State to conduct census for inland fisheries resources

31 December 2012

biswabrata goswami
MIDNAPORE, 31 DEC: The state government has started the process to conduct a census for inland fisheries resources across the state to collect information on the number of fishermen, their craft and gear, socio-economic profile, demographic features, behavioural parameters and other related facts.
Though, at the national level, no such census has been conducted yet for inland fisheries in any state in the country. this is the first time a state government has conducted such a census, said an official.
The state Fisheries Department has already circulated an order to respective fisheries officers of all districts asking them to take suitable steps so that the survey work could be executed in the right manner and completed within the stipulated time period of three months from January to March 2013.
According to the department, water body resource survey in the state was started during 2009-10 to prepare GIS map using RS technology, but due to its limitations it was not possible to cover all aspects of fisheries resources.
“In order to fill up the gap and to plot all resources ~ water bodies, fisherman family, household, market, hatchery, co-operatives, crafts and gears, fish-based industries, processing plants and ice plants ~ to make it more informative, a pilot project entitled “Complete Enumeration of Fisheries Resources” will be implemented in some selected blocks of all districts,” the joint director of the fisheries department said.
According to the plans, a contractual enumerator will be engaged from every gram panchayat with a fixed remuneration of Rs 4,000 per month for three months.
The enumerators would visit every fisherman's home in all concerned villages. They would note down the number of country boats, mechanised boats, traditional boats, fishing gear besides collecting information about the families according to the guidelines of the Fisheries Department. To conduct the census, the state government has allotted Rs 14. 97 lakh, said an official.
He said: “Fisheries is an important sector in the state. It provides employment to millions of people and contributes to food security. As no specific data on the inland fisheries resources is currently available, our government cannot chalk out development plans on this sector. After completion of this census, the state government can go through with the various development plans.”

Cold weather fails to dampen festive spirits

28 December 2012

biswabrata goswami
DIGHA, 28 DEC: The cold wave gripping the state has failed to dampen the spirit of thousands of tourists who arrived at the state’s sea resorts ~ Digha, Mandarmoni, Sankarpur and Tajpur ~ to celebrate the Christmas and the New Year.
This time, the number of domestic tourists has outnumbered their international counterparts. Despite pollution and exorbitant hotel rates, the flow of tourists is on the rise. The calm and serene environs are luring a lot of tourists to Mandarmoni, Tajpur and Shankarpur beaches, too.
Keeping in mind the promise made by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to convert Digha into Goa of the east, the government has introduced paragliding as part of the year-end festivities.
On the lines of Goa and other beach towns, paragliding has begun at the Digha beach. But it is the first of its kind in eastern India and third in the country after Delhi and Pune which runs on a motor.
While inaugurating the paragliding at New Digha beach on Wednesday, the state Tourism Minister, Mr Krishnendu Chowdhury, said: “The chief minister had dreamed about turning Digha into Goa. Many other things have to be done to fulfil the dream. This is just the beginning. Digha needs to be made affordable for everyone from the middle class to the high class”.
It would cost Rs 2,500 per head for a 15-minute ride, 18,000 ft above the sea level. The minister, however, lamented several work have been put on hold in the Digha-Mandarmoni tourist circuit due to objections raised by the Environment Department as it falls under the special economic zone.
This apart, the state government has launched a Rs 41 crore World Bank-aided project to build a storm water drainage network system in the coastal areas of Digha and its surroundings. The project, expected to be completed in the next two years, is part of the World Bank-aided Integrated Coastal Zone Management programme. “There are several plans that have been chalked out to spruce up the coastal regions of the state and make them popular on the lines of Goa. While the authorities had decided to set up a wooden pedestrian walkway at Shankarpur for tourists, plans are also afoot to introduce a hovercraft service,” said Soumen Pal, Executive Officer of Digha Sankarpur Development Authority.
In Digha the tourists inflow has increased from 8 lakh to 35 lakh in the past one year. “Compared to the past two years, this year, tourist inflow increased abnormally, especially after Miss Banerjee introduced direct rail services here,” said a hotel owner. With the rise in tourist flow, the pollution level has also risen. Digha, which was once called the “Brighton of the East”, has turned into a garbage dump, with plastic and litter everywhere. The famous casuarina forests off Digha coast has lost its charm. The sewage system here has been a problem for many years.

Sarsanka, Mughalmari may become tourist destinations

24 December 2012

biswabrata goswami
MIDNAPORE, 24 DEC: The state tourism department plans to promote Sarsanka and Mughalmari ~ two places of historical interest in West Midnapore district ~ as new tourist destinations.
While paying a formal visit to these two places on Saturday, Mr Vikram Sen, principal secretary, state tourism department, said: “The state government has already sanctioned Rs 80 lakh for excavation and development of Mughalmari. An overall development plan for Sarsanka, at a cost of Rs 150 crore, has already been chalked out.”
Recent excavations at Mughalmari, a Buddhist monastery in Dantan in West Midnapore, reveal a strong presence of Buddhism in the state which dates back to the sixth century AD. It is believed to be the biggest monastic structure discovered so far in West Bengal and it was probably an institution on the lines of Nalanda.
Several relics of post-Gupta period, dating back to the sixth and seventh century AD, have been unearthed which resemble those found in Nalanda and Karnasubarna. This monastic structure was, however, made in two phases: after the destruction of its original monastic complex another structure was built on its basic foundation. Its early phase structure was made of various decorative bricks and beautiful relics.
Later it was painted in red and the whole complex was decorated with beautiful artwork. But, in the second phase structure, the complex was not made with earlier phase’s arts. The monastic complex was left abandoned after 12th century. A team comprising eight members from Calcutta University's archaeology department, led by the late Ashok Datta, started digging the area in 2003. During the sixth phase excavation, it was believed to be the largest find till date in Bengal, measuring about 3,600 sq mt.
The complex and the statues trace their origin to the reign of Sasanka, who ruled Bengal between 590 AD and 626 AD. The relics which have been recovered include a 10th century Buddha idol, a map of the Bouddha Vihar and a dozen other figurines. The team had discovered 45 types of decorative bricks and some statues of Buddha in various forms.
They have also come across some sculptures of Dharmachakra as well. Dharmachakra, the wheel of life, is a religious symbol representing Buddha’s path to enlightenment.
Like Mughalmari, Sarsanka in Dantan is also a historical place where the seventh century king of Gour had dug a large tank which is still in use but is now known as Sarsanka Dighi commemorating some local chieftain of the Ganga dynasty who probably had it renovated in the 11th century. Lord Chaitanya travelled to Puri and on the way he rested at Dantan which has become an important Vaishnava centre on that account.
“The state government has honoured the demand of the residents who have repeatedly urged promotion of the place into a new tourist destination. We have decided to excavate the site and develop the area with the help of some other departments. The infrastructure will be developed to attract foreign tourists,” said Mr Sen.

Tehatta firing ‘undesirable’, CM calls for peace

20 December 2012

biswabrata goswami
TEHATTA, 20 DEC: Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today described the Tehatta police firing, where one person was killed and two others were injured, as “undesirable” and asked residents to live altogether in peace.
“I have come here to stop the recurrence of such incidents. Investigation into the firing is going on and the guilty will be punished,” she said at a mass rally here.
She announced that she has handed over a cheque of Rs 2 lakh as compensation to the wife of the deceased and a job of police home guard to the victim’s next of kin.
The injured were also given compensation to the tune of Rs 25,000 each and Miss Banerjee assured that she would extend her government’s assistance to their families as well.
On 14 November, trouble had broken out after police refused to allow a Jagaddhatri puja at a particular spot. They had initially lathicharged and then opened fire after a mob hurled brickbats and torched two police vehicles.
While talking about the "undesirable" incident, Miss Banerjee also spoke strongly against the "politics of communalism" and said her government would sternly deal with any attempt to foment communal trouble in the state.
“When I was walking along the street from a place five kilometres away from the rally ground, I talked with two families ~ one Muslim and another Hindu. I wanted to know the real fact behind the incident was,” she said adding that every one should hate the riot.
Accusing the Centre for not co-operating with her government, Miss Banerjee said: “The Centre used to help the previous CPI-M government in our state, but not helping our government. It had allowed it to borrow money indiscriminately for which our government is now facing an acute financial crisis. Our money is being used to repay the huge loan taken by the previous government and the Centre is trying to block all avenues to get loans. Still, we are not helpless. We are working hard for the people of Bengal. I have settled the Junglemahal problem. The crisis in the Darjeeling Hills is also over and I had promised to create 10 lakh job opportunities in our five-year tenure in the government and already more than two lakh have been created,” she said.
She said: “I won’t accept any advice either from the CPI-M or from the Congress. Similarly, I won’t accept any advice from the BJP. I would rather listen to the advice of the common people.”
Miss Banerjee reached Krishnagar, Nadia, last night and held meetings with her party MLAs and leaders. Today, she addressed the rally where more than a lakh people gathered. As many could not enter the Tehatta High School ground, they stayed on the roads, leading to an acute traffic jam.

State move to boost SHGs

19 December 2012

biswabrata goswami
TAMLUK, 19 DEC: To provide a boost to products manufactured by various Self Help Groups (SHGs) in East Midnapore, the district administration plans to give them a unique brand identity with a logo and monogram. It also plans to develop the concept of “one village-one product”, as well as new clusters.
A brand name, Urja, with a logo, Udiyaman Surya (Rising Sun), and a monogram have already been prepared to provide products with a unique identity to help them compete in open market. “Marketing of SHG products is now a big challenge as customers are becoming rather brand-conscious,” said Parvej Ahmed Siddiqui, district magistrate.
“A policy note drawn up by the department states that product quality is linked to the brand name and attractive packaging. Efforts will be made by the government to standardise the products of SHGs and get the required certification from government-approved agencies,” he said.
East Midnapore has been one of the pioneering districts in the state to have set up SHG institutions like Sub-Cluster, Cluster and block level Federations, with the objective of overall empowerment of women. The key strategy that the district adopted was social mobilisation of women by encouraging them to form SHGs and by promoting savings and thrift. The SHG movement in East Midnapore started in April 1999. Over the past 13 years, it has spread across the district.
At present, around 2.2 lakh families have been mobilised into some 22,356 SHGs. A total of 20,232 SHGs have started economic activities with their savings, bank credit and financial assistance by DRDC (Revolving Fund). Total savings of all SHGs under the district is Rs 7767.88 lakh as on 31 March 2012, said Mr Siddiqui. The scheme is sponsored by a state government fund and involves formation of new SHGs, capacity building of SHG members and representatives, skill training, enterprise development training, credit assistance to SHGs, setting up a revolving fund, credit linkages through banks, and marketing of SHG products through exhibitions and branding. For effective promotion of SHG products at the state, national and international level, the district administration has also launched a web-based marketing system through the website www.purbamedinipur.gov.in from where any one can directly establish contact with the SHGs. This apart, any one can get all types of information about the products, said Mamud Hossain, saha-sabhadhipati of zilla parishad. He said: “In five blocks, namely Tamluk, Panskura, Ramnagar-I, Bhagwanpur-I and Patashpur-I, Block Federations have been formed. In Tamluk Block Federation, Tamluk Block Mahila Bikash Mahasangha, is one of the best not only in West Bengal but also in India. A Cooperative Bank, Tamluk Block Mahila Bikash Credit Cooperative Society Limited, which was set up first in West Bengal on a pilot basis, is well managed by the federation.”

VU authorities covering up misdeeds?

9 December 2012

biswabrata goswami
MIDNAPORE, 9 DEC: The authorities of Vidyasagar University seem to have suppressed the case of misappropriation of UGC Unassigned Grants funds by former Vice-Chancellor, Professor Swapan Kumar Pramanick, who enjoyed two successive terms during the Left regime in West Bengal.
Prof. Pramanick sanctioned his own travel grants amounting to over Rs 60,000 to attend an international congress in Sociology held in Beijing, when he was the chairman of the UGC Unassigned Grants Committee in its meeting held on 6 May 2004. This was against the guidelines of UGC since the V-Cs were supposed to apply directly to the secretary of the UGC under the Travel Grant Scheme for college teachers/VCs/Commission members according to the UGC website.
Moreover, Prof. Pramanick also did not submit his round-trip air-tickets and boarding cards as proof of his expenditure which is a must in every public institution. Interestingly, Prof Jing Tian Kui, Director of Institute of Sociology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, in a letter sent by e-mail to Prof Pramanik on 11 November 2003 addressing him as "V-C of VU”, invited him to attend the Congress held from 7 to 11 July 2004 although Prof Pramanik officially had taken over charge as V-C of the university on 1 December 2003.
All this came to light through the replies to a number of RTI applications submitted by Mr Abhijit Guha, a teacher of the Department of Anthropology at Vidyasagar University in 2010.
Based on the replies to his RTI queries, Mr Guha complained to Mr Bratya Basu, the state Higher Education Minister, on 1 August 2011 and also to the UGC Chairman on 16 March 2012. Responding to Mr Guha's complaint, the deputy secretary of UGC sent a letter dated 27 July 2012 to the Registrar, of VU to refund Rs 60, 976 spent by Prof. Pramanick, since the money, according to UGC, was “misappropriated by the former V-C of Vidyasagar University”.
Meanwhile, the West Bengal State Council of Higher Education formed a two-member inquiry committee comprising Prof. Subhasankar Sarkar, Vice-Chancellor of Netaji Subhas Open University and Mr G K Pattanayak, finance officer of Jadavpur University to probe into the matter about two months ago.
Surprisingly, the WBSCHE has not yet issued any public notification nor has it notified the "terms of reference" of the inquiry committee in the public. No one knows what the committee will actually probe and when the inquiry will be completed. On the other hand, the Vidyasagar University authority has not yet refunded the money misappropriated by Prof. Pramanick to the UGC.
When contacted, Mr Ranajit Dhar, Registrar of VU, said: “The money has not been refunded to UGC yet.”
He, however, said the two-member committee of the West Bengal State Council of Higher Education is conducting a probe into the matter. He said: "They have not communicated with us yet."
It was, however, learnt that the committee members visited the Vidyrasagr university on 9 November and talked to the registrar, vice-chancellor and other concerned officials.

Rural polls: Govt speeding up drinking water projects

6 December 2012

TAMLUK, 6 DEC: In view of the panchayat election in 2013, the state government has plans to expedite its rural water sources projects under state plan in all the 19 districts. Projects of sinking, re-sinking, conversion or rejuvenation of water sources, especially tube-wells and wells, will be implemented at these places in the districts where drinking water crisis is acute.
To implement all the pending projects along with new ones for this financial year, the state government has already sanctioned Rs 1415.49 lakh for the districts and the Public Health Engineering department has asked all the district magistrates to carry out the order. Figures from the Integrated Management Information System (IMIS) for the rural water supply sector reveal that West Bengal failed to meet national targets in rural drinking water and sanitation in the 2011-12 financial year.
The Union ministry of rural drinking water and sanitation had published a report on rural drinking water supplies in April, which revealed that West Bengal used only 67.2 per cent of its Rs 267.88 crore allocation last year.
According to an IMIS report, over a third of the wells in West Bengal are considered arsenic-affected and iron contaminated. Despite this, the PHED has failed to meet national targets on water quality and surveillance training, chemical field testing and water testing with field test kits. However, West Bengal is one of the 14 states recorded to be successfully carrying out the transfer of public water systems to the panchayats, which involves training district workers in the operation and maintenance of hand pumps. Realising the lack in implementing rural water sources projects in the ‘crisis areas’ of the districts, Mr A Bhattacharyya, joint secretary to the government of West Bengal, has instructed all the district magistrates asking for “utilisation certificates of the present sanction be submitted by December, 2012 and also utilisation certificates for previous sanctions be submitted immediately to this department for showing to finance department which is pressing hard for the same at the time of releasing funds. No further fund can be sanctioned unless utilisation certificates are received from all previous sanction”.
He also instructed that the fund may be utilised, if necessary, for conversion of existing water sources by submersible pump sets and for energisation of ready units. Some ‘spot sources’ should be created in SC/ST areas, Mr Bhattacharyya stated in his letter. According to the state's house-listing and housing census -2011, as high as 36.5 per cent of total households in West Midnapore 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.
If the percentage is converted into actual figures, a total of 4,10,884 families had drinking water sources more than 500 meter from their houses in rural areas of the district. “This figure is obviously high when any one goes through rural fringes of Junglemahal. There are several areas in Belpahari, Banspahari and Kantapahari where tribal people walk more than a kilometre to fetch drinking water,” said a social activist.
Meanwhile, indiscriminate pumping of water by various means has taken a toll on the groundwater level in the coastal areas of the district.
The situation in blocks like Moyna, Patashpur-I and II, Bhagawanpur-I and II, Khejuri, Contai, Chandipur, Nandigram-I and II, Tamluk, Haldia, Panskura and Kolaghat is alarming as lakhs of farmers in these blocks, cut off from surface water sources, are relying heavily on groundwater for irrigation. biswabrata goswami