Meena (left) and Pandey at the meeting in Lal Kothi. Picture by Suman Tamang

Darjeeling, March 14: Drinking water, rural electrification and repair of roads top the priority list of the new caretaker administrator of the DGHC.

B.L. Meena, the divisional commissioner of Jalpaiguri, who is now at the helm of hill council affairs, said more meetings would have to be held to streamline the projects. He had called the council officers at Indira Gandhi Conference Hall in Lal Kothi here today to review the status of the schemes and prioritise them on a need basis.

The three-hour meeting was attended by heads of various departments, who apprised the administrator of the pending work at hand.

Sources said the council has already received around Rs 20 crore for rural electrification under the Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojna and the total funding could touch the Rs 75-crore mark.

With only three of the 12 executive officers (formerly called secretaries of the council) still in service, the Bengal government will appoint five deputy magistrates, currently working at the district magistrate’s office, to take charge of the departments.

“We had requested the government to appoint officers at the earliest,” said Rajesh Pandey, the district magistrate who has been given additional charge as the principal secretary of the DGHC.

The new administrator, as promised earlier, has also removed the “trespassers-would-be-prosecuted” signboard from the gate of Lal Kothi. The notice had been put up when Subash Ghisingh was at the helm of the council affairs. He resigned on Monday.

The next day, police had raided the houses of four former officials of the DGHC without search warrants and seized some files. Later the district police chief showcaused the inspector in charge of the Sadar police station for conducting the raid without a court order.