Government sympathetic to Gorkhas and their demands ..... Rajnath Singh chairs a meeting of Gorkhaland Territorial Administration

PIB, KalimNews, 15 December, New Delhi: An official meeting between the GTA delegation led by Bimal Gurung chief executive and the union ministers was held today at North Block in New Delhi. 

The Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh chaired the meeting with the delegation of Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) in which Minister for Tribal Affairs Jual Oram, the MoS for Agriculture & Farmers Welfare and Parliamentary Affairs, S. S. Ahluwalia and senior officers of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Human Resource Development and Ministry of Panchayati Raj were present in the meeting, confirmed a press release issued by the union government. 

The government release stated that during the meeting, it was decided to sympathetically examine and appropriately consider the long pending demands of the Gorkhas, the Adivasis and other people of Darjeeling district and the Dooars region. 

It further stated that in respect of granting ST Status to 11 Gorkha communities, the Minister for Tribal Affairs informed that the committee constituted for preparing a report for this purpose has been recently granted extension for a further period of four months. The Committee will be asked to try to give its report as per the schedule. 

Regarding setting up of a Central University in GTA region, it was discussed that there is a general mandate for having a Central University in each State. However, there can be an exception to this and accordingly it was decided that the demand of setting up the Central University in GTA region would be considered, the release mentioned. 

The release issued by PIB added, with respect to the restoring of three-tier Panchayati Raj System in the GTA region, the Ministry of Panchayati Raj is examining the matter. With respect to the Central financial assistance of Rs 600 crores, Rs 465 crores has already been released to the GTA and for the balance amount of Rs 135 crores, allocation has already been made and it will be released in this financial year itself.