GTA review meeting in Darjeeling on May 24

Darjeeling: A decision on allotment of additional funds to the Gorkha Territorial Administration in the Darjeeling hills is expected to be taken up at a review meeting here on May 24. "A joint secretary of the Union home ministry is expected to represent the Centre and the state will be represented by Home Secretary Basudeb Banerjee," Gorkha Janmukti Morcha General Secretary Roshan Giri said today. The review meeting is important as the Morcha has demanded Rs 575 crore from both the state government and the Centre as one-time grant for administrative infrastructure of the GTA, the hill council which runs the administration in the hills. The demand for the funds for infrastructure was earlier placed at a meeting between a Morcha delegation and Chief Secretary Sanjay Mitra in Kolkata on April 30. 

Mitra had then suggested that the matter could be taken up at the review meeting as the Centre, too, had to share the cost of setting up infrastructure like buildings and quarters. "Apart from the grant of Rs 575 crore, we are also looking towards getting some concrete assurances on increasing the financial grant of the GTA from Rs 200 crore per annum to Rs 400 crore for the next three years," Giri said. The Morcha will also demand that the fact verification committee, which was formed to look into the recommendations made by Justice (retired) Shyamal Sen High Powered Committee, be asked to make a field visit to the Dooars and Terai. Justice Sen had recommended the inclusion of only five of the 397 mouzas demanded by the GJM in the GTA. Giri said the Morcha would also demand that all Gorkha communities, except Schedule Castes, be granted Schedule Tribe status. The Morcha also hoped it would get a positive feedback on amending the Constitution to implement a three-tier panchayat system in the hills. The state had earlier said it had written to the Centre to start the process for the constitutional amendment.