no bifurcation of any department, said the ministers while commenting that this will provide high-grade administration for the stateless eastern area, still, centralized functions would function from the state capital Kohima, so this ENPO region is in no way detached from the remaining Nagaland.

All aspects of the proposal would conform with the guidelines of the Centre, and financial autonomy, although discussed, has not been included in the current draft from the Home Ministry. However, an enhanced administrative structure is under process, and a mini-secretariat is to be established for the ENPO region, as reported by AIR News.

This is a step taken towards the fulfillment of long-standing demands of ENPO in perfect harmony with both central and state guidelines.

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