DEMAND TO MAKE JAIGAON A MUNICIPAL TOWN

Locals demand facelift of Jaigaon town

Local residents are aggrieved over the shabby state of Jaigaon. This town is situated on the Indian side of India-Bhutan border. On the other side there is Phuentsholing. Hundreds of people including tourists from foreign countries pass through this town everyday, as Jaigaon is the gateway of Bhutan.

Aiming beautification of the town the authorities removed the earlier road-divider of MS Road. Also, digging of holes has been done to erect lampposts. The work was initiated a few months ago but no one saw any visible progress. The road is fast becoming a garbage dumping ground. The monsoon turned the situation worse. The Jaigaon Merchants' Association (JMA) conveyed the matter to the Jaigaon Development Authority (JDA) several times but that yielded no result.

JMA sources alleged that they made appeals on several occasions to improve the condition of the town. The beautification drive proved a failure but no initiative was taken to change the scenario. The members of the local business community collect Rs 50 per month from every trader and handover about Rs 20,000 per month to the local Gram Panchayat to make the town clean. A member of Kalchini Panchayat Samiti said the adjacent town in Bhutan (that is Phuentsholing) is a clean and beautiful town but its neighbour Jaigaon is an ugly one due to mismanagement.

Local businessmen complained that the situation turned so grave that it became hard for them to run business in the town. Residents too are suffering from discontent due to the unhealthy situation.

Alipurduar MLA Mr Nirmal Das said Jaigaon was suffering from many problems. They were demanding Jaigaon to be uplifted to a municipality for years but the state government did nothing to make it a municipality, he alleged. The municipal affairs minister Mr Ashok Bhattacharya too promised to the effect but he failed to keep that promise, Mr Das said. The existing Jaigaon Development Authority is kept as a defunct body and it has no power to do anything, Mr Das alleged.

Jaigaon-II Gram Panchayat sources said the subscription given by the merchants was not enough to complete all the work. There is a requirement of a separate fund. Otherwise, the town should be declared as a municipal town, the GP sources said.

Sub-divisional office sources at Alipurduar said that the Alipurduar MP Manohar Tirkey already approved a fund of Rs 7-lakh for the beautification of Jaigaon town. But, to complete the whole work they need about Rs 25-lakh. Fund crunch is one of the main reasons behind delaying of implementation of the beautification drive. But, the problem may be sorted out by about three months, the sources hoped.