‘Maintain peace and support will be provided for development of Hills’...... Mamata unhappy with development work in Hills, rebukes top officials

SNS, Kurseong, 23 October: Favouring the Lepcha Community, once again, the state CM, Miss Mamata Banerjee has given the message to the other Hills community that if peace is given a place in Darjeeling Hills, she would gladly extend all kinds of support for the development of Darjeeling Hills. 

The CM, who reached Kurseong last night, today participated in a programme organised at Saint Alphonsus School ground in Kurseong by the newly formed Lepcha Development Board (LDB). During the programme, she distributed cheques of Rs 1 lakh each to 1,000 Lepcha women to construct their houses under the banner of the LDB. Due to her busy schedule, out of 1,000, 75 women received the aid from Miss Banerjee and rest of them collected their cheques from the program counter, today. 

In her speech, Miss Banerjee said that Rs 1 lakh distributed today is only the first phase of help given to the 1,000 Lepcha families as another Rs 1 lakh will be given to them again at a later stage for building their houses under the same scheme. 

At the same time, she has sanctioned appointment letters for government jobs to 50 Lepcha youths out of which 22 of them received it from the CM directly during the program for recruitment in various government departments. 

Besides these measures of helping the Lepchas on different aspects, she also laid stress and announced that the Lepcha language will be implemented in primary schools from the next session. Padmashree awardee and a folk music artiste, S Lepcha was also felicitated during the programme by Miss Mamata Banerjee. 

Miss Banerjee informed that soon after taking over the reign of the State Government she has built 35 primary schools for the benefit of the Hills people and upgraded 29 junior schools to high schools. 

She also said that over the years she has already given more than 200 crores for the purpose of maintaining and constructing highways and 135 crores for electrification alone.

"We are also laying infrastructure in Takdah for an Engineering college, an IT in Gorubathan, promoting village tourism, ropeways and many other such developmental projects. We have already opened a fair price medical shop in Darjeeling and are also planning to open more such fair price medical stores at different places in the Hills. 

Besides these, we are also planning fair price diagnosis centres in the Hills for the common people.," she said. While addressing today’s programme, she emphasised that she will extend any kind of support to the Hill people but peace should prevail in the Hills. She said: 

"You can show your anger against me but let Darjeeling Hills live in peace. Once this kind of support is shown to her, she will fast tract the development of Darjeeling." She also said that she is interested to work for other communities like the Tamangs and others living in Darjeeling Hills besides the Lepchas for their social and economic up-liftment.

SNS, Siliguri, 23 October: Chief minister Mamata Banerjee rebuked a section of administrative officials, including the officer-in-charge of police stations, and raised questions about their accountability and competency while she was taking stock of the situation of three districts ~ Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri and Cooch Behar. 

Miss Banerjee reviewed developmental projects by interacting with the administrative officials from BDO to DM and OC to SP and top police officials at Rabindra-Bhanu mancha in North Bengal University campus last evening. 

The CM asked a section of administrative officials ~ who had failed to implement some projects which were taken up at previous meetings ~ that appropriate action would be taken against them for failing to carry out their duties seriously. 

Following a prepared list of incomplete projects, the chief minister individually sought clarifications from BDOs, OCs and higher officials yesterday. 

Officials were in deep trouble giving proper reasons behind the delay as the CM was serious and aggressive. The CM expressed her anger over various issues, including ‘secretly’ release of water from Teesta Project to Bangladesh, and other petty issues. 

The chief minister also raised questions about the performance of the officials in the Hills for failing to implement many projects including the 100-days job. 

Though officials had been able to pacify the CM that they could not finish the jobs in the past four months for the preparation of the panchayat elections, no one raised questions about the two-tier panchayat system which is completely defunct in the Hills and which plays a key role to prepare action plans for development projects for a year. 

Officials were relieved after the meeting ended. 

Senior officials felt uncomfortable when a senior official was being scolded by Miss Banerjee in the presence of several junior officials in both the civil and police department. 

Under conditions of anonymity, a government employee said keeping an eye on the Lok Sabha election the CM is determined to implement all pending projects in public interests.