DARJEELING, : Darjeeling MP Raju Bista today said
that he has reached out to Union Commerce minister and Tea Board requesting
them to look into the issue of the West Bengal government issuing a gazette
notification to allow 30% of tea garden land to be diverted to purposes other
than producing tea.
Bista, in a press release,
claimed that the gazette notification which is dated February 7, 2025 was made
public today and threatened to take legal actions against it.
“The announcement regarding a
possible land policy change was made on the 6th of February by the West Bengal
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. This means, the State government rushed to
issue this gazette notification within a day of the announcement being made,”
said Bista. “No deliberations on this were done in the West Bengal Legislative
Assembly. In addition, this is flouting various land laws and is also in
contravention of the Tea Act of 1953, where all changes in the tea garden
structure have to be approved by the Tea Board of India.”
Terming it as a “dictatorial,”
Bista said, “We will challenge this illegal act in the courts, and we will
protest against this dictatorship on the ground too. We will not allow TMC to
displace the indigenous communities of our Darjeeling hills, Terai and
Dooarsregion from their ancestral land. We will resist the TMC attempt to make
our people landless and homeless.”
The West Bengal Land & Land
Reforms and Refugee Relief and Rehabilitation department issued the latest gazette
notification amending its earlier notification issued on November 28, 2019.
The amendments mentioned in the
notification include substituting the figure “15%” with the figure “30%” along
with the permissible business activities to include tourism resorts,
plantation, animal husbandry, horticulture, floriculture, medicinal plants,
cultural/recreational and exhibition centres, cafe/restaurants along with
different clean and green business ventures following green technology.
BharatiyaGorkhaPrajatantrikMorcha
(BGPM) presidentAnitThapahad recently claiming that the State government has
assured him that no such steps would be taken in Darjeeling hills.
