Government has decided to set up an IT park in the hills and has asked the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha

Partha Chatterjee

 IT park plan for job-starved hills- Partha tells Morcha to draw up proposal

Darjeeling, Sept. 13: The Mamata Banerjee government has decided to set up an IT park in the hills and has asked the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha to help draw up a plan, the proposal coming at a time when job opportunities in Darjeeling have stretched to the seams.

The government decision has come as a welcome relief to the hills where the setting up of any industry, except for tea and tourism, is not much viable given the terrain.

The tourism sector has employed nearly 1 lakh of the 3.5 lakh employable people who live in the Darjeeling hills, said an industry observer. The tea sector employs around 70,000 people, followed by the cinchona plantation which employs around 6,000.

“In terms of jobs, the tea and tourism sectors are stretched to the maximum. The IT park will be a big relief. The cinchona plantation is not financially very strong. The hills are growing, we need jobs. A lot of people from the hills, almost a generation, have left to work in the IT sectors elsewhere, specially the BPOs,” said Poonam Kumar Sharma, a lawyer from Darjeeling.

The details of the Darjeeling IT project is not yet known, as a site for the park has to be identified and an infrastructure plan drawn up first.

Commerce and industries minister Partha Chatterjee today asked Morcha general secretary Roshan Giri to help the government draw up the proposal to set up the park.

“We also wanted an IT park in the hills so that there were more employment opportunities. During our meeting with Partha Chatterjee, he asked us to help the government draw up a proposal to set up a project in the hills. We have welcomed the decision,” said Giri, who is in Calcutta since yesterday to examine provisions of the GTA bill for implementation, over the phone.

The Gorkhaland Territorial Administration Bill will put in place a new authority for the hills.

The Morcha delegation, which also included the party’s central committee member Jyoti Kumar Rai, demanded that the gardens run by the West Bengal Tea Development Corporation should pay Puja bonus at the rate of 20 per cent as agreed upon by other gardens in the hills and the plains.

While Pandam, Rangaroon and Rangmuk-Cedar, are under the WBTDC, a government agency, in the hills, the corporation runs Hilla and Moua in the Dooars. “We were surprised to find that the WBTDC had decided to disburse bonus at 8.33 per cent this year. This is when most of the gardens have agreed on a 20 per cent bonus,” said Giri.

The 20 per cent bonus is the highest prescribed in the Plantation Labour Act, 1951. The minimum rate according to this Act is 8.33 per cent. “We are confident that the state government will agree to disburse the bonus at the rate of 20 per cent. The minister has asked for files related to these gardens from the chief secretary,” said Giri.

The Morcha leader said the state government was also thinking of setting up a nurses’ training institute in the hills, a promise made by Mamata Banerjee during her visit to the region last year when she was the railway minister.