Suggestion of a new minor district in Lopburi

Published in the Royal Gazette today is the petition กระทู้ถามที่ ๑๐๐/ร. to create a new minor district, together with the answer by the Ministry of Interior. The petition was filed by Amnuai Khlangpha (อำนวย คลังผา), Member of Parliament for the Lopburi constituency 2 of the Pheu Thai Party.

He argues, that the district Chai Badan in the northeast of Lopburi province is a quite large district covering 17 subdistricts (Tambon, ตำบล), and therefore suggests to set up a new minor district (King Amphoe, กิ่งอำเภอ) centered on the subdistrict Muang Khom (ตำบลม่วงค่อม), located in the southwest of the district - though he does not state explicitly which of the subdistrict should become part of this new minor district.

The answer by the MOI only reiterates the preconditions for the creation of a minor districts as already mentioned in an earlier post - i.e. 25,000 citizen, 4 subdistricts, a distance of 20 km to the district office and the approval of the local governments, or one of the special reasons like security problems. Though it does not explicitly cites which of these preconditions aren't met, the answer closes with requesting to file another proposal citing one of the special reasons.

Checking with Google, I noticed that this proposal wasn't the first attempt to get a new minor district at Muang Khom, already in 2003 the petition กระทู้ถามที่ ๑๑๗๙/ร., then filed by Niyom Wonpanya (นิยม วรปัญญา), another MP from the same constituency and same party. That past proposal also included the list of subdistricts which were supposed to be part of the minor district - Muang Khom (ตำบลม่วงค่อม), Huai Hin (ห้วยหิน), Khao Laem (เขาแหลม) and Makok Wan (มะกอกหวาน).

Most subdistricts created in one province in a year?

Still working through the many subdistrict creation announcements, another notable peculiarity showed up. In 1975 a total of 15 subdistricts were created in Lopburi province, and another 8 the following year, while normally especially in such a rather small province only one or two subdistricts got created in one year. Even more striking is the fact that these subdistricts 15 were created in the single district Chai Badan, which at that time covered the whole northeastern part of the province - Lam Sonthi and Tha Luang were split off in 1978 and 1989 respectively. In fact all of the subdistricts which were split off when creating Tha Luang were created in these two years. In 1974 Chai Badan just had 8 subdistricts, in 1976 the number has increased to nearly the threefold. And another 3 subdistricts just date back to 1970, another one to 1971. So taking these in account as well, the number of subdistrict multiplied to the sixfold within 6 years.

However I have no idea what was the reason behind this big increase of subdistrict numbers in those years, it cannot be the improved irrigation possibilities after the construction of the Pasak Jolasit Reservoir, as that was initiated in 1989.