Meghalaya Govt comm on inclusion of Khasi language gets six

A committee constituted by the Meghalaya government to pursue with the inclusion of Khasi language in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution, today sought six months more to complete its final recommendation, officials said.
The extension was required in view of the unavailability of actual number of people speaking the language in the 2011 Census, they said.
"We will formally write to the state government seeking another six months time before we can submit the report and recommendation," the committee's secretary and director of arts and culture department M War Nongbri told reporters after a meeting held at the secretariat here.

She said the committee today discussed on a preliminary report of the sub-committee empowered and tasked with finding out ways and means on getting the language included and that the sub-committee was also granted six months extension for submitting its report.
According to the committee's secretary, one of the stumbling blocks was unavailability of the actual number of Khasi speaking people in the state from the Census department as per the 2011 Census.
Another issue was the delay in completing National Register of Citizens (NRC) in the state, committee member E P Kharbhih said.
Asked on the number of people required to be recognized, another member Dr Sylvanus Lamare said for inclusion in the Schedule, any language must be spoken by at least five lakh people.

The committee was formed by a Government resolution in the Assembly last November and was tasked with pursuing with getting Khasi language included in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution and complete the task within six months.