Irate students attack school authorities

From Partha Sarkar, Assam Tribune
SILCHAR, May 26 – Irate students of Govt Higher Secondary School attacked school authorities over poor results in the HSLC examination. Out of the 35 students, only two passed. Sources say that this is the first time that the school fared poorly in the HSLC exam.

Incidentally in the year 1966-67, top ten places in the HSLC exam were from this school, which is a record. School teachers say that there is a dearth of quality students, with most of them failing to get proper guidance at home.

Sources said that the school remained closed for two-three months due to flood and the affected people take shelter in this school. So, in the name of education there is nothing done.

10 rank holders from Barak Valley
From Our Correspondent
BADARPUR, May 25 – By capturing ten positions, Barak Valley students have done extremely well in the HSLC examination this year – conducted by SEBA, results of which were announced yesterday.

Among these 10 ranks, a total of seven ranks have gone in favour of Silchar Holy Cross School, and one each has gone in favour of Silchar Collegiate School, Silchar Holy Child School and Silchar South Point School.

Besides these, all the above mentioned schools have also captured a large numbers of letters, stars, state highest marks, distinctions and divisions, which has created a brilliant record in the history of Barak Valley, said principals and teachers of these schools, interacting with The Assam Tribune. They also said that they are proud of the ‘ten-toppers’ excellent result.

Talking to this correspondent, all these ten toppers said that behind their success, their guardians and teachers have contributions, form whom they got much inspiration heartfelt blessings, teaching-guide and the techniques of studies.

In Karimganj district, Badarpur Railway Higher Secondary School, Maharishi Sandipan Vidyapith, Badarpur Vidyamandir and Badarpur St Joseph School have come out with outstanding results getting large numbers of Letters, Stars, Distinctions and first divisions alongwith State highest marks.

 

Silchar market plan raises a stink
- Cachar
OUR CORRESPONDENT, Telegraph India
May 24: Development at Fatak Bazaar, the trade hub of Silchar, has come at a price — a festering dispute over which section of traders deserve to benefit first.
The district administration’ s plan to replace the makeshift fish stalls with concrete shops has raised the hackles of vegetable vendors, who are now demanding similar facilities on the 15-bigha plot. They too want the comfort of selling their wares from the cosy corners of the proposed building, away from the din and bustle they are used to.
The market has been languishing in neglect for years. Set up before World War II, the exponential growth in population of the 175-year-old town has taken a toll on the market.
An overwhelming stench greets a visitor as soon as he or she steps into the market and it is difficult to ignore the shabby look all around.
Everybody — from the fish seller to the vegetable vendor and the beetle-chewing meatshop owner — seems to be jostling for space.
Nearly two lakh residents of the town buy vegetables and other food items from the market. According to an data compiled by the Silchar Retail Vegetable Traders’ Society, on any given day a wholesaler purchases about 150 tonnes of seasonal vegetables from the market. The 300-odd vendors are anything but happy at the proposed makeover of the market as it means selling their wares under the open sky till such time construction is completed.
After a devastating fire gutted the market on a May afternoon in 1980, the then chairman of the Silchar Municipal Board and now Union minister for heavy industries, Sontosh Mohan Dev, approached Dispur for funds to build a concrete stalls. However, the amount sanctioned fell much short of everybody’s expectations. Not many stalls could be constructed and only the cloth merchants benefited.
As the problems of the vegetable retailers increased, then public health and engineering minister Jagadish Choudhury arranged a meeting between former chief minister Hiteswar Saikia and vegetable vendors at Fatak Bazaar.
Under Choudhury’s supervision, a plan backed by Saikia was set rolling to turn the place into an open market for vegetable and fish sellers.
Strangely, the Silchar municipality, distributed the stalls among well-off businessmen.
The vegetable vendors erupted in protest when the district administration set up a Rs 10-lakh corpus to construct stalls for fishmongers.
Congress MLA Bithika Dev, who is also the chairperson of the 28-member municipal board, has since assured them that their demand for permanent stalls at Fatak Bazar and New Market would be fulfilled soon.

Financial aid distributed among SHGs, schools
SILCHAR, May 22: Credit linkage and revolving fund of Rs 20.38 lakh have been distributed to 50 SHGs (self-help groups) at a function organized at Silchar on Monday on the occasion of the completion of one year of the present Congress-led State Government, a press release said.
Distributing the amount, State Urban Development and Housing Minister Dinesh Prasad Goala said that during the last one year, the Government has initiated various welfare measures for the benefit of the downtrodden.
Goala also distributed insurance money among four beneficiaries under the Mukhya Mantrir Jeevan Jyoti Bima Achani, old age pension to 25 beneficiaries and Rs 10,000 each to 37 beneficial under the National Family Benefit Scheme.
In the same function, Rs 29 lakhs among 29 high and higher secondary schools were distributed for the construction of girls’ common rooms. Financial grants to 24 recognized schools at the rate of Rs 1.27 lakh each and to 32 venture schools were also distributed.
Besides these, various inputs were distributed in the function— from Sericulture, Fishery, Zilla Parishad, Handloom and Textile, Agricultural Social Welfare Department and from the subdivisional OBC Development Board.
Ajit Singh, Parliamentary Secretary, Finance, Asom and MLAs Bethika Deb, Kutub Ahmed Mazumdar and Ataur Rahman Mazarbhuyan also attended the function.
The welcome address was made by Cachar Deputy Commissioner Gautam Ganguly, who gave an account of the development that has taken place in the district during the last one year.

ONGC team visits Barak Valley base
From Our Correspondent
SILCHAR, May 21 – RK Sharma chairman and managing director of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) along with two other directors, visited Cachar forward base office located at Srikona recently. All activities were reviewed by executive committee. The ONGC board decided to expedite the activities as this area is considered prospective in hydrocarbons. Several locations have identified for taking up been drilling to enthance oil and gas production in this area.

Sharma and the Board directors met the employee’s collective representatives in a cordial atmosphere. There was a great amount of motivation and commitment exhibited. They complimented the employees and asked them to put forward their best efforts in operational activities.

The team also met some leading local people and announced financial support to an NGO to procure and operator a mini for catering to the physically challenged children and a Lichocardiography machine to Rotary Heart Care Centre, Silchar bus for benefit of general public. ONGC has been providing a lot of support to local company development under proposed social responsibility initiative.

Recently ONGC had given assistance of Rs 10.80 lakh to the administration for development of park in the city. ONGC has been leader in community development in Barak Valley.

People’s representatives slammed for ills of Barak Valley
From our Correspondent
SILCHAR, May 21: Senior Citizens’ Council of Cachar at a press-meet held at the premises of Rajiv Gandhi Open Institute here on Sunday expressed its deep anguish at the fact that despite letters and reminders to the Central and State ministers, MPs and MLAs of Barak Valley on important public issues, no response is received by the Council.
“JR Sikidar, president, and MK Dutta Biswas, vice-president of the Council, showed bunch of their correspondences with the people’s representatives on the fate of Silchar-Lumding BG link, East-West Corridor, acute civic problems of loadshedding, spiralling prices of essential commodities as well as on the allotment of Central and State funds for various development projects and their utilisation.

‘Language movement of Cachar’ discussed
From our Correspondent
KARIMGANJ, May 20: The May 19 was observed as Martyrs’ Day as usual in three Barak Valley district of Cachar, Karimganj and Hailakandi. It may be mentioned that on this day in the year 1961, eleven youths, including a 16-year-old girl, were shot dead at Silchar Railway Station when hundreds of picketers, responding a call for total strike by the Cachar Gana Sangram Parishad, had been staging a demonstration there. They were demanding Bengali as one of the official languages of Asom along with Asomiya. The demand was not met by the State Government. However, in the district of Cachar Bengali was allowed to be the official language as per the original Assam Official Language Act Bill of 1960.
In a statement on June 6, 1961 at Shillong, the then Chief Minister of Asom, Bimala Prasad Chaliha had said, “It is very unfortunate that the healthy climate of our peaceful State has been vitiated by the agitation over official language issue. The great tragedy of 1960 and the recent happenings in the district of Cachar resulting in the unfortunate death of 11 persons and leading to disruption of the normal life in the district should be an eye-opener to all section of people also the danger of agitational approach.” It is unfortunate, observers here feel, overall climate of the State of not improve over last 46 years.
On the occasion, a seminar was organized by the literary forum of Karimganj College Friday with Dr Santan Dutta, president of the forum, in the chair. In the seminar entitled ‘Language Movement of 1916: Tradition and Relevance’, Dr KU Ahmed, ex-Principal, Karimganj College, Dr Subir K, formerly head of the Bengali Department, Asom; Dr Janmajit Roy, head, Bengali Department, Karimganj College; Abdul Basit Choudhury, Principal, Law College, Karimganj and Rathindra Bhattacharjee discussed the subject followed by a question-answer session.
The speakers were of the firm opinion that the language movement of 1961 in Barak Valley were aimed at the fulfilment of rights of different minorities’ languages of the State which are yet to be achieved.
 

Dhaka routes for Silchar succour
- Caretaker Bangla govt gives boost to linkages

OUR CORRESPONDENT Telegraph India
Silchar, May 15: The Union government has set into motion schemes for linking Silchar town, the second largest urban centre in Assam, with Dhaka by both road and rail.
Backroom activities have begun in right earnest following the much-needed thaw in relations between India and Bangladesh.
This has become possible because a neutral caretaker regime, backed by the army, is placed comfortably in the saddle in Dhaka.
Official sources in Silchar said both the schemes ultimately aim at carving out alternative and feasible road and rail links between south Assam and West Bengal via Bangladesh.
After assessing the geographical advantages lying in both road and rail links between south Assam and West Bengal through Bangladesh, the Centre has now started putting in place preliminary arrangements for compiling a techno-economic feasibility report for these links.
Aravinda Madhavan, joint commissioner for customs in the Northeast based in Shillong, has been asked by the Union commerce ministry to prepare a draft of the scheme to link this town with other parts of the country via Bangladesh.
Madhavan has already written to Cachar deputy commissioner Gautam Ganguli and his Karimganj counterpart Anurag Agarwal for their help in preparing the twin schemes.
At present, the Silchar-Calcutta bus trip by highway takes 40 hours at best while the train journey, involving change in trains from metre gauge track to broad gauge, takes some 36 hours.
This proposal for such a road link between south Assam and the rest of the country via Bangladesh was officially mooted in February by Cachar Congress MP and Union heavy industries minister Sontosh Mohan Dev.
Dev wrote to the Centre after the international centre for border trade with Bangladesh was commissioned at Suterkandi in Karimganj district in January.
The road journey to Calcutta via Bangladesh from Silchar would start on National Highway 44 for a link on NH 151 to the Indo-Bangladesh border point of Suterkandi in Karimganj district for crossing over to the adjacent country before moving on to Calcutta.
The scheme for the train link between Silchar and Sealdah station in Calcutta had been prepared two decades ago. It now only requires updating. The distance by train to Calcutta via Bangladesh is only 510.73 km.

ONGC buoyed by gas find in Barak Valley
OUR CORRESPONDENT Telegraph INDIA

Silchar, May 15: The Cachar forward base of the ONGC has struck natural gas in a 2,705-metre- deep well at Khubal near Pechertal village in Karimganj district on the Assam-Tripura boundary.
The find topped the agenda during the discussion of the ONGC board of directors at its Srikona sector headquarters near this town yesterday which was presided over by the corporation’s chairman and managing director R.S. Sharma.
This is the first time that the board met in Cachar district since exploration attempts for hydrocarbon were unveiled there in 1977.
Surajit Sen, general manager of the forward base, said the potential of this new gas field would be realised only after certain tests were carried out. The tests are already under way, he added.
Sharma, who made a whirlwind tour of the ONGC’s areas in south Assam and adjacent Tripura yesterday, was quite optimistic about the find. He said south Assam, with its proximity to neighbouring gas-bearing Bangladesh, has plenty of gas reserves.
But despite its continuous efforts to tap the hydrocarbon wealth in south Assam, Sharma admitted that his organisation’ s track record in oil find in this region continued to be poor.
He said the corporation, which struck oil first in this region in 1981 and since then drilled 76 wells in 19 structures, found six oil-bearing and nine gas-bearing areas, but the flow in the oil fields soon dried up, much to the disappointment of his staff.
At present, only natural gas was spurting out of the nine wells dug in the region.
Among these, the important gas wells are Adamtilla, Banskandi, Bhubandhar and Patheria. In its next phase of drilling operations in the forward base, the ONGC will scour Adamtilla and Longai in Karimganj district and Masimpur and Natanpur in Cachar district.
The state-run Assam Gas Company Limited has now been supplying 150,000 cubic metres of gas each day from the Banskandi and Adamtilla gas fields to the 25-MV thermal power plant, set up by DLF Power.
The ONGC has also been toying with the idea of laying 36-km-long pipelines to supply piped cooking gas to the inhabitants of Silchar from its Bhubandhar gas field.

Fire damages 18 shops in Silchar
From Partha Sarkar Assam Tribune
SILCHAR, May 13 – Fire broke out in Silchar on May 11 night at around 1.30 am at National Highway market. The fire damaged at least 18 shops which included tea stalls, poultry shop and pan shop.

The local businessmen said that the fire was a big conspiracy. They said that Bachhu Sutradhar is the man behind this fire. Bachhu Sutradhar has been beaten up by the public and handed over to police. Now he is under the treatment at Silchar Medical College.
Sources said that during the fire three LPG cylinders burst.

Barak reels under heat high
- Mercury soars to 40 degrees Celsius in Silchar town

Silchar, May 6: The heat is on and rising in Barak Valley.
The mercury soared to an all-time high of 40 degrees Celsius in Silchar town yesterday, a notch higher than last year’s maximum of 39 degrees Celsius.
According to senior lecturer of physics and weather specialist Pathankar Choudhury, there will no respite, at least for the next five to six days. Choudhury, who runs a weather observation centre at Cachar College, said available records showed that the temperature had not touched the 40 degree-mark in the past four decades.
“The scorching heat could be linked to the unchecked depletion of forest cover and global warming. Greenery in the valley has fallen to 26 per cent, down 10 per cent from the figures recorded 40 years ago,” he said.
The Cachar district administration could consider keeping schools closed if the heat wave persists, a source said.
To make matters worse, power cuts have become long and frequent. For the past few days, the valley districts have been receiving an off-take of only 40 per cent of the peak power demand, estimated at 75 MW.

Karimganj dist disabled rehab centre to be set up soon
From Our Correspondent  Assam Tribune
 KARIMGANJ, May 3 – Karimganj Red Cross Society is setting up the District Disabled Rehabilitation Centre (DDRC) at Karimganj town. Stating this is a press meet, Mission Ranjan Das, MLA, informed that the Centre was expected to begin within six months.

Bengali youth students’ federation meet
From Our Correspondent Assam Tribune
LUMDING, May 3 – A general meeting of the Central Committee of all Assam Bengali Youth Students’ Federation was held under the aegis of Yubateertha Club, Pandu on April 21 under the presidentship of Sahadev Das, advocate, Gauhati High Court, a press release said.

NRHM health mela organised in Katlicherra area
From Our Correspondent  Assam Tribune
 HAILAKANDI, May 3 – To provide free health care facilities to the poor rural people, a three-day-long Health Mela-2007 was recently organised by the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) in the malaria-prone Katlicherra area of Hailakandi district.

Silchar Highway horror set to end
- Cachar OUR CORRESPONDENT
May 3: After rejuvenating the lungs of Silchar town, the administration is preparing to give a damaged stretch of National Highway 54 new legs.
The greenery of Gandhi Park, a 30-bigha spread in the heart of Silchar, was restored just when the burgeoning town seemed to be gasping for breath.
Delhi has now sanctioned Rs 3.6 crore to renovate a 2.87-km stretch of road — between Sonai and Sadarghat — that has long been a nightmare for motorists.
The blueprint also includes a concrete drain along the stretch to save the highway from the vagaries of waterlogging during the monsoon.
The road runs through the main commercial and residential areas of the town and connects localities like Civil Hospital Road, Premtala and Nazirpatty to the highway.
Workers have already begun removing the remains of the old drain along the stretch in preparation for the renovation project.
An official of the company that has bagged the renovation contract said the accumulated muck and dirt would be removed from the old drain before digging an eight feet deep trench with strong walls. The channel will run along a permanent footpath and be covered with concrete slabs. The drainage system will be able to clear 800 litres of water per minute. The height of the damaged stretch of the highway will be raised by another nine inches.

Bridge relief for Barak valley
- Hailakandi
OUR CORRESPONDENT Telegraph India
May 2: People of Barak Valley can now heave a sigh of relief — the Union Surface Transport Ministry has given its green signal to the Border Roads Task Force (BRTF) for constructing a bridge to alleviate their plight during the monsoon.
The ministry also asked the BRTF to prepare an estimate for construction of the bridge as soon as possible. Sources in the BRTF said they have already started preparing the estimate and the process would be completed soon. Frequent landslides in Sonapur’s Khansabusttee area leave the Badarpur-Jowai stretch of National Highway 44 in Meghalaya unmotorable every rainy season. The highway is the lifeline of the people of Barak, Mizoram and Tripura and a blockade makes it extremely difficult for the people to communicate with the outside world.
When it rains heavily, mudslides from the Jaintia Hills flow over the road and disrupts traffic, cutting off the area from other parts of the region for months together.
Considering this plight of the people, the BRTF proposed the construction of a bridge in the area. A team of specialists from the ministry has also visited the site to study the feasibility of constructing a bridge.
According to BRTF sources the bridge would be constructed with enough height for the mud and debris to pass through during landslides.

Army called in to repair bridge near Silchar
OUR CORRESPONDENT Telegraph India
Silchar, May 2: Cachar district deputy commissioner Goutam Ganguli has asked the army to take over the task of replacing the Bailey bridge at Malidahar on the Assam-Meghalaya border in Cachar.
The bridge, a vital part of National Highway 44, the lone road link of the region with the rest of the country via Meghalaya, has developed cracks, posing a serious threat of a possible collapse.
The Border Roads Organisation (BRO) yesterday asked the 42 battalion of the Border Road Task Force (BRTF), which maintains this all-important highway, to suspend movement of vehicles along this bridge till it was replaced by a new bailey bridge.
However, the Cachar district administration was alarmed to know that the BRTF would take at least 21 days to replace this bridge. This would effectively stop all movement of long-distance passengers to and from the district and choke supply of essential commodities.
Yesterday, Ganguli rushed to the spot and pleaded with the head of 97 RCC under 42 BRTF division, D.N. Kesari, to keep a part of the bridge periodically open for buses and trucks.
As the BRTF authorities stuck to their guns about suspending vehicular movement, given the fragile condition of the bridge, there was no option for Ganguli other than to seek the army’s help.
Yesterday, Ganguli sent an SOS to Assam chief secretary P.C. Sarma and the Centre seeking deployment of the army’s engineering staff from the Army Service Corps to help replace the bridge.
Congress MP and Union minister for heavy industries, Sontosh Mohan Dev, yesterday urged defence minister A.K. Anthony and the director general of BRO, Lt Gen. K.S. Rao, to deploy army in replacing this tiny bridge as the BRO would take much longer in putting up the new bridge.
A flurry of activities then ensued, with the BRO changing its work schedule to ensure the bridge’s completion within seven days instead of 21 days. A source in the army today said it was readying its troops and awaiting the instructions of the GOC, 57 Mountain Division, Maj. Gen. E.J. Kocherran.
Everyday, as many as 100 long-distance luxury buses and about 500 trucks loaded with goods ply from Cachar or Meghalaya along this highway.
The district administration has drawn up a blueprint for transporting passengers and goods using the buses and trucks on either side of Malidahar bridge. The BRTF has also constructed a footbridge along the Bailey bridge for movement of passengers.

Dev visit stirs Cong in Tripura
OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT Telegraph India
Agartala, May 2: With Assembly elections barely nine months away, the infighting within the Tripura PCC over the post of its president took a new turn during the visit of Union minister for heavy industries Sontosh Mohan Dev on Sunday.
Though the veteran Congressman refrained from making political comments to the media and termed his visit as “private”, the writing on the wall is clear — PCC president Samir Ranjan Barman is neck-deep in trouble.
Dev, who had arrived here to attend the wedding ceremony of MLA Gopal Roy’s daughter, was given a rousing reception at the airport by all senior leaders of the party, except Barman, who had left for Khowai subdivision.
Dev did not directly speak to the hundreds of party workers who had thronged the airport. But during his stay at the circuit house as well as the VIP lounge of Agartala airport, he spoke to all senior leaders of the party including nine of the 13 party MLAs.
Sources in the Congress said that the dissidents, who constitute a vast majority of the party, pointed out the anomalies in the functioning of the PCC and demanded Barman’s ouster. “I will communicate your sentiments to the high command and it is its prerogative to take a final decision on organisational matters,” he told them.
Sensing trouble, a jittery Barman requested AICC president Sonia Gandhi to seek an explanation from Dev for his “unauthorised and anti-party comments”.
He urged her to “keep Dev away” from party affairs in Tripura.

Rs 100-crore proposal for the uplift of the 38-year-old Silchar Medical College and Hospital

Dispur nod to hospital facelift
OUR CORRESPONDENT Telegraph India

Silchar
April 30: After a two-year wait, the principal healthcare centre in south Assam is poised for a facelift. Dispur has cleared the much-vaunted Rs 100-crore proposal for the uplift of the 38-year-old Silchar Medical College and Hospital.
Announcing this at a news conference at the local circuit house yesterday, Assam health and family welfare minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said the modernisation scheme would involve expenditure under two heads — infrastructure and equipment.
The minister said the state government has already released Rs 18 crore to the hospital authorities to purchase state-of-the- art healthcare equipment, including an MRI machine.
The hospital has also been instructed to take up pending construction work with a portion of the released funds.
The minister gave the authorities a month-and-a- half to draft the blueprint.
“I will come here after 45 days to pick up the draft, including financial estimates for the purchase of equipment. If I find that the college authorities have been lax in preparing the ambitious scheme, I will not hesitate to transfer the grant to the medical college and hospital in Dibrugarh,” the minister observed.
Sarma said his department would release the funds in phases by the end of March next year.
He said chief minister Tarun Gogoi was likely to visit the college in November to give the go-ahead to the implementation of the scheme, which would take at least three years to complete.
Earlier, Sarma laid the foundation stone for a 30,000-square feet building for basic sciences, under the jurisdiction of the medical college, at Ghoongur, about six km to the south of Silchar town. The venture will cost the state Rs 2.91 crore.
To improve amenities in medical colleges, the cost of daily food for patients has been hiked from Rs 10 to Rs 25, and the allotment of yearly funds for purchase of medicines increased from Rs 5 crore to Rs 20 crore from this fiscal, Sarma said.