Manas Bhunia speaks on the Centre’s duty to help States reeling under debt burden

Manas Bhunia speaks on the Centre’s duty to help States reeling under debt burden

Posted on July 30, 2019 | by aitc | Leave a Comment

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Sir, I want to draw the attention of the Honourable Finance Minister and the Prime Minister, through you, to the fact that certain States in our country are debt-trapped and debt-barred. West Bengal inherited the debt burden from the 34-year rule of the Left Front, a burden to the tune of Rs 2,03,000 crore. Initially the State Government.s mop-up resource was Rs 22,000 crore, now it has reached Rs 52,000 crore under leadership of Mamata Banerjee.

My submission is that this State is reeling under the debt trap crisis. The Central Government should come forward to approve and extend all possible help and consider a moratorium for the sake of the State’s development and economic upliftment. Under the leadership of Mamata Banerjee, we are trying our best to improve the economic condition through all-round development.

I urge the Government, particularly the Finance Minister, through you, Sir, to consider the situation of West Bengal, along with that of other debt-trapped States, and provide moratorium at this moment. Thank you, Sir.

Bangla CM writes to PM for all-party meeting on funding of elections

Posted on July 26, 2019 | by aitc | Leave a Comment

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee wrote to the prime minister on July 25, urging him to call an all-party meeting to discuss government funding of elections in the country.

She said, citing a report, that the 2019 general election was the most expensive ever, anywhere. A whopping Rs 60,000 crore was spent, almost double that of 2014, and the next general election could see the total expenditure rise to Rs 1 lakh crore, she said.

The mother of all corruption lies in spiralling election expenditure, she further wrote, and so if the latter cannot be checked, neither will the former.

Pointing out “flaws” in the system, Mamata Banerjee wrote how some political parties spend lavishly on publicity and logistics and are said to even distribute cash for getting votes, while the Election Commission of India has imposed a strict limit only on the expenditure incurred by candidates on their election campaign and not on political parties.

The issue is broadly of electoral reforms and specifically of preventing corruption and criminality in our democratic polity. She wrote that the time has come for government funding of elections, which is the norm in 65 countries.

This is the second letter Mamata Banerjee has written to the prime minister over the last one week. On July 23, she had written to protest the privatisation of ordnance factories in the country.

Source: NDTV.com

Bangla one of the top States for trade, says Australian govt report

Posted on July 26, 2019 | by aitc | Leave a Comment

Bangla is one of the key States for trade and investment, says a report by the Australian government which was released at an industrial summit in Kolkata, organised by a leading business association, on July 17.

Report

The report, An India Economic Strategy to 2035: Navigating from Potential to Delivery, has identified four sectors in the State for collaboration: resource and energy (including mining equipment, technology and services), agriculture, vocational education (especially hospitality training) and healthcare, said the Australian consul-general while releasing the report.

As previously said by many other industry leaders and investors, the consul-general too said that Bangla is a gateway of investment to the entire eastern and north-eastern India, and hence has immense potential..

Highlights

The report highlights Bangla as ‘the centre of India’s mining and resources sector’, ‘India’s third largest in terms of mineral production’, ‘significant healthcare hub for eastern India’, ‘gateway to India’s north-eastern states and India’s eastern neighbours’, and ‘a strong agricultural state, including the largest producer of rice, fish, prawns and jute and major producer of tea, potatoes and pineapples’.

It also mentions Kolkata as a major urban market and one of the fastest-growing cities in India (and is being projected to be in the top 10 fastest-growing cities in Asia by 2021), Bangla being the ‘coal industry hub’, the agricultural success of the State (including the NSVA for agriculture sector being 17% and widespread irrigation), and its tourism potential.

Chief strengths, as per the report

The report mentions three current strengths of Bangla:

Strong growth higher than the national average, and capacity for mineral production
Kolkata is a significant healthcare hub for eastern India, with a large number of super-specialty hospitals and diagnostic centres
Digitised land records, high road and rail density and port facilities

Success of Mamata Banerjee’s vision

All these aspects mentioned in the report point to the widespread growth that Bangla has witnessed in so many sectors under the leadership of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

It needs to be mentioned in this connection that the Bengal Global Business Summit (BGBS), a brainchild of the chief minister, has been one of the most successful business summits in India, with the last one in February 2019 having brought investment proposals worth Rs 2,84,288 crore for State.

Sources: An India Economic Strategy to 2035: Navigating from Potential to Delivery, The Statesman

State Govt decides to fill up more than 30,000 vacancies

Posted on July 11, 2019 | by aitc | Leave a Comment

The Bangla Government has decided on a programme of recruitment to fill up more than 30,000 vacancies in various departments that have arisen over the last few years.

The government has been regular in conducting recruitments but despite that these vacancies have remained and so this new programme has been decided upon. Filling up these vacancies would enable the government to provide better services to the people.

According to the official notification brought out, there are 33,687 vacancies in groups A, B, C and D.

Of these, 18,527 are for the general category and 15,160 are reserved, of which, 7,411 are for SCs, 2,011 are for STs and 5,728 are for OBCs. Of the total number, 1,347 are reserved for the differently abled.

State Govt takes up anti-trafficking measures

Posted on July 11, 2019 | by aitc | Leave a Comment

The Women and Child Development and Social Welfare and the Labour Department have come together to check incidents of child trafficking in the State. A State-level action plan has been chalked out to stop and investigate incidents of trafficking.

While placing her department’s Budget for financial year 2019-20, the Women and Child Development said that steps are being taken to identify the placement agencies that are allegedly involved in trafficking.

The Labour Department will conduct probes to ascertain if the agencies involved in trafficking have any registration from it.

During her speech, the minister also said that the budgetary allocation for her department has gone up by 6.6 per cent.

Source: Millennium Post

Centre not helping Bangla to complete power projects

Posted on July 11, 2019 | by aitc | Leave a Comment

Despite all the big talk about cooperative federalism, the BJP-led Central Government’s vindictive attitude towards Bangla continues.

During his department’s Budget speech in the Assembly on Monday, July 8, the Power Minister said the Centre has failed to make the Katwa power project operational despite the State Government providing land for the same.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had taken initiative to arrange land for the 1,320 MW power project, but the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) is yet to take any major step in this regard. Even the officers who were posted there have been withdrawn.

The minister also pointed out the Centre’s apathetic attitude towards other power projects in the State.

Despite the State Government’s writing to the Centre, the latter has not issued clearance for various coal mines, including Barjora I and II, and Deocha-Pachami, which holds one of the biggest reserves in Asia. The coal from these mines would go a long way in supporting the thermal power requirement of the State.

However, despite these unavoidable shortcomings, the minister pointed out later in reply to a question, since March 2017, the State has not hiked the price of electricity despite recommendation by the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission, proving the Trinamool Congress Government’s commitment to serve the people to the best of its capacity.

To compensate for the loss due to not hiking the rates, the State Government has been giving the Power Department a subsidy of Rs 1,000 crore.

Source: Millennium Post

Dola Sen speaks on the problems faced by tea industry due to imposition of 2% cash tax

Posted on July 10, 2019 | by aitc | Leave a Comment

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Sir, the proposal to levy 2% tax if annual cash withdrawals exceed Rs 1 crore will affect Bengal’s Tea industry as most gardens disburse wages in cash. Around 3.25 lakh workers are employed in 276 tea gardens in the state, around 90 per cent are still paid their weekly or fortnightly wages in cash.

“Several tea estates have a huge workforce and their annual expenditure on account of wages is much higher than Rs 1 crore. These gardens will have to bear this TDS, which means additional expenditure that will add to the production costs,” said Prabir Bhattacharjee, secretary-general of the Tea Association of India.

For example, if there are 1,200 workers in a tea estate in Bengal, where the daily wage is Rs 176, an annual payment to the workers means a sum of around Rs 7 crore, which means a TDS deduction of around Rs 12 lakh, an additional expenditure for the garden. Then, there are other payments like bonus, which would push the tax bill up even further.

In November 2016, when the Centre had demonetised 1,000 and 500-rupee notes and laid stress on digital modes of payment, the disbursal of tea workers’ wages got delayed because of the cash crunch.

The banking infrastructure is so weak in these areas the management had to resume wage disbursement in cash as the workers refused to travel around 30-40 km to reach the nearest banks. Even though private banks have opened ATMs in some areas the telecom connectivity is weak, therefore the workers demand their wage in cash.

After the BJP won all the seats in the Tea growing area the Tea industry had been expecting some good news for the industry that is going through a rough patch. But the budget haa dashed their hopes.

Abir Ranjan Biswas speaks on the urgent need for clearance of Deocha-Pachami-Harinsingha-Dewanganj coal mines

Posted on July 10, 2019 | by aitc | Leave a Comment

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Deocha-Pachami-Harinsingha-Dewanganj (DPHD) coal block is the largest coal mine in the country and the second largest in the world. Spread over an area of 12.31 Square kilometre this has an estimated reserve of 2102 million tonnes of coal.

Bengal got the allocation of DPHD coal block in Birbhum from the Central Government vide allocation letter dated 06.06.2018, after a wait of 3 years. But in spite of repeated requests, the State Government has not yet received formal Allotment Order from the Centre.

This is a clear case of depriving the State of Bengal. The Ministry of Coal, vide its letter dated 10.09.2018, instructed us to undertake certain preparatory activities, which was done and the Ministry of Coal was informed on 25.09.2018

West Bengal Power Development Corporation Ltd (WBPDCL) is unable to operate the Power Plants at full efficiency for want of adequate supply of coal. Approximate requirement of coal per day is 55 thousand MT and average supply per day is 42 thousand MT.

Operationalization of this mine will ensure regular flow of coal for running of the power plants of WBPDCL in full capacity since this mine will supply coal to the power plants in Bengal and other states.

Therefore, I request the government to expedite the process and ensure that the formal Allotment Order is sent at the earliest.

Bangla ahead of many States, says Economic Survey

Posted on July 9, 2019 | by aitc | Leave a Comment

Bangla is ahead of many States in the areas of employment, agriculture, women’s empowerment, school education and rural roads, according to the latest Economic Survey (for FY 2018-19).

The rate of total unemployment in the State is 4.6 per cent, and the rate of rural employment is only 3.8 per cent and of urban unemployment is 6.4 per cent.

In production of paddy, the State is already number one in the country, having produced 15 crore tonnes.

In the production of jute, Bangla is on the top again, and has increased production by 16 per cent over the previous financial year.

Another area of achievement, for which Bangla has been described in glowing terms, is empowerment of women, especially in rural areas. Through various women-centric schemes and through financial strengthening of the MSME sector, the State Government has enabled economic gains for women, which has resulted in their increased role in household decision-making.

In population reduction too, the State has found pride of place in the report, since being on course to having a population growth rate from 2011 to 2021 (when the next census would be held) of just 0.74 per cent. Anything less than 1 per cent is very good.

For the period of 2021 to 2031, the number is predicted to fall to 0.50 per cent and for the period of 2031 to 2041, to 0.14 per cent. This is another strong point for Bangla, as mentioned in the Economic Survey.

In school education, the State’s gross enrolment ratio, ratio of students to teachers in both schools as a whole and in classrooms, and dropout rate are among the best in the country.

In construction of rural roads too, Bangla is among the top States.

Therefore, despite the rants of the Opposition, Bangla under the Trinamool Congress Government has performed in a commendable manner and is contributing in a big way to the India growth story.

Source: Bartaman

Sudip Bandyopadhyay asks a Question on religious tourism circuits

Posted on July 8, 2019 | by aitc | Leave a Comment

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Sir, in the reply, some circuits have been allowed, which covers spiritual circuits, Ramayan circuit, Krishna circuit, Buddhist circuit, Tirthankar circuit and Sufi circuit.

As the Chairman of the Railway Parliamentary Standing Committee, I placed a report in the House on tourism promotion in pilgrim circuits. We discussed these issues very broadly in this report.

My specific question is, whether the government intends to induct ‘Jyotirling circuit’, Jain circuit, Christian circuit, famous temples circuit, with an aim to establish more religious tourism circuits?

Also, tourism is connected with the railway ministry, very broadly. If Railways does not extend their support, the tourism proposals cannot be fulfilled. Whether the Minister of Tourism can make a coordination with the Railway Minister and set up a committee to formulate, and to see that these proposals are implemented more quickly.

And, if necessary, I can give the report to the Hon’ble Minister; you can go through it.

Thank you.