Trinamul man protects former VU V-C from charges of misappropriating cash

27 August 2012

biswabrata goswami  
MIDNAPORE, 27 AUG: The misappropriation of University Grants Commission funds by former Vidyasagar University Vice-Chancellor Swapan Kumar Pramanik was not discussed during the university’s executive council meeting on 23 August because a Trinamul Congress member shielded the Prof. Pramanik.
Mr Manab Mondol, principal of a Jhargram College and a Trinamul Congress spokesperson, opposed the term "misappropriation" used by the University Grants Commission (UGC) against Prof. Pramanik in the meeting and sought an explanation from Vice-Chancellor Ranjan Chakraborty. 
As a result, the matter was not discussed and Prof. Chakraborty promised to seek an explanation from the UGC. A university professor said: "It is surprising that Prof. Pramanik, who was close to the CPI-M brass, is now being shielded by a Trinamul Congress teacher."
The issue was on the agenda for the executive council meeting because the Vice-Chancellor recently received a letter from West Bengal State Council of Higher Education vice-chairman Abhijit Chakaborty, asking the V-C to form a two-member internal inquiry committee to investigate the matter. "The agenda item has been deferred to the next meeting for discussion," said Vidyasagar University registrar Ranajit Dhar. "The issue was taken as a table-item, but we could not discuss the matter in this meeting for some reason.” Mr Pramanik has been accused of misappropriating UGC funds to pay for his trip to a five-day conference in Beijing in 2004. The deputy secretary of the UGC, Mrs Archana Thakur, recently wrote a letter to the registrar of Vidyasagar University, asking him to explain the misappropriation, and to refund Rs 60,976 to the commission.
 In her letter, Mrs Thakur said the university disbursed Rs 60,976 to Prof. Pramanik, then the Vice-Chancellor of the university, for his trip to the 36th World Congress of Sociology, which was held 7-11 July 2004. This was a violation of the commission's guidelines, the letter said. For his Beijing tour, Prof. Pramanik not only used unassigned UGC funding, to which he was not entitled, but also flouted the norms for taking advances from public institutions. 
‘Kazi Nazrul U to start in 2014’
DURGAPUR, 27 AUG: Academic work at the proposed Kazi Nazrul Islam University in Asansol will start in the 2014 academic session, state higher education minister Bratya Basu said while inspecting the proposed site for the university in Asansol today.  Chief minister Mamata Banerjee had proposed the university during the birth anniversary celebration of rebel poet Kazi Nazrul Islam in May. The poet was born in 1899 in Churulia village in Asansol. The university has been proposed for the 31-acre lot occupied by a leprosy hospital established in 1940. At present, the hospital is under the supervision of the Asansol Mines Board of Health. Mr Basu, accompanied by minister of state for health Chandrima Bhattacharya, arrived at the hospital today. After inspecting it, Mrs Bhattacharya said: “The hospital will be shifted to Barakar to help set up the university.” sns

Shrimp farmers suffering

17 August 2012

biswabrata goswami
TAMLUK, 17 AUG: The economy of East Midnapore district could be in trouble, since it is heavily dependent upon the cultivation of Bagda prawns, a product for which there is dwindling demand.
In the last month, at least five struggling Bagda prawn growers who had taken out loans they could not repay committed suicide or died.
Susanta Mondol (50) of Uttar Amtalia in Contai-II block died two days ago due to cardiac arrest when they heard that his prawns, worth of Rs 5-6 lakh, had died. Jagat Singh (45) of Bairi in Contai-III committed suicide as he was unable to repay a loan.
"Another three Bagda cultivators from Contai-II and Chnadipur committed suicide, but neither the fisheries department nor the district administration has taken steps to combat the situation,' said Mr Mamud Hossain, the zilla parishad saha-sabhadhipati. "If this situation continues for a few more days, thousands of fishermen's families will suffer huge losses." 
Bagda chingri is the lifeline of the shrimp farmers of Contai-I, II and III, Bhagwanpur-I, Nandigram-I and II, Mahisadal, Sutahata and Khejuri blocks ~ the district’s main shrimp-producing zone.
A fisheries department official said shrimp enclosure owners and farmers cultivated Bagda as there was high demand for it abroad even five years ago. “But the economic slowdown has pushed down the demand taking its toll on Indian exporters,” the official said.
“Shrimp export from the three coastal districts began 30 years ago. From 1982 to 2007, shrimp helped the country fetch a hefty amount of foreign currency,” he said. There are 5,000 shrimp enclosures on 12,000 acres of land in the district, with about 45,000 workers. The shrimp from East Midnapore account for 30 per cent of the country’s total shrimp export, the official said.
Declining exports are now forcing the farmers to sell their produce in the local market at half the price of the last year, said Mr Amar Das, a member of the Bagda Chasi and Bagda Chas Bachao Committee. As a result, large amounts of Bagda remain unsold and perish in the retail market for lack of buyers during the peak season (May-August).
A local shrimp enclosure owner said farmers first sell the shrimp to the local market, cold storage and depots. Depot owners sell the shrimp to exporters who export the shrimp after scanning, processing and packaging them.
The farmers say the cost of shrimp cultivation per bigha is Rs 2.5 lakh to Rs 3 lakh, and it is rising every year with increases in prices of medicines and other things. According to farmers, they are now losing Rs 1 lakh per bigha. Mr Das said, “We under the banner of Bagda Chasi and Bagda Chas Bachao Committee have submitted a deputation before the government, but nothing has improved”.

Animals to be captured in the traditional way

14 August 2012

biswabrata goswami
MIDNAPORE, 14 AUG: After almost two decades, the Mela Sikar ~ a traditional method of capturing wild animals ~ will be organised by the state forest department in Junglemahal districts next month, when elephants from Dalma will head to South Bengal.
The Central government has already given permission to the state government to capture four sub-adult elephants from the herd for captive use.
"The permission for the Mela Sikar was sought with the belief that if four elephants were caught, the rest of the herd might not visit South Bengal again. The state has also sought permission from the Centre to build two elephant-rescue centres ~ one in the south (Midnapore) and the other in the north (Jalpaiguri) ~ to capture and confine eight rogue tuskers," said a senior forest official.  Since the late 1980s, elephants from Bihar (now Jharkhand) have been entering Bengal during the monsoon. The number of elephants and the duration of their stay in South Bengal has gone up over the years, worsening man-animal conflict in the densely populated districts of Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia.
On an average, five people and one elephant die and hundreds of hectares of crops are destroyed each year. The desperate state hit upon the idea of capturing the menacing jumbos in 2000. After 12 years, the Centre has now granted permission, the forest official said. In 1977, elephants were brought under Schedule I of the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972, and capturing them was made illegal, according to Rupnarayan divisional forest officer Rabindranath Saha. But the Centre, under Section 12 of the same Act, can give permission for their capture for population control and scientific research. In West Bengal, the last time this was done was in 1994-95, when six elephants were captured.  "The state government’s plan ~ capturing and confining dominant bulls in rescue centres ~ may aggravate conflict," said Mr Rana Purohit, an animal conservator.
He said elephant society is matriarchal, and females jointly share the responsibility of raising calves. At a certain age, the young bulls leave and join the big males and the females stay back with their mothers. The young bulls, when they are big enough and adequately groomed by the dominant males, return to the females in the herds and mate.
"Outside forests, dominant male elephants lead the raids on croplands. The typical human response is to identify and capture these bulls as 'rogue tuskers'. The true rogue elephants (habitual killers) need to be removed, but such cases are rare. So under public pressure, the forest department goes on capturing random bulls. This practice aggravates the man-animal conflict," said Mr Purohit.  According to conservators, the removal of the dominant sub-adults is a short-term solution since sub-populations soon find replacements. More significantly, the absence of dominant sub-adults from a certain group leaves young elephants directionless and aggressive. Since these young elephants replace their missing big brothers in the frontline, their inexperience and aggression when in charge of raids usually aggravate conflict.

Marine miseries

12 August 2012

biswabrata goswami
DIGHA, 12 AUG: Fishermen living along the Bengal coast, who depend on the marine fishes for their livelihood, are incurring huge losses due to illegal fishing by the foreign trawlers. Hundreds of fishermen of Bay of Bengal have lost their jobs in the past few years due to unavailability of fishes within the traditional catch area.
A survey on the relationship between fish diversity reported that illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing is depleting marine fish stocks and damaging the ecosystems of the oceans.
The deep sea habitat is also under threat from the crude and destructive methods of fishing that are often used. The nets are huge and usually weighed down with heavy bolts. As they are dragged along the bottom of the ocean they rip everything in their paths, and scoop up everything from the sea bed. These include corals and sponges and some of these are hundreds of years old. The final result is a totally destroyed marine environment that took hundreds of years to develop. Since none of this material has a commercial value for the fishermen it is simply dumped back into the ocean as by-catch, the survey reported. According to reports from Digha Fishermen and Fish Traders’ Association, with the introduction of diesel using powerboats, deep-sea fishing and mechanisation in fishing is taking an upturn. It has been observed in Digha coastal areas that total marine fish landing mainly consists of sardine, hilsa, coila, pomphret, croakers, Bombay duck, catfish, ribbon fish, shark, shankar, prawn etc. Thus total 37 varieties of fish are found here. Among them contribution of hilsa in total catch per trip was found to be maximum in Digha.

Former VU V-C ‘misappropriated’ UGC funds

9 August 2012

biswabrata goswami
MIDNAPORE, 9 AUG: A former Vice-Chancellor of Vidyasagar University has been accused of misappropriating University Grants Commission funds to pay for his trip to a five-day conference in Beijing in 2004.
The deputy secretary of the University Grants Commission, Mrs Archana Thakur, has written a letter to the registrar of Vidyasagar University, asking him to explain the misappropriation of funds, and to refund Rs 60,976 to the commission.
In her letter, Mrs Thakur has written that the university disbursed Rs 60,976 to Prof. Swapam Kumar Pramanik, the then Vice-Chancellor of the university, for his trip to the 36th World Congress of Sociology, which was held 7-11 July 2004. This was a violation of the commission's guidelines, she wrote. 
This has been revealed according to the complaint lodged with the commission by Mr Avijit Guha, a reader of in the department of Anthropology at the university. Mr Guha, who first raised questions about the practices of Prof. Pramanik, got his information through RTI applications.  
For his Beijing tour, Prof. Pramanik not only used the unassigned University Grants Commission funding, to which he was not entitled, but also flouted the norms for taking advances from public institutions.
Normally, an applicant is given an advance of 50 to 75 per cent of the total amount, according to an official note from the university finance officer dated 8 March 2010. But Prof. Pramanik secured an advance of Rs 75,000 from the university and spent Rs 60,976.  Moreover, Vidyasagar University's unassigned grant committee met on 6 May 2004, with Prof. Pramanik himself acting as chairman, and sanctioned the financial assistance to Prof. Pramanik, which is also an unusual state of affairs, as Vice-Chancellors are suppose to apply to the secretary University Grants Commission. After reviewing the whole matter, Mrs Thakur wrote: "It appears that misappropriation of an amount of Rs 60,976 perhaps escaped the attention while settling the accounts."
Also, according to Mr Guha, Prof. Pramanik attended the conference based on an 11 November 2003 invitation from a professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences “addressing him as V-C of VU”. Prof. Pramanik took charge as Vice-Chancellor (V-C) of Vidyasagar University (VU) on 1 December 2003.

Fishermen take oath to protest the grant of permits to foreign fishing vessels

9 August 2012

biswabrata goswami
TAMLUK, 9 AUG: Fishermen living across the coast of West Bengal today took an oath to protest the grant of permits to foreign fishing vessels and demanded that these be revoked.
“The Letters of Permit scheme is nothing but allowing the foreigners to loot the marine resources of India. We want this scheme to be cancelled immediately,” said Mr Debashish Shyamal, general secretaryof DMF..
 Mr Shyamal said the Central government has recently issued 77 new Letters of Permit (LoP) to foreign fishing vessels over and above the 540 already existing permits.
 The fishermen under the banner of Dakshinbanga Matsyajibi Forum (DMF), an affiliated body of the National Fishworkers’ Forum (NFF) today protested  at a programme held at Contai in East Midnapore and wrote a letter to the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh urging him to take immediate action on these matters.
 ,“At a time when the fisheries resources in the near shore waters of the country is showing alarming signs of reduced yield affecting millions of coastal fish workers this act of the Union government is abjectly anti-people,” said Mr Shyamal
 He also said: “Not only foreign vessels but also Indian trawlers using destructive fishing technology create havoc on the marine environment and resources. As a result, the local fishermen are facing huge financial losses”.
 Mr Shyamal said the Central government is also planning to set up 40 Nuclear Power Plants on the coast of the country.
 “We have requested the government to immediately cancel the planned nuclear power plants across the coast of the country as it will destroy the coastal ecology and severely affect the life and livelihood of millions of coastal fish workers,” the DMF said in the letter.
 The plan to set up nuclear power plants from Haripur (East Midnapore) to Kudankulam (Tamil Nadu) and Jaitapur (Maharashtra), to augment the power requirements of the country faced a stiff opposition from a section of fishermen who apprehended that setting up of such plants will destroy the marine ecology of the area. The DMF also highlighted in its letter that the assurance given and agreements arrived at during talks with the Government of India in the ministry of environment and forests, in the pre- and post-CRZ 2011 proclamation period, have not been honoured by the government.
 The fishermen today submitted a deputation before the superintendent of Contai Postal Department urging him to deliver their letter to the Prime Minister.

CM irritated over stalled projects

8 August 2012

biswabrata goswami
JHARGRAM, 8 AUG: Chief minister Mamata Banerjee rebuked the officials of the district administration and police in Belpahari for not implementing the development projects she promised after coming to power.
In a meeting with district officials to take stock of the situation of development projects for the tribals of Junglemahal, the chief minister said:
“Amra khubi birokto (we are irritated). Keno eisab kaj holo na (why these works were not completed), kabe habe (how long it will take to complete) and ki karan eisab kaj na hoar pichane (what is the reason behind the failure of these works)"
The chief minister brushed aside the officials' excuse of lack of infrastructure for stalled projects.
“We have lost patience now. Why the ration cards for the poor people have not been distributed? Why many poor people are being exploited from getting 100 days job?” she said.
Miss Banerjee asked the administrative officials to work with the police to implement projects in the rural fringes of Junglemahal.
Although the BDOs in the meeting said that 82 Madhyamik schools have been upgraded in the Jhargram sub-division, senior officials say the entire process was done without following the rules of school upgradation. 
The state planning and development department has  proposed to hand over the responsibility of monitoring the development projects in the area to the ill-equipped paschimanchal unnayan parshad (PUP) department, a senior administrative officer said.
A few months ago the department was allotted a sum of Rs 183 crore for the execution of the development projects but the officials didn't know how to utilise the funds.
According to the state's house-listing and housing census-2011, as high as 36.5 per cent of total households were found to be travelling more than 500 meters from their homes to get drinking water compared to 30.4 per cent of total households in 2001.
“This figure is obviously high when any one goes through rural fringes of Junglemahal. There are several areas in Belpahari, Banshpahari and Kantapahari where tribal people walk more than a kilometer to fetch drinking water,” said Mr Ashok Mahato, a social activist.
During the past one decade, the growth in number of such households has gone up by more than 11 per cent - helplessness has become more acute.

Security increased in Junglemahal for CM visit

7 August 2012

biswabrata goswami
JHARGRAM, 7 AUG: The Jhargram district police has beefed up security across Junglemahal on the eve of chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s visit to Belpahari in here tomorrow, as Central and state Intelligence agencies have suggested the possibility of a Maoist attack on VVIPs, including the chief minister.
A few days ago, the state police had warned the chief minister and senior party leaders along with ministers of the state Cabinet against travelling at night, apprehending that Maoists might try to kidnap them in order to free top Maoist leaders who have been arrested.
Senior police officials today held a meeting to review the security arrangements for Miss Banerjee. An advance security liaison meeting involving the state police, Intelligence agencies, Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and Counter-Insurgency Force (CIF) authorities was held on Sunday.
A senior police officer said that although there was no violence in the past few days in Junglemahal, elaborate arrangements are being made. “Besides local police, companies of CRPF and CIF are being roped in for security purposes. Police personnel who underwent commando training are being deployed at vantage points along the jungle stretch through which the chief minister will travel to Belpahari from Jhargram tomorrow,” he said.
Security forces have intensified patrols, with some entering on motorcycles in interior places in the hilly forested areas of Belpahari, Banshpahari and Kankrajhore.
“Security forces have already completed their area domination work and some vulnerable areas where Maoists may hide have already been dominated by the security forces,” said Mr Alok Rajoria, additional superintendent of police, Jhargram.
Mr Rajoria said: “We have arranged two/three-tier security for the VVIPs. All  areas bordering Jharkhand and Odisha have already been ‘sealed’ in the presence of DIG (Midnapore range) Mr Lakshmi Narayan Meena. The security forces are also conducting operation in the bordering areas to check any type of infiltration of rebels.”
The checking of IEDs along the chief minister’s route and its surrounding areas has already been completed, Mr Rajoria said.
Another security official said: “Central Intelligence agencies have found booklets and hand-written slogans in various vernacular languages after the arrest of Maoist leaders from various parts of the country. The messages and slogans in them are more or less the same.”
The letter quoted one such message: “Mamata Banerjee and her party leaders will not escape the death penalty from the hands of the public as they failed to withdraw security forces from Junglemahal as they had promised before the polls.” The letter was found from Malkangiri district in Odisha a few days ago.

Cash in crops for greater benefit

3 August 2012

biswabrata goswami
TAMLUK, 3 AUG: Mr Amlan Maity of Amarshi village at Pataspur-I block of East Midnapore district has scaled down the area on which he grows paddy by more than one-third this year.
Of his six or so acres of land, only about four have been sown with paddy. Traditionally a rice farmer, he is now considering opportunities to sow cash crops on the rest of the land.
East Midnapore is one of West Bengal's rice-growing districts, producing three paddy crops a year. But a lack of remunerative prices in the last couple of seasons has forced a large number of farmers in the region to sow less paddy in this kharif season.
The cost of rice production ~ including labour, fertiliser, land rentals or other inputs ~ rose more than 53 per cent between 2008-09 and 2011-12, while the minimum support price (MSP) set by the government rose only about 20 per cent during that period, according to the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices.
This year, scanty rainfall has hit the paddy transplantation badly, and the problem has become even more acute because the power links for the deep tube wells in a few blocks have not been finished yet. As a result, thousands of farmers could not irrigate their lands to sow paddy, said Mr Mamud Hossain, the saha-sabhadhipati of the zilla parishad.
"A total of 31 deep tube wells were set up in 2010 and 2012 under RIDF (Rural Infrastructure Development Fund) schemes," Mr Hossain said. "But out of 31 deep tube wells, power connections for 23 tube wells situated in Egra-II, Pataspur-I, Panskura and Bhagwanpur-I and II blocks have not been established yet.
"We have repeatedly informed the matter to the concerned electric supply department, but no action has been taken," he said.
Steep rises in fertiliser prices have worsened the situation. Mr Maity said: "The prices of key fertilisers such as diammonium phosphate and potash and pesticides has more than doubled in the last year. The price that we are getting does not even help us cover our production costs."
The delayed monsoon is also likely to impact the productivity of the crop. "Transplantation has to be done within 18-22 days of sowing the crop; otherwise, the yield will be affected. But, for transplantation, we need good rains,” said Mr Sheikh Mahiruddin, another farmer in Egra.
According to the district agricultural officer, close to 10-15 per cent of the transplantation work has been done in the district so far, well below the 30-35 per cent that was done by this time last year. 

Over `100 crore swindled by fake money investment company

1 August 2012

biswabrata goswami
MIDNAPORE, 1 AUG: A racket promising doubling of money under a fake money investment company is operating across the state for years while the state intelligence wings have no information about the racketeers.
The gang has already swindled money to the tune of Rs 100 crore from people living in East and West Midnapore districts, and the investors who fell prey to the money-doubling scheme, find themselves without redress owing to the  alleged apathy of police and the district administration.
The incident came to light after Subhabrata Das, one of the victims, lodged a complaint with the Khejuri police station in East Midnapore on 27 July alleging that Swadesh Maity and Sutanu Maity, residents of Adampur village in Khejuri, had approached him, introducing themselves as employees of Travel Ventures International (TVI) Express, an international network company, and advised him to invest in their firm. They had assured the complainant high returns on the investment.
“Accordingly, I invested Rs 15,500 and became a sponsor of the network company. As per condition, I inducted many other persons who also invested the same amount on hopes of high returns. But, after a few months, when I didn’t get subsidiary returns, I learnt that no money was deposited in our name in the company’s account. Later, we found the names of several persons, including Biswarup Das, a laboratory assistant of IIT Kharagpur, involved in the racket and they have already cheated Rs 100 crore from people of both East and West Midnapore districts,” Mr Das alleged.
Mr Das also informed police that 27,648 persons from East Midnapore district had invested their money, but none of them got returns till date. The gang has swindled Rs 45 crore from East Midnapore district alone.
Meanwhile, the company has published a document in its website highlighting the fact that many persons were involved in illegal practices in the name of the company. In the document, the company has also mentioned the names of the persons who have already been terminated by the company for their illegal practices. In the list of terminated persons from India, it includes the names of the racketeers who have duped the people in East and West Midnapore districts.
A police officer said the racketeers had hacked the company’s website and introduced a page into it. By showing the company’s website in which their fake page documents were tagged, they duped the people. When the company came to know about the matter, they terminated the fake page document and blacklisted the racketeers who were once the members of the company, the police officer said.
The sabhadhipati of East Midnapore zilla parishad, Mamud Hossain, said: “I have already informed the state finance minister, Mr Amit Mitra, urging him to take immediate action. I have also informed the SP, East Midnapore about the racket."