The government introduced on Monday the Readjustment of Representation of Scheduled Tribes in Assembly Constituencies of the State of Goa Bill, 2024, aimed at providing reservation to STs in Legislative Assembly of Goa and to provide for the readjustment of Assembly constituencies. The Bill was introduced by MoS (Independent Charge) Law and Justice Arjun Ram Meghwal in Lok Sabha. At present, the Goa Assembly has 40 seats, of which one is reserved for SCs, while no seat is reserved for STs. “The government has received multiple representations from various sources, with a request to direct the initiation of the process to identify and determine the seats to provide for reservation to the ST community in Legislative Assembly of the State of Goa,” state the Statement of Objects and Reasons. “Since, the exercise of delimitation was initiated in 2002, the population of STs in the State of Goa was recorded at that time in the census figures of 2001 as only 566, whereas the total population of the State of Goa was more than 13 lakh. ,” it said. The government added three new communities, namely, Kunbi, Gawda and Velip in the List of STs in Goa. This increased the ST population in the state. “Thus, a peculiar situation has arisen in the state, wherein the population of STs in the State vis-à-vis the population of SCs is considerably higher. but no seats are reserved for STs and they are unable to avail constitutional benefit of reservation afforded to them by Article 332,” states the Statement of Objects and Reasons. “It is imperative to enact a law to provide for enabling provisions empowering the EC to make amendments in Delimitation of Parliamentary and Assembly Constituencies Order, 2008 and readjust seats in Legislative Assembly of the State of Goa for STs,” it said.