Rename board meeting summaries

The board to consider name changes (คณะกรรมการพิจารณาเรื่องการขอเปลี่ยนแปลงชื่อจังหวัด อำเภอ และตำบล หมู่บ้าน หรือสถานที่ราชการอื่น ๆ) is the institution by which every name change of an administrative entity must be approved before becoming effective. In 2010 I found lists with the agenda of the meetings back then, but only the list of changes considered, no details like in the transcripts of the boards to consider draft laws with the municipal changes. But those agendas were never updated.

Knowing about pending name changes early is quite helpful, as especially name changes of TAO give a hint that the TAO may receive an upgrade to a municipality soon. Thus it was a nice discovery, that with a major redesign of their website, the Office of the Inspector General of the Ministry of Interior (สำนักงานผู้ตรวจราชการกระทรวงมหาดไทย) now published updated versions of those meeting agendas, which this time also include a short rationale of each rename decision. The agendas are split into three lists - one for the central administrative units (Changwat, Amphoe, Tambon and Muban, though only the latter two had any name changes), one for the local administrative units (TAO, municipalities), and finally one dealing with name changes of Buddhist temples. Ignoring the temples, I have converted the agenda into a XML file to make them easier to process.

This year, there were four meetings so far.

• Meeting 1 on January 19 - one municipality, two TAO and one Muban got new names.
• Meeting 2 on April 5 - two municipalities, one TAO and two Muban got new names.
• Meeting 3 on June 26 - 10 TAO got new names.
• Meeting 4 on August 9 - 5 TAO and one Muban got new names.

Of these changes, all of the municipal name changes have been officially announced in the Royal Gazette, just one of the TAO name changes was announced so far, and the Muban rename in meeting 4 is also pending its announcement. And especially for the TAO name changes in the latest two meetings, there were no mention of these TAO in any of the meetings transcripts of the boards to consider draft laws, though it is very likely that all of these changes mean that the corresponding TAO will also be upgraded with the end of their council term in this autumn.