The chairman of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) Board of Administrators, Binoy Tamang, on Monday said that a Bill for a state university for the GTA area would be placed and passed in the state Assembly on Tuesday.

Mr. Tamang told a press conference at Lalkothi here that the GTA had been demanding a separate university for the hills for a long time now.

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“The demand was also made in the year 1955, when the then Municipality board here had adopted a resolution and sent it to the government. It was decided that a university would be established here, after which the North Bengal University came up in 1962. However, instead of the university being set up in the Hills, it came up in Siliguri where it is presently located,” Mr Tamang said.

“The Central University was one of the issues in the GTA agreement, which was signed among the Centre, state and us. At that time, the Congress was at the Centre, after which the BJP came to power. We repeatedly took up this issue with the BJP government, but it seemed they only talked about it during the elections, but it was not followed up after that,” he added.

Mr Tamang said that they then took up the demand with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who agreed on it. “Our demand was accepted by the state government, and accordingly, 100 acres of land has also been identified at Jogighat in Mungpo. The bill for the university will be placed in the Assembly on Tuesday and will be passed with the name of Greenfield University. We thank the CM and the state government for this,” said Mr Tamang.

He added that with the Hills known for its educational institutions, the state university would be a great help for students. According to him, the university will start functioning in two years from now and that colleges here would also be affiliated to it.

In a separate context, Mr Tamang said that he will be sending a “reminder” to the chief minister on Monday, urging her to not include two police stations of Sevoke and Sukna in the Siliguri Police Commissionerate.

“On 11 July, in an administrative meeting in Cooch Behar, it was announced that some police stations of Jalpaiguri and here near the Siliguri area would be brought under the Siliguri Commissionerate, in which the names of Sukna and Sevoke police stations also came up. On the 21st, I met the CM in Kolkata and told her that this should not be done and that the areas should remain under the GTA. She asked us to give this in writing, which we did through the GTA on 24 July,” Mr Tamang said. He urged people of these two areas to serve memorandums on this to their respective ASPs and SDOs.