Says Konyak community unfairly deprived for decades
MON, FEBRUARY 10 (MExN): The Konyak Students’ Union (KSU) has drawn the attention of the Nagaland Government over the reservation issue concerning the Konyak tribe.
In a press release, the KSU said the current distribution system of backward quota among the Eastern Nagaland tribes on the principle of equality rather than population “defies all common sense and rationality of any socio-economic welfare policy.”
It stated that the Konyak Union have also submitted a representation to the Chief Minister on May 7, 2019 and reminder on September 30, 2020 highlighting the plight of the Konyak community exacerbated due to unfair and unjust quota allocation among the backward tribes.
As per data from department of economics and statistics, the number of Konyak employees as on 2018-19 stands approximately around 7981 which is not even 4% of the Konyak population and with the same employment policy the number would not achieve any substantial increase even in 2024, it maintained. Even a casual glance and comparison of population employment ratio of all the tribes will provide sufficient evidence to validate our claim, it added.
The KSU pointed out that the current action affirmative policy rather than serving an intended objective have only widened the inequality gap in employment sector as compared to counterpart communities. Due to such discriminatory policy, the Konyak educated and deserving youths have been deprived in exams conducted by NPSC and various departments ever since the reservation came into effect, it claimed.
The concept of equality is practicable only in equal circumstances, time and space. Coercive implementation of equality by ignoring the reality of demographic differences only creates reverse discrimination, it further underscored.
As the Nagaland Government seeks to streamline the service sector, more genuine employment opportunity is anticipated soon under NPSC, NSSB and Departmental recruitment, it said.
Therefore, the KSU has urged the government to hasten the comprehensive review of the existing reservation system and revamp the policy in line with the latest population data available “in order to ensure distributive justice in employment and service sector with particular concern for the Konyak community which has been unfairly deprived for decades.”
