CM steps into Lal Kothi for meeting - Mamata first chief minister to hold administrative session at GTA headquarters

Mamata at Lal Kothi on Wednesday. Picture by Suman Tamang

Vivek Chhetri, TT, Darjeeling, Aug. 26: Mamata Banerjee today held a meeting of the Tribal Advisory Council at Lal Kothi, the headquarters of the GTA where no other chief minister conducted an administrative session during Subash Ghisingh years.

Mamata had no intention to hold today's meeting at Lal Kothi and the Darjeeling district administration had made all arrangements to conduct the session at the state tourist lodge here.

Sources said during a meeting between Mamata and a GTA delegation at Richmond Hill yesterday, the chief minister had talked about the absence of a proper place to hold a meeting in Darjeeling.

"The GTA delegation suggested that she could use the Indira Gandhi Conference Hall at Lal Kothi to hold the meeting. The chief minister promptly agreed to hold the Tribal Advisory Council's meeting at Lal Kothi," said the source.

Officials at the GTA could not recall any Bengal chief minister holding a state government meeting at Lal Kothi in the past. The DGHC office was earlier here. The building is now the GTA secretariat.

"This is definitely the first time that a state government meeting, which has nothing to do with the hill body, has been held at Lal Kothi," said an administrative official.

In 1989, Jyoti Basu as the chief minister had accompanied then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to Lal Kothi.

The meeting of the Tribal Advisory Council comes at a time the GTA has been demanding more autonomy for the hill body. The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha that runs the GTA had in the past complained about alleged interference by the state government in the functioning of the hill body.

After the meeting, Mamata said: "This is a routine administrative meeting. We are meeting once a year although earlier chief ministers did not hold such meetings even in two years. The last meeting was held at Jaldapara (in the Dooars) and now a meeting has been held here. The next meeting will be in Jungle Mahal."

The meeting that lasted for about an hour was attended by ministers Gautam Deb, Sukumar Hansda and Anup Biswas, several MLAs and a host of officials, including the chief secretary and the home secretary.

Without elaborating on what transpired at the meeting, Mamata said: "We have been doing a lot of work for the adivasis. We have introduced a pension scheme for 2 lakh tendu workers. We are also providing rice at Rs 2per kilogram to tribals at Jungle Mahal. Around 1.3 lakh tea garden workers are also getting pension through the tribal development department."

Adivasis make up most of the tendu and tea plantation workers.

Tendu leaves are used to make bidis.

Mamata said a group of ministers had been formed to look into the welfare of tea garden workers. "We have built tribal bhavans in six districts, Alipurduar, Jalpaiguri, Bankura, West Midnapore and South and North Dinajpurs. We are also building a tribal bhavan at Rajarhat in Calcutta," said Mamata.

After her brief address to the media, Mamata took a stroll around Lal Kothi. Sources said she had also visited the chamber of Lt. Col. (retd) Ramesh Allay, the deputy chief of the GTA, and that of Ravi Inder Singh, principal secretary of the GTA.

Even though Bimal Gurung's office was open, she did not visit his chamber. During her visit to Lal Kothi offices, Mamata was accompanied by Allay and Singh among others. Gurung had left for Delhi by the time the meeting started.

After her visit, Mamata was heard saying to an acquaintance: "Lal Kothi is a beautiful office."

Later, the chief minister visited Tiger Hill.