Bhubaneswar, dec 30 : In a bid to resolve the controversial fake caste certificate issue, believed to have contributed in triggering Kandhamal flare-up, the Orissa government has proposed deletion of the term 'kui' from the list of tribals.
Official sources said today that the government convened a meeting of the state level Tribal Advisory Committee on January 19 to formally decide on deleting the term from the tribal list, they said.
A large section of population including the Scheduled Caste people converted to Christianity in Kandhamal, had been obtaining Scheduled Tribe certificate by claiming that they were Kui tribals, reports said.
According to a senior official in the SC and ST development department, though Kui was a language, it had been considered as a specific tribal group and therefore got a place in the list of tribals.
The demand for tribal certificate was more because of the existing law which does not allow a SC person to avail benefits after getting converted to other religion. But the same law allows a tribal to retain his tribal staus and get benefits even as he converts to any other religion.
"Though a large number of people speak Kui language in Kandhamal, all of them were not tribals", the official said adding that the tribals with surname like Kanhar, Majhi and others speak kui language. But there was no specific group known as Kui tribe as Kui was never a tribe but a language.