New district in Chumphon proposed

Thai Wikipedia Potapt notified me about a news report that in Chumphon province plans to create a new district. According to that report, the district Tha Sae (อำเภอท่าแซะ) in the north of the province is too large to be manageable by the district office. In fact, this district is the largest one of Chumphon by ara, and also with 83,293 citizen (December 2014) the second-most populous one after Mueang district - interestingly the news report wrongly claims it is the third. Also, its location at the boundary to Myanmar makes it more difficult to administrated. As the name of the new district "Thepharat" (อำเภอเทพรัตน) is proposed.

Interestingly, the territorial extent in this proposal means that not just some subdistricts get split off to form the new district, but also the subdistrict Rap Ro - number five in the map above and the largest of the subdistricts by area, population and number of administrative villages - should be split between the two new districts. The villages 10, 14, 19, 21 and 23 making up the northern part of the subdistrict would become a new subdistrict and then be part of the new district. This would not just make it the first new subdistrict since 1996 (not counting those in Bangkok), it would also mean that the local government of Rap Ro would either be the first TAO to cover area within two districts, or would have to be split as well.

However, it will still take some time until this district can be created - unlike the two proposed districts in Yala province it even hasn't been discussed in the board to consider draft laws nor by the cabinet of ministers, both steps before the law could proceed.