Nathu-la permit stopped again

NIRMAL MANGAR
Gangtok, Aug. 3: The permits to visit popular tourists destinations like Changu Lake, Baba Mandir and Nathu-la have been halted for another two weeks after the Sikkim tourism department and the Border Roads Organisation carried out a joint inspection of the landslide-hit JN Road yesterday.

“Since the safety of tourists is of primary importance, the department of tourism and civil aviation along with the stakeholders and other associations concerned have decided to defer issuing permits to tourists visiting Nathu-la,” said R.Telang, the secretary of the tourism and civil aviation department.

JN Road in Gangtok is the main road link to the Nathu-la border pass.

Indian traders and the army also use the pass. The tourism department and the check post police had stopped issuing the travel permits from June 13 after several landslides on JN Road.

“Although the road is open to the local people, it is not advisable to run heavy vehicles on it. JN Road is still very unsafe. There are several stretches with boulders hanging precariously above them,” added Telang.

He said the tourism department would issue the permit only 15 days after studying the condition of the road.

The tourism department has also appealed to the tourism stakeholders to co-operate till further information is given.

“We are putting in our best to restore the road before the tourist season starts in September,” said a BRO source.

On average during the peak season, more than 300 vehicles carrying tourists ply JN Road.(TT)

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Gurung elected GTA chief executive

Darjeeling, Aug. 3: Gorkha Janmukti Morcha president Bimal Gurung was today made the chief executive of the GTA, the highest post in the body, and party vice-president Bhupendra Pradhan was chosen the chairman of the GTA Sabha.

The GTA Sabha today held its first meeting at the Gorkha Rangamanch Bhavan in Darjeeling, where members also elected Lopsang Yolmo, who represents Rongo-Today-Jaldhaka constituency, as the deputy chairman of the Sabha.

The chairman and deputy chairman of the GTA Sabha will conduct the business of the council.

After the meeting, Gurung said: “The house today elected Pradip Pradhan (the name by which Bhupendra Pradhan is commonly known) as the chairman of the Sabha and the Lopsang Yolmo as the vice-chairman.”

Of the 45 elected members, Dipen Mallay was absent from the meeting as he is in jail, and Champa Bivar, who is from the Sukna-Panighata seat, reached the venue after the session got over.

All five nominated members of the GTA Sabha, among them three chosen by the Trinamul Congress, were present at the meeting.

Sources present in the meeting said the additional district magistrate of Darjeeling, Gopal Lama, first welcomed the members after which Pradip Pradhan was nominated as the chairman to conduct the proceedings.

Then, the vice-chairman of the Sabha and the chief executive of the GTA were picked.

All the members will take oath at Chowrastha tomorrow. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee will be present at the swearing-in.

Governor M.K. Narayanan will administer the oath to the chief executive and then appoint the principal secretary in the home department to administer the oath to the other members. The swearing-in, which was to start from 11am tomorrow, has been advanced by half an hour as Union home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde has to return to Delhi for urgent work. Shinde arrived in Darjeeling today.

In a day or two, Gurung will nominate 14 executive members of the GTA, including a deputy chief executive.

It is not yet known where the permanent headquarters of the GTA will be.The GTA will temporarily function from Lal Khoti where the dissolved DGHC was headquartered.

“Since the GTA will have 45 elected and five nominated members, we are not sure about Lal Khoti area. We might have to look for other places to accommodate all the members and even this Gorkha Rangamanch Bhavan looks good for an administrative building,” Gurung said.

The Memorandum of Agreement signed by the Centre, state and the Morcha has stated that a “one-time financial package” will be given to the GTA to develop administrative infrastructure.

The clause reads: “The Government of India/ State Government will provide one-time financial assistance required for development of administrative infrastructure viz., GTA Sabha House, Secretariat Complex and the residential quarters for the elected members of GTA and the senior officers.”(TT)

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Cleanliness drive for streams

NIRMAL MANGAR
Gangtok, Aug. 2: The Gangtok Municipal Corporation has launched a cleanliness drive for 50-odd jhoras, or streams, in its 15 wards from today.

According to D. Anandan, the district collectorate (East), the disaster management unit under the land revenue department has given Rs 26 lakh to the civic body for the drive.

“An amount of Rs 30,000 has been given to each ward and it (the money) would be enhanced later,” said a source in the GMC.

More than 100 workers have been deployed to clear the choked streams across the town.

Mayor K.N. Topgay said closed-circuit cameras would be installed around the jhoras to capture images of those who dump waste in them. He added that five camera traps have already been installed.

“All jhoras are prone to landslides and they are being used as garbage dumping spots. The cameras would be placed in unnoticeable locations and would be monitored by the local committees (headed by ward councillors),” Topgay said. “The minimum fine is Rs 5,000,” said the Mayor.

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Lone rebel Subba loses

Kalimpong, Aug. 2: Sanchabir Subba, the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha rebel candidate from Gitdabling-Nimbong, lost to the party’s official contestant Kalyan Dewan by 677 votes today.

Subba got 3,418 votes against Dewan’s 4,095.

“I still consider today’s verdict to be the Morcha’s loss. It is actually the victory of the people who voted for me. There were a number of false votes in my constituency,” said Subba, the only Morcha rebel in the elections.

The rebel candidate, who hails from Barbot village in Nimbong, was on his way to Kalimpong this morning but returned midway after he heard about the result.

He later told The Telegraph over phone that had the Morcha not taken recourse to “money power and threats,” he would have emerged victorious.

Subba, who was the president of the Parbintar-Nimbong unit of the Morcha till early last month, thanked everyone who supported him and congratulated Dewan, whom he addressed as “Kalyan Sir.”

Gitdabling-Nimbong is a remote rural constituency spread across two blocks in Kalimpong subdivision.

An analysis of the voting pattern revealed that while the Morcha held sway over Gitdabling area, Subba got many votes in Nimbong. Counting in the 18 polling booths in the constituency, has shown that Dewan and Subba had a close contest, sources said.

Dewan, who is a vice-president of the Morcha, said: “We will not discriminate. It is not in our party to victimise anyone. There will be no partiality in carrying out development work in my constituency.”

The mild-mannered Morcha candidate is the head of the commerce department in Kalimpong College and was visibly happy with the poll results.

Morcha supporters who had gathered in large numbers below the primary section of the Scottish Universities’ Mission Institution (SUMI), the counting centre in the subdivision, broke into a dance and burst fire crackers when the final results were announced over a public address system.

Twisting the lyrics of a popular Nepali song “asarey maina-ma”, the women Morcha supporters sang: “bichara Sanchabir ke gardei hola (What is poor Sanchabir probably doing),” as the others in the crowd danced along.

The mood of the gathering was, however, different earlier in the day when it was announced that Subba was leading after the first round of counting.

It is only after the results in the second round of counting were announced, that people started congratulating each other and the celebrations started.

Trinamul Congress candidate Bruno Lepcha secured 264 votes in the constituency.

Trinamul had fielded candidates in nine of the 13 GTA seats in Kalimpong subdivision. Later the party withdrew from the fray.(TT)

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All in bag but plains thorn pricks

Darjeeling, Aug. 2: The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha today won all 45 seats in the GTA but Bimal Gurung made it clear he was still eyeing the Dooars and Terai and would explore possibilities to give representation to the region in the GTA Sabha.
Moments after the results of the 17 seats were declared — the Morcha had won the other 28 seats uncontested, Gurung said he was “determined” to get representatives of the Dooars and Terai, especially John Barla, into the GTA Sabha.
“I am determined to get representatives from the Dooars and Terai into the GTA Sabha. I am 100 per cent confident that John Barla (the adivasi leader supporting the Morcha’s demand to include the plains in the GTA) will be in the Sabha,” the Morcha chief said.
The GTA Act allows only five members to be nominated to the Sabha — two the Morcha has already nominated, and three that Mamata Banerjee has named — so how Gurung will manage to accommodate Barla is a question many were asking today.
Yesterday, Morcha leader Roshan Giri had revealed the three names Mamata had given the Morcha, which effectively blocked the hill party’s move to name Barla as a representative from the plains.
All five nominees are hill residents.
Today, asked about what alternative the Morcha had if it wanted to bring leaders from the Dooars and Terai in the GTA, Gurung said: “Nominating five members to the GTA is a privilege of the government but we have still managed to get two names proposed by us accepted by the government. We will also get representatives from the Dooars and Terai by passing a resolution in the GTA Sabha.”
Gurung then mentioned “invitee members” to the GTA, without explaining what the term meant. But the GTA Act does not have any such provision either.
According to GTA Act clause 5 and its sub-sections , the Sabha shall consist of 50 members, excluding ex-officio members.
Forty-five would be elected on the basis of “adult suffrage”, the Act says, from territorial constituencies. Five members shall be “nominated by the governor”.
The sections also say that the MP, MLAs and the chairpersons of municipalities of the region shall be ex-officio members of the GTA. They shall not have the right to vote.
The GTA Sabha would in total have 58 members then — 45 elected, 5 nominated, one MP, three MLAs and four civic chiefs.
If Gurung wants to include more nominated members in the Sabha an amendment would be required in the GTA Act that would have to be passed by a simple majority in the present Assembly.
District officials dealing with the formation of the GTA Sabha also could not say if a resolution passed by the GTA Sabha to have “invitee members” was viable. “As of now there is no such provision in the Act,” said an official.
Yesterday, after Giri announced Mamata’s move to name three nominees, a senior Trinamul leader in Siliguri made it clear the chief minister had done this to send a message to the Morcha that it must not seek to legitimise its Gorkhaland movement in the Dooars and Terai, which do not fall in the GTA area.
Gurung said the GTA’s priority would be to improve education, tourism and road condition. “We also raised the issue of bad roads during our meeting with the chief minister in Calcutta recently,” he said.
Gurung also said he wouldn’t take back in Morcha rebel leader Sanchabir Subba into the fold.
“There is no question of taking him back in the party,” said Gurung.
The 45 GTA councillors will meet at Gorkha Rangamanch Bhawan at 10.30am tomorrow to elect the chairman of the Sabha.
The swearing-in is on August 4 which Mamata is scheduled to attend.
The Siliguri police commissionerate’s opening by the chief minister, scheduled for tomorrow, has been postponed to August 6 as the government has not yet come out with a gazette notification.

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