Gorkha Janmukti Morcha plea for tax-free hills

Darjeeling, Aug. 5: The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha has asked the Centre to extend tax benefits, similar to the ones enjoyed by the northeastern states, to the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration.

The plea for special tax benefits was on the list of four demands placed by the Morcha before Union home minister P. Chidambaram in New Delhi today. Later in the evening, the four-member Morcha delegation repeated the same set of demands before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. “The Prime Minister told us that he would extend all possible assistance to the GTA and look into all our demands,” Morcha general secretary Roshan Giri told The Telegraph over the phone from New Delhi.

The Morcha also told Chidambaram that the GTA, the new administrative set-up for the Darjeeling hills, should have the authority to issue Gorkha certificates. Such certificates are needed for recruitment to the army, paramilitary and police as the Gorkha community is entitled to exemptions in terms of height and weight. The certificates are currently issued by the sub-divisional officers.

The Morcha also wanted the Centre to immediately announce the setting up of a Central University and an IIT in Darjeeling. The GTA should also be given authority over reserved forests, the Morcha said. This demand had been placed before the state government earlier.

Morcha president Bimal Gurung and central committee members Jyoti Kumar Rai and Diwarkar Gurung were also part of today’s delegation

The eight northeastern states, including Sikkim, enjoy special benefits for development of the region. “Our area (the territory under the GTA) is as backward as the Northeast, hence these benefits should also be extended to our area as well,” said Giri.

The Centre’s department of industrial policy and promotion has several incentives for the Northeast. For example, under a special transport scheme, subsidies ranging from 50 to 90 per cent are given to entrepreneurs to meet expenses incurred while moving raw materials and finished goods from the designated rail-heads to locations of industrial units.

Such are the benefits, that former municipal affairs and urban development minister of the state, Asok Bhattacharya, had also once demanded that north Bengal be brought under the NorthEast Council.

About the right to the reserved forests, Giri said: “We told the home minister that Bodoland Territorial Council was allowed to administer the reserve forests. In the hills, the reserve forest is spread over 1,115sqkm which accounts for nearly 38 per cent of the total area in the hills.” 

~TT