DOOARS

Trouble at Jainti tea garden in Dooars

The authorities of Jainti tea estate in Dooars have left the plantation after declaring a suspension of work notice. The tea estate is situated at Samuktala police station area in Jalpaiguri district. Due to the closure of the tea garden the fate of about 1,200 workers and their family members turned uncertain.

Local sources said the workers had organised a demonstration against the authorities on Monday. The staged the demonstration as the authorities allegedly collected more money from them than normal against electricity bills. The demonstration reportedly made the officials panicky and they left the garden on Tuesday morning after issuing a suspension of work notice. They conveyed the sub-divisional authorities that they had to leave, as they feel insecure in the garden.

Aggrieved leaders of West Bengal Tea Garden Employees' Association and Dooars Cha Bagan Workers' Union, Mr Krishna Chhetry and Mr Parshuram Mahali said the it would have wise if the garden authorities discussed the matter with the workers and local administration. But, showing a baseless reason they left the plantation leaving about 1,200 workers jobless. The leaders said they conveyed the matter to the sub-divisional officials in Alipurduar to take steps. On the otherhand, no official of the tea estate was available to comment over the matter. 

CHHITMAHAL (ENCLAVE) EXCHANGE DEMAND

Enclave residents' agitation

In support of their five-point charter of demands the Bharat Bangladesh Enclave Exchange Co-ordination Committee submitted a memorandum to the district magistrate of Cooch Behar on Monday. Prior to submit the memorandum a large number of enclave residents assembled at Sagardighi Square.

Assistant secretary of BBEECC Mr Diptiman Sengupta said the handover of Tinbigha corridor was occurred twenty years ago but the Indira-Mujib agreement is yet to be implemented. It is known to all that the plight of enclave residents of India and Bangladesh may be ironed out by exchange of enclaves of the two neighbouring countries but that was not done till now. Now they have left with no alternative but to start a massive movement and even fast-unto-death, he said.

Mr Sengupta said a delegation of the BBEECC met the district magistrate and handed over the memorandum to her. The DM assured them that talks were going on over the enclave exchange issue between state government and the Centre. But, the suffering people of enclaves cannot wait for indefinite period as they have no facilities like other citizens, Mr Sengupta said. 

DRIVE AGAINST ILLEGAL USE OF WATER

Drive against theft of water in Cooch Behar

The heritage town of Cooch Behar is suffering from acute problem of drinking water for a long. The situation turns worse in summer months. The condition of supply of drinking water through pipelines is very poor in this town consisting of twenty wards. Residents of different wards have to suffer a lot due to poor water supply. Very often the municipal authority have to supply water by sending water tanks to the wards. Among the major reasons behind the problem one is theft of water.

Cooch Behar Municipality has adopted a plan to stop theft of water in different wards in the town. According to the plan they are to start a drive to detect residences with illegal pumps sucking out water from main pipeline. They will also identify houses having unauthorised connection of water. Once identified the offenders will have to pay fine ranging from Rs 5,000 to Rs 50,000.

Earlier, the municipal authority warned the offenders to stop theft of water by illegal connections and by using pumps to suck water from main pipeline. They put hoardings at different areas in the town and released advertisements in newspapers to alert the citizens over the consequences of illegal use of pumps and unauthorised connections. But, it yielded almost no result. At Last, finding no alternative they started alerting citizens over loudspeakers from last week.

Chairman of Cooch Behar Municipality Mr Biren Kundu said they received many complaints over illegal use of pumps and unauthorised connections. From now on they would start a house-to-house inspection to find out offenders. After detecting the offenders they would impose fine on them, he added. 

RASAMATI FOREST

No rhino to come at Rasamati forest

The plan to bring a few one-horn rhinoceros at Rasamati forestland in Cooch Behar has been differed. The new decision was adopted due to lack of adequate infrastructure at Rasamati. So, the rhinos of Jaldapara forest in Jalpaiguri district would stay at their abode as they are.

State forest minister Mr Hiten Barman has disclosed the new decision of his department. It may be recalled that the previous forest minister Mr Ananta Ray had announced that rhinos would be brought at Rasamati to make the forest attractive to the tourists. Initiative to implement the plan had been taken but the change of regime has changed the plan itself.

The minister said they would take stern steps to stop forest plundering at any cost. To make it happen they would provide sophisticated arms to the forest personnel. Vigilance would be beefed up along the Assam-Bengal state border to curb the activities of illegal poachers and timber smugglers, he added.  

At the same time the minister said they would discuss the matter of killing of elephants by running trains at a meeting with senior officials of railway authority at Alipurduar on 18 June. A joint strategy may save the wild pachyderms, he believes.

The forest minister declared that the population of wild animals were increasing in different forest areas in the state. The rapid increase of bison is a cause of worry, he said. The forest department would take advice from experts over possibility of sterilisation of bison to curb their population, he said. 

NBSTC NEEDS A CHAIRMAN

NBSTC may get an MLA as its chairman

Employees and workers of the North Bengal State Transport Corporation (NBSTC) want an energetic man to lead the organisation to prosperity. It is widely known that the post of chairman is a politically selected one. Earlier, eminent CPI-M leaders like Shibendra Narayan Chaudhury, Manik Dutta and Sudhir Pramanik served the NBSTC as chairmen. Now, the political scenario of the state has changed and a new chairman is required. It is expected that a prominent leader or an MLA may chair the post.

Executive president of the Trinamul Congress dominated workers' union of the NBSTC, Mr Abdur Rahman said that earlier the state government had engaged bureaucrats and senior government officials as chairman and managing director. Many of them had to serve the NBSTC as an additional job. Because of that reason they never took the job seriously and thus the organisation had to suffer.

The NBSTC is the sole transport industry of North Bengal that was initiated in the regime of the Maharajas of erstwhile Cooch Behar State. Local people consider this organisation as their own organisation and this sentiment was never realised by the 'imported' bureaucrats and officials brought from Kolkata. Now, workers and employees expect that the state government should engage an energetic MLA from Cooch Behar district as chairman as its headquarters is situated at Cooch Behar, Mr Rahman said.

Several officials and employees also said that the NBSTC needs an energetic man who feels the pulse of the organisation and its personnel. He should revive the organisation to its past glory and make it popular again.

It is learnt that the new state government already started examining the condition of the NBSTC and is also reportedly considering appointment of an MLA as its chairman. Workers and employees connected with other unions also want the NBSTC to get back to its glorious days leaving behind its financial dependence on the government. 

ENCLAVE (CHHITMAHAL)

Enclave residents' demand to new CM

A section of the residents of the Indian enclaves urged state chief minister Miss Mamata Banerjee to intervene to solve the long standing problems they are suffering from. Addressing the chief minister they handed over a memorandum to a Trinamul Congress MLA from Cooch Behar district, Mr Rabindra Nath Ghosh. Mr Ghosh is also the president of the party's district unit.

In the memorandum the enclave residents mentioned that the problems are remaining as before though a few agreements were signed between the two neighbouring countries like the Nehru-Noon agreement (1958) and Indira-Mujib agreement (1974).

The enclave residents recalled that Tinbigha corridor was handed over to Bangladesh on 26 June 1992 ignoring all protests and movements. The then chief minister Jyoti Basu had assured of ironing out all problems within two years but nothing happened so far during the Left Front regime.

In the changed situation the enclave residents want the new CM to intervene so that they can avail minimum humane facilities like drinking water, health care, education, road communication, etc. Though they live in Indian enclaves no one of them has any identity as Indian citizen.

Trinamul Congress MLA Mr Rabindra Nath Ghosh said a delegation of enclave residents met Miss Mamata Banerjee in Kolkata on 22 July in 2009. After that Miss Banerjee took up the matter related to the plights of the identity-less people to the Union home minister Mr P Chidambaram. Since then the matter started rolling towards betterment. Mr Ghosh hoped that the CM might consider the demands raised by the enclave residents in the memorandum. 

WIND OF CHANGE

Trinamul's no confidence on CPM-supported BJP board

The Trinamul Congress members of Tufanganj-II Panchayat Samiti in Cooch Behar district announced their 'no-confidence' on the CPI-M supported BJP-led board of the Panchayat Samiti. Meanwhile, expressing their 'no confidence' on the existing board 12 Trinamul members signed a letter and submitted it to the Block Development Officer on Wednesday.

Trinamul Congress sources claimed that in the 29-member board 18 are on their side. Among them 12 members signed the memorandum in favour of 'no confidence' move.

After the recent change in the state government change occurred at a number of gram panchayat bodies in Cooch Behar district too. The Left Front had to hand over power to the opposition in Ghughumari, Moyamari, Putimari Fuleswari and some other gram panchayat bodies. Now the Trinamul Congress is trying to pull down the Left Front from Panchayat Samitis.

In 2008, the Trinamul Congress-BJP alliance bagged 16 seats in 29 seats. The CPI-M got 11 seats and the rest two went in favour of a Congress candidate and an independent candidate. The Trinamul Congress and the BJP formed the board jointly and Ms Pushpita Dakua of the Trinamul Congress became the sabhapati. After break down of the relationship between the BJP and the Trinamul Congress the BJP moved a 'no confidence' and the CPI-M supported them. Following that development Ms Madhuri Pradhan of the BJP became the sabhapati.

Now, in the changed scenario a few BJP and CPI-M members assured of covert support and the Trinamul Congress came out to evict the CPI-M supported BJP-led board. 

'GREATER' HOPE

GCDP delegation to meet CM

As the problems of Darjeeling hills are going to cool down the Greater Cooch Behar Democratic Party (GCDP) is getting hopeful about their demands for which they have been striving for a long. A delegation of the GCDP would meet the state chief minister Miss Mamata Banerjee on 13 June in Kolkata. They are expecting an amicable solution of their demands.

It may be recalled here that the main demand of the GCDP is formation of a separate state out of West Bengal named Greater Cooch Behar or Kamtapur.

President of the GCDP Mr Ashutosh Barma said a five-member delegation of their party comprising of senior leaders would leave Cooch Behar for Kolkata on 12 June. On the next day they would meet the CM to discuss over their longstanding demands.

Mr Barma said a groundbreaking change has occurred in this state and a new government took over charges pulling down the Left Front. "We hope this government may consider our legitimate demands. The chief minister may take steps to find out a solution to meet the demands. We shall table our problems to her for consideration if she permits us to meet", he said.

The GCDP president Mr Barma said they already sent a letter requesting her to allow them to meet her in Kolkata. He believes that the required permission may come shortly. After the meet the problems of 'Greater Cooch Behar' may be solved as the problems of Darjeeling hills have solved, he hopes.

TOURISM IN COOCH BEHAR

Hiten Barman's bid to improve tourism infrastructure

The new forest minister Mr Hiten Barman is eager to improve the infrastructure of tourism sector in Cooch Behar district. He already took initiatives to better the tourism industry in Cooch Behar as well as in North Bengal.

After his recent meeting with senior forest officials of the state including that of North Bengal districts at Cooch Behar Mr Barman announced that during the celebration of forest week this year the state forest department would distribute two-crore saplings in the districts including one-lakh in Kolkata to make the environment green.

The minister also announced that they would build up five new forest bungalows and the existing ones situated at different areas would be renovated and modernised. Tourists from different areas of the country and abroad come to stay at these forest bungalows but the infrastructure needs to be improved to provide them comfortable experiences. Learning the inadequacy of facilities at the forest bungalows the minister has decided to better the condition of those bungalows. Booking counters would be set up at different districts to help the local and foreign tourists for booking the bungalows smoothly.

Mr Barman told reporters that a tourism centre would be build up on a 104-acre land at Salbari under his Assembly constituency (Sitalkuchi) at the vicinity of the historic Garh (mound) of king Kanteswar. At the same time the tourism infrastructure would be developed surrounding the historic capital of Kamtapur at Gosanimari in Dinhata and the eco-tourism centre at Tekunia in Mathabhanga. 

RIVER EROSION

Initiative to address river erosion menace

River erosion is one of the major problems the residents of Cooch Behar district suffer from. Though it is a round the year phenomenon the problem turns worse during the monsoon months. There was a widespread demand to address the problem by adopting permanent measures but the concerned authorities never took proper initiative to meet the menace. The issue comes up only after any damage of any embankment during the monsoon. The concerned authorities then engage agencies to repair the damaged embankments. The agencies too do it with sandbags by collecting sands from the riverbeds and submit inflated bills. Several political parties have raised demands to stop the malpractice but to no avail. This time the new state government may take needed measures to curb river erosion to save the residents and their properties and also to take steps to stop the illegal practice, believe locals.

The president of Cooch Behar district unit of the Trinamul Congress and also the newly elected MLA from Natabari Assembly segment, Mr Rabindra Nath Ghosh said the river erosion problem turned worse in the district. Many farmers and villagers have lost their farmlands due to the erosion of rivers. The rivers have gobbled up their cultivable lands and homesteads and turned them homeless and penniless. The Left Front government did nothing to save them. This time, after taking charge of the government Miss Mamata Banerjee announced allotment of Rs 200-crore for Uttar Banga Unnayan Parshad. "We shall try our best to address the river erosion problem with that fund. We hope Cooch Behar district may get about Rs 30-crore to Rs 40-crore from that fund", he said.

Two other Trinamul Congress leaders of the district - state forest minister Mr Hiten Barman and the Mathabhanga MLA Mr Binay Krishna Barman already expressed their desire to take initiatives to control the river erosion problem in the district.