Rai development body work starts

RAJEEV RAVIDAS, TT,  Kalimpong, March 1: The West Bengal Rai Development Board has started its operation with 30 general body members owing allegiance to the Kirati Khambu Rai Sanskritik Sansthan, although the objection raised by the Khambu Rights Movement was yet to be addressed. 

M.S. Rai, the chairman of the Rai board, said the first governing body meeting of the board had been held in Darjeeling on Saturday. "The board belongs to all Khambus living in Bengal. It will work for their development. Today, we distributed Rs 1 lakh each to 20 poor Rai families from the hills. This is the first instalment of Rs 2 lakh we intend to give to each of these families for constructing houses," he said in Darjeeling. 

The KRM has expressed unhappiness at the board's functioning without taking it into confidence. "We were told by both the Darjeeling district magistrate and S.K. Thade (principal secretary, backward classes welfare department) that even though the notification constituting the general body had been issued on February 12, it would not be acted upon till the differences between us and KKRSS were resolved. This is totally unexpected. We will decide on our next course of action later," said A.K. Rai, the KRM president. 

The KRM had staged a hunger strike from February 17 to 24, demanding that its supporters be made the board members. The 31-member general body has just one supporter of the KRM.

Rai community gets development board, funds

EOI, Darjeeling, 1 Mar 2016: Much to the surprise of a section of Darjeeling’s Rai community, the state government has issued a notification forming a development board for the community, and has also started distributing funds for construction of houses. 

Today, the district administration distributed bank cheques to 20 beneficiaries of the Rai community who had been short listed by the executive body of the newly-formed West Bengal Khambu Rai Development Board (WBKRDB). The community is divided over accepting a development board formed on the lines of the Lepcha, Sherpa, Tamang, Bhutia and Mangar boards. 

A section of Kalimpong-based members of the Khambu Right Movement (KRM) had first demanded for a development board. The demand was then taken up by the Kirati Khambu Rai Sanskriti Sansthan (KKRSS), while another section under the All India Kirati Khambu Rai Association (AIKKRA) has chosen not to accept a development board. The KKRSS, which the state government prefers as the one representing the community, has been given the responsibility to run the board. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee has reportedly already sanctioned Rs5 crore to construct houses under the housing scheme. 

“We will provide Rs1 lakh each to 500 beneficiaries from our community for building houses. We have several issues related to the welfare of our community and we will pursue them in the coming years with the help of this board,” said Mangal Singh Rai, the chairman of the newly-formed board. Rai said the KKRSS has 422 units across the hills, while the AIKKRA has only 11, suggesting these figures have influenced the state government in handing over responsibility to the former.

According to Darjeeling district magistrate Anurag Srivastava, the state government issued a notification in February to announce the formation of the WBKRDB. “The state government issued a notification on February 12 and I received it recently. The board’s executive body will have eight members, while the governing body will have 31 heads,” he said. When asked about the differences in opinion within the community regarding a development board, and the policy adopted to diffuse the situation, Srivastava said, “The district administration’s role is only to ensure the law and order situation does not go out of hand. As for who forms the board and how, we have left it to the Rai community to decide.”

The KKRSS has ensured the KRM has representatives in the governing body of the development board even though AIKKRA members have refused to join. AK Rai, the president of the KRM, said he had no knowledge of a Rai development board functioning as the state government had assured to sort out the differences first. “We had information only of a notification being issue by the state government. But to hear that the board has started functioning is news to us,” he maintained.

In February, the KRM undertook an 11-day relay hunger strike in Kalimpong in demand of a development board and even met the chief minister. “We called off our agitation in deference to the state government’s assurance. Now that the board has been officially formed and has even started functioning is something I would not have allowed. We will sit for a meeting soon to decide on the future course of action,” the KRM president said.

The Rai community, with a population of nearly 3.5 lakh, is the largest in the three hill sub-divisions of Darjeeling district.