House-like sessions for GTA Sabha

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Vivek Chhetri, TT, Darjeeling, Nov. 27: The GTA Sabha today decided to hold four sessions similar to those in Assemblies and the Parliament from next year and invite the governor and the chief minister to address any of the meetings.

Bhupendra Pradhan, the chairman of the GTA Sabha, said the decision had been taken at a meeting of the Sabha held at the Gorkha Rangamanch Bhavan today.

"During the meeting today it was decided that the GTA Sabha, too, would have sessions as the Assembly and the Parliament. The first of the annual four sessions will start from the first week of February and it will be called the winter session. The last meeting will be called budget session which will be held in November."

The second session, to be held from the first week of May, will be called the monsoon session. "The third session will be called the autumn session and it will commence from the first week of August," Pradhan said.

Explaining the rationale for holding the budget session in November and not in February or March as is the practice in the Assembly and Parliament, Pradhan said: "We need our budget to be passed by the Assembly. If we conduct the budget session in November, our budget can be sent to the state and it can be incorporated in their budget."

As of now, the GTA Sabha which came into being in 2012, doesn't hold sessions regularly and the meetings are generally for a day.

"We used to convene the Sabha meetings as and when they were needed, sometimes once in three months and sometimes in five months. But we realised that the Sabha is the only forum where all the members can air their views and there should be a fixed session," said Lopshang Yolmo, the deputy chairman of the GTA Sabha.

Pradhan said the governor or the chief minister "might not address the first session as we need to get a hang of organising the Sabha. The governor and the chief minister would be invited to address subsequent sessions."

The duration of each session has not been fixed. "It will probably depend on the issues that need to be discussed during a particular session," Yolmo said.

During today's meeting, it was also decided that the GTA would provide a one-time remuneration to voluntary teachers of 16 junior high schools. As of now, the teachers are not getting any pay. The remuneration amount is yet to be fixed.

Regarding another demand by a separate set of voluntary teachers, "a resolution was also passed to seek their regularisation of jobs. The teachers are currently agitating. The meeting requested the state government to withdraw its appeal in the high court so that the process to regularise the jobs of casual workers of the GTA can begin. The Sabha asked the state government to allow the GTA to appoint teachers in various schools to teach the Lepcha language as education is a transferred subject," said Pradhan.