First meeting of Terai-Dooars committee on August 30

The first meeting of the Terai and Dooars joint verification committee, which will examine the demand for bringing Gorkha pockets of the two regions under the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA), will be held on August 30 in Kolkata.

The notification for the 10-member committee headed by former Calcutta High Court judge Shyamal Sen was issued on July 29. The committee has been given six months to submit its report on the possible inclusion of Gorkha-populated pockets of Terai and Dooars in the GTA.

“We were communicated today that the meeting will be held at the designated office of the committee in Kolkata on August 30. In the meeting, modalities of the committee will be formulated. Since this is a new venture, we will not be able to start work unless guidelines are framed,” said a senior member of the committee.

The member said issues like from which part of the region the team should start work will be discussed in the meeting. “Since certain groups have threatened us with dire consequences, we have to move with protection. We will discuss all these issues,” said the member. 

The GJM — a signatory to the agreement for the formation of the GTA along with the Centre and the state government — has demanded that around 400 mouzas from the Dooars and the Terai be included in the new administrative set-up.
The party has proposed four names to represent it in the committee — former principal secretary of the DGHC L B Pariyar, the Morcha’s Terai convener Shankar Adhikari and Nepali writers Kitab Singh Rai and Shankar Nath Pradhan.  

The district magistrates of Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri and a home department official will represent the state government.
The Centre will be represented by the director of census operations. Anil Verma, administrator of the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council, will be the convener. He will responsible for organising meetings.
A senior GJM central committee member said, “We have done our homework and prepared a report on the Terai and Dooars region based on the number of ration cards, voters and census data. After doing our research, we have demanded 400 mouzas from Terai and Dooars where the Gorkha population is highest.”
-IE