CM takes her officials to Sunderbans

CM takes her officials to Sunderbans

Almost whole of Writers’ Building accompanied Chief minister Mamata Banerjee on her trip to Sunderbans.The convoy toured the islands for almost six hours since 11am.Chief secretary Samar Ghosh,home secretary G D Gautama,principal secretaries of forest,tourism,power,disaster management and so on,as well as a large number of journalists and government officials and police were part of this unique riverine jamboree.There were more than 25 launches plus two West Bengal Police speed boats.Altogether,there were over 600 people of this waterways convoy.

Panchayat and public health engineering minister Subrata Mukherjee,Sunderbans affairs minister Shyamal Mandal and local MLA Jayanta Naskar were among those present,along with some journalists who usually travel with chief minister.Many others followed her convoy.
IPS officer Virendra---who oversees the CM’s security and accompanies her on most of her trips---seemed to enjoy being on a speed boat,looking not at usual challenges of the roads,but to see if everything was clear on the waterway.He had for company district magistrate NS Nigam and superintendent of police of South 24-Parganas,LN Meena.

The CM had said in Tuesday’s public meeting at Gosaba that she had gone to the sunderbans to see the place with her own eyes and talk to the people there.She also wants to make it a tourism hotspot,which will bring huge employment for local people.Starting her day from Sajnekhali where she had stayed at night,the CM toured one island after another----through Pakhirala,Dayapur,Santjelia,Kochukhali,Rangabelia,Gosaba,and finally moving out through Sonakhali---for almost six hours since 11 am.She went close to Marichjhhapi,but did not venture till the uninhabitated island.Over three decades ago,police went on an eviction drive in the Marichjhapi island of the Sunderbans to oust refugees who had moved from Dandakaranya.The entire episode is shrouded in mystery and it is not clear how many lives were lost,and is often considered by many as the darkest blot on the Left Front regime.
During the six hour visit,Mamata stopped only at Pakhirala,where she  distributed blankets among some Aila victims.Pakirala,which is one of the main tourist centres in the Sunderbans,and where many tourist lodges are housed,is where Mamata looked around,and said that tourism needs a huge boost.

Her main programme with the villagers was on Tuesday at Gosaba where she distributed land rights to rice,and cheques for various schemes to the poor.Her thrust on Wednesday appeared to check out a huge stretch of islands to see how tourism could be promoted here.

Preparations were on for the Wednesday tour since 6.30 am,with the launch and speedboats doing the rounds.Boats are charged at nearly Rs 10,000 for such long hours,so in that case so many boats and launches put together would have made the cost a few lakh.However,officials said that since these are under different government departments,the rate of fuel is the only significant cost,and hiring charges are not so much.