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Utkarsh Bangla, Bangla’s flagship skill development programme designed under the guidance of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, has been declared a ‘Champion Project’ at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Prizes, given by ITU, a United Nations organisation working for the use and development of information and communication technology (ICT).

Based on the maximum number of votes cast, Utkarsh Bangla is one of the five selected finalists among 143 projects in the ‘Capacity Building’ category.

The winner will be declared at a prize-giving ceremony on April 9, to be held at the ITU headquarters in Geneva.

There were a total of 1,062 nominations across 18 categories and more than 20 lakh votes were cast worldwide. Prizes would be given in all the 18 categories.

The Bangla Government’s expenditure on the Sabooj Sathi Scheme has doubled in two years. The Minister for Backward Classes Welfare Department, which handles the scheme, said recently that from Rs 315.43 crore in financial year (FY) 2016-17 the expenditure went up to Rs 790.22 crore in FY 2017-18.

Sabooj Sathi aims to encourage higher education and reduce dropouts through the distribution of bicycles to students from classes IX to XI in all government schools and madrasahs. The scheme was announced in the 2015-16 budget.

The cost of each bicycle distributed through the scheme in FY 2016-17 was Rs 3,278, which had climbed to Rs 3,318 the following financial year.

In the academic year 2018, 12.38 lakh bicycles have been distributed under the Sabooj Sathi scheme, with a total of more than one crore having been distributed through the lifetime of the scheme.

Source: Bartaman

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The Kolkata Police (KP) is targeting 100 schools in the city for its project, Sukanya, which is an initiative to train girls in martial art forms such as taekwondo, judo, kick-boxing and aikido for self-defence. The training will start from March.

Last year, 56 schools in the city were roped in the project. Kolkata Police had introduced the project in February 2014 in collaboration with the State Women and Child Development and Social Welfare Department. The training had started with girls of classes VIII, IX and XI and was later extended to first-year girl students in colleges.

The project was a success, and a number of girls trained well enough to be able to participate even in international competitions. The Sukanya girls had won five golds, two silvers and two bronze medals at the Kickboxing World Cup in Russia in September 2016.

The training sessions are held in consultation with the respective schools and colleges so that there is no interference in the academic activities. The normal course session is of four months; those who want to continue, however, are free to do so. A section of trainees have taken up kickboxing as a career option and are still continuing with their training.

The Bidhannagar, Howrah and Barrackpore Commissionerates had also rolled out the Sukanya programme in their respective areas at the end of 2017.

Source: Millennium Post

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The State Cooperation Department is launching 3,641 ATMs across Bangla for the convenience of farmers. These will be fully functional by March this year. Those farmers who have accounts associated with any cooperative bank or any cooperative society are eligible to use these ATM facilities via ATM cards, which would also be given by the government.

These 24-hour ATMs will help farmers avoid withdrawing cash in bulk from cooperative banks or cooperative societies and enable them to draw money as and when required. Also, being located in villages, farmers would no longer have to travel to block headquarters.

An additional benefit of the ATM cards is that the core banking system functioning within cooperative banks and societies will enable farmers to extract money from the ATM of any cooperative bank.

Customer service points (CSP) were started first. They have been established in 2,631 primary agricultural cooperative societies (PACS) in villages to provide banking services to the rural unbanked populace. Now ATMs are being set up at the CSPs.

About 81 lakh farmers are associated with cooperative banks and cooperative societies throughout the State.

The Cooperation Department took the initiative to set up the ATMs after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee herself instructed the Finance Department to launch them at the earliest.

The Cooperation Department plans to significantly increase agricultural credit in the financial year 2019-20, having provided Rs 8,000 crore in the previous fiscal. Apart from this, approximately 14 lakh farmers have received kisan credit cards, the number of which will also see a rise in the upcoming financial year.

Source: Bartaman

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The renovated Town Hall will be unveiled by the beginning of 2020, announced the mayor of Kolkata recently, after paying a visit there to take stock of the work in progress.

The work is being executed by the State Public Works Department (PWD), under the supervision of a Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC)-constituted expert committee, which, in turn, is following the suggestions of a detailed report prepared by a team of engineers from IIT Roorkee. The report includes a plan for making the building earthquake-proof.

A senior official of the KMC said that as per the planning, fibre-reinforced concrete will be used around the huge pillars in the front of the Town Hall to strengthen it and at the same time, steel will be used to fix the structure of the roof, which is held up by pillars.

The work for restoring the more-then-200-year-old heritage structure has been continuing for more than a year now. The restoration of the building will cost approximately Rs 18 crore.

The Town Hall was completed in 1813, in Roman-Doric style. The renovation became absolutely necessary because the building had suffered natural damage because of its old age.

Source: Millennium Post

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India’s first hanging restaurant, Biswa Bangla Restaurant, was inaugurated recently atop the gleaming new Biswa Bangla Gate.

The gate in New Town, at the crossing of two crucial roads, is another wonder – a circular air-conditioned chamber (which contains the restaurant) held up by four pillars 25 metres above the ground, with the pillars intersecting a little above the chamber. Its construction involved around 70 tonnes of steel.

The gate was opened to the public by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on January 31. There are rooftop restaurants in several metropolitan cities but this hanging restaurant is a one-of-its-kind in India.

The construction of the gate and everything inside was overseen by the State Government agency, HIDCO.

The fine dining restaurant currently has 50 seats. Twenty-two more will be opened later on. The restaurant will be kept open from 7pm to 10pm, after entry to the Biswa Bangla Gate is closed for the public, which is at 5pm.

The waiters will come to the tables and take the order on iPads. A copy of the order will go to the kitchen which is housed on the ground floor while the other will go to for billing. There is a service lift to carry the food to the restaurant.

Special lightings have been made to give a different feel. Battery-powered candles are there to give the ambience of a candlelight dinner. The Wi-fi connection is free.

A garden will be set up to increase the green cover in areas surrounding the Biswa Bangla Gate.

Source: Millennium Post

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That the State Health Department has been shining under the Trinamool Congress was never in doubt, when compared to the years under the Left Front.

Under the personal supervision of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, the department has achieved a lot on many fronts.

One of the metrics to prove this is the number of patients availing treatment in government hospitals and health centres, which numbers were revealed recently by a senior official of the Health Department. The number has seen a big jump – of more than three-and-a-half times – from about Rs 3.56 crore to approximately Rs 13 crore.

The exact numbers are 3 crore 55 lakh 60 thousand in financial year (FY) 2011-12, the first year of the Trinamool Congress rule, jumping to 12 crore 97 lakh 14 thousand in FY 2017-18.

Now let us look at the division between the number of outdoor patients and indoor patients, the former being obviously much higher always.

While in FY 2011-12, the number was 3.48 crore, it became 12.32 crore in 2017-18, which is a rise of about 3.5 times; the number of indoor patients in the corresponding FYs was 7.6 lakh and 65.14 lakh, which is a rise of about 8.5 times.

Now let us look at more recent numbers. Till December 2018, that is, in the first nine months of FY 2018-19, the number of outdoor patients was 9.94 crore; by the end of the financial year, that is, March 2019, according to this official, this number is most likely to rise to 13.23 crore.

The number of indoor patients till December 2018 was 50.7 lakh, which is expected to rise to 66.76 lakh by the end of March 2019. Hence, compared to FY 2017-18, the number for 2018-19 would rise further still, to become almost 14 crore in total.

There are six primary reasons for the rise in numbers, which are given below:

• The building of super-speciality hospitals has enabled superior treatment to reach almost all corners of the State
• The setting up of various specialised units like NICU, PICU, SNCU, SNSU, ITU and HDU, and increasing the number of ICU beds, in government hospitals across the State
• The setting up of fair price medicine shops
• The setting up of fair price diagnostic centres
• Bringing modern instruments like linear accelerator, digital X-ray machines, etc. in more government hospitals
• The more number of skilled doctors, that is still more than in private hospitals

People are now much more ready to get treated at government hospitals, and they are seeing positive results as well.

Source: Bartaman

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To enable Kanyashree recipients to become employment-ready, the State Government has started a scheme called Swapner Bhor. Through this scheme, eligible Kanyashree beneficiaries would receive technical training, which will help them to achieve economic independence.

This was announced in the State Assembly recently, while answering a question, by the Women, Child Development and Social Welfare Minister.

She also said that there is no restriction with regard to family income for availing of this scheme. This lifting of the age restriction is in line with a similar measure for the Kanyashree Scheme.

Currently, there are more than 55.5 lakh beneficiaries under the internationally-recognised Kanyashree Scheme.

Source: Bartaman

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The State Tourism Department inaugurated an app for promoting tourism, named ‘Hurray’ at the recently-concluded Bengal Global Business Summit. The app has been designed based on a lot of feedback from tourists.

The app has six sections linked to tourism – hotel, homestay, restaurant, tour operator, transport operator and guide. It lists businesses linked to these six sections and has a feedback mechanism.

When a customer pays the bill, there will be a five-category rating on which the customer can give feedback. The ratings will be uploaded through the app and when there is a certain volume of such reviews, the properties or hotels with good reviews will be linked to the department’s website. This will help tourists to have an idea of the good properties and hotels and accordingly plan their tour.

Businesses are being encouraged by the government to list themselves in the app. Being listed in an app for tourists would be for their own benefit as their popularity would naturally translate to a bigger customer base.

The ranking is dynamic, meaning that depending on customers’ feedback, the rankings might change. This feel of competition would ensure that standards are maintained.

The State Tourism Department also has a plan to bring on board engineers of the government to bring in properties owned by various departments of the State Government under a single template.

Click here to download the app 

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