The Assam government has constituted a four-member panel to include Bodo-majority villages in the Bodoland Territorial Region (BTR) and exclude non-Bodo settlements from it.
This has done as per the Bodo Accord signed on January 27, senior minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Friday.
Minister Sarma said the panel, headed by former chief secretary P P Verma, will decide after reviewing applications from villages bordering the four BTR districts for the inclusion of settlements with a majority Bodo population in the region and exclusion of those with a majority non-Bodo population from it.
“It will also advise the government on increasing the existing 40 seats in the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) to 60 in the BTR, besides reorganising the constituencies,” he said.
Apart from Verma, BTAD administrator Rajesh Prasad, Jayanta Basumatary of the All Bodo Students’ Union (ABSU) and Dalim Gayan, representing the non-Bodos, are members of the committee, he said.
Governor Jagadish Mukhi had earlier approved for constituting the committee and renaming BTC as BTR, comprising Kokrajhar, Baksa, Chirang and Udalguri districts, Sarma said.