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The State Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises and Textiles Department is planning a Mishti Hub in Raghunathpur in Basirhat-2 block, on the model of the highly successful Mishti Hub in New Town.

The latter has become one of the hotspots of New Town, and being located on the route to the airport, the hub draws many customers from outside the city too, including foreigners.

The government has allocated about Rs 4.5 crore for the project. With the activation of this hub, about 1,500 people linked to the sweetmeat trade in the region would be benefitted.

A chhana and paneer unit would also be set up beside the hub for the benefit of the shop-owners at the hub. The department would ensure that proper packaging is used at the hub. There will also be facility for sitting and eating sweets there.

A cooperative would be set up to manage the Mishti Hub.

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The State Fire and Emergency Services Department will soon introduce four robots in its fleet for more effective fire-fighting in Kolkata.

The robots will make accessing difficult places and situations much easier. For example, as the departmental minister explained while announcing this plan recently, firemen face a lot of difficulties in dousing fire, particularly in chemical factories, even getting injured. The robots would make things much easier in such situations..

The department, which is taking a slew of measures for modernisation, is also introducing fire balls. The balls will be used to extinguish fire in very narrow and congested places or in locked buildings where physical entry is extremely difficult. There are plans to procure 2,000 such fire balls, said the minister.

Explaining the usage of fire balls, a senior official of the department said that when a fire ball is thrown into a burning room or place from any small gap, it helps in dousing the fire in ten to fifteen minutes. These balls are used in several countries.

The balls contain ammonium phosphate and ammonium sulphate. They, however, do not explode if accidentally dropped on the ground.

The department has also made plans to give basic training in firefighting to school students and members of various clubs in Kolkata.

Source: Millennium Post

 

The battle against cancer through affordable and accessible facilities got a boost with the State Government’s recent announcement of setting up of state-of-the-art cancer centres in three cities – Murshidabad, Bardhaman and Kolkata.

In Murshidabad, it will come up at Murshidabad Medical College and Hospital, in Bardhaman, adjacent to the Burdwan Medical College and Hospital, and in Kolkata, at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital.

The centres will have surgical oncology, medical oncology, neuro-medicine, neurosurgery, nuclear medicine, preventive oncology, radiotherapy and cancer diagnostics facilities.

Setting up of dedicated cancer centres will open a new chapter in state government’s initiative against cancer. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has been stressing on infrastructural revamp at all State-run medical colleges and hospitals, and the decision of setting of cancer centres is a step in that direction.

Source: Millennium Post

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The State Cabinet recently approved of the decision by the government to set up a separate directorate of revenue, intelligence and enforcement. It will function under the aegis of the Finance Department.

The proposed directorate will be headed by an IAS officer and will perform more or less similar functions as the Enforcement Directorate (ED) of Central Government.

The directorate will have a designated court under it and will deal with cases of evasion of tax or financial fraud. The directorate will be empowered to take action against those evading taxes or resorting to swindling of money.

Source: Millennium Post

The Bangla Government’s Food Processing Industries and Horticulture Department has taken an initiative to export part of the honey to be produced at the Honey Hub in Deganga in the district of North 24 Parganas.

The foundation stone for the Honey Hub was laid by Chief Minister on January 11, 2019. The project has been allocated Rs 9.71 crore. The hub will be set up at the Krishak Bazaar in Deganga.

This is the first time that an official initiative for exporting honey from Bangla has been taken. Honey from the Sundarbans is exported to some European countries. Now this exporting will be conducted in a more organised manner.

Part of the honey will be sold in the domestic market, both within and outside the State, and the other part exported.

Honey collected by bee harvesters from the Sundarbans will be collected and processed at the hub. The Honey Hub will have units such as collection centre, processing centre, packaging centre, storage centre, display centre, etc.

The honey from the hub will be sold under a particular brand name to distinguish it from other company labels.

After the implementation of the project, multipurpose cooperatives will be set up, to whom bee harvesters will be able to directly sell their honey. With no middlemen involved, the sellers will benefit more.

Honey harvesting has a bonus point for farmers. Increased production of honey means a higher activity of honey bees, which can lead to a 20 to 30 per cent increase in agricultural production.

Over 3,000 bee harvesters in the Sundarbans in North 24 Parganas are involved in producing honey round the year.

Source: Bartaman

Patachitra (pata painting), a traditional art form of the Medinipur region – Pingla, Debra, Ghatal, etc. – has got a new lease of life, thanks to the initiatives started by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

Under her guidance, the State Government has created schemes for their upliftment, organises fairs all across Bangla and also enables their participation in national and international fairs.

Big handicraft fairs are regularly held in the district headquarters and also in the sub-divisional towns. Age-old fairs have been revived, which are actively promoted by the Tourism Department.

Many of the fairs are organised by the Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises and Textiles (MSME&T) Department, and the West Bengal Khadi & Village Industries Board (WBKVIB), which is under the department.

The department has also collaborated with UNESCO to set up Rural Craft Hubs and Rural Craft and Cultural Hubs (RCCH), the former in places where the crafts-makers have been traditionally concentrated.

New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA) opened Bangla’s first government-run crèche-cum-clinic and cemetery for pet dogs at Action Area III in New Town on February 1.

The clinic will remain open from 11 AM to 2 PM from Monday to Saturday. There is an out-patient department (OPD) of the clinic as well.

The dog owners would have to provide certain documents to the crèche during admission – certificate from a doctor stating that the dog does not carry any infectious disease, copies of the documents of the last vaccination and details of the regular medicines being taken.

The owners will have to deposit the regular medicines for the period of stay in the crèche. All fees will also have to be paid in advance.

Only medicines during emergency will be supplied by the crèche authority, whose cost will be deducted from the security deposit. There will be experienced vets, care guides and handlers at the crèche.

There will also be a cemetery where 25 pet dogs can be buried. The owner of the dog will have to submit a death certificate from a recognised veterinary doctor.

Source: Millennium Post

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Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today led a candlelight march in Kolkata in memory of the victims of the terrorist attack in Pulwama, Jammu and Kashmir. About 40 CRPF soldiers were killed in the attack on February 14.

People from all walks of life joined the march, numbering in thousands. The Chief Minister had already given instructions that no party flags were to be carried during the march.

It started from Hazra crossing and concluded at the statue of Mahatma Gandhi at Mayo Road-Red Road crossing.

At the end of the march, Mamata Banerjee spoke to the media for a short while.

Salient portions of her address to the media

Jai Hind. Vande Mataram.

We respect our jawans, the citizens of our country, our martyrs, our motherland.

We pay our deepest condolences to the jawans who gave their lives for their country.

We are also with the families of the dead jawans in this time of their immense grief.

All the citizens of the country are together in this hour of greatest grief.

We strongly condemn all terrorist activities conducted on our soil.

Let me congratulate all of you who took part in this march at such a short notice of two hours.

We are all for a united India. Unity is our greatest strength. Whenever it is required for the good of the country, we will forget all differences of caste, creed, and religion and come together.

Terrorists have only one religion, and that is terrorism. They should be condemned in the strongest of terms.

The State Agricultural Marketing Department is collaborating with the Indian Institute of Packaging (IIP) for bettering the packaging of the products that are available in the Sufal Bangla outlets.

The move will enable the department to increase the shelf lives of the Sufal Bangla products as well as make the packaging better and attractive.

It may be mentioned that the Sufal Bangla project was launched in September 2014 to ensure that common people get fresh vegetables at the right price. Later, fresh fruits, processed fruits, aromatic rice, mustard oil, milk and milk products from the Animal Husbandry Department, and meat products and eggs from the West Bengal Livestock Development Corporation were added.

Some of the stalls are permanent while some are mobile. The number of mobile Sufal Bangla stalls are over 50, while that of static outlets will be 150 by the end of March 2019. At present there are 78 products available at Sufal Bangla outlets across the State.

The Agricultural Marketing Department has also introduced an app-based system for home delivery of the products. The prices of all products, including the organic ones, have been made available on the Sufal Bangla website.

Source: Millennium Post

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The West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC) has signed an agreement with the German development agency, GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit) to introduce trolley buses in Kolkata. The announcement was made during a session on transport and logistics at the Bengal Global Business Summit on February 8.

Trolley bus, also called trackless trolley, is a vehicle operated on the streets on rubber tyres and powered by electricity drawn from two overhead wires by trolley poles (and hence the name). There is zero emission which make them environmental-friendly.

Thus trolley buses are in several ways similar to trams. In fact, the agreement proposes to leverage some portions of the existing infrastructure of the tram network.

GIZ works on capacity building and has already carried out a feasibility study and submitted the report. An official associated with the project said that trolley buses won’t replace trams but will function separately to provide an integrated transportation system that is environmentally friendly.

He said that various proposals are being studied regarding the routes on which the trolley buses would be run. They can be used as feeders on upcoming Metro rail networks, and can also be operated in parts of the central business district (CBD) and in parts of New Town and Salt Lake.

Source: The Times of India

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