New avenues in transport: New bus services for districts

West Bengal Chief Minister Ms Mamata Banerjee launched new bus services for the districts today during her visit to Tehatta, Nadia district.

The Chief Minister flagged off 17 buses along 6 new routes at today’s function.

In the next one month, the West Bengal Government will introduce a fleet of 100 buses across districts. The routes have been decided via scientific reasoning. CTC will be operating these buses, which have all been bought with funds from the state government.

The services will benefit four districts around Kolkata – Howrah, Hooghly, North 24 Parganas and Nadia.

 

Trinamool wants Parliament to function: Sudip Bandopadhyay

Ahead of the Winter Session this week, Trinamool Congress on Saturday said it does not favour disrupting of Parliament proceedings and will raise issues of intolerance, communal harmony and strengthening of federal structure in the House.

“The strategy of our party is yet to be decided. It will be decided after discussions with our party chief Mamata Banerjee. But yes, we want the Parliament to function properly. We don’t want any disruption of the house,” TMC Parliamentary Party leader in Lok Sabha Sudip Bandopadhyay said.

“If Parliament functions smoothly, we will be able to raise the burning issues of the country such as price rise, intolerance, threat to secularism and others. We can make the government answerable for these issues,” he said.

Sudip Bandopadhyay said, “The issue of intolerance and threat to communal harmony will top our agenda.”

“Never before has India gone through such an intolerant atmosphere. We want to raise this issue of intolerance in the Parliament. We have always spoken in favour of strengthening communal harmony of our country. In the present situation the communal harmony too is under threat,” he added.

The MP also lashed out at the Centre for interfering in the federal structure of the country.

“We have always spoken in favour of strengthening the federal structure and for more powers to the states. But under the present regime at the centre, the Prime Minister is calling up chief secretaries of the state bypassing the chief ministers.

“Is this the way you protect the federal structure, which is the basis of our country? We all need to strengthen the federal structure,” he added.

CPI(M) trying to create an atmosphere of violence in Bengal: Trinamool

Lashing out at the CPI(M), Secretary General of the party Partha Chatterjee today said that the communist party is trying to incite violence in the State in the name of political movements.

Taking a dig at CPI(M)’s ‘jatha’ he said such tactics of capturing rural areas cannot be allowed in a democratic set up. “The Opposition is taking political initiatives only to make headlines. They cannot win people’s trust like this,” he added.

He also remarked that the Opposition is jealous of the developmental initiatives launched in the last four years by Mamata Banerjee and was thus trying to stay relevant through headlines in the media.

“We have no problem with democratic means of political movement. We cannot allow plans to capture villages by force,” Partha Chatterjee said.

“For 34 years, CPM ruled through violence, terror, fear mongering and force. People witnessed development under Mamata Banerjee,” he added.

WB Govt to help artisans with export of handicrafts

The Bengal government is planning to boost export of handicrafts and provide artisans with direct access to export. The state will hold training workshops on export at the handicrafts fair. Over 3,500 artisans are likely to participate in the workshops.

The state’s micro, small and medium entrepreneurs (MSME), along with the textile department that is hosting the fair, has tied up with the Federation of Indian Exports organizations (FIEO) to train artisans. The Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee also wanted to set up a mall to showcase the handicrafts.

Officials said that Bengal had exported handicrafts worth around Rs 500 crore in the last financial year.

Rajiva Sinha, secretary of MSME department, said, “This year’s fair is expected to be a major success. Last year, goods worth Rs 18 crore were sold.“

“The aim is to promote ex port of handicrafts and allied products from Bengal. FIEO officials will help and train artisans. We will teach them how to start exports and the processes required along with export documentation,“ said Debdatta Nandwani, deputy director general of FIEO’s eastern zone.

 

Image courtesy: The Hindu

EM Bypass flats will get filtered water soon

Buoyed by the warm response to its pilot project on piping filtered water to some apartment complexes, Kolkata Municipal Corporation has decided to lay a dedicated water pipeline to supply filtered water from the Dhapa plant to all major complexes along EM Bypass.

In the first phase, KMC will lay a 24-inch pipeline along EM Bypass, which will be linked to all major housing complexes. In the second phase, based on applications from the cooperative societies, the civic body will install water meters in these apartments.

Mayor Sovan Chatterjee said that the civic body would definitely supply filtered water to the major housing complexes along the EM Bypass as part of a plan to ban drawing of ground water.

“We need to supply filtered water to the multistoried buildings and housing complexes. This is necessary to save city’s groundwater from being depleted,” he said.

Tabu gives away Golden Royal Bengal Tiger Awards at KIFF closing ceremony

After the star-studded opening ceremony and week-long screenings of world cinema, City of Joy was witness to a gala closing ceremony of the 21st Kolkata International Film Festival.

Veteran actors Sharmila Tagore and Tabu graced the event, to be held at Nazrul Mancha at 5 PM, along with delegates from all over the world. Honourable ministers Firhad Hakim and Aroop Biswas will be present on the occasion while Subrata Mukherjee will preside over the function.

As many as 149 films by 137 directors from 61 countries were screened across 12 venues in the week-long extravaganza. This year for the second time, the KIFF was a competitive event. The competition focussed on films helmed by women filmmakers.

Headed by Sharmila Tagore, the jury comprising well-known Chinese-American actress Bai Ling, Polish director Filip Marczewski, Israeli filmmaker Samuel Maoz and Sri Lankan actress Swarna Mallawarachchi, selected the Best Film and Best Director from 14 short-listed movies.

KMC service centre on way

The KMC authorities have decided to build a citizens’ service centre adjacent to the civic headquarters on S N Banerjee Road. The construction will begin in December with an 18-month deadline in mind.

The G+ IV building will be constructed on a 12 cottah plot where the Chaplin cinema building once stood.

Once the building was complete, it would ease the pressure from the headquarters as some of the departments, like the treasury , trade licence and information technology, will be shifted to the new set up.

According to plans, the civic body will open up a whole floor for the citizens’ service centre. This centre will be modelled after some of the cash collection centres set up in different locations across the city .

“We will dedidate a 6,000 sq ft floor to the tax payers who can turn up at the new centre for paying property tax bills. Traders will also be entertained to pay their trade licence renewal fee at the new centre. Once construction is complete, we will offer a single window system for our citizens to avail of different civic services,” mayor Sovan Chatterjee said.

Mamata’s Bihar visit a protest against authoritarian attitude of Centre: Trinamool

Stating that the party would fight to “strengthen the federal structure” in the country, TMC on Thursday said that West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s attendance at the oath-taking ceremony of Nitish Kumar on Friday would be as a mark of “protest against authoritarian attitude of the Centre”.

“Our chief minister is going there (Bihar) to fight against intolerance and mark her protest against the authoritarian attitude of the Centre.

“Trinamool Congress will fight in favour of strengthening the federal structure and secular fabric of our country,” said party leader and state urban development minister Firhad Hakim.

Mamata Banerjee on Thursday left for Patna to take take part in Kumar’s swearing-in on Friday. She had congratulated Nitish Kumar over Twitter and termed the victory of the grand alliance as the defeat of “intolerance”.

Nitish Kumar, the JD(U) leader and the Bihar Chief Minister designate, and Mamata Banerjee had spoken over the phone after the Bihar Assembly elections results were announced with the former thanking the TMC chief for supporting the grand alliance in Bihar in its fight against BJP.

WB CM welcomes first batch of enclave-dwellers from Bangladesh to India

First batch of people, who were living in Indian Enclaves in Bangladesh have today entered India. A group of 19 families that included 62 persons reached Coochbehar district crossing Changrabandha border post.

Following the implementation of Land Boundary agreement, around 1000 people living in Indian Enclaves opted for Indian citizenship while rest of them chose to stay in Bangladesh. However, people living in Bangladeshi enclaves in India preferred to stay in India.

Welcoming the people from Bangladesh, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee posted in social networking websites, “Pursuant to the historic Land Boundary Agreement between India and Bangladesh held in Dhaka in June 2015, where I was also present, the first batch of 19 families consisting of 62 persons from Indian enclaves in Bangladesh who have opted to stay in India entered our country today through Changrabandha in Coochbehar.”

She further adds, “I heartily welcome our brothers and sisters from “opar bangla” and wish them a very pleasant stay here.Our government will take full care of them.”

mamata banerjee sagar island

Gangasagar Mela to go green in 2016

Ganga Sagar Mela next year would be declared Green Mela where sanitary toilets would be provided for all pilgrims, South 24 Paraganas district magistrate P B Salim said.

10,000 sanitary toilets would be set up for the mela, which attracts lakhs of pilgrims from across the country.

He said the pilgrims would be made aware of the demerits of open defecation at various stages of their journey right from the city to Sagar Island, where they take the holy dip on the occasion of Makar Sankranti.

Referring to the situation in the district vis-a-vis sanitation, he said the model set by Nadia, declared a total sanitation district, would be followed though South 24 Parganas had a much larger population.

“Next year on Gandhi Jayanti we plan to declare South 24 Parganas a total sanitation district. For this we are involving people from all sections – students, Anganwadi and Asha workers, SHGs, NGOs besides religious heads,” he said adding at present there are no sanitary toilets in at least seven lakh households in the district.

The government will provide Rs 10,000 for each toilet built and the beneficiary would pay Rs 900 or provide labour. In West Bengal 40 per cent of the people have no sanitary toilets at their homes compared to 58 per cent in the country.