ENCLAVE (CHHITMAHAL)

Enclave residents' demand to new CM

A section of the residents of the Indian enclaves urged state chief minister Miss Mamata Banerjee to intervene to solve the long standing problems they are suffering from. Addressing the chief minister they handed over a memorandum to a Trinamul Congress MLA from Cooch Behar district, Mr Rabindra Nath Ghosh. Mr Ghosh is also the president of the party's district unit.

In the memorandum the enclave residents mentioned that the problems are remaining as before though a few agreements were signed between the two neighbouring countries like the Nehru-Noon agreement (1958) and Indira-Mujib agreement (1974).

The enclave residents recalled that Tinbigha corridor was handed over to Bangladesh on 26 June 1992 ignoring all protests and movements. The then chief minister Jyoti Basu had assured of ironing out all problems within two years but nothing happened so far during the Left Front regime.

In the changed situation the enclave residents want the new CM to intervene so that they can avail minimum humane facilities like drinking water, health care, education, road communication, etc. Though they live in Indian enclaves no one of them has any identity as Indian citizen.

Trinamul Congress MLA Mr Rabindra Nath Ghosh said a delegation of enclave residents met Miss Mamata Banerjee in Kolkata on 22 July in 2009. After that Miss Banerjee took up the matter related to the plights of the identity-less people to the Union home minister Mr P Chidambaram. Since then the matter started rolling towards betterment. Mr Ghosh hoped that the CM might consider the demands raised by the enclave residents in the memorandum.