Morcha prod to bring Dooars & Terai under GTA

Jan. 9.TT: The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha today urged the Centre and the Bengal government to speed up the process of bringing the Gorkha-dominated pockets of the Terai and Dooars under the new administrative set-up for the Darjeeling hills.

The President is expected to give her assent to the bill on Gorkhaland Territorial Administration for the hills after January 16, Morcha general secretary Roshan Giri said.

The home ministry has sent the GTA bill passed by the Bengal Assembly in September to several ministries for feedback. “The replies are likely to be submitted by January 16. After this, the bill will be sent to the President for her assent,” Giri said after a meeting with central and Bengal government officials in New Delhi today.

The Morcha leader said the Centre had agreed to release immediately Rs 93 crore for development of the hills even before the GTA was formed.

“The state government has submitted a project report of Rs 279.6 crore for the development of the hills. The Centre had agreed to provide an annual assistance of Rs 200 crore for three years after the formation of the GTA. But during the meeting it was conveyed to us that the Centre would immediately release Rs 93 crore to the DGHC so that development projects could be launched without waiting for the GTA to be formed,” said Giri.

A seven-member review committee headed by the Bengal home secretary has also been set up to scrutinise the cases against the Gorkhaland agitators, he said.

The hour-long meeting was attended by additional secretary in the ministry of home affairs B. Bhamathi, Bengal home secretary G.D. Gautama and DGHC administrator and convener of the territory committee Anil Verma.

“Our demand is to include (Gorkha dominated areas of) the Terai and the Dooars in the GTA. The high-powered committee dealing with the territory issue has me three times. We want the committee to meet as soon as possible to make the recommendations,” said Giri.

The Morcha repeated its demand that “Gorkha youths” should be inducted into the police service and the paramilitary and the army.

“P. Chidambaram had promised to recruit Gorkha youths into paramilitary forces which are under the home ministry’s jurisdiction. But we will need to take up the issue of recruitment of the Gorkha youths into the Indian Army with the defence ministry, and their induction into the police with the Bengal government,” he said. By “Gorkha youths”, Giri was referring to the Gorkhaland Personnel, a voluntary squad of lathi-wielding youths raised by the Morcha apparently for crowd control at its party meetings.

Giri said the Centre was looking into the Morcha demand that all hill communities, except the Scheduled Castes, be brought under the Scheduled Tribe category.

“It was agreed that the ministry of home affairs would write to the ministry of social justice and the ministry of tribal affairs on the inclusion of the hill communities in the Scheduled Tribe list,” Giri said.

“The meeting was good. The next review meeting would be held in two months,” said Giri.