Gorkhaland agreement signed today

NEW DELHI: A tripartite agreement was on Monday signed for the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration in Darjeeling. The accord was signed by West Bengal home secretary G D Gautama, GJM's Roshan Giri and joint secretary, MHA, K K Pathak. The Centre and state government will fully back the GTA, said home minister P Chidambaram and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, after the agreement was signed.
Within a few weeks of closed-door negotiations with top leaders of Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, the Trinamool Congress government in West Bengal managed to make them sign on the dotted line of a broad-based agreement on Darjeeling, leading to the creation of Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA). 
The new administration is vested with powers to regulate 54 subjects, unlike the 1988 creation of Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council which was given control over only 19 subjects.

This will be the first time that any authority outside the state gets such wide-ranging powers. Except for legislative powers, the Bimal Gurung-led GJM has managed to wrest control over all state subjects as far as Darjeeling hill area is concerned, including land, forest, education, levy of local taxes, health and tea plantation.

Among all subjects, the power to control tea plantation is the most important one. Almost all the revenue in the Darjeeling hills flows from that sector. Anyone having control over tea plantation will have control over the financial purse of the area.

The erstwhile Subhash Ghishing-led Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council did not have powers to regulate tea plantation and higher education among others. Police and law and order will remain a state subject.

The development is seen as a major breakthrough for chief minister Mamata Banerjee and is likely to bring peace to the volatile region. But this is something that has not gone down well with the former rulers of the state, the CPM, which alleged lack of transparency in the deal and has decided to boycott Monday's pact signing ceremony. Banerjee had invited senior leaders of CPM and other Left partners.

For the past three weeks, chief secretary of West Bengal was involved in secret parleys with Gurung and his general secretary Roshan Giri. The Centre was apprised of all developments and had agreed to the Bengal government's concessions to the new Gorkhaland administration.  



~TOI


India signs deal to end ethnic unrest in tea hills

NEW DELHI — India was to sign a deal Monday to grant autonomy to an ethnic group in the Himalayan tea-growing area of Darjeeling in an effort to end decades of often-violent demands for a homeland.The agreement between the federal government, the state of West Bengal in India's east and a political group leading the Gorkha protesters was to be inked later Monday in a village about 600 kilometres (380 miles) from Kolkata.
Indian Gorkhas, who are ethnic Nepalese, have led a violent campaign for the past two decades demanding the separate state of Gorkhaland carved from West Bengal's hilly district of Darjeeling.
The newly created Gorkhaland Territorial Administration will have powers to manage public works, social welfare, health and forests in administrative areas under its mandate.
"The agreement will end the violence in the hills of Darjeeling and pave the way for development," said newly elected West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee.
"We have plans to develop the hills of Darjeeling and its surrounding areas on the lines of Switzerland," she added, repeating a pledge made on the campaign trail earlier this year.
The tea-growing hills of Darjeeling has been a hotbed of protests since the 1980s when the Gorkha National Liberation Front rose in revolt against the West Bengal government.
A Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council was created in 1988 under then Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to settle the demands for independence, but support for this organisation broke down.
Bimal Gurung formed the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha pressure group in 2007 and rebelled against the Council and the state government.