Mayal Lyang Lepcha Development Board gearing up to complete projects

SNS, Darjeeling, 30 December 2013: Since the Mayal Lyang Lepcha Development Board was formed at the behest of the chief minister Miss Mamata Banerjee, the tribal body is now engaged in completing the projects as envisaged.

It has also fixed dates for the completion of the projects the state government has sanctioned funds for.

The president of the Indigenous Lepcha Tribal Association (ILTA), Dorje T Lepcha today said that 67 days after the chief minister distributed cheques of Rs 1 lakh each to the one thousand Lepcha families as a house-building grant from the total fund of Rs 20 crore earmarked, things are near completion.

“The plan is to complete all the 1,000 concrete constructions by 15 February next,” he said.

The chief minister had announced in Kurseong on 24 October a spot assistance of Rs 20 crore as the house building grant for 1,000 Lepcha families, residing in the districts of Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri.

“The initial amount of Rs 10 crore was already deposited to the beneficiaries’ accounts from which the first phase of the construction is being completed. Soon the board will deposit another tranche of Rs 10 crore using which the remaining part of the work would be completed,” said Mr Lepcha.

He further added: “The state government has already sanctioned the remaining Rs 10 crore as well. We will try to complete the work before the coming financial year 2014-2015 and submit the state government the utilisation certificates along with the photographs of the work done.”

It is further learnt that when the agreement was signed to form the tribal body the state government christened the scheme as Rong Lee Scheme, meaning Lepcha House.

“It is a Central government scheme and the state government has named the scheme as Rong Lee as per the agreement similar to Amrabari Scheme,” he added.

Meanwhile, the concrete construction is being built mostly in the rural areas of both the districts and a few in the municipal areas, he stated.

The chief minister also announced to appoint 52 Lepcha youths for the posts of data entry operators and office assistants in various government offices.

Notably, Miss Banerjee had formally announced on 2 September 2011 to form a board for the development of the Lepcha community. On 3 September 2012, the Mayal Lyang Lepcha Development Board was constituted under the backward class development department of the state government.