The Assam government has initiated steps for the constitution of a separate development council for Adivasis demanding Scheduled Tribe status.

The state government has decided to set up a cabinet committee to explore ways for setting up of a separate development council of Adivasis and five other ethnic communities in the state to facilitate their economic development.

The Adivasis living in Assam had migrated to the state from Jharkhand, Orissa, West Bengal and Bihar about 150 years ago to work as workers in tea estates set up in Assam during the imperial British regime.

The Assam government has also decided to publish a white paper on what it has so far done to persuade the Centre to accord ST status to the community.

A highly-placed official source informed that the government would also send an all-party political delegation and an apolitical delegation urge the central government to grant ST status to Adivasis.

The government is game for extending help in case of Adivasis and five other ethnic groups who are demanding ST status, wanted to form an expert committee on their own to present their case afresh before the central government explaining in detail why they merited to be enlisted as ST communities.

Meanwhile, the father of the 16-year-old Adivasi girl who was stripped by hooligans on streets of Guwahati during last Saturday's mob violence, has rejected the monetary compensation and offer of a job for his daughter stating that the government should rather grant ST status to the whole community in lieu of ignominy that had befallen her daughter.