Thursday, June 23, 2016

New Muban in Nakhon Sawan

Somehow I almost missed the announcement of yet another new administrative village last week, this time in Nakhon Sawan province. The Muban became effective with the publication in the Royal Gazette on June 16.

Tuesday, June 21, 2016

NCPO Announcement 29/2016

Today, the 29th announcement of the National Council for Peace and Order of this year (คำสั่งหัวหน้าคณะรักษาความสงบแห่งชาติ ที่ ๒๙/๒๕๕๙) was announced in the Royal Gazette, which by its publication became active law. This announcement deals with the local government administrators and councilors in case of a change in the municipal status. So far, whenever a municipality or a subdistrict administrative organization changes its administrative status, the mayor and the council have to vacate their office and stand for a new election. Especially for the council this is logical, as with the change of status the size of the council changes, thus the previously elected council doesn't fit anymore. Thus, so far usually all the municipal upgrades were done whenever the terms of either the council and/or the mayor ends, and a new election was pending anyway. However, in some cases the time till the next election was quite long, as the Election Commission first has to come up with a new constituency outline matching the new size of the council.

However, since the coup in 2014 there were no elections for the local governments anymore, by announcements 85 and 86 all of the local elections were halted and those mayors and councilors in office were given an indefinite extension of their term by announcement 1/2015. As even for a nation election the schedule is still unsure and depends on the constitutional referendum, those less important local elections certainly have to wait even longer.

I am not sure if this announcement somehow relates with an announcement by the Department of Local Administration from last week titled "แนวทางการแก้ไขปัญหาและผลกระทบจากการปรับโครงสร้างเทศบาล" (way to solve municipal restructure) - which if I understand it correctly suggests that TAO with more than 20 million Baht income should be upgraded to municipalities.

Monday, June 13, 2016

New Muban in Nakhon Phanom and Sakon Nakhon

Announced last week, five Muban were created in Nakhon Phanom effective April 11.
  • Mu 11 of Ban Kaeng subdistrict, Na Kae district, Nakhon Phanom province, split from Mu 2 (Ban Kaeng, บ้านแก้ง) and named Ban Kaeng (บ้านแก้ง). [Gazette]
  • Mu 14 of Kaen Luang subdistrict, Na Kae district, Nakhon Phanom province, split from Mu 3 (Ban Don Khram, บ้านดอนคราม) and named Ban Don Khram (บ้านดอนคราม). [Gazette]
  • Mu 16 of Tha Champa subdistrict, Tha Uthen district, Nakhon Phanom province, split from Mu 7 (Ban Kham Toei, บ้านคำเตย) and named Ban Kham Toei Noi (บ้านคำเตยน้อย). [Gazette]
  • Mu 17 of Chaiburi subdistrict, Tha Uthen district, Nakhon Phanom province, split from Mu 9 (Ban Kaeo Pat Pong, บ้านแก้วปัดโป่ง) and named Ban Kaeo Pat Pong (บ้านแก้วปัดโป่ง). [Gazette]
  • Mu 11 of Phiman subdistrict, Na Kae district, Nakhon Phanom province, split from Mu 7 (Ban Suk Kasem, บ้านสุขเกษม) and named Ban Suk Kasem (บ้านสุขเกษม). [Gazette]
Another five Muban were created in Sakon Nakhon, these became effective with the publication, thus on June 9.
  • Mu 14 of Kham Sa-at subdistrict, Sawang Daen Din district, Sakon Nakhon province, split from Mu 11 (Ban That Sopha, บ้านธาตุโสภา) and named Ban Pluak (บ้านปลวก). [Gazette]
  • Mu 27 of Sawang Daen Din subdistrict, Sawang Daen Din district, Sakon Nakhon province, split from Mu 16 (Ban Noi Nong Bua, บ้านน้อยหนองบัว) and named Ban Non Si Thong (บ้านโนนสีทอง). [Gazette]
  • Mu 17 of Pho Phaisan subdistrict, Kusuman district, Sakon Nakhon province, split from Mu 7 (Ban Kut Sakoi, บ้านกุดสะกอย) and named Ban Kut Sakoi (บ้านกุดสะกอย). [Gazette]
  • Mu 12 of Na Phiang subdistrict, Kusuman district, Sakon Nakhon province, split from Mu 4 (Ban Na Phiang Mai, บ้านนาเพียงใหม่) and named Ban Khok Ang Thong (บ้านโคกอ่างทอง). [Gazette]
  • Mu 12 of Na Thong Watthana subdistrict, Phon Na Kaeo district, Sakon Nakhon province, split from Mu 9 (Ban Phon Khae Noi, บ้านโพนแคน้อย) and named Ban Phon Na Kaeo (บ้านโพนนาแก้ว). [Gazette]

Friday, June 10, 2016

And again more new Muban

Another batch of new administrative villages was published yesterday. To be able to report them all here, I am splitting them into three postings - the Muban in Nakhon Phanom and Sakon Nakhon will be reported next week, whereas this time I list those in the other provinces.
  • Mu 27 of Mae Salong Nai subdistrict, Mae Fa Luang district, Chaing Rai province, split from Mu 1 (Ban Hin Taek, บ้านหินแตก) and named Ban Hin Dam (บ้านหินคำ). [Gazette]
  • Mu 10 of Rim Khong subdistrict, Chiang Khong district, Chaing Rai province, split from Mu 6 (Ban Kio Kan, บ้านกิ่วกาญจน์) and named Ban Kio Doi Luang (บ้านกิ่วดอยหลวง). [Gazette]
  • Mu 11 of Si Kham subdistrict, Mae Chan district, Chaing Rai province, split from Mu 9 (Ban Saen Suk, บ้านแสนสุข) and named Ban Rung Charoen (บ้านรุ่งเจริญ). [Gazette]
  • Mu 8 of Pho Thong subdistrict, Tha Sala district, Nakhon Si Thammarat province, split from Mu 5 (Ban Si Yaek Wat Not, บ้านสี่แยกวัดโหนด) and named Ban Pho Thong (บ้านโพธิ์ทอง). [Gazette]
  • Mu 7 of Pa Klang subdistrict, Pua district, Nan province, split from Mu 3 (Ban Khang Ho, บ้านค้างฮ่อ) and named Ban Pa Klang (บ้านป่ากลาง). [Gazette]
  • Mu 14 of Phu Kha subdistrict, Pua district, Nan province, split from Mu 8 (Ban Pa Rai, บ้านป่าไร่) and named Ban Mai Phu Kha (บ้านใหม่ภูคา). [Gazette]
  • Mu 7 of Nam Pua subdistrict, Wiang Sa district, Nan province, split from Mu 2 (Ban Nam Pua, บ้านน้ำปั้ว) and named Ban Nam Pua Mai (บ้านน้ำปั้วใหม่). [Gazette]
  • Mu 22 of Rom Yen subdistrict, Chiang Kham district, Phayao province, split from Mu 13 (Ban Pracha Phakdi, บ้านประชาภักดี) and named Ban Huai Duea Doi Nang (บ้านห้วยเดื่อดอยนาง). [Gazette]
  • Mu 12 of Kok Sathon subdistrict, Dan Sai district, Loei province, split from Mu 6 (Ban Thup Kho, บ้านตูบค้อ) and named Ban Thup Kho (บ้านตูบค้อ). [Gazette]
  • Mu 11 of Kok Sathon subdistrict, Dan Sai district, Loei province, split from Mu 4 (Ban Mak Khaeng, บ้านหมากแข้ง) and named Ban Man Khao (บ้านหมันขาว). [Gazette]
Interestingly, the Muban created in Chiang Rai are based on the Ministerial Order มท ๐๓๑๐.๑/๓๑๑๓ from March 2012 (sic!), whereas all others are based on the same as the previous Muban creations this year, มท ๐๓๑๐.๑/ว ๗๔๖๕ from December 15 2015. I don't know whether this is a mistake, or it really took the provincial administration in Chiang Rai four years to finalize the order from the Ministry of Interior.

The date at which the Muban creations became effective differs for the provinces.  Those in Nan became effective with the publication in the Royal Gazette, all others at the same date the announcements were signed by the province governor - Chiang Rai on April 11, Nakhon Si Thammarat on April 18, Phayao on April 5 and Loei on April 1.

Wednesday, June 8, 2016

Statistical yearbooks

One resource I so far neglected when collecting my data were the Statistical Yearbooks, published by the National Statistics Office (NSO) annually (in past sometimes bi-annually). Quite a lot of the statistics in these books are really specialized, whereas the population numbers I already took from the census reports and the registration data. There is however one table which turns out to be useful - the number of administrative units of each type for each province. For some recent years I could even find this table as a Excel sheet, which made it most easy to translate to my XML structure.

Using the Royal Gazette, I believe I already have all the data on creation of districts and subdistricts from about 1950, however for the administrative villages they only became published in the Gazette since 2004, so only source for these numbers so far were the census reports. However, these lists help to check for any discrepancy, for entities created or abolished without announcement in the Royal Gazette.

There is however one problem - those books are of course available in several Thai libraries but as I am not living in Thailand they are hardly reachable for me. The NSO has an online library, but that still has by far not all issues of the yearbook, but even worse for many of those available the pages with this specific table are missing, often only the table of contents is displayed. For example for 1964, the last available page is number 32, luckily the table with the entity numbers end at page 31.

The most strange issues with the entity numbers was the number of subdistricts, which according to my data should have be 7256, but in the annual lists from the Department of Provincial Administration always listed as 7255, which made me believe that the subdistrict Pak Phanang in Nakhon Si Thammarat might have been dissolved as there more some contradicting values for the number of subdistrict in this province. Looking at the lasted yearbook, it lists 7425 subdistricts, including those in Bangkok this makes 7256 again. Thus it seems the confusion is within DOPA itself, both for the population statistics and the reports to the NSO they use the number of 7256, but in their own annual report for whatever reason one Tambon is omitted.