Hill unit of TMC to hear grievances

SNS, Kurseong, 14 January: The Trinamul Congress’s Hill unit has decided to embark on a string of activities across the Darjeeling Hills to articulate the popular grievances of the people ~ a move meant to strengthen the party’s bases so as make inroads in the polarised electoral scene ahead of the Lok Sabha election.

Around a month ago, the TMC’s Kurseong unit had raised several questions regarding the supply of drinking water in and around Kurseong municipality area. As per the TMC leadership, several water reservoirs are in dire straits, resulting in polluted water being supplied to the residents of the Kurseong municipality areas.

Now, they have decided to raise the health-related issues to muster support among the aggrieved. The TMC Kurseong unit served a memorandum to the Kurseong sub-divisional medical officer yesterday, protesting against the dismal condition of the Kurseong hospital. The memorandum has highlighted various problems plaguing the hospital like shortages of doctors and technicians and insufficient supply of medicines and diet. Notably, for over three years, the hospital keeps running, devoid of specialists, including surgeons and orthopedics.

The hospital authority is understood to have assured them that their grievances sand demands would be forwarded to the higher GTA authorities for redressal. The ruling party activists based in the Hills had recently met the GTA chief executive, Mr Bimal Gurung to press him for initiatives to solve the problems the hospital in Kurseong has been facing.

The TMC leaders claimed they would act as watchdogs to see if the programmes conceived by the Centre and the state government are being implemented rightly in the Hills. “Our activities projecting the mounting grievances of the people would continue,” one of the leaders said.