ARNAB GANGULY
Darjeeling, Feb. 29: Mamata Banerjee today accused the Centre of delaying the implementation of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration in the Darjeeling hills.
“The state government has done what it had to for the GTA. The Centre has left it pending. I went to Delhi on February 22 to discuss this issue with the Prime Minister. I met him and told him that the process should have been completed by now,” Mamata told a gathering at Gymkhana Club.
“Like the Morcha, it is also our dream to see the GTA implemented. When the GTA comes into effect, we will work together. We have promised to work together. What I have promised, I will deliver,” she told the audience, which also included the Morcha leadership and the three MLAs from the hills.
The chief minister, however, did not give any assurance that the GTA would be formed before March 27, the deadline set by the Morcha.
That the Morcha, too, has realised that the government will not be able to meet the deadline was evident when party chief Bimal Gurung refused to speak this evening though he was present on the dais. His name, too, was there as one of the speakers at the programme.
Instead, the Morcha chief directed party leader and Kalimpong MLA Harka Bahadur Chhetri to speak on his behalf.
“Bimal Gurung has said that he will speak only after March 27,” Chhetri told the 600-odd audience amid loud cheers. “Instead, he has delegated to me the responsibility of speaking on his behalf.”
But the Kalimpong MLA was all praise for the chief minister though he reeled off a list of demands before her.
“We had Bengali chief ministers. But now we have the chief minister of Bengal. She truly feels for us and so she keeps rushing up to the hills,” Chhetri said.
His demands included a waiver on electricity bills lying unpaid in the Darjeeling hills for the past three years.
Although the Morcha has asked the hill residents to pay their electricity bills from August last year after the GTA was signed in July, the party wants a waiver on the arrears on unpaid bills that has reached almost Rs 100 crore.
Mamata, who is herself seeking a moratorium from the Centre on payment of interest for the debt accumulated by the state government over the years, did not comment on the demand when she rose to speak.
But reacting to Chhetri’s remark that the dilapidated NH55 had been closed for more than a year, Mamata blamed the Centre for the delay in repairing the road that links Siliguri to Darjeeling.
“National highways are under the Centre. Why should a national highway remain without repair for so long? I have raised this issue with the Prime Minister. Like the national highway authority, we are also setting up our own state highway authority. Once it starts functioning, all roads in the state will be done up,” she said.
Mamata also announced some of the old projects: Rs 103 crore for rural electrification in the hills, Rs 155 crore for drinking water distribution, Rs 100 crore for tourism development, Rs 304 crore drinking water project for Kalimpong and ITIs and polytechnincs in Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Mirik.
She said the master-plan on turning Darjeeling into Switzerland was underway. She inaugurated a museum on Chittaranjan Das at his residence Step Aside and a Tea Museum at Darjeeling Chowrasta.(Telegraph)
SANJAY AGARWAL –RANGPO-1ST MARCHQ2
