NEW DELHI: Ladakh Chief Secretary Ashish Kundra on Friday clarified onKundra said onHe referred to a Times of India report released on Thursday, which suggested that the Center made it clear during the February 4 talks that Ladakh should not be given Sixth Schedule status or statehood and instead could be offered a “territorial commission model” to Ladakh.KDA leader Sajjad Kargili also posted on X that “at the HPC meeting on February 4, expressions such as ‘refuse’ were not used.” “The government has raised certain objections and reservations against our draft… We have raised and defended our demands with utmost sincerity and clarity. The next step is for the Center to submit its proposals to us. At the same time, we have made our stand clear that the proposals of Article 371 and the Territory Commission are not acceptable to us,” he said.In a television interview, Kundra said that while the ABL and KDA mentioned their demand for Sixth Schedule status in the HPC meeting, the home ministry representative explained that the Sixth Schedule was inserted into the constitution only in the context of the Northeast to protect the rights of minority tribes in states/Union Territories. “Nowhere else in the country has an entire territory governed by the Sixth Schedule,” he said.Regarding the statehood requirement, Kundra said that the internal budget of Ladakh is only Rs 1,000 crore. “Can Ladakh be run with such a small budget? We have to consider the GPF and pension liability of Ladakh government civil servants, which are currently solely borne by the Centre,” he pointed out.
