Row spotlights hill land rights

VIVEK CHHETRI -, TT, 30 Jun 2019, Darjeeling: Anit Thapa, chairman of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA), has directed the Directorate of Cinchona and Other Medicinal Plants Plantation to rebuild at its expense a house it had demolished in a plantation near here.

Thapa visited the site in Simlay village in Mungpoo, 35km from Darjeeling, met plantation officials and stressed on the need to consider "age-old conventions" followed in the cinchona plantation.

The directorate had on Friday dismantled the house of Rupen Chhetri, a non-worker, which was being built under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna, on the grounds that the structure was "illegal". Locals, however, maintain that Chhetris' family had been staying in the area for long and there was an overwhelming feeling among the plantation workers that a person living in the area was being ousted.

Officials had maintained that no permission was sought Anit Thapa speaks to officials and residents at Mungpoo on Saturday from the directorate to construct the structure.

The issue had threatened to whip up a storm in the hills where the issue of land ownership remains sensitive. "I met the locals and also spoke to the victim. I also held a meeting with the plantation officials and have directed them to immediately repair the house"I have told the plantation workers that it is important to take the age-old conventions into consideration. People have been residing in cinchona plantations for ages but they do not have land rights," Thapa said on Saturday. The directorate is under the GTA and is spread over an area of 26,000 acres. "If only the rules are to be looked into that hundreds living in cinchona plan- tation will be rendered homeless," Thapa added.

Administrative sources maintain that illegal construction is on the rise in the plantation area and that many outsiders have also constructed houses in the area.

Neeraj Zimba, BJP MLA from Darjeeling, also said he would try and raise the issue in the Assembly.