Imphal: The All Tribal Students’ Union, Manipur (ATSUM) has urged the Superintendent of Post Offices, Manipur Division, today for modification of the recruitment guidelines with respect to “compulsory knowledge of local language.”
In a representation, the ATSUM said the notification for online recruitment of Gramin Daksevaks, 2022 of the Manipur Postal division under North East Circle in the local newspapers came as a “shocker to the tribal populace of the state wherein candidates were mandated to have studied Manipuri at least upto the 10th standard as declared by the state board”. The ATSUM said that this recruitment guideline of mandating Manipuri language is tantamount to imposition of “dominant general category Meitei/Manipuri language on the innocent tribal people and thereby, systematically discriminating substantial numbers of potential candidates belonging to Scheduled Tribe communities”.
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The ATSUM representation mentioned that, Manipur being a diverse state, has 34 Scheduled Tribes recognised under the Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) orders, 1950 (PART III – Rules and orders under the constitution) Part X. – Manipur. The scheduled tribes constitute 34.2% of the total population of the Manipur state according to the 2001 census, it also mentioned. The scheduled tribe communities speak their own different languages, and that most of the languages of the recognised Scheduled Tribes are incorporated as a Major Indian Language (MIL) as a part of standard curriculum in the schools and educational institutions. “For which, tribal people normally opted to study their own language (MIL) or Additional English in lieu of Meitei/Manipuri language in Class 10th and Class 12th standards. As such, mandating the scheduled tribe candidates to produce 10th certificate of studying Meitei/Manipuri language for recruitment to the post of Gramin Daksevaks (GDS) in the Manipur Post Division is unfair,” it pointed out.
The ATSUM then mentioned that the same matter of mandating “compulsory knowledge of local language” was imposed in the recruitment of Junior Associates (Customer Support & Sales) of State Bank of India vide Advertisement No.CRPD/CR/2021-22/09 dated 27th April 2021. “But with the timely intervention of Hon’ble MP (Outer Manipur), Dr. Bhagwat Karad, Hon’ble Union Minister of State for Finance, Government of India vide D.O. No. 12/3A/5/2021 – IR dated 5th November 2021 conveyed that SBI had agreed to modify the recruitment guidelines with respect to Compulsory knowledge of Local Language wherein option for either Manipuri or English will be adopted from the recruitment year 2022-23 onwards”, the tribal student body added.
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Therefore, the ATSUM “beseeches your office for kind perusal into the matter to ensure that either each of recognised scheduled Tribes Languages (MIL) of Manipur are included as list of local languages of Manipur or the option of English be incorporated in lieu of local language in the recruitment guidelines of the on-going Recruitment of GRAMIN DAKSEVAKS and other future recruitments of Indian Postal Services of Manipur Post Division, North East Circle so as to facilitate a judicious and fair recruitment process”.
“This representation is submitted to enable that, the scheduled tribe communities of Manipur state also avail the provision of equal employment opportunity as mandated by article 16 of Indian Constitution”, the ATSUM representation added.
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