Plea to reopen tea gardens in north

TT, 3 July 2019, Calcutta: The chief minister's meeting with the MLAs of the SC and ST communities was attended by ministers like Rajib Banerjee, Chandrima Bhattacharya and Ashima Patra and principal secretary of Backward Classes Welfare department Sanjay Thade.

BJP legislature party leader and Madarihat MLA Manoj Tigga, who attended the meeting, urged the chief minister to take initiatives to open up the closed tea gardens in the Terai and Dooars regions. "In 2016, I took initiative and Union minister Nirmala Sitaramanji visited the closed gardens and promised to takeover the management of these gardens. I told her that the state government did not cooperate at that time. I mentioned that any plan for development of the SC and ST communities in north Bengal should revolve around the tea industry," said Tigga.

CPM MLA from Ranaghat South Rama Biswas talked about the dilly-dallying and harassment over issuance of the SC and ST certificates. "Getting a caste certificate from the government authorities despite your father having one is almost impossible task. We all pointed it out," she said.

Following the meeting, Mamata ordered that government officers at the block levels should issue caste certificates to a candidate whose father has such certificates within four weeks without asking for any proof.

"We have decided to hold special camps to distribute caste certificates at block level from now onwards," Chatterjee said, claiming the government has issued 67.29 lakh SC and OBC certificates and 6.9 lakh ST certificates since 2011.

Later, Mamata tweeted: "I am happy to share with all of you that National Scheduled Castes Finance and Development Corporation has awarded first prize to Bengal for excellence in performance for Scheduled Castes for the financial year 2017-18. My heartiest congratulations to all. Incidentally, today I took a meeting with all SC and ST MLAs of all political parties in the Assembly and took stock of development activities and other works for SC, ST communities. My best wishes.".