Arunachal delegation meets Union Home Minister

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh today assured a delegation from Arunachal Pradesh that the Centre would consider the demand for formation of Patkai Autonomous District Council covering the three sensitive districts of Tirap, Changlang and Longding.
The assurance came during a meeting of a delegation led by Chief Minister Nabam Tuki with Singh at his residence in New Delhi today, an official communique released here said.
The chief minister was accompanied by all the Ministers and MLAs of the three districts, Rajya Sabha MP Mukut Mithi and Lok Sabha member from the state, Ninong Ering.
While highlighting the need for an autonomous council to further development in these sensitive insurgency affected districts, the chief minister gave a historical overview of the demand for Patkai Autonomous District Council.

He emphasised that this has been a long standing demand of the people of the three districts, where insurgency has led to poor socio-economic development.
Tuki highlighted that the region, located in the eastern most corner of Arunachal Pradesh, in the vicinity of Myanmar, Assam and Nagaland, required special focus to overcome development bottlenecks.

The demand for formation of Patkai Autonomous Council was passed by the Assembly in 2004 and 2007 and the Cabinet approved it in the year 2013.
The proposal was then sent to the Union Home Ministry and a committee headed by Joint Secretary (North East), Ministry of Home Affairs was constituted by the then UPA Government. The committee had visited the three districts in February, 2014.

Since then, there has been no communication from the Home Ministry.
The three Ministers from the area - Wangling Lowangdong, Thanwang Wangham and Kamlung Mossang - apprised the Union Home Minister about their respective districts in detail.
Lowangdong, on behalf of all the MLAs and the people of the state, submitted a Memorandum to Singh reiterating the demand for the creation of the Patkai Autonomous Council.