Gorkha Janmukti Morcha to ask for CORPORATION status for Darjeeling municipality

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Nov. 24: The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha will ask for “corporation” status for the Darjeeling municipality, a request that the government is likely to grant as a law related to the civic status upgrade had been amended during the Left regime.

Prospective chairperson of the Darjeeling municipality, the Morcha’s Amar Singh Rai, today said: “We will look into the issue of upgrading the municipality into a corporation. I have been going through the Kolkata Municipal Corporation Act and there should not be much problem in upgrading our municipality.”

A senior cabinet minister said the Mamata Banerjee-government was not against upgrading the civic status of Darjeeling. “We are not opposed to the idea of granting such status to the Darjeeling municipality. Let us receive a formal proposal and we will consider it in due course,” the minister said.

The Morcha has won uncontested the elections to Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Kurseong municipalities. Elections to the Mirik municipality will be held on December 11 after which the boards of all four civic bodies will be formed.

The corporation status for the Darjeeling was first proposed a decade ago by the earlier CPM government. But the proposal had been shot down by then DGHC chairperson Subash Ghisingh and his resistance had sparked a rebellion in his party, the GNLF, in 2001.

A corporation status would mean more funds for the civic body. “There is not much of a difference in the laws under which municipalities and corporations are governed. In case a municipality is upgraded, it increases the status of the town that it is in charge of and creates more funds options. It also gains some administrative powers and the right to make laws required to provide services to the area concerned,” said former municipal affairs minister Asok Bhattacharya.

The corporation issue had taken the hills by storm in 2001. D.K. Pradhan, who was then the GNLF chairperson of Darjeeling municipality and the brain behind the initiative to upgrade the municipality, was forced to resign from his civic post and ultimately from the party because of the corporation issue. One of the speculation doing the rounds then was that Ghisingh was scared of the power that the corporation and its mayor might yield.

“In Bengal, municipalities are graded on the basis of the population. But I had made several requests to the government then that an exception should be made for the hills where the population is scattered. Ultimately in 1998, the Darjeeling municipality was upgraded from Group D grade to Group A,” said Pradhan, who is now with the Morcha.

“On February 2, 2000, A.K. Dutta, the secretary of the municipal affairs department wrote (Memo No 87/MA/O/C-4/1A-1/2000) that the state government was considering upgrading the Darjeeling municipality into a corporation. He said a bill would be introduced soon,” said Pradhan.

But Ghisingh refused to accept the new status.

Former CPM minister Bhattacharya recalled that the State Municipal Corporation Act was finally amended in 2006 to create provisions for the formation of corporations in the hills.

“There was a demand from the hills to upgrade Darjeeling municipality to a corporation. On that basis, our government amended the West Bengal Municipal Corporation Act 2006 making certain exceptions to the general criteria for forming corporations in other parts of the state,” Bhattacharya said.

“The law was made, but it was not implemented. The GNLF refused to relent,” he added.

The corporation issue sparked a controversy within the GNLF. The party announced a one-person-one-post policy and asked Pradhan to resign as the chairman of the civic body. Pradhan was then the MLA of Darjeeling too. Pradhan rebelled and had got the majority of the GNLF ward commissioners on his side only to be betrayed at the last moment.

The new municipality board passed a resolution in 2003, stating that it did not want corporation status.

Bhattacharya said since the amendment had been already made, the new board only needed to pass a resolution and submit it to the state government. 

TT