Konyak Students' Union endorses call for Reservation Policy review

• DIMAPUR — The Konyak Students' Union (KSU) has expressed agreement with the Five Tribes Committee on Review of Reservation Policy (CoRRP)'s call for a comprehensive overhaul of Nagaland State Reservation Policy.
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• In a press release issued on Friday, the union underscored the need for a population-based reservation system to ensure representation of disadvantaged sections. It called for ensuring demographic landscape as the primary criterion for proper rationalisation of the reservation policy.
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• According to the KSU, even as the reservation policy in India is a constitutional measure to uplift marginalised communities in education and public sector employment, its implementation in Nagaland over the past 48 years has failed to benefit the Konyak tribe adequately.
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• It stated that faulty implementation of the policy and unfair distribution of quota have combined to perpetuate the Konyak tribe’s “status quo as one of Nagaland’s most socio-economically backward communities.”

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• “With a population exceeding 2.50 lakh, which is approximately 12% of Nagaland’s tribal demographic, the employment figure of Konyak tribe in government jobs remains glaringly dismal, as also highlighted in the report by Department of Economics and Statistics in 2019.
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• “We have not just villages but entire ranges and even Assembly Constituencies without a single NPSC-recruited Class I gazetted officer to this day. The 2011 census records Mon district as having Nagaland’s lowest literacy rate at 56.60%,” it stated.
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• According to the union, the combined effects of educational deprivation and exclusion from public sector employment have deepened the socio-economic disparity faced by the Konyak people.
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• Despite repeated appeals and representations to the state government for a policy review, the union expressed disappointment over the continued lack of ‘positive response.’
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• In this context, the KSU endorsed the proposal from the Five Tribes Committee.