Kolkata, May 20 (IANS) West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari said on Wednesday that an investigation will begin in the alleged corruption in the running of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA), the autonomous body for controlling civic affairs in the hills scattered over Darjeeling, Kurseong and Kalimpong in North Bengal.

He made this announcement while speaking to the media persons at the sidelines of the administrative meeting at Siliguri in Darjeeling district chaired by him.

GTA is currently run by the Anti Thapa-founded Bharatiya Gorkha Prajatantrik Morcha (BGPM) with Anit Thapa being its Chief Executive.

BGPM is the ally of Trinamool Congress.

According to Chief Minister Adhikari, during the previous Trinamool Congress government, there had been several allegations of rampant corruption in the functioning of the GTA, which was guarded by the previous Mamata Banerjee-led state government since BGPM is an ally of the previous ruling party in West Bengal.

“Now a probe into the charges of such corrupt activities in the GTA will start. Recently, the North Bengal Development Minister, Nisith Pramanik, too, complained of corruption in the GTA. All these will be probed now. As I have already said, the new state government will operate with a zero-tolerance approach against corruption. This will be applicable in case of GTA as well,” the Chief Minister said.

He also added that the new state government led by him will try to implement the promises on development projects in North Bengal made in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s pre-election ‘Sankalp Patra’ (election manifesto) within the next one year.

The Chief Minister said that he will visit North Bengal again in July.

“Before that, my suggestion to the BJP workers in North Bengal is to keep a record of the proposals they want to make to the state government. I will collect those proposals during my next visit to North Bengal in July. I assure that the state government will address those proposals to the next extent possible,” Chief Minister Adhikari added.

–IANS

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