The state cabinet today cleared creation of a trained pool of 1,30,000 civic police for the state.
The force will be requisitioned for duty on various occasions such as elections, festivals and disaster management. For the Siliguri Commissionerate, another 1,000 youths will be enrolled for the force.
The members of the civic police, who will be required to have a minimum educational qualification of 8th standard passed, will be trained for 10 days and be given Rs 141 per day as remuneration.
The civic police will be enrolled at the thana level and will be taken on no-work no-pay basis. Earlier, for doing duties for maintenance of law and order in elections, religious festivals like Durga puja or disaster management, home guards were given the duties but now a trained pool of police volunteers can be used for this purpose.
For better administration, the state cabinet also sanctioned bifurcation of Rejinagar police station into Rejinagar and Saktipur outposts and approved 35 additional posts for the new police station. Thirty-five additional posts will be created for the purpose.
Besides, the decision to re-designate an ex-cadre post of the officer on special duty (co-ordination) in the home department as the secretary (co-ordination) of the department, was also taken.
The state cabinet also cleared acquisition of 143 acres for building embankment in South 24 Parganas and North 24 Parganas districts.
The government has also been working on creating new police posts to beef up security in Jangalmahal. Earlier in 2011, the state cabinet had passed a proposal to create several hundred posts for Bengal and Kolkata police. The posts in Bengal police were primarily to tighten security in Jangalmahal and its surrounding districts.
The state government will introduce a river route through Adi Ganga between Dakshineswar temple and Kalighat to facilitate movement of pilgrims by boat. The government will spend Rs 13 crore in the first phase for cleaning up the river. This was revealed today by the Minister for Irrigation, who said that the chief minister herself took great interest in this project. He also said the government would spend Rs 400 crore for cleaning and renovation of canals across the state.
Residents of Rajarhat New Town to have better civic amenities in the township. The state cabinet cleared the proposal to enact the New Town Kolkata Development Authority (Amendment) Bill, 2013 that will allow the authority to function as a municipality.
The urban development department will now prepare the draft for the proposed amendment bill to be placed at the next assembly session. Once approved, the civic body will not only be able to collect property tax from the residents but will also provide civic amenities to them.
This apart, the cabinet also passed a proposal to acquire 5.76 acres of land at Chakpachuria mouza in Rajarhat New Town for development of civic amenities like roads, sewerage and drainage and water supply.
State urban development minister Firhad Hakim said that by bringing this amendment bill, New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA) will get a municipal structure and act as a municipality for New Town.
