GUWAHATI:
The Assam Cabinet headed by Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has reached out to a community denied Permanent Residence Certificates (PRCs) in Arunachal Pradesh.
The decision for the Morans, who have sizeable populations on either side of the Arunachal Pradesh-Assam border, is believed to be crucial with the polls to the 126-member Assam Assembly a year away. The Morans are one of six communities demanding Scheduled Tribe or ST status in Assam.
“People from the Moran community reside in various parts of Arunachal Pradesh. But, because Arunachal does not give them PRC, they are excluded from different facilities there. I am in touch with the Arunachal Pradesh Government over the issue but till this issue is not resolved there, we have decided to give Moran people living in Arunachal Pradesh PRC of Assam,” Mr. Sarma told journalists after the Cabinet meeting in eastern Assam’s Dibrugarh on Thursday (March 20, 2025).
The Dibrugarh district adjoins Tinsukia, which has the largest concentration of Morans in Assam. Tinsukia adjoins Arunachal Pradesh’s Namsai and Changlang, where most Morans live along with five other communities considered “Non-APST” (non-Arunachal Pradesh Scheduled Tribe) – Adivasi, Deori, Gorkha, Mishing, and Sonowal Kachari.)
The non-APST tag makes them ineligible for certain documents and benefits, although they trace their ancestry to an era before Arunachal Pradesh used to be Assam’s North East Frontier Agency till January 1972.
The Chief Minister said the PRC facility would help Morans avail of jobs, get seats in medical and engineering colleges in Assam and access reservations we have for the community.
The Morans and the other five non-APST communities of Arunachal Pradesh have been demanding PRC for a long time. A move by the State’s BJP government headed by Pema Khandu in 2019 triggered widespread protests with 18 student and civil society organisations imposing shutdowns. These organisations included the influential All Arunachal Pradesh Students’ Union.
These organisations batting for the STs of Arunachal Pradesh said granting PRC to the non-APSTs would go a long way in robbing the rights of the State’s indigenous communities.
On February 22, the Morans in Namsai district’s Lekang area blocked an arterial national highway demanding PRC for community members living in Arunachal Pradesh. “Without PRC, many members of our community are deprived of government benefits, whether it is employment opportunities or welfare schemes from the State and Central Governments,” Hurojit Moran, a Namsai-based student union leader said while welcoming the Assam Government’s decision.
A delimitation red flag — the lessons from J&K, Assam
The Assam Cabinet also made significant decisions for two other communities seeking the ST tag – the Adivasis or “tea tribes” and Koch-Rajbongshis. It approved ₹262 crore for the improvement of 207 tea garden roads across 12 districts while deciding to amend the Kamatapur Autonomous Council Act of 2020 to increase the number of constituencies from 30 to 36 and include villages with 50% or more population of Koch-Rajbongshi, SC, ST, OBC, and MOBC people in the council area. Kamatapur is the term Koch-Rajbongshis use for their homeland.
The Cabinet further decided to rename the Civil Hospital in western Assam’s Goalpara as Swahid Nidhanu Ram Rajbongshi Civil Hospital. Swahid Rajbongshi was a martyr of India’s freedom movement.
