Govt, GJM agree on contours of new Hill body-known as Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) instead of DGHC

Sat Jul 09 2011:  The West Bengal government and Gorkha Janmukti Morcha on Friday agreed on a draft of a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) for setting up of a new administrative body in the Hills. The new body will be known as Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) instead of Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council, and will have neither any legislative power nor the authority to collect taxes. Instead, it could collect levy from the tea gardens falling in its jurisdiction. 

This was decided during a marathon four-hour long meeting between Chief Secretary Samar Ghosh and a GJM delegation led by party general secretary Roshan Giri at Writers’ Buildings in Kolkata.
However, the sensitive territorial issue of including mouzas of Terai and Dooars to the territory has been referred to a nine-member joint verification committee. The committee, which will consist of four GJM nominees, four state government officials and one Central government nominee, will be asked to submit its report before the elections to the GTA are held in the Hills during this financial year, said Ghosh.  

Significantly, the GJM agreed to drop the word “state” from what its proposed name of “Gorkhaland State Autonomous Administration” after the government objected to it.
“We objected to the word ‘state’. There is no significant difference between the word `territorial’ and `autonomous’,” said the chief secretary after the meeting, which the GJM leaders termed it as a successful one.
Today’s meeting also finalised a “bigger” financial package for the region. “We have forwarded the draft of the agreement to Centre along with the demand for the financial package for the Hills,” said Ghosh. As per the agreement, the GTA has been given the power of hiring people for Group B,C and D grade government staff with the approval of the state government.  

The government has also agreed to set up an office for dealing with group insurance, PF and other insurance policies of the teachers of several schools and colleges in the Hills.
“All disputes over the draft have been sorted out. The MoA will be signed during the next tripartite talks,” said GJM’s Roshan Giri.
According to the chief secretary, the next tripartite talks are likely on July 12 or July 13. “We have told the Union Home Ministry that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee wants the tripartite talks to be held in Darjeeling,” added Ghosh.
The government will present a bill in the Assembly outlining the election procedure for the GTA.

-IndianExpress