The changing political landscape of West Bengal now appears set to trigger a major administrative and political realignment in the Darjeeling hills, with the state government initiating sweeping interventions in the functioning of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) and hill municipalities.
A complaint alleging possible irregularities in the implementation of the Bharat Dal scheme in the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) region has been taken up by Darjeeling MP Raju Bista, who has written to Union minister Prahlad Joshi seeking a detailed inquiry.
Although elected members of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) met the Centre-appointed interlocutor Pankaj Kumar Singh in Darjeeling, GTA Chief Anit Thapa chose to remain absent.
Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) Sabhasad Ajoy Edwards has fired off a letter to the newly-appointed Darjeeling District Magistrate, Manish Mishra, demanding full transparency in the Housing Grant disbursal for victims of the 5 October landslides.
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday handed over appointment letters to 11 family members of those who lost their lives in the devastating landslides that struck Mirik on 4-5 October following incessant rainfall.
The Gorkha Youth Activist Network (GYAN), Darjeeling, has formally urged Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) chief executive Anit Thapa to cancel Notification No. 3076-LP/1A-04/23 issued by the West Bengal government and introduce a new scheme for granting land rights in tea garden areas of the GTA region based on ancestral, customary, and continuous possession.
The meeting convened by labour minister Moloy Ghatak to resolve the bonus issue for tea workers in the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) area ended inconclusively.
Hundreds of people staged a dharna (demonstration) in Kurseong since morning, protesting the death of a 15-year-old girl, who was hit by a toy train.
Amid ongoing protests by a section of tea workers in Darjeeling Hills, who have halted plucking of green leaves over pending bonus payments, labour minister Moloy Ghatak has stepped in to resolve the crisis. He has called for a meeting on 3 April in Siliguri to address the issue.
The Gorkha Youth Activist Network (GYAN), a group actively researching land rights for tea garden workers in the Darjeeling hills, today released a crucial Right to Information (RTI) response that clarifies long-standing confusion over land allotment policies in the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) region.
