Development / Assam

GUWAHATI, May 12 ? The state government should immediately start evicting the encroachers from the Kaziranga National Park, demanded the secretary of the Asom Gana Parishad legislature party, Sri Silip Kumar Saikia. The AGP leader today pointed out that even persons of doubtful nationality have encroached into the territory of the National Park and according to reports, sometimes poachers took shelter among the encroachers. He pointed out that by the strength of the supreme court order, the government can easily launch an eviction drive in the National Park. He also demanded that the state...

GUWAHATI, May 11 ? The Forest Department with cooperation from the district administration and police, today resumed the eviction drive in the Batahghuli forest area in the outskirts of the area from early this morning and official sources asserted that the drive would continue in the next few days. After receiving stiff resistance from the people on May 9, the forest officials along with magistrates and police launched the drive at 6 am today and in the whole day, about 140 houses including a number of concrete structures, were demolished. Three elephants were also pressed into service to...

GUWAHATI, May 10? The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is actively considering an assistance of Rs 2000 crore (400 US $ million) to Assam. This was stated by Frank J Polman, Country Director of the Bank, during the concluding session of the three-day meeting of the officials of the ADB and the Government of Assam on May 10 which was chaired by the Chief Minister of Assam, stated an official press release. The delegation had visited Assam as a follow up of their fruitful visit to the State in December 2001. One of their visit objectives was to finalise the Country Assistance Program for India for...

GUWAHATI, April 10 ? Even as politicians and land grabbers are joining hands to clear Guwahati city of its green cover, the State Forest Department is having an extremely challenging task at its hands to protect over 27,508 hectares of reserve forest areas in and around the State?s capital city. Given the violent resistance put up by land grabbers at Batahkhuli area under Khanapara Reserve Forest when a team of Forest Department officials and Forest Protection Force staff went out on an eviction drive yesterday, the State Forest Department is in a soup while trying to comply with Government of...

NEW DELHI, May 9 ? The Supreme Court today cleared the last hurdle in construction of the Rs 7000 crore Subansiri Lower Power Project by giving its seal of approval to the project. The apex court?s clearance was essential for the project to get off ground as it has major environment implications including submersion of a portion of a wildlife sanctuary and diversion of a river.

A three-member Bench of the Supreme Court comprising Justice BN Kirpal, Justice Arijit Passyat and Justice HK Sema responded favourably to the pleas of the Additional Solicitor General, who told the court that the...

BISWANATH CHARIALI, May 9 ? The Lohitmukh area, about seven kilometres from Kalabari under Gohpur subdivision in Sonitpur district, has been deprived of basic amenities even after 55 years of Independence. Inhabited by more than 34,000 people belonging to the Mising tribe, the area lacks proper health care, irrigation and communication facilities due to apathy of the authorities concerned. It may be mentioned that an irrigation scheme was launched in the area way back in 1990 spending lakhs of rupees. However, the scheme soon ran out of order and the machines have now been lying idle since...

SILCHAR, May 8 ? Lack of adequate security cover and a hostile terrain make the Railway employees and the contractors engaged in the gauge conversion work between Lumding and Silchar easy targets of the militants, particularly the militants belonging to the Dima Halong Daogah (DHD). There were several instances in recent past when persons engaged in the gauge conversion work came under attack from the armed militants, and if such incidents are not checked, the gauge conversion work will be seriously affected. During a recent trip through the hill section of the Lumding-Silchar line of the...

SILCHAR, May 7? The Rs 1600-crore gauge conversion project between Lumding and Silchar is delayed due to several natural factors like the weather condition, rough terrain etc. However, even at the existing rate of progress, the project is likely to be completed by the year 2008. This correspondent visited some parts of the gauge conversion project sites to gather first hand knowledge of the problems faced by the Railways in implementing the ambitious project, and found that in most of the sites, the work had to be stopped due to heavy rainfall. Railway sources revealed that the working season...

KOKRAJHAR, May 7? The 240 MW Bongaigaon Thermal Power Station (BTPS) at Kokrajhar is likely to be shut down following the apathetic attitude of the ASEB. The Chief Engineer (generation), ASEB Apurba Sharma visited the BTPS recently, met several members of Kokrajhar Zilla Thika Sramik Union and assured that the BTPS would be renovated soon. He also said that the workers' union should not be worried about the present condition of the power project. He also added that the Harendranath Das Committee, which suggested the investing of Rs 2 crore for renovation of BTPS is useless, but the ASEB will...

GUWAHATI, May 4 ? In its bid to give a boost to the potent tourism sector in the State, Governmet of Assam in consultation with the Union Ministry of Tourism has prioritised 15 prime projects at a cost of Rs 12.27 crore out of which the State share will be Rs 3.53 crore against Central share of Rs 8.74 crore. Sources informed that in order to facilitate the growth of tourism as well as trade and commerce, the government proposed to set up an Assam International Trade Centre with all modern facilities. Meanwhile, the State tourism department has taken up a massive privatisation...