Darjeeling
7 Nov 2013
After holding discussions for more than
four hours at Lalkothi, the GTA headquarters, executive member Roshan
Giri briefed media persons. He said, “The executive members held a
meeting and adopted some resolutions. We have prioritised the need to
amend the GTA Act because it has flaws that need to be corrected. We are
doing this in accordance to the July 18, 2011 GTA agreement.”
Giri refused to divulge what the 29
amendments were, but said the issue of providing reservation to Schedule
Caste and Schedule Tribe members was one of them.
“On July 13, we adopted a resolution to
provide reservation to the SC and ST communities for the GTA election,
along with implementation of the 100-point roster while making
appointments to the new council. We will be sending the amendments and
also the resolutions that we passed today to the state government,” said
Giri, who is also the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha party general secretary.
He further said the resolutions adopted
today would figure in the bipartite and tripartite talks expected to be
held later this month. The GJM of late has been complaining the GTA is
not functioning properly due to state government interference and that
it has emerged a failure because of many flaws in the Act.
The day’s meeting was attended by 10 GTA
executive members as the rest are serving jail sentences for their
alleged complicity in the recent agitation. The members adopted
resolutions focused at development.
“We have also passed a number of
resolutions dealing with implementing of development works in the
Darjeeling hills. Some of them include increasing the existing eight
blocks to 18 for better functioning, regularising ad-hoc GTA workers and
implementing the rules of procedure and conduct of business in the
council,” informed Giri.
The GTA will also start work for
providing electricity to rural areas of the hills under the Rajiv Gandhi
Gramin Vidyutikaran Yojana.
“The central government has sanctioned
Rs198.99 crore for providing electricity to more than 50,000 households
in the rural belts of the hills. A Gorkha welfare hostel and building
will also be constructed at a cost of Rs29 crore in the Saket area of
Delhi. We have lots of work that need urgent implementation,” said the
GTA executive member.
Further, the GTA has plans to strengthen
a 10km road from Phalut to Sandakphu near the Nepal border to enhance
tourism. The vehicle toll tax plaza at Rohini in Kurseong will also be
operational soon, while planning has begun for a tea and tourism
festival in the month of January next year.http://echoofindia.com
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