Working group meeting on Nagaland job reservation fails to arrive at any solution

The first meeting of the working group on job reservation in Nagaland government services on Saturday could not arrive at any concrete solution, officials said.

The meeting chaired by chief secretary J Alam decided that the next meeting of the working group would be held on April 21 at Kohima.

During the meeting, members from the Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) once again presented their stand with Eastern Nagas demanding 45 per cent reservation in government services while other Naga tribes sticking on to a re-look into the entire system of reservation policy.

"We have come to a certain level of understanding on each other's demands, but there could not be any concrete solution in todays meeting and decided to hold the next sitting on April 20," said Eastern Nagaland Peoples Organisation (ENPO) president T Kekongchim Yimchunger and Naga Students' Federation (NSF) Ninoto Awomi.

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They also said that it was decided in Saturday's meeting that the Cabinet Sub-Committee on job reservation appointed by the state government would come up with a draft proposal of the government and discuss it point by point in order to arrive at a solution.

The working group to review the job reservation policy was constituted on March 5 following a consultative meeting on the reservation policy convened by the state government through the Cabinet Sub-Committee on reservation policy headed by Deputy Chief Minister Yanthungo Patton with different stakeholders.

The working group comprises of 15-member working group comprising seven members of the cabinet sub-committee and one each member from the eight civil society organizations.

The civil society organisations are - Eastern Nagaland Peoples' Organisation (ENPO), Central Nagaland Tribes Council, Tenyimi Public Organisation, Core Committee on Rationalization of Reservation Policy (CCoRoRP), Eastern Naga Students' Federation (ENSF), Eastern Nagaland Gazetted Officers Association, Naga Students' Federation and Central Nagaland Students' Association.