Srinagar: After more than two years and multiple rounds of talks, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Union government seems to have bought itself more time to address the ongoing crisis in Ladakh over its demotion in 2019 into a union territory without a legislature. A high-powered committee (HPC) of the Union home ministry met in the national capital on Tuesday without any significant breakthrough on the four-point charter of the demands made by Ladakh’s civil society, consisting of representatives of Kargil Democratic Alliance (KDA) and Leh Apex Body (LAB).Kunzes Dolma, who is a member of the HPC, said that a consensus was reached in the meeting on Tuesday (May 27), chaired by the Union minister of state for home, Nityanand Rai, to set 15 years’ continuous residency, beginning 2019, as the qualifying criterion for becoming a domicile of Ladakh.The consensus essentially means that any Indian citizen who settled in Ladakh after 2019 will become a domicile only after 2034 to become eligible for government jobs. “The ministry assured us that it will consider a 30-year residency for domicile and recruitment in government jobs. We were also assured that a notification will be put out on the issues resolved in the past meetings, such as the reservation of women in the hill councils,” Dolma told The Wire. She said that the HPC will meet again within a month to discuss safeguards for Ladakh, which includes concerns on land and the inclusion of the arid desert region in the Sixth Schedule. Asked whether there was any discussion on the four-point agenda of Ladakh’s representatives, Dolma replied: “Things don’t happen overnight. We have been fighting for more than half a decade now and we are hopeful that the Centre will address our genuine concerns,” she said. There was, however, no official statement on the outcome of the meeting from the Union home ministry at the time of filing this report.LBA president Cherring Dorjay Lakruk termed the agreement as a “great achievement” for the ongoing agitation in Ladakh. “Within a week, the new domicile policy will be notified,” he said.Sajjad Hussain, a political activist and member of KDA, said the representative of Ladakh pushed for a 30-year residency for domicile in the meeting, and the ministry agreed to review its legal aspect.“The next meeting will examine the Public Service Commission for Ladakh next month,” said Hussain, who also attended the meeting.The KDA and LAB are spearheading an agitation for the restoration of the statehood for Ladakh, which was separated from the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir in the aftermath of the reading down of Article 370, following which it was downgraded into a Union territory without a legislature.The HPC was set up in 2023 to examine the four-point demands of the LAB and the KDA, which also include granting tribal status to Ladakh under the Sixth Schedule, job reservation policy and a parliamentary seat each for the Leh and Kargil districts of the arid desert region bordering China.In a visible sign of resentment, the interlocutors of the LBA-KDA combine had sought the presence of the Union home minister Amit Shah in Tuesday’s meeting, which took place more than four months after its previous meeting.The combine, which includes representatives of civil society, political leaders, trade bodies and religious organisations, had also urged the home ministry to spread the HPC meeting over two days in order to arrive at some consensus on the meeting points. However, both requests were turned down as Shah was not present at the meeting. Besides the representatives of the LBA and KDA, Ladakh’s lieutenant governor, chairpersons of the Leh and Kargil Hill Councils, Lok Sabha member from Ladakh, and the union territory’s chief secretary are other members of the HPC. Following its demotion on August 5, 2019, Ladakh’s civil society has come together to seek special status from the Union government, which has, however, informed the parliament that a spate of socio-economic programs is underway in the UT and sufficient financial assistance is being provided to ensure its development. In January this year, the HPC meeting discussed a proposal to regularise vast areas of government land in Ladakh in the names of local residents who have been using the land for grazing and other purposes. However, no official announcement was made. While seeking to address widespread concerns of land grab in Ladakh by outsiders, the HPC had agreed to reserve 95% government jobs in Ladakh for locals and a one-third reservation in hill councils for women in its meeting in December last year.“A notification on women’s reservation will be issued by the Union home ministry soon,” Dolma said.The Union government has not, however, conceded any of the four key demands of Ladakh’s civil society. Thousands of protesters rallied in the region in February last year following a shutdown call against the constitutional changes brought about by the reading down of Article 370. Around a month later, environmental activist and Ramon Magsaysay award winner Sonam Wangchuk went on a hunger strike, braving extreme sub-zero conditions, seeking special status for Ladakh. In 2020, the administration in Ladakh did away with the requirement of knowledge of Urdu for the job vacancies in Ladakh’s revenue department, which had deepened the fears among many Ladakhis about the erosion of their cultural history.