All Asom Bengali Parishad formed to protect community's interests

New Delhi, Mar 3 (UNI) The Bengali community in Asom have launched a new outfit called All Asom Bengali Parishad (AABP) (Sara Asom Bengali Parishad) to protect their language and culture in the state as well as in the region.

The new socio-cultural organisation was formed at Naogao district under the chairmanship of veteran community leader Kumud Ranjan Ghosh at a massive meeting held on February 28.

At the meeting, the members elected a 25-member committee to run this new organisation, which aims to protect, preserve and promote the interest of the community in the state and the north-eastern region.

Talking to UNI over phone from Naogao the General Secretary of AABP Chitto Pal said it became necessary to float this organisation as the Asom Linguistic Minority Development Board (ALMDB) was neglecting its work and had not got itself registered under the Societies act to get the financial support from the State Government through budgetary allocations.

''In the absence of registration, the board did not receive any budgetary support from the State Government for 2007-08. Even last year, an adhoc amount of Rs 1.16 crore was provided as against its due share of Rs 7.5 crore on account of the same reason, he said, adding that in the wake of continuous decline in the availability of funds, the board is not in a position to perform its duty as per its constitution.

The problems are similar for the minority Bihari, Manipuri, Kuki and Nepali communities in the State, Mr Pal said.

In view of this, the newly formed AABP will initiate discussion with all other minority organisations to set up a joint forum to highlight their problems and bring their grievances to the notice of the government.

Mr Pal said now the work nearly over one crore population of these communities in the state with Bengalis accounting for nearly 65 per cent of them, will have a forum to highlights their issues.

Though state Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi was personally keen that the board should function properly, it was not possible for him to pay much attention towards the functioning of such small issues as the state already is tackling with major issues including the long running insurgency, he added.

However, it seems that Mr Gogoi will have to personally intervene to ensure that the ALMDB is duly registered so that the linguistic minorities in the State gets their due share in the development and growth, he added.

UNI