Guwahati, Oct 1 (IANS): The BJP led Assam government on Thursday eliminated criteria to adhere to a two-child norm for the people belonging to scheduled caste, tribals and other traditional forest dweller communities in order to get a government job.

The state cabinet, in its meeting chaired by Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, decided to exempt the people belonging to SC, ST, Adivasi and other traditional forest dwellers from the purview of Assam Public Services (Application of Small Family Norms in Direct Recruitment) Rules, 2019, relieving these communities from the two-child norm, in order to remove the barrier for them to get government services.

The Chief Minister after the cabinet meeting in Dhemaji in eastern Assam briefed the media but did not explain why the state government modified the norms even as Sarma after becoming the Chief Minister in May strongly advocating to follow the population control policy, which, however, also criticised by various political parties and NGOs including the main opposition party Congress.

Sarma earlier said that the Assam government would in a phase manner implement a two-child policy norm for availing benefits of certain specific state schemes including the housing scheme.

Amid his insistence on a population policy with a two-child norm and adoption of adecent' family planning norms by Muslims to eradicate poverty in the northeastern state, the Chief Minister had recently held an interactive meeting with intellectuals and leading citizens from the Muslim community.

The eight sub-groups were formed with representatives of the indigenous Muslim community to deliberate on issues such as health, education, skill development, preservation of cultural identity, financial inclusion and empowerment of women.

Muslims comprise 34.22 per cent of the 3.12 crore population of Assam, of which 4 per cent are indigenous Assamese Muslims and the remaining are mostly Bengali-speaking Muslims.