Girls perform during the closing ceremony of the festival at Kajalgaon in Chirang district on Wednesday. Telegraph picture

Kajalgaon (Chirang), Feb. 8: The five-day 4th Bodo National Festival in Alaikhungri garden at Kajalgaon in Chirang district concluded today.

Some important decisions related to the issues of Bodo-Kachari people living in different parts of the world were taken.

The Bodo National Festival Committee decided to compile a common dictionary for Bodo linguistic groups and initiate establishing a language and cultural training centre in the autonomous council areas of Assam.

It also decided to request the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) administration to sponsor at least five students each from Mizoram, Nepal and Bangladesh, if they wished to pursue higher studies from institutions like Bodoland University, B.B. Engineering College, Central Institute of Technology and others.

“A high-level delegation, comprising all the chief executive members of All Tribal Councils and leaders from Bodo groups, will be sent to study the problems of Bru people from Mizoram, who are now forced to live as refugees in Tripura. The team will also visit the Dimasa-Kachari living in Nagaland,” said committee president and Rajya Sabha MP Biswajit Daimary.

The five-day festival saw the largest participation from greater Bodo ethnic groups living in different parts of the world, including Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and also from states like Tripura, West Bengal, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Assam.

Different programmes like a get-together, a discussion, cultural show, food festival of all Bodo ethnic groups were held during these five days as thousands of people thronged the venue.

BTC deputy chief Kampa Borgoyary said: “The time has come for Bodos of different groups, who are today scattered and disintegrated across the world, to unite and withstand the present challenges of socio-economic and technological manipulations of the new global world, camouflaged in the form of organisations which are otherwise capitalist and corporate in nature.”

“The Bodos of the world are fortunate to stand together and assemble in the Bodo National Festival, organised at Kajalgaon to extend our warm friendship and exchange views for the betterment of our social and economic uplift, education, preservation of our language, culture, heritage and above all support each other during times of crisis,” Borgoyary said.

The next Bodo National Festival will be held at Haflong in Dima Hasao district.