Super-specialty blocks in Bengal Govt. hospitals

Super-specialty blocks in Bengal Govt. hospitals

Posted on July 31, 2019 | by admin2 | Leave a Comment

To enable improved access to super-specialty services at government hospitals, the State Government is bringing all such services in a hospital under one roof.

The first such combined service centre is being set up at the Medical College Hospital in Kolkata. Work on the fully air-conditioned block is almost complete.

There will be nine super-specialty services in the block – nephrology, urology, neuromedicine, neurosurgery, gastro-surgery, gastro-medicine, diabetics, endocrinology and geriatric medicine. Besides these, there will a 40-bed critical care unit (CCU).

There will also be 24 superior cabins spread across two floors, with 12 on each. They have been named Charaka Ward and Susruta Ward, after the two famous surgeons of ancient India. Nine operation theatres and all manners of hi-tech diagnostic services will also be located in the block.

It may be mentioned that such superior quality cabins had been set up earlier at the Woodburn Ward in SSKM Hospital. Being situated at government hospitals, the services cost much less than in private hospitals and yet are of the same high quality.

Source: Aajkaal

Trinamool MPs protest atrocities in UP in Parliament premises

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

Today, MPs from Trinamool Congress and Samajwadi Party staged a protest in front of Mahatma Gandhi’s statue in the Parliament premises.

The protest was against two incidents that happened in Uttar Pradesh just a few days back – attack on the Unnao rape victim and an ex-soldier beaten to death in Amethi.

The rape victim was travelling in a car which was deliberately hit by a truck, causing her to be critically injured and two relatives to die. The ex-soldier was beaten to death by a group of men when he protested against their stealing from a shop.

The MPs carried placards with slogans like ‘Bharat Sharminda Hai’ in Hindi (‘India is Ashamed’), ‘Our Ex-Soldiers Deserve This?’, etc.

Such incidents prove the despairing depths to which India has gone during the five years of BJP rule at the Centre.

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 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

Massive clean-up launched post-July 21 rally

Posted on July 22, 2019 | by aitc | Leave a Comment

Immediately after Trinamool’s Ekushe July rally yesterday at Esplanade ended, workers of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC), assisted by workers appointed through the 100 Days’ Work Scheme, launched a massive clean-up operation, both at the site and the adjoining places where crowds had gathered to listen. The mayor was in charge of the operation.

The clean-up at the venue was over in just 45 minutes. To make it quicker, cleaners at Chittaranjan Avenue, Lenin Sarani, SN Banerjee Road, Bentinck Street and their adjoining lanes started their work just as Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s speech ended. At the venue, the operation began after the crowds left.

About 200 workers of the Solid Waste Management Department were on hand with brooms and buckets. On hand too were two mechanical sweepers, 12 movable compactors, 45 auto dippers and 12 big garbage trucks. Helping clean up all the garbage were 150 workers employed under the 100 Days’ Work Scheme to.

The party had already made people aware of the necessity of not throwing garbage anywhere and everywhere. So, for example, thermocol plates were dumped at specific sites. For this reason, the cleaning up was easier.

After cleaning up the main sites, KMC officers led parties of workers to various places across Kolkata, along which workers went in processions or gathered, and where food had been cooked for the rally attendees. By the evening, every place where people had gathered had been made free of garbage.

It may be mentioned that Trinamool Congress has always ensured that meeting grounds are cleaned up and restored to the original state immediately after rallies, be it July 21 rallies or Brigade Parade Ground rallies or at any other places.

Abir Ranjan Biswas makes a Special Mention on the conversion of railway underpass into motorable road

Posted on July 16, 2019 | by aitc | Leave a Comment

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Ranaghat is a very busy and important railway junction, with five important routes passing through it, including an international one connecting Dhaka. The track runs through the middle of Ranaghat municipality, dividing it into two halves, with nearly all public amenities lying on the western half including its court, its police station, the SDO’s office, the tehsildar’s office and all other administrative offices, and also its subdivisional superspeciality hospital which caters to the needs of millions of people of the subdivision and to the populations of contiguous SC-populated administrative blocks of Nadia and the adjoining district of North 24 Parganas, apart from five close-by municipalities, including two SC-populated ones, one of which hosts 90 per cent scheduled castes.

Three railway level crossings hold the passage to cross over from the eastern to the western part to access all the amenities. But because of the busy railway routes, the level crossings are kept closed frequently, specially during the night. The movement of very long freight trains on the international route, carrying goods to Bangladesh, also occur. All three gates remain closed for long periods of time barring access to the hospital. This often has fatal consequences for seriously ill patients and pregnant mothers. A large number of deaths caused due to detaining at the level crossings have made the people very apprehensive and circumspect, fearful about their own lives and of their near and dear ones.

Since the last three years, the people have been demanding a solution through the conversion of a recently constructed underpass into a motorable way, with a little modification, assuring millions of safety and survival.

In support of this demand, there have been continuous rail blockages on a number of occasions, when railway authorities pacified them by giving assurance but delivered nothing to the despair of one and all. Hence, I implore upon the Railway Minister to realise the gravity of the matter and ensure the much-solicited conversion of the underpass into a motorable road.

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.