Manipur Assembly session starts, no Kuki MLA present

On Wednesday, when Chief Minister N. Biren Singh tabled the Budget for fiscal year 2024-2025, the notable absence was that of the 10 MLAs from the Kuki-Zomi community. This comes amid the conflict in the state between the Kuki-Zomi community and the Meitei community.

Ahead of the Assembly session, the CM had said that “invitations” had been sent by the Assembly to the 10 MLAs and that “They should come and join.”

The Indian Express had reached out to several of the 10 legislators for comment but they did not respond. In the past, they have stated that they are unable to travel to capital Imphal to attend the Assembly for security reasons.

On the opening day of the session, the CM told the House that the state’s economy, which has been one of the “casualties” of the ongoing unrest, is seeing some signs of improvement.

The Chief Minister, who is also in charge of finance, was delivering his speech on the floor of the House on Wednesday while tabling the budget.

“Reduced revenue collections, increased expenditure on security and relief operations, inflation, difficulties in the movement of goods and services, and difficulties in the implementation of projects and schemes among others were a few of the challenges that we faced. With normalcy returning to the State, our tax collection is showing a positive trend,” he said.

To make up for the revenue losses suffered by the state, the Centre approved special assistance for revenue loss of Rs 500 crore, he said.

Elaborating on the relief measure extended by the Centre, Singh said that as a special measure, the Central government approved a relief package of Rs. 101.75 crore as a one-time special assistance for the operation of relief camps for people displaced due to violence.

Another package he informed the House about was Rs. 209.45 crore for running schemes for relief and rehabilitation of victims/persons affected by ongoing law and order.

Elaborating on the rehabilitation measures, Singh said that a scheme for interim relief to people whose houses had been burnt down has been started by the state to give relief to displaced persons. In addition, the Chief Minister said the state had created a Rs. 10 crore State Corpus Fund for extending ex-gratia to the deaths and injured persons.