Thursday linkage

Korat Weekends pays a visit to the residence of the governor of Nakhon Ratchasima, which was open to the public on the occasion of the Thao Suranaree Victory Celebration Fair 2011. Sadly he gave no description on what is actually depicted on the several photos in there.

Land office for Bueng Kan

With the creation of Bueng Kan province, secondary administrative offices have to be created or adjusted in their area of responsibility. Yesterday, announcements regarding the cadastre or land office (สำนักงานที่ดิน). There previously was already a branch office in Bueng Kan (สาขาบึงกาฬ) from the cadastre in Nong Khai, which was already created in 1996 [Gazette]. This branch office however did not cover the whole area of the new province, as So Phisai district was still under the head office in Nong Khai.

Thus now not only the branch office Bueng Kan gets upgraded to a full province cadastre office [Gazette], this first announcement also includes the change of area to be the same as the new province. Additionally, the branch office Seka has been renamed from Nong Khai to Bueng Kan. As this also means that the area of responsibility of the Nong Khai cadastre has to change, this was done in a second announcement [Gazette].

Global Administrative Areas

When I was recently checking the UN-SALB (Second Administrative Level Boundaries) project whether there had been any updates for Thailand yet, I stumbled on the Wikipedia article on the related GAUL (Global Administrative Unit Layers) project by the FAO. And finally the weblinks in that article include on to the website of a project named Global Administrative Areas (GADM), unlike the first two a small independent group without the backing of a large international organization.

On that website one finds the boundaries from the subdivisions of most countries in the world, in case of Thailand down till Tambon level. They can be downloaded for free in various formats and are free for academic and non-commercial use, for those who have no real GIS software the Google Earth KMZ format is probably the only which can be used. I had a short look into the Tambon file, with 18 MB size and over 7000 shapes in it Google Earth became very sluggish, and sadly without any hierarchy in the KMZ its very hard to navigate.

So the few areas I managed to check in detail, these boundaries aren't better then those displayed in Google Earth already, both having parts where they must be in contradiction with the actual boundary. Sadly the website does not state any source for the data, or any comment on the accuracy. Thus sadly these boundaries are still not help on my search for authoritative maps.

Constituencies per province announced

Yesterday an announcement from the Election Commission was published in the Royal Gazette, in which the EC defines the number of constituencies per province according to the population number of December 31 2010 and with the new number of 375 constituencies [Gazette]. As mentioned before, this reduction of constituencies from 400 to 375 does not change the number of constituencies in every province. Actually this announcement on states the number of seats in parliament for every province, only because the constituencies have been changed to be single-seated this also includes the number of constituencies. The actual boundaries of these within the provinces will be announced later, though in many cases the boundaries from 2006 can be reused, the last election with single-seated constituencies under the 1997 constitution.

Interestingly this announcement does not include Bueng Kan province, obviously because the announcement was approved for publication on March 17, whereas the province came into existence on March 23. I don't know why the announcement wasn't delayed until the province was created, but luckily the calculation with or without Bueng Kan gives completely same results, the 5 seats from old Nong Khai get split into 3 for the reduced Nong Khai and 2 for Bueng Kan, and no other province is changed. So it is up to the Election Commission to draw the actual constituencies within the area formerly covered by Nong Khai using the new province boundary as constituency boundary as well. But I am sure this announcement must get an amendment to show the new province as well.

Administrative Reform through Decentralization and Community Empowerment

On the Inside Thailand news feed from the Public Relations Department of the Thai government, an article with the lengthy title Administrative Reform through Decentralization and Community Empowerment was posted yesterday. Though it does not have much hard facts in it, some parts are still worth quoting.

The Government is pushing for issuance of laws to promote decentralization of administrative power and empower the community. The administrative reform will enable local organizations to play a greater role in the management of local affairs.
[..]
He [Prime Ministrer] cited the move to upgrade Mae Sot district in Tak province into a special administrative zone as an example of decentralization of administrative power. The Cabinet has already given the green light to the legislation on the Mae Sot special administrative zone. The legislation is pending consideration by Parliament. Once approved by Parliament, Mae Sot will be granted new powers and responsibilities, and laws and regulations introduced by the special zone should override those of the central administration. It will become a model for other towns planning to enjoy true decentralization of power.

This confirms the status I knew about this project, and since now parliament is busy with the preparations of house dissolution and the laws necessary for the election under the amended constitution, it's unlikely this law will be considered in parliament in this term anymore.

Dr. Prawase Wasi, Chairman of the National Reform Assembly, also called for decentralization and community empowerment in his keynote address on Thailand Reform in early March 2011. He said that centralization of power would lead to dire consequences. For instance, it weakens communities, making them unable to handle local affairs. Centralization also leads to conflicts between local culture and central administration, weakens bureaucracy, paves the way for rampant corruption and a substandard political system, and makes it easier to stage a coup d’état. Decentralization of administrative power will make it difficult for any group to seize administrative power.
[...]

I have a posting on Prawase's keynote half-finished, but sadly still don't know what he actually suggests as measure to move to a more decentralized country. All I read so far was that he suggests to strengthen local administration in village councils and the TAO, not really unexpected for something named decentralization to mean giving more power to local administration.

Welcoming the 76th province Bueng Kan

The new province Bueng Kan is now officially there, making it the 76th province of Thailand. Yes, the 76th, because Bangkok is not a province, but a special administrative area - only because Bangkok is at the same administrative level as a province most of the time it is sloppily counted as a province as well.

In a very short article Bangkok Post reports on the inauguration celebration.

Interior Minister Chavarat Charnvirakul on Wednesday morning presided over the inauguration of the new province of Bung Kan, now officially the country's 77th province.
Mr Chavarat and Deputy Agriculture Minister Supachai Phosu joined thousands of people at a ceremony to open the city gate.
[...]
Sompong Arunrojpanya has been appointed first governor of the new province, which will have two MPs.

And probably not only Bangkok Post, but also all of the Thai media reported it to be the 77th province. On the English Wikipedia I have already reverted three times edits which claim Thailand to have 77 provinces, even though in the next sentence of the articles the special status of Bangkok is explained. One user even was so smart to modify the HTML comment I added after the number which I added to prevent this from happening, thinking there are 77 provinces plus Bangkok...

The first governor is Sompong Arunrojpanya (สมพงษ์ อรุณโรจน์ปัญญา), who was previously deputy province governor in Phitsanulok.

Bueng Kan province created

Other than previously expected, the act to create Bueng Kan province was published in the Royal Gazette today already [Gazette]. As the law text was changed to be effective the day after publication instead of a 90 day waiting period, the new province comes into existence tomorrow.

Two Thai Wikipedians already did a lot of the work with the various article on Thai provinces to incorporate the new information, the parts still lacking are updated maps and also the Amphoe articles of the new province as well as those neighboring it. And even better than already doing part of the work to update Wikipedia, the user Aristitleism even translated the text of the law into English already and posted it to Wikisource. Though this is of course not an official translation, it definitely helps a lot to get the details in the law - trying to read the draft law was very difficult with my limited Thai.

It seems like all the English news sources have ignored the topic so far, neither at the government news outlet NNT nor Bangkok Post and The Nation seem to have an article on this yet - all seem preoccupied with the date of house dissolution and therefore the date of elections.

To incorporate the new province into my XML I have to wait until the geocodes of the districts get published, I only know (well, actually expect because there's no other option) that the province will get the code 38, and therefore the Mueang Bueng Kan district the number 3801, but for the other seven districts I have to wait.