DARJEELING: Morcha breather for govt offices

FROM THE TELEGRAPH

Darjeeling, Dec. 7: The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha has reworked its agitation programme to provide relaxation to certain state government offices for “public convenience”.

Bimal Gurung, the president of the Morcha, had yesterday announced that all Bengal government offices and the DGHC would remain closed from tomorrow (see chart below).

Today, the Morcha provided a list of offices that would be allowed to remain open.

“We will keep the courts open, while the food and supplies department will function on Mondays and Tuesdays. Insurance office, offices of the health department and fire brigade will also remain open,” said Binay Tamang, the Morcha’s media and publicity secretary.

The party has decided to stop the movement of all North Bengal State Transport Corporation buses in the hills and close its offices. “Even the rural and the co-operative banks will remain closed. Other banks will be allowed to function,” said Tamang.

Although, the district magistrate’s office will remain closed, the election cell will be allowed to work. “Since the revision of electoral rolls is going on, we have decided to allow the cell to remain open for the sake of public convenience,” said the Morcha publicity secretary.

Gurung’s party has also decided to keep the public health engineering department, electricity board office and the civic bodies partially open. “While the offices of the PHED will remain shut, we will allow the water supply division to function. The municipalities will remain open but no development work will be allowed to take place,” said Tamang.

The Gorkha Janmukti Nari Morcha, the women wing of the party, which will organise a number of programmes in the coming months, formed a 27-member central committee today.

“Since we are awaiting the names from the Adivasi community from the Dooars and the Terai, a final committee will be formed on December 20,” said Tamang.

Plantation union

The Darjeeling Terai Dooars Plantation Labour Union, affiliated to the Morcha, organised its first convention at Pintail Village to drum up support for Gorkhaland.

About 1,000 workers from more than 150 tea gardens from the three hill subdivisions and the Terai-Dooars region attended the two-day meet that ended on Sunday.

“Our main objective is to strengthen the statehood movement, because 75 per cent population of the area represents various gardens across the region. This prompted us to support the Gorkhaland demand by forming a separate trade union,” said Suraj Subba, the general secretary of the union.