The Bengal government is set to revive the School Service Commission (SSC) in the Darjeeling hills after 20 years, a development which is being showcased by Anit Thapa as an outcome of peace, stability and constructive politics in the region.
The SSC has remained defunct in the hills since 2003 and the current process to recruit teachers to government schools has invited allegations of nepotism and corruption. This is because the teachers are appointed without conducting written examinations or interviews.
Thapa, the chief executive of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA), said on Friday that Mamata Banerjee had told him over the phone that the SSC would be brought back to the hills.
“The School Service Commission issue is being worked out. This would be announced by the chief minister during her visit (to Darjeeling). This is what she (Mamata Banerjee) told me over the phone,” said Thapa.
Thapa is also the president of Bharatiya Gorkha Prajatantrik Morcha (BGPM) which is working closely with the ruling Trinamul Congress.
“Development process has started from the time we have established peace in the hills. People have understood that it is through peace that development can happen. They have discarded the path of destruction and are on the path of construction,” said Thapa.
Bimal Gurung’s Gorkha Janmukti Morcha which was in control of the hills before 2017 would blow hot and cold with the state government. Thapa who parted ways with Gurung during the 2017 Gorkhaland agitation, however, decided to work closely with chief minister Mamata Banerjee from the very beginning.
“We are fulfilling most of our promises starting from land rights,” said Thapa, whose party swept both the GTA and panchayat elections in the hills.
The demand for the revival of the SSC is more than a decade old and finds a mention in the GTA memorandum of settlement signed in 2011.
The SSC has been mired in controversies since its inception.
In 1997, the government conducted an SSC examination for teacher recruitment which was cleared by 182 candidates from the hills.
The then hill body, Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (DGHC), did not allow the candidates to join work and demanded that a separate hill zone of the SSC be formed.
In 1999, the government formed the hill zone and an SSC examination was also conducted. Forty candidates passed this examination but the DGHC once again stalled their appointment and raised a fresh demand for handing over SSC (hill zone) to the DGHC.
The government then stated that a bill would be placed in the Assembly to hand over the SSC to the DGHC but the GNLF, which was in power at the hill body, stated that the party would not accept the SSC as almost all hill schools were “linguistic minorities” and argued that minorities schools were out of the SSC's ambit.
On September 5, 2003, the government directed the secretary SSC (hill region) to keep the office "under suspension" and asked the official “to lock the office and hand its custody to the district magistrate”.
In the meantime, the DGHC continued recruiting “ad hoc” teachers — there were allegations of political nepotism in appointment — providing them with a meagre remuneration. Many hill institutions also appointed “voluntary teachers” whose remuneration was not fixed.
