CM to proceed on Sikkim road-trip to confer directly with people

GANGTOK, 04 May: Chief Minister Pawan Chamling, spoke for a brief 15 minutes while addressing the central executive meeting of the Sikkim Democratic Front at the party head office here today, his brevity, however, was packed with substantial announcements. The Chief Minister is also the president of the ruling party.
Mr. Chamling announced that starting 17 May, he will move out on a “Sikkim Darshan”, taking a road-trip across Sikkim, “reaching every settlement in the State accessible by road”, in a “direct-interaction” effort to connect with the people more intimately.
The “Sikkim Darshan”, he shared would take the better part of a month and he will be accompanied on this tour by his Cabinet colleagues, MLAs and heads of departments to facilitate on-the-spot mediation where possible and ground updates to inform later follow-up.

He also urged all the CEC members of the party to take cue from his initiative and make contact with the people ‘directly’ to understand their requirements and aspirations. People, he said, should be invited to submit their demands and directed that those which were urgent and genuine should be ‘sanctioned on the spot’.
Touching upon the Mission to make Sikkim a kutcha-house-free State, the CM announced, “In the next two years we will sanction 6,800 houses under the Chief Minister’s Rural Housing Mission through the Rural Management & Development Department. I promise that by the third year all the houses in Sikkim will be pucca.”
Mr. Chamling directed that by 15 July the concerned personnel should have an ‘accurate’ BPL list ready.
“I want every deserving person’s name to be included in the list and also warn the authorities to cut out the names of people who fall under APL category but are availing BPL facilities,” he directed, further asking the panchayats to attest only authentic and genuine cases to the Department of Food & Civil Supplies.
Similarly, he also directed that the CATCH programme be carried out on mission-mode and that the panchayats and CEC members take on the responsibility to facilitate wider awareness and complete coverage of the scheme in their respective villages.
On party affairs, the SDF party president rued that in the party ranks, stretching from leaders to members, including Ministers, MLAs, chairpersons and Panchayats, “only 10 percent” were actually working at the grass-root level, the remaining 90 percent were more busy pushing individual gains.
“Such individuals are conditional supporters who are in the party for selfish ambitions rather than facilitating works for the needy. I want them to wake up and instead of concentrating on individual gain work for the people,” Mr. Chamling said.
“What I want to see is collective responsibility among party workers and want the CEC members to collectively respond to the needs and aspirations of the people at the grass root level and hear what they want. I want to hear what they want from them now which is why I am undertaking the Sikkim Darshan,” he said.
Earlier, the UD&HD Minister, DB Thapa, laid a proposal to the Chief Minister to consider decreasing the fees announced for acquiring trade licenses. The CM said that he would look into the matter and in the meanwhile directed that all Sikkim Subjects applying for Trade Licences be immediately issued provisional licenses on showing their Certificates of Identification.
The CEC meeting of the party was also addressed by Ministers CB Karki, Dawcho Lepcha, NK Pradhan and TT Bhutia.