Verified at Guwahati on this 1st the day of Sept. 1999.

Appendix O

Draft of Proposal for an Indian Migrant Law

Article 1

Aims and Objects

A. to prevent illegal migration into India and the settlement of foreign nationals on Indian soil and the illicit conferring of citizenship and other rights on such nationals—which should be available only to Indian nationals;

B. to meet the concerns of Indians in different parts of the country, but especially the North East of the country comprising of the states of Assam, Nagaland, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Sikkim and Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh, about such illegal settlement and to prevent the demographic changes that are altering the ethnic character of the NER (North Eastern Region) and to protect the rights of Indian nationals to their land, titles, vote, free movement and the acquisition of permanent assets.

C. to control future migration into the country by developing a set of rules that will enable legal, work-related movement of unskilled labourers for specific periods of time and limited to specific periods without conferring on such migrants any of the rights that are the privileges of Indian nationals—i.e. that of citizenship, of adult franchise, of permanent settlement or acquiring immoveable property.

Article 2

Definition of Migrant for the purposes of this Act:

A. an individual who moves (migrates) from any country to India for the purpose of employment at a non-skilled level (define non-skilled as professions such as carpentry, mason, house building, road construction, farming, harvesting, fishing, boat building and river transporters etc.)

B. The individual is an adult, i.e. more than 18 years of age C. He/she is not a refugee as defined by the National Refugee Law (a draft of this exists and is with the Government of India).

D. The individual is to live in India for a period not exceeding two years for purposes of A. and as defined in Article 3.

E. The individual will not be entitled to any permanent settlement rights such as Citizenship, adult franchise or acquiring of immovable property.

F. The individual may be a national of any of the following countries bordering on the North East: Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal.

(G. The individual must be a resident of a district in his country which borders the NER.)

Article 3

Control of Economic Migrants

A. The economic migrant will be entitled to move to a work place for pursuing occupations as those defined in Article 2 B under the following procedure: