<p>Order of the National Green Tribunal (Eastern Zone Bench, Kolkata) in the matter of Srikanta Samanta Vs State of West Bengal dated 13/11/2024.</p> <p>The matter related to a dumping ground located
Spurred by environmental concerns, the West Bengal Government is set to make it mandatory to have rainwater harvesting and solar power facilities in buildings. "Global warming and climate change are threatening us. We must, therefore, have greenhouse concepts like solar power and rainwater harvesting in new buildings. I am talking to my urban development minister to include these in the Municipal Act so that it becomes mandatory for all,' Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said today. Inaugurating the 'Realty Expo 2008' of the Confederation of Real Estate Developers Association of India (CREDAI), he described paucity of housing as a national problem and said his government was stressing on construction of housing projects both by the government, private players and through public-private partnership (PPP). With the PPP model having been successfully implemented in the state's housing sector, the government now wanted the private players to take up construction of related infrastructure like roads, bridges and flyovers, he said. Pointing out that Rs 15 crore had been collected towards construction workers' welfare after the government made it mandatory for real estate developers to contribute to it, the Chief Minister appealed to private developers for greater contribution towards the welfare fund.
Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav's budget has good news for Tata Motors. The Railway Budget proposes a dedicated freight corridor from Ludhiana in Punjab to Dankuni, located near Tata Motor's small car project site at Singur. Needless to say, the dedicated corridor will connect the Tata factory with the rest of India. However, there's some bad news for the company as well. As the preliminary survey work for the project from Dhanbad to Dankuni remains incomplete, funds have not been allocated. With Nano expected to hit the roads by October-November this year, the dedicated freight corridor might be a long way away for the Tata Motors to reap its benefit, unless put on fast track. Apart from this, however, there is not much for West Bengal to be happy about. The state has got only four new trains. Moreover, long standing projects like development of Howrah and Sealdah stations, Shalimar terminal station, the Kolkata station in Chitpur and extension and improvement of the Metro have been ignored. "Continuing the trend of the past few years, the Railway Budget is hopeless for Bengal. The dedicated freight corridor will benefit the much talked about Singur project. The original corridor was from Ludhiana to Dhanbad, which has now been extended to Dankuni. But no funds have been allotted and even preliminary survey is incomplete. Therefore, it will take years to become operational,' said Bhaskar Chaudhuri, a retired chief commercial manager of Eastern Railways. Tata's small car project lies in Singur, which is close to both the Dankuni Expressway, part of the Golden Quadrilateral, and the proposed freight corridor. The four new trains for West Bengal state are
The poultry industry, which has suffered losses on account of the recent outbreak of avian flu in West Bengal, is eagerly waiting for the government's subvention on interest rates charged on loans extended to them by banks. The Reserve Bank of India, last week, had issued guidelines to banks suggesting a one-year moratorium on repayment of outstanding loans, conversion of working capital loans into term loans, and re-schedulement of term-loan repayment as a relief to the affected poultry industry. According to sources, the finance minister P Chidambaram may announce the government's subvention rates on loans extended to the poultry industry either before the Budget or may spell it out in his Budget speech. The Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar had earlier announced that the government would work out separate relief packages for the poultry sector - one exclusively for poultry farmers in West Bengal and the other for the poultry industry in the country as a whole, which has suffered in sales due to a dip in prices in the country and the ban imposed by different countries on Indian poultry imports. The government's package would include subvention rates on interest charged by banks. He had assured that the financial package would be an improved one over that announced in March 2006 on account of the outbreak of bird flu. The March 2006 package contained 4% interest subvention, a one-year moratorium period for repayment of loans, conversion of working capital into loans, and extension of fresh loans for working capital. "The poultry industry had demanded zoning of poultry areas in the country based on geo-climatic conditions, so that exports from bird flu-free zones can be business as usual, ban on export of corn and soybean to augment feed availability, 7% central government's interest subvention on loans, and a two-year moratorium on repayment of loans,' said Anuradha Desai, chairperson of the National Egg Coordination Committee. The government has turned down the proposal for zoning of poultry areas, even though the industry had pointed out such zoning or compartmentalisation exists in the US and is allowed by the world animal health organisation - OIE. It has also refused to impose a ban on exports of corn or soybean. India has a poultry population of 489 million (nearly 3% of world's poultry), out of which 51% is concentrated in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal. Due to the recent incidence of avian flu in West Bengal, culling operations were undertaken not only in those states but also in parts of the neighbouring states - Assam, Bihar, and Jharkhand.
Even as the Union government is struggling to boost the country's agriculture extension system, pesticide and crop chemical manufacturers have joined hands with rural ngos to promote safe and judicious usage of pesticides among the farmers.
Speciality steel-maker Bharat Forge on Thursday announced its decision to set up a one-million-tonne integrated steel unit in West Bengal. It is also in talks with the State Government for setting up a manufacturing hub here on the lines of the one proposed in Maharashtra. The steel unit, which would make high-grade steel for the engineering and the automobile sector, would also have a 500 MW power plant along with some downstream units. While the main unit would be set up by Kalyani Steel, a group company, a forging unit might be set up by Bharat Forge, Amit B. Kalyani, Executive Director, Bharat Forge, said. Earlier, he signed a memorandum of understanding with the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation and the West Bengal Mineral Development and Trading Corporation (WBMDTC) towards setting up the steel unit, in the presence of State Industry Minister, Nirupam Sen. WBMDTC would help source coal for the project. Mr. Sen said that they were shown two sites for the project, one at Salboni near the Jindal project and another in Durgapur. Mr. Amit Kalyani said the detailed project report would be ready in 12 months. The Bharat Forge group is also planning to locate its eastern regional headquarters in Kolkata and efforts are now on to find about four acres close to the city.
While the Midnapore West district health department has been testing anti-malaria drug on the people of Belpahari, over 10 of them fell ill after consuming the newly-introduced drug. They are being treated in Belpahari Block Primary Hospital where the condition of Mrs Sushmi Karmakar, 35, of Chutiapukhri and Mr Manasaram Desowali, 30, of Dainmari has been reported to be serious. Admitted 16 days ago, the condition of Mrs Karmakar has been deteriorating everyday. Similar is the condition of Mr Desowali.
Commercial production of Tata Motors'
The trial production of the Tata Motors' controversial small car will begin at Singur in June or July to be followed by commercial production around October, Mr Ravi Kant, its managing director, said today after reviewing the progress of the ongoing construction. However, the Trinamul Congress greeted the announcement with a fresh threat that no car would be allowed to roll out of the factory till land is returned to the unwilling farmers who hadn't given their consent to its acquisition by the state government.
At a time when the poor infrastructure of the state's heath department has been constantly inviting criticism from every nook and corner, a model developed in West Bengal to reduce mortality rate of newborns, has been praised and recognised by the United Nations. The newborn care unit model of the state, known as the Purulia model, would be adopted by the other states to bring down children mortality rate under United Nations Millennium Development Goal-IV (UNMDG-IV). Such states include ~ Orissa, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
The turtle population of India is under threat because Bengal will not stop consumption of turtle meat. The charge was levelled at a meet by officials of the Wildlife Society of Orissa (WSO) on Tuesday. "Freshwater turtles have become extinct in Bengal in the past 10 years. Now, every turtle consignment seized elsewhere is headed here,' says Biswajit Mohanty, the secretary of WSO and a member of the government's National Board for Wildlife. The NGO works for the preservation of freshwater turtles in the Mahanadi basin.
