MEETING ENDED WITHOUT DECILION AT RANGPO DARJEELING AREA

SANJAY AGARWAL-RANGPO-22ND JUNE11

Due to the heavy dispute raise between the villagers of Rangpo Darjeeling area villagers the new committee of Forest protection committee was not formed.yesturday the meeting was held at Rangpo ground was attended by GJMM national highway committee members named narbu lama,sachin chettri,sagar lama,pirey rai,GJMM Rangpo president Mr. Tara chettri, Panchayat executive Mr. dilip bagdas,bharat chettri, along with shyam mukhia from Darjeeling and the local residents of Rangpo Darjeeling area. several speakers along with Mr. shyam mukhia has given the details of aims and objective, roles cum duty of this committee .as Rangpo and maximum area at national highway 31a is falls under the forest department. Regularisation of the forest land to the residents in the area was seen the main target of the committee. Though the central government has passed the bill on 2005 to regularise the residents living in forest land in their name with terms and conditions but especially in Darjeeling hills this act was not implemented by the cpim government. And this time mamta didi government is come and she has shown a positive response in this issue. so the formation of FRC is important. in other side Mr. saran rai of Rangpo strongly opposing the issue asked that FRC is always formed in Rangpo according to law and regarding the matter the names of the committee was given to the SDO kalimpong and DM office Darjeeling .he blamed that the meeting is pressurising the residents to dissolve the old committee and to form new committee is totally against the act. If local residents want to change the members it is acceptable.FRC is totally non political organisation and is fighting for documents from long terms and politicalisation of this committee may hamper in the issue. After that the dispute raises and without any type of decision the meeting was ended.