Under the draft bill, aborigines could launch such an initiative, with the consent of local township assemblies. The autonomous indigenous governments will have the same status as city and county administrations, according to the bill.

The Executive Yuan will now send the bill to the Legislative Yuan for review and will withdraw a previous version that it had submitted two years ago, the spokesman said.

At a Cabinet meeting Thursday, Premier Wu Den-yih said the latest draft was an indication of the government's commitment to protecting the rights of aborigines, according to the spokesman.

The bill can be seen as a realization of the government's policy toward ethnic minorities and a milestone in the country's constitutional history, the premier said.

Wu said the draft bill is a step toward delivering on President Ma Ying-jeou's election campaign promise to grant autonomy to the country's indigenous people on a trial basis. It also upholds the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, he said.

However, at a press conference Thursday, Icyang Parod, a former minister of the Council of Indigenous Peoples, said the draft bill contains too many obstacles to the establishment of autonomous indigenous regions.

For example, it states that aborigines must obtain consent at various levels of local government before they can set up autonomous regions, Icyang Parod said.

"Why should indigenous people need approval from the Han Chinese?" he asked.

The Han are the largest ethnic Chinese group in Taiwan.

The former minister also said that the rights of autonomy granted in the draft bill are confined to aspects of social services, ethnic education, culture and physical education.

In the draft bill, hunting, fishing and logging activities by indigenous people are still restricted by the Wildlife Protection Act, the Forestry Act and the Mineral Act, he said.

Furthermore, the bill does not allow for the allocation of central government's revenues to the autonomous regions and does not give the land to the people, he said.

In response, Sun Ta-chuan, the incumbent minister of the Council of Indigenous Peoples, said that there are practical obstacles to giving the land to the indigenous people, and most cities and counties are not in favor of allocating central government funds to the autonomous regions.