STATE TIME NEWS
Poonch: Advocate Ronik Sharma, President of the All Jammu and Kashmir Pahari Tribe Joint Forum strongly appealed to the Central Government to provide Schedule Tribe Status to the Pahari Tribe as soon as possible. Addressing a press conference, Sharma said presently, the constituted Delimitation Commission for Jammu and Kashmir for the delimiting of the Assembly seats has recently shared its proposal with five other associate member MPs (Member Parliament). Apart from their findings and their seat allocation, it has caused a big debate across the various parts of Jammu and Kashmir, particularly in Rajouri and Poonch districts of the Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir. He said that it is the first time seats have been reserved for the ST (Schedule Tribe) community in the legislative assembly of J & K by the Delimitation Commission. He further said the people belonging to the Pahari Tribe are expressing their disappointment over this reservation because the Successive Government failed to provide Schedule Tribe Status to the Pahari Tribe Community, which means the Pahari Tribe Community faces discrimination and is far from other Schedule Tribe Communities that have been scheduled in this category of ST since long back in the 1990’s.
Sharma said No doubt, as per media reports both in electronic and print media, the proposed proposal of the interim report by the Delimitation Commission has increased six seats in the Jammu province and one seat in the Kashmir province. For the first time in the history of Jammu and Kashmir, a large section of the people belonging to the Pahari Tribe, apart from party politics and religion, are hoping that this time the government at the Centre will not discriminate against them any more.