Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur on Thursday said the Central government is yet to give a nod to declare Trans Giri area of Sirmaur district as Schedule Tribe (ST) area on the lines of Jaunsar Bawar area of Uttarakhand.

Thakur informed the house during Question Hour on a query by Congress members Harshvardhan Chauhan and Vinay Kumar.

Advertisement

The Chief Minister informed that previous Congress and BJP governments in the past had made efforts to get ST status to Trans Giri area of Sirmaur district as it has a similar culture, social and demographic situations as in Jaunsar Bawar area.

“The previous Congress governments raised the issue with the Centre government by writing letters but the government at that time didn’t submit the required documents for getting the ST status.

The requisite formalities were completed by the present BJP government and the government is raising the issue with the Centre once again to fulfil the promise made by the party after completing all formalities,” he added.

State Tribal Development Minister Ram Lal Markanda said that the Union government has not declared the Trans Giri as Schedule tribe area and has pressed on demographic surveys. The people of these areas did not fulfil the four distinctive traits of tribal areas, therefore the Union Tribal Development Ministry is pressing for the Anthropological survey time and again.

Earlier while raising the query, Harshvardhan Chauhan and Vinay Kumar said that before the assembly and Lok Sabha elections, BJP had announced to grant ST status to Trans Giri area of Sirmaur district on the lines of Jaunsar Bawar.

Markanda stated that a Survey of the Trans Giri area was done by the Tribal department of Himachal University on 30 July 2016 and a report has been submitted.

The state government again on 30 August 2016, sent notice to declare the area as tribal. But the Union Tribal Development Ministry was putting certain conditions like number of villages, tehsil and panchayat to be covered and consent of the state government to grant it ST status, he added.