WB CM gives away Gatidhara cheques to unemployed youths

WB CM gives away Gatidhara cheques to unemployed youths

Posted on January 15, 2016 | by aitc | Leave a Comment

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today distributed cheques for the Gatidhara Scheme to 1000 unemployed youths who had applied for self-employment by buying commercial vehicles with help of the State Government.

The objective of the Gatidhara scheme is to generate self-employment in transport sector by providing financial assistance. A person applying for the assistance under the scheme will get maximum Rs 1 lakh to buy a vehicle.

The State Transport Department has set up 1,300 centres across the state to help unemployed youth avail the Gatidhara scheme.

In a bid to help more youths avail the scheme it was important to set up as many possible centres from where they would get necessary information and at the same time submit their application forms.

How to apply

To apply for the scheme, unemployed youth aged between 20 to 45 years has to get enrolled with the employment exchange. People working in the 1,300 centres will not only help the applicants to apply for the Gatidhara Scheme, but also help to get them enrolled with the employment exchange.

The applicants will also get assistance of Gatidhara felicitators to get their road permit from the state transport authority (STA) or regional transport authority (RTA) under the scheme and registration number of their vehicles without facing any trouble.

What next?

After applicants get necessary clearances from STA or RTA and sanction letter for the financial assistance from West Bengal Transport Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (WBTIDCL), it is the task of the felicitators to pursue for faster disbursement of loan from any bank, financial institution or non-banking financial companies in favour of the applicants. The financier will help by providing the remaining amount to buy the vehicle.

The felicitators will also ensure that all the beneficiaries write “With financial support of Government of West Bengal under Gatidhara scheme” in blue colour on the rear of the vehicles.

Trinamool’s strength is the love and support of the people: Abhishek Banerjee

Posted on January 15, 2016 | by aitc | Leave a Comment

Trinamool Youth Congress President and Lok Sabha MP Abhishek Banerjee held a meeting with youth contingent of the party at ITI ground, Kalyani on Thursday and laid the guidelines for the party activists for the coming Assembly polls.

The TMYC National President said that Trinamool Congress will sweep the coming Assembly polls. He said that the media keeps mum on the development and progress in Bengal and it is the duty of the youth force of the party to spread the news among people.

On the activities of the Opposition parties the young firebrand MP said that the State BJP, who has to hire people to show strength are dreaming about ruling Bengal. He said that there is nothing much to speak about the State Congress and the CPIM was finished in 2011.

Mr Banerjee said that the West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has been working day and night for the development of the people. She has held more than 110 administrative review meetings in the districts of Bengal. Trinamool Congress’ strength is the love and support of the people, not the blessings of any media house or any industrialist, he said.

Trinamool Secretary General Partha Chatterjee, Lok Sabha MPs Tapas Mondal and Mamatabala Thakur and senior district Trinamool leaders were present at the meeting.

State takes all measures for convenience of pilgrims at Gangasagar Mela

Posted on January 14, 2016 | by aitc | Leave a Comment

The West Bengal Government has taken huge precautionary measures to avert any untoward incident during this year’s Gangasagar Mela.

A team of seven ministers, led by state panchayat affairs and rural development minister Subrata Mukherjee, the state housing and youth affairs minister Arup Biswas and state power minister Manish Gupta, is deputed at Kopchuberia. Also, a team of four ministers consisting of state urban development and municipal affairs minister Firhad Hakim, state irrigation minister Rajib Banerjee, minister of state for minority affairs Giasuddin Mollah and state Sunderbans affairs minister Manturam Pakhira are stationed at Harwood Point.

In one of the biggest religious cogregations in the country, pilgrims look pleased this year. With the setting up of bio-toilets, West Bengal government has kept its promise of going eco-friendly at the ongoing Gangasagar Mela.

Making the area free from open-defecation, women and men can be seen using the bio-toilets giving a positive response to the initiative. With security being beefed up, drones are being used to keep check on the crowd.

The Ganga Sagar Mela is one of the biggest religious festivals of the country that started Tuesday. Thousands of pilgrims descend on Sagar Island, a part of the Sunderbans archipelago in South 24 Parganas district, to observe Makar Sankranti in January every year.

West Bengal Chief Minister Ms Mamata Banerjee is expected to visit the Mela to take stock of the arrangements and also offer her prayers at Kapilmuni Ashram.

North Bengal’s largest Ayurvedic hospital coming up at Alipurduar

Posted on January 14, 2016 | by aitc | Leave a Comment

North Bengal’s largest Ayurvedic hospital is being set up at Tapasikhata in Alipurduar district. The second factory of the State Government, in addition to the one at Kalyani, which will manufacture Ayurvedic medicine, will also be set up here

State AYUSH Minister Asish Banerjee yesterday visited the proposed site at Tapasikhata. He said that there plans to set up an AYUSH Hub in north Bengal. He said that if there is a system to manufacture medicines at the spot, beside the hospital, the whole process will be much easier. Out of the 63 acre plot, 25 acre will be used to set up the hospital and the rest may be used to grow herbal medicinal plants.

The Minister said the the Hub will also consist of facilities to provide Homeopathy and Yoga-based treatments. He had instructed the local authorities to develop the local infrastructure to speed up the work process.

West Bengal Chief Minister Ms Mamata Banerjee’s primary focus was to revive, rejuvenate and restructure the State’s Health Infrastructure. Besides, setting up multi super specialty hospitals, AYUSH has also been given huge importance.

WB Forest Dept takes steps to conserve rare trees

Posted on January 13, 2016 | by admin2 | Leave a Comment

The West Bengal Forest Department has taken a slew of measures to conserve rare trees in Kankrajhore forest and Susuniha hills. It has declared these areas as ‘medicinal plant conservation area’.

Conservation experts would be engaged to ascertain the cause of extinction of many trees, which were earlier found in the forests of Kankrajhore in Belpahari of West Midnapore district and Susunia hills in Bankura district.

Many rare species of trees are lost and not found now as the forest cover has depleted. Now, the Forest department is planning to make a detail survey to find out the cause of the loss.

The National Medicinal Plant Board experts would be involved in an extensive research. They would also study if factors like climate change, scarcity of water and tourism are responsible for extinction of rare trees.

They would make a survey on how many types of trees exist in two areas and if any rare species still exist. They would also study on which species of trees are extinct.

They will study whether ecological changes are resulting in loss of trees. Landslide and lack of drainage system will also be studied. The capacity of absorbing rate of carbon dioxide of the trees will be thoroughly studied. The trees which have maximum absorbing capacity of carbon dioxide would be planted in more number

Two forests were chosen for the study. The forests in Kankrajhore and Susunia hills are natural forests . It has been noticed that many valuable trees are not found here. The frequent movement of people in the forest areas and felling of tress in unscientific manner may be the causes of loss of trees. A change in the character of the soil might have contributed to this. These forests are declared as conserved forest area.

The two forests are named as Medicinal Plant Conservation Area and the forest department assigned to two universities for research. While scientists from the Jadavpur University would work in Kankrajhore, North Bengal University would conduct their research at Sushunia.

Opposition playing cheap and mean politics with Singur: Partha Chatterjee

Posted on January 13, 2016 | by aitc | Leave a Comment

Trinamool Congress Secretary General Dr Partha Chatterjee, while speaking at a function commemorating the 153rd birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda at Anandanagar in Singur came down heavily on the Opposition for playing cheap and mean politics with the Singur issue for their narrow political gains.

Dr Partha Chatterjee said that the CPI-M never wanted an industry to come up at Singur. The forcible acquiring of very fertile agriculture land by the then Left Front government was the greatest blunder, he said.

Trinamool Congress Chairperson Mamata Banerjee fasted for 26 days demanding the return of the fertile agricultural land to the unwilling farmers and then to sort out an amicable solution in favour of the Nano project at Singur, but the then adamant chief minister failed to bring about an amicable solution resulting in the withdrawal of the Nano project by the Industrial giant, Dr Chatterjee said.

Dr Chatterjee said that the CPI-M were creating unwanted hurdles to the return of agriculture land to the unwilling farmers. Dr Chatterjee also ridiculed the proposed Congress and CPI-M pact to fight the state Assembly election jointly.

He said the proposed alliance of the congress and CPM is motivated with hunger for political power. They are underestimating the good sense of the common people. The common people will go for progress and development but not for faulty politics and dictatorship once again, he said.

Banglar Jibone Jatra – WB CM inaugurates 20th Jatra Utsav

Posted on January 13, 2016 | by aitc | Leave a Comment

West Bengal Chief Minister inaugurated the 20^th edition of the State Jatra Festival at Kachhari Maidan, Barasat today. This year’s theme is “Banglar Jibone Jatra”.

Speaking on the occasion, WB CM reiterated her commitment to keep the tradition of jatra alive. She also took on her critics who take potshots at her for ‘too many festivals’. “It is impossible to imagine our lives without festival. Problems will be there but we must never stop celebrations,” she said.

“We are alive because our culture is alive. Society thrives because of heritage,” the CM commented. Drawing the reference of folk artists who have roped in to perform at government functions, WB CM said she will also use the talent of Jatra artists for the same.

The 32-day long Jatra Festival will showcase the best of the Bengal’s traditional playact format which generally centres around social issues and mythological events. Several veteran Jatra artists were honoured during the inaugural ceremony.

Reviving Jatra tradition

The West Bengal Government, under the initiative of the Bengal Chief Minister has been instrumental in providing ‘jatra’ artistes with several facilities including that they would be brought under mediclaim facilities by the State Government.

Setting up of a data bank on ‘Jatra’ is on process. The government also decided to increase the annual remuneration of poor ‘Jatra’ artistes from Rs 8000 to Rs 9000, last year.

The State Government has come up with ‘Jatra Darpan’ – a booklet consisting of various Jatra groups and has given a copy to all district magistrates and police superintendents in the districts in an effort to rejuvenate Jatra culture in the state.

All you need to know about the new Startup Policy of Bengal

Posted on January 13, 2016 | by aitc | Leave a Comment

To provide an enabling ecosystem to support and nurture startups in the state, the West Bengal Government launched the state startup policy at the Bengal Global Business Summit.

Broad pointers

The policy, a document with eight broad pointers comes complete with a preamble, a vision, the state’s mission, the enabling environment for startups in the state, definitions related to various aspects of a startup alongside defining incentives and procedures to be followed by the startups.

This policy would be in effect from January 1 2016 to December 31, 2021.

The policy has been launched ahead of the Centre so that MSMEs in the State can start the work at the earliest and use all the facilities the state is offering to encourage entrepreneurship.

Preamble

The preamble of the policy takes off with the statement ‘Silpa Korun Bangla Gorun’ (set up industry to develop Bengal.

Defining the mission of the state, the policy states that the authorities would target to create enabling environment and supporting eco-system that facilitates ten thousand startups in the next ten years.

Entrepreneurship Development Centre Network

The state will create an Entrepreneurship Development Centre Network (EDCN) with universities and leading higher education institutes across all districts in the state to undertake the role of creating entrepreneurial aspiration among the youngsters.

The state will provide fund capital expenditure up to Rs 10 lakh to universities in the state to create an EDC. Presidency University is one of the first in the state to be a part of the initiative.

Alongside facilitating EDCN institutions to incentivize entrepreneurship, the state will also facilitate capacity building capacity building of EDCN institutions through active collaboration with leading technical business incubators (TBI) in the state.

The state would facilitate setting up of new incubators in government as well as private sector.

Helping businesses

Preferential lease of land from state government as per its land policy to government recognized TBIs in the state too would be facilitated.

Twenty per cent of space available will be earmarked in existing and forthcoming Industrial estate, SME Clusters and Rural Craft Hub having common facility centre for startups during their proof of concept (POC) development stage.

The policy allows startups to access government R&D labs through MSME Technology Facilitation Centre set up by the State Government in partnership with CSIR (Council of Scientific & Industrial Research).

The Directorate of MSME would act as the nodal agency to the Innovation Enabler Mechanism that would be set up by the state to address the statutory compliance issues of the initiatives.

Digital platform

A digital platform startupbengal.in will connect all the eco-system stakeholders, network of support, funding and service providers to enable seamless access for startups.

There would also be a digital application gateway to WB MSME Equity Fund. The policy also mentions that any fiscal incentive available under the state government policy will be applicable to startups too.

The image is representative

Music has no boundaries: WB CM at Milan Utsav

Posted on January 12, 2016 | by aitc | Leave a Comment

West Bengal Chief Minister today attended a concert by ghazal maestro Ghulam Ali which has been organised jointly by the WBMD&FC and Minority & Madrassah Development departments of the West Bengal Government at Netaji Indoor Stadium. It also marked the inauguration of Milan Utsav, 2016.

Incidentally, a performance of the Ghazal Maestro was cancelled in October, 2015 due to political reasons and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had extended her invitation to the maestro to perform in the city.

She welcomed the ghazal maestro to Kolkata and thanked for accepting her invitation to perform in the City of Joy.

“Music has no boundaries,” the West Bengal Chief Minister said adding that Swami Vivekananda preached about tolerance during his lifetime.

“Tolerance, harmony, integrity and equality are very important parts of life. Swami Vivekananda always talked about universal brotherhood. We have to keep that spirit alive,” she added.

In the spirit of harmony, the CM quipped to a thunderous applause: “Fanush banke jinki hifazat hawa karein, woh sama kya bujhe jise roshan khuda karein.”

WB Govt makes elaborate arrangements for pilgrims at Gangasagar Mela

Posted on January 12, 2016 | by admin2 | Leave a Comment

Keeping the huge turnout at Gangasagar Mela in mind, the West Bengal Government has deputed a team of seven ministers at Sagar Islands for the four days of the fair.

Seven Ministers in charge

The team of seven ministers will be led by state panchayat affairs and rural development minister Subrata Mukherjee, the state housing and youth affairs minister Arup Biswas and state power minister Manish Gupta, will be deputed at Kopchuberia.

Also, a team of four ministers consisting of state urban development and municipal affairs minister Firhad Hakim, state irrigation minister Rajib Banerjee, minister of state for minority affairs Giasuddin Mollah and state Sunderbans affairs minister Manturam Pakhira would be stationed at Harwood Point.

T he Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) Mayor, too, will remain at the principal exit point at Kolkata to Gangasagar as per the decision of the chief minister.

Since a huge turnout of over 5,00,000 people is expected this time at the fair the Chief Minister does not want any lapse in the arrangements; hence, she allotted duties to the ministers.

Security cover

Additional force deployment will be made at Sagar Islands during the fair days this year, both keeping in view the additional crowd and security threats in wake of the Pathankot incident.

Green clean Gangasagar

The fair at Gangasagar is set to be cleaner this year with the South 24-Parganas district administration setting up 10,000 toilets on the grounds. The authorities won’t allow open defecation to ensure that the area is not left in a mess once the fair is over.

‘Green clean Sagar mela’ is the theme for the fair this year. The idea, according to the district administration, is to prevent pollu tion. Of the 10,000 toilets to be set up, some will be permanent, some temporary and the rest mobile.