Gangtok, Feb 8 (PTI):

People eligible for the recently notified Residential Certificates in Sikkim will have to wait a month or little longer to obtain it. These certificates, as per a state government notification issued a couple of months back, is to be issued to all those who have been residing in Sikkim since or before 26 April 1975 or are permanent employees of the state government, but do not have a Certificate of Identification [issued to Sikkim Subject Certificate holders and their descendants].

The matter is a hotly debated one between the ruling party and the opposition, with the latter seeing it as something which will dilute the status of the Sikkim subjects. Explaining the reason why the RCs had not yet been issued, a senior official at the District Administrative Centre [East] said that this was because the state government first wants the district authorities to complete the verification of Certificates of Identification. “As things stand, this task is to be completed by 20 February, but it is a major undertaking and could take longer”, the official said. After completing this verification of Sikkim Subject Certificates and CoIs, we will proceed with issuing RCs, the official said. Within a month or little longer we will be able to issue the first lot of RCs to the eligible applicants, he said. He said the authorities were currently working on the guidelines, shape, size, format, colour and other technical details of the RCs.

 

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