The delegates alleged that the State Government had verbally instructed the Deputy Commissioner of the Hill Districts to fix 17 pc for population increase in the hill Districts of Manipur.
The delegates informed The Sangai Express that the Census Commissioner assured them that there is no such instruction from Delhi.
“Since the Registrar and Census Commissioner said that there is no such instruction, it is clear that fixing of 17 pc increase in population is a game plan of the State Government”, said COPTAM Chairman.
Delegates demanded that there should be no overlapping in the census operation of 2011, that the State Government should not impose a fixed population to the hill people.
It may also be recalled that COPTAM since its inception in July – August 2010, and the following months had conducted several agitations over the issue of census overlapping and enumeration of district boundary like Bishnupur and Churachandpur.
As Chief Minister O Ibobi Singh had earlier said that there would be no overlapping of census and district boundaries, and the census survey is nearing completion, the delegates said that it remains to be seen as to when the survey report are being finalised by the District Commissioners.-TSE
