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RAJEEV RAVIDAS

Kalimpong, July 2: The CPM and the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha are locked in a fight over the occupation of a building owned by the Kalimpong Art and Crafts Industrial Cooperative Society Ltd here. The irony is that both appear to be on shaky legal grounds.

The row began after the Kalimpong branch of the Morcha opened its office on the ground floor on the basis of an authorisation letter obtained from the “chairman” of the society, Mangal Singh Rai. The CPM, which occupies the first floor of the building at Melli Road here, alleges that the board of directors of the society, of which Singh claims to be the chairman, was dissolved back in 1993.

Records available with The Telegraph reveal that in 1997, a board of administrators was constituted to run the society in place of the dissolved board of directors following an order from the director of cottage and small scale industries, West Bengal. However, the administrators, too, were later asked to resign and after that no board was constituted. (more…)

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Darjeeling, July 2: The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha has asked car-owners across the hills to submit photocopies of the vehicle registration certificates and driving licenses to its affiliate transport wing by July 5.

The owners have also been asked to stop paying motor vehicle taxes from the day they sport new GL (Gorkhaland) number plates.

The party has said all vehicles should replace the WB initials on the number plates with GL from July 7. The All Gorkha Hill Transport Joint Action Committee — an umbrella body of about 148 syndicates across the hills — will implement the change.

“We request all vehicle-owners to submit photocopies of their documents by July 5. We want them for the sake of record and nothing else,” said Narbu Lama, the president of the committee. He did not explain why the transport body needs to keep the records.

Morcha chief Bimal Gurung had explained earlier that the change of number plates is part of the non-cooperation movement against the Bengal government. The state government has said it would not hesitate to take action against those using illegal number plates.

It is learnt that 48 private owners and 75 taxi-owners today deposited the documents at the Morcha office in Singamari here. “Owners in Kalimpong and Kurseong can deposit the papers in the committee’s office in their respective towns,” said Lama. There are around 10,000 vehicles, including two-wheelers, in the three hill sub-divisions.

While residents are still unsure why they need to submit the documents, many of them have already changed their number plates to GL, despite being aware of the technical problems that may arise in case of accident and theft.

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Kalimpong, July 1: The subdivisional officer of Kalimpong, P.T. Sherpa, took over as the drawing and disbursing officer of the town’s municipality today in a development that effectively renders civic chairman C.K. Kumai powerless.

In a letter addressed to Darjeeling district magistrate Rajesh Pandey, the deputy secretary of the municipality affairs department, B.C. Ghorui, said the SDO would take over the dual charge for “drawing and disbursing the arrears, if any, and current salaries payable to the employees of Kalimpong Municipality”.

The SDO has also been authorised to incur expenditure from the municipal fund for the purpose of running the day-to-day activities of the municipality. (more…)

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VIVEK CHHETRI

Members of the Nari Morcha’s 2nd Mile local committee stand in front of the ‘jail’ alongside Peshok Road, 12km from Darjeeling town. Picture by Suman Tamang

2nd Mile (Darjeeling), July 1: The rough wooden structure with a chair placed inside along the busy Peshok Road, connecting Darjeeling to Kalimpong, appears to have cured a whole bunch of men of their fondness for liquor in just three months.

The structure, dubbed “the jail” by the women of the locality, has a simple function. Any individual found drunk and loitering in the village, located 12km from Darjeeling town, is confined to the 5ft by 4ft cubicle for seven hours. They are also made to pay a fine of Rs 500 for the “offence”.

The “jail”, which has been endorsed by the Gorkha Janmukti Nari Morcha, was built on March 10 this year. (more…)

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SANJAY MANDAL

Calcutta, July 1: A consignment of Makaibari green tea will leave tomorrow for guests at the Beijing Olympics.

With the bandh in the hills temporarily suspended, Darjeeling tea gardens have rushed to send their consignments to Calcutta for export to the global auction markets.

After a break of nearly three weeks, the first consignment of second flush Darjeeling tea will be loaded on a Singapore Airlines flight tomorrow.

A 333kg consignment, which includes second flush green tea from Makaibari Tea Estate, costing Rs 7,000 per kg, will be sent for the Beijing Olympics. Two other consignments, of 616kg and 110kg, from other tea gardens will be flown to Tokyo.

“The consignment was scheduled to be sent on June 22 but it got delayed. It is one of our best quality teas and is sent for special guests at the Olympics,” said P.K. Chakraborty, manager, Makaibari Tea Estate.

Emirates is scheduled to carry Darjeeling tea after July 15, an airline official said.

Since June 10, no consignment of Darjeeling tea could be exported out of Calcutta’s airport and port because of the shutdown forced by the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha.

“Around 80 per cent of the second flush Darjeeling tea is exported. So, with the bandh temporarily lifted now, the planters are trying to clear their warehouses as quickly as possible,” said Basudeb Banerjee, chairman, Tea Board of India.

“However, this does not mean the entire product would be rushed for export. The mercantile export agents in Calcutta would hold the stock for better prices and also to keep supply going if there are further disruptions,” a tea industry source said.

Exporters and planters said the supply of tea was still irregular and they feared another round of disruptions once the bandh resumed on July 5.

A brief spell of showers in May kicks off the second flush season, after the first flush ends in late April. As the rains set in, monsoon flush tea is produced. The quality then deteriorates and fetches lower prices.

Darjeeling produces about one million kg of tea in June, the average price being Rs 800-1,000 a kg. Tea worth Rs 2 crore is exported every day and a day’s loss in production costs the planters Rs 3.33 crore.

The annual production is 10-11 million kg, of which 70 per cent is exported to meet the huge demand in the US, the UK, Germany, Japan and other developed countries. Darjeeling accounts for 7 to 8 per cent of the Rs 1,800-2,000 crore India earns from tea export every year.

Along with tea, Kalimpong’s flower export will also resume. A 300kg sample consignment of orchid will be sent to Tokyo. “We are expecting large consignments later this week,” said a Singapore Airlines official.

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Kalimpong, June 30: NH31A was blocked for more than five hours today after five trees uprooted by a landslide fell on the highway near 27th Mile, about 25km from here.

Vehicles travelling between Kalimpong, Sikkim and Siliguri were caught in the traffic jam that stretched for kilometers on both lanes of the busy highway.

This is the third time in the past eight days that the road has been blocked.

Sources in the Border Roads Organisation (BRO), which maintains the highway, said traffic on the road initially came to a standstill for nearly three hours from 8am and again for another two-and-a-half hours from 2.30pm.

In between, traffic was stalled for another 15 minutes. (more…)

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Siliguri, June 30: The CPM has accused Gorkha Janmukti Morcha supporters of threatening the family members of the party’s district secretary S.P. Lepcha and district committee member Tara Sundas.

Although Lepcha is in Siliguri now, his family lives in Singtam Tea Estate, around 10km from Darjeeling. The Sundases live in Kalimpong.

“Over the past few days, a section of the Morcha supporters has been constantly threatening the family members of our district secretary with dire consequences if they do not join the movement for statehood,” said Jibitesh Sarkar, a district secretariat member of the CPM.

Sarkar added that Sundas’s family in Kalimpong is facing similar threats. (more…)

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RAJEEV RAVIDAS

Kalimpong, June 29: The Kalimpong Municipality will seek the help of self-help groups (SHGs) and traders to promote the use of carry bags made from environment-friendly material like paper and jute in lieu of the banned polythene bags.

The civic body’s health officer S.B Zimba will hold a meeting with members of SHGs tomorrow and urge them to start manufacturing paper bags (locally called thungas). “We will take the help of the Kalimpong Chamber of Commerce to market the thungas,” said Zimba.

“We are taking these initiatives since we believe we cannot solve the plastic problem just by imposing a ban on its use. The people must be provided with alternatives to plastic carry bags,” he said.

The indiscriminate use of plastic in the town is borne out by the fact that plastic are the major component of solid waste that has been accumulating on the streets since Monday after residents stopped the civic body from depositing trash in the dumping ground in Lower Bhalukhop.

The Chamber of Commerce, too, has wholeheartedly endorsed the decision to ban plastics.

In a four-point resolution adopted at a meeting here, the trade body said it would also urge its members to revive the old practice of making thungas during their free time.

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6: Great GJM paradox

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Sougata Mukhopadhyay / CNN-IBN
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What went wrong with the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council? Was it insufficient to fulfill the political aspiration of the Gorkhas? Why was Ghising alienated by his own people? The house which the Subhas Ghising-led Dargeeling Gorkha Hill Council used as the seat of power is today completely deserted, even as the so-called “prince of hills” remains under house arrest for all practical senses of the term.

Siliguri (Darjeeling): Darjeeling hasn’t witnessed a political upheaval like what the GJM has been doing in the past two decades. The last time under Subhash Ghising, was far more violent, in the mid-80s.

The GNLF had promised better civic infrastructure, better health and education. But by the end of the ’80s it was clear that Ghising the rebel fell short of Ghising the administrator.

Former Teacher Loreto College, Amar Rai says, “I would give credit to the GNLF and Subhash Ghising because he raised the issue of ‘mato’. Mato means the soil. And it was linked to our whole question of identity. But then, we felt very disappointed when instead of Gorkhaland he went for Darjeeling Hill Gorkha Council (DHGC).” (more…)