Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Namami Gange

Writing this from Delhi Airport. Just had a meeting with Union Minister of Water Resources Uma Bharti.She was wearing saffron clothes and offered us tea. Us means Principal Secretaries and Poject Directors of NGRBA states.I posed to her that like the chardham scheme of Bainath/Kedarnath/Gangotri and Yamunotri, Gangasagar should also be taken up. She readily agreed.
    Before that,we had a detailed discussion with Mission Directorate of NMCG. The NGRBA would now be looked after by the Ministry of Water Resources. A Group o Secretaries had been formed whose report was placed to us. Many interesting and relevant guidelines were announced.Some were:
Operationalise old STP schemes of GAP-I / II.
Treat drains by mini treatment plants and in-situ treatment plants in modular and small scale
Make DPRs quickly
Ghat development and riverfront development
Riverbank plantations
Conservation of aquatic life
Proper treatment of flowers and puja material
Creation of a Ganga Vahini through ex-servicemen
Study of communities along Ganga
Public outreach
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(Later)
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Few clippings:

Times of India dt 2.9.2014

Times of India dt 1.9.2014

Abz dt 4.9.2014



7 comments:

  1. If Gangasagar is treated at the same league along with Kedar/ Badri/ Gangotri/Yamunotri..then obviously under various schemes of Central Govt...funds can flow....and tourism can be developed rapidly....in this region.....

    However the first and foremost thing that is needed is the road connectivity of the island with the mainland.

    Along with Smart city, can we nominate Gangasagar for Solar City and get funds for massive amount of solar power generation in the island which can fed into grid for improving power condition in Sunderban?

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  2. Great work on the Finance Hub presentation! I am sure you would succeed - your team's perseverance is commendable and your efforts will definitely reap benefits.

    Regarding the ABP news clip; I believe it is a little biased. Syndicate issue is definitely a problem and continuous awareness will definitely force political parties to come up with a solution. But, even then; the owner of the plot should have come up with a solution rather than nagging about these issues. These problems are common across India. Although I condemn the syndicate hooliganism; there is always a way to work around that. Other firms have done that; no reason why this one can't.

    Regards,
    Sowmik

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  3. Please do not hesitate about charging late fees to the plot owners who did not start construction. This report is just about a media-businessman nexus to pressurize Govt. Everybody understands that.

    My questions are:

    1. If the businessman is so keen on building the 6 story building, does it take 7 years to sync up with the syndicates and get the building plan approved particularly when HIDCO is doing online building plan approval?

    2. When he has not done even pre-construction activity ( like building boundary wall), how could he spend Rs. 3.5 crore when the land cost was less than Rs. 1 crore?

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  4. Yes sir, We firmly stand by you on this issue.

    If you see that any businessman has taken land and have not done anything within the specified timeline then you can definitely charge late fee.However depending upon the amount of investment, reason behind not starting the work you can give a rethink on the amount of the fee.

    We want land in our state to be utilised in a proper way.

    7 years mean the land was taken in 2007.What he was doing since then ? Yes syndicate issue is definitely there,sometimes clashes are taking place.But we are also seeing that multiple construction activity is going on and new constructions are also getting started.

    The media businessman, who thinks himself the gurdian of the state is trying to justify his own misdeeds by projecting the issue in this way.He himself kept the bypass land idle for 10 years since 2004 and now in 2014 he started seeking permission for commercial use of the land which was purchased at a subsidised rate , showing that it is going to be used for media purpose.

    Now sir, few more humble suggestions from my side in some other issues.

    There are several initiatives which are really commandable .But I think few things should be taken up more strategically to change the negative perception about Bengal.

    For example : To change people's perception about Bengal we need to renovate the gateway areas of the city in proper way.

    I think the howrah station and Kolkata airport area need a good makeover and expanded infrastructure too.Once we come out of airport and get into VIP road we see water gets logged in the divider side.Roads are not built with proper slope.This makes dirty,black coloured water, logged in the divider side for long long time and this in turn makes the colour of the divider and rellings dirty.

    Then a badly congested kaikhali area which looks like just mafossols like habra/ashoknagar..


    Now on the other hand we can see commendable work has been done in latetown/bangur/sreebhumi stretch by SDDM.Why can't we take a similar approach for the airport stretch too ? The whole VIP road side should be given a magnificient makeover(not doing just blue & white color) as suggested by experts.

    I think VIP road having huge number of buses passing through it also needs a BRTS like EM bypass.If possible then try to acquire some land in both side, build service road,make a two way lane for buses with proper lane marking. Remove all rickshaw and auto stands from the main road and shift to some place in the side roads.Pull down the old ugly looking buildings and make it something which gives a feel to justify the entrance of the third largest metro city in India.

    The busy crossings in both side of VIP road like Baguihati/Kaikhali needs the same what is done for the crossings(where HIDCO installed sculpture of an owl) across MAR in new town.

    Something similar should be done for Howrah station area too.

    These makeovers will change peoples perception about the state that nothing is happening in Bengal.
    With Biswa Banga sommelon supposed to take place in the starting of 2015, it is expected that NRI bengalis from different countries might participate. I think it's the high time to give emphasis in the areas I mentioned.

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  6. Hello Mr.Sen hope you are doing well. We are aware of that fact that how you are taking Care of Newtown and how you are developing this Smart City. We are thankful that we got an administrator like you how actually working hard to make Newtown as a World class City. I salute your effort.


    I'm currently working in an IT Company at Unitech. 2 days before when I went out from Gate number 2 , I found there is a dustbin kept at Action Area III flyover which was full of garbage. It looks very very aweful. Also the area near Unitech became pathetic due to Road side hawkers and encrochers. Those illiterate people are littering the road. The Newtown is suprb due to your effort. The Unitech is a world class office space. But when come out of Unitech we find the dirty look which is really disappointing.
    So I request you to please take care of the matter as you love the Newtown like your child

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  7. I will certainly look into the issue with due importance

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