Nagpur: Cabinet sub-panel on Dhangars to meet today
Ramu Bhagwat | TNN | Updated: Mar 2, 2019, 06:47 ISTNAGPUR: Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis has formed a cabinet sub-committee to start deliberations on the various demands issues related to Dhangar community. The sub-committee will be holding its first meeting on Saturday in Mumbai to take up the report submitted by Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) three months ago.
The sub-committee headed by Fadnavis comprises revenue minister Chandrakant Patil, Shiv Sena leader and industries minister Subhash Desai, rural development minister Pankaja Munde and other ministers including Ram Shinde, Mahadev Jankar, Eknath Shinde, Vishnu Sawra, Rajkumar Badole and Sambhaji Patil-Nilangekar.
The Dhangars, a nomadic community mainly into sheep breeding, has been demanding scheduled tribe status. One of its prominent leaders, renowned eye surgeon Dr Vikas Mahatme, was nominated to Rajya Sabha by the BJP to show that it has been doing enough for the community.
Dr Mahatma has raised the issue and claimed that the community was wrongly excluded from the ST list merely because of a typographical error that mentions them as ‘Dhangad’, a non-existing entity in these parts.
Despite all the agitations, muscle flexing and factions within the community blaming each other for not pursuing the demand with requisite force, the state managed to bid for time as the TISS report itself took lot of time to get ready. Now that the report with research on community’s social and economic backwardness to support its claims for ST status already submitted, not only the Opposition but even ruling partner Shiv Sena mounted pressure on the state to expedite the matter.
Welcoming the sub-committee formation, Dr Mahatme said it would take the matter forward in the right direction. The state has accepted some demands already but the political ones remain unresolved.
“With the BJP term at Centre coming to end, at least the state government can sort out the report and prepare a recommendation letter to be sent to the next government at the Centre to accord ST status to Dhangars,” Dr Mahatme told ToI on Friday.
The sub-committee headed by Fadnavis comprises revenue minister Chandrakant Patil, Shiv Sena leader and industries minister Subhash Desai, rural development minister Pankaja Munde and other ministers including Ram Shinde, Mahadev Jankar, Eknath Shinde, Vishnu Sawra, Rajkumar Badole and Sambhaji Patil-Nilangekar.
The Dhangars, a nomadic community mainly into sheep breeding, has been demanding scheduled tribe status. One of its prominent leaders, renowned eye surgeon Dr Vikas Mahatme, was nominated to Rajya Sabha by the BJP to show that it has been doing enough for the community.
Dr Mahatma has raised the issue and claimed that the community was wrongly excluded from the ST list merely because of a typographical error that mentions them as ‘Dhangad’, a non-existing entity in these parts.
Despite all the agitations, muscle flexing and factions within the community blaming each other for not pursuing the demand with requisite force, the state managed to bid for time as the TISS report itself took lot of time to get ready. Now that the report with research on community’s social and economic backwardness to support its claims for ST status already submitted, not only the Opposition but even ruling partner Shiv Sena mounted pressure on the state to expedite the matter.
Welcoming the sub-committee formation, Dr Mahatme said it would take the matter forward in the right direction. The state has accepted some demands already but the political ones remain unresolved.
“With the BJP term at Centre coming to end, at least the state government can sort out the report and prepare a recommendation letter to be sent to the next government at the Centre to accord ST status to Dhangars,” Dr Mahatme told ToI on Friday.
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