Tag: state government

Chaibasa, Lohardaga case: BJP holds silent protest.

Source – dailypioneer.com

The State Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday held a silent protest near Raj Bhavan against the State Government’s action, in which it prevented a delegation of BJP to meet with the family members of victim. ‘

A delegation of BJP leaders also submitted a memorandum to Jharkhand Governor Draupadi Murmu in this regard.

The State BJP showed aggressive stance against the State Government with allegations of deteriorating law and order after Hemant Soren became the Chief Minister of Jharkhand. BJP leaders led by former Chief Minister Raghubar Das, the State BJP Chief, Laxman Gilua and almost all MLAs of the party participated in the protest.  The BJP leaders also submitted a memorandum to Governor Draupadi Murmu, protesting against the mass massacre of seven tribals at Gudri in Chaibasa and stone pelting on a rally in support of the Citizenship Amendment Act in Lohardaga took place Thursday.

Rajya Sabha MP, Sameer Oraon, Senior BJP leader and Ranchi MLA, CP Singh, former Legislative Assembly Speaker Dinesh Oraon, Lohardaga MP Sudarshan Bhagat and Neera Yadav among the prominent faces of the party who were present at the Rajya Bhavan in a one-day silent protest. The party demanded to the Governor that the whole issue should be investigated by a High Level judicial committee.

Former Chief Minister, Ragubar Das said on the occasion that Chief Minister Hemant Soren had given clear indication after holding his first Cabinet meeting. “The government has fueled the anti-national forces which has involved in the killing of innocent tribals. The Government which is saying that it is pro tribal but massacre of tribal taking place in the Government,” he added.

The BJP leaders, who were holding placards in their hands, demanded the arrest of the accused.

A delegation of BJP MPs was going to meet the families of the slain tribals on Friday which was prevented by the State Police at Karaikela in Chaibasa District. Citing security, Section 144 has been imposed in the area. Angered by this action of the Administration, the investigation team staged a protest near Karaikela under Sonuva Police Station. The MPs shouted slogans against the State Government. After this they sat on Chakradharpur-Ranchi National Highway 75, which blocked the jam for one and a half hours. After seven hours of sit-in, the BJP leaders finally had to return.

NAAC wraps Patna College 2-day visit.

Source – hindustantimes.com

A four-member peer team from national assessment and accreditation council (NAAC) headed by Prof Ramakrishnan of Madurai University on Saturday concluded its two-day assessment at the 156-year-old Patna College.

For on-spot-assessment, the team had formal interaction with college authority, teaching faculties and other staff. The team assessed the college on different criteria like infrastructure, teaching-learning facilities, student progression, governance and management.

Patna College principal RS Arya said, “A PowerPoint presentation was given to show the overall development of the college. The team reviewed several departments, library, laboratory, canteen, drinking water facility, washrooms, and playground. Other than this, the team appraised the curriculum, performance of students, research, co-curricular and extracurricular activities of the departments, achievements of students.”

“We have tried our best to present the college before NAAC team. The accreditation would give greater autonomy and fund doors from various government and non-government funding agencies like University Grants Commission (UGC), RUSA and state government,” added Arya.

The 156-year-old Patna College has volunteered for the first time for NAAC assessment which will be based on the performance of the university in last five years.

More than 70% of evaluation has already been done on the basis of self study report (SSR) submitted by the college in April. Rest 30% of qualitative assessment comprises physical verification on the institute on several parameters including curricular aspects, teaching-learning & evaluation, research, innovations & extension, infrastructure & learning resources, student support & progression, governance, leadership & management, institutional values & best practices.

A college official, who preferred anonymity, said that the NAAC team was not much satisfied with the college facilities. He said, “While assessing the library and smart classes they found them outdated. The number of teachers in proportion to students is very less. They also said that the college doesn’t have affluent facilities for girls and disabled students.”

Patna Law College was awarded B grade on Friday by NAAC team which visited the college on Sept 20-21 for on-spot-assessment. Patna Science College is also gearing up assessment as NAAC peer team would visit the college in mid-December for second cycle of accreditation.

102-year-old Patna University was awarded with B+ grade in August this year.

How fish farming transformed lives of dam displaced people in Jharkhand.

Source – downtoearth.org.in

Around 12,000 families lost their livelihood due when the Chandil dam came up in Jharkhand’s Saraikela Kharsawan district in the 1980s. Its reservoir on the Subarnarekha river submerged more than 100 villages.

The people affected struggled for decades with the Jharkhand government for better rehabilitation and employment.

Now they have found an alternative source of income — pisciculture.

Some of those displaced because of the dam formed a cooperative society in ’05 to rear fish in the reservoir. The right to fish in the waterbody that came up on their land was one of the demands of those affected by the project.

In the late 2000s, the Jharkhand government focused on developing fisheries as an alternative income source for the state’s farmers. The cooperative took the opportunity to benefit from the government’s push for commercial fishing in water bodies.

After testing some success the Jharkhand government introduced the cage culture in the state’s dam reservoirs to scale up commercial fish production in 2012-13.

Cage culture is an intensive fish farming technique in which fish are kept in cubicle-shaped net enclosures. It is ideal for controlled fishing in large waterbodies in which it is otherwise difficult to restrict fish movement.

Jharkhand’s catch of fish doubled to 208,450 tonnes in 2018-19 from 104,820 tonnes in 2013-14 because of cage culture. There is an annual demand for 200,000 tonnes in the state itself.

The state government trains farmers from across the state on various aspects of fish-rearing. To maximise profits, farmers prefer commercial fish such as Pangasius (Basa) for cage culture.

The fish take around nine months to reach a weight of around a kilogramme. At times the cultivators sell them even at six months. 

The Jharkhand government has presented fish farming as a success story, calling it the ‘Blue Revolution’. 

Some 128,000 fish farmers now rear fish in the state’s tanks, reservoirs, check dams, and coal pits across two lakh hectares.

How Bihar PSC cleaned its act: Codes, late choices.

Source – indianexpress.com

Long wrestling with allegations of corruption and nepotism, the Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) has introduced radical reforms over the past 18 months, the most important of them concealing the identity of a candidate through a code system. Public Service Commissions of at least seven states have approached the BPSC seeking to replicate the system, while others have expressed interest.

Recently, the BPSC held prelims for its 65th combined services exam for 2019 vacancies, thus putting on track a schedule that had been running behind by years.

Under the new system, each candidate is allotted a code, which is then placed on his/her answersheet instead of the roll number. The evaluation is done under CCTV surveillance, and an examiner cannot leave the premises till checking for the day is done. Even the BPSC Chairman and the Controller of Examination do not know the questions, and the former randomly selects a question set from among seven sets.

The interviewers too receive only the code number of a candidate, with no details of his or her name and family details, nor are they allowed to ask any questions regarding this. The composition of the interview panel is decided just half an hour before an interview.

The BPSC, like the UPSC (Union Public Service Commission), now includes former diplomats, retired bureaucrats, and ex-IPS officers, including generals, CBI, CRPF and IB, RAW directors, as members. Its seven members, including the chairman, are selected by the Governor in consultation with state government. In the existing body, three members retired recently.

BPSC Chairman Shishir Sinha said, “The commission had been witness to several protests and litigations. We needed a completely transparent system.”

In 2009, the Patna High Court ordered had rescheduling of the BPSC’s 52nd prelims exam following a plea alleging anomalies. Earlier, in 2005, former BPSC chairman Ramsinghasan Singh and eight others had been arrested on the allegation that 184 candidates had been elevated to the Bihar Administrative Services.

Haryana and Odisha are among seven states which are keen to replicate the BPSC reforms, and chairmen of their PSCs recently visited Bihar. Earlier, a former chairman of the Uttar Pradesh Service Commission had visited the BPSC.

Sinha said their first challenge was to regularise examinations, using the same workforce and resources. Between April 2018 and October 2019, the BPSC released pending results of its 56th to 59th combined services examinations, while simultaneously conducting examinations for 60th to 62nd lists and releasing the final results. Last week, it announced the final results of its 63rd examination, with a Madhya Pradesh resident emerging as the topper. The written test for the 64th exam has been conducted and the interview would be held in the coming two months, while the BPSC just held the prelims for the 65th exam.

“Earlier, the chairman decided the members of an interview panel. We introduced a software with names of the experts, and while we call all of them an hour before the interview, the names for the panel are picked by the software with half an hour to go. The panel gets a sealed envelope with codes of 10 candidates. This ensures that till the last moment, neither candidates nor panelists nor any other staff of the commission knows who is interviewing whom,” Sinha said, adding, “The printer alone knows the questions selected, and can be held responsible for a leak.”

The BPSC’s evaluation rooms and its entrance are monitored by 30-plus CCTV cameras, while the strongroom holding the answer sheets is now just next door, to minimise human involvement in transfer of papers. The rooms are being further fortified.

As it places its house in order, the BPSC has seen a change in the profile of applicants, with many of them graduates from IITs, NITs and BITS-Pilani, the BPSC said. Administrative services are now the first preference against police services earlier. Over 20,000 applicants were from Delhi alone for the 65th prelims.

Admitting that they faced initial resistance from within, but “zero interference”, the Chairman said, “Why should interviewers know a candidate’s surname and family details? This has got us praise from the UPSC.”

BPSC Secretary Keshav Ranjan Prasad recounted his own experience, saying while he gave the prelims in 1984, he got a job only four years later. “I can understand the pain and frustration of a candidate through the prolonged process. We are aiming at completing the entire process in a year. We are pretty close to doing so.”

In the last fully completed exam (the 63rd), 90,697 candidates appeared for the prelims, 4,277 cleared the exam, 4,161 gave the written test, 924 appeared for the interview, and 355 got through. This process was completed in 15 months.

Ranchi doc performs 246 surgeries under Ayushman Bharat

Source: dailypioneer.com/

While the State Government is consistently seeking the support of doctors and hospitals in making the ambitious Ayushman Bharat Yojana a success in Jharkhand, a cardiac surgeon in Ranchi has gone out of his way to support Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of providing accessibility of expensive medical facilities to the poor.

Meet 54-year-old Dr Kunal Hazari, MS, MCh, who has successfully completed as many as 246 open heart surgeries in less than a year under the Ayushman Bharat Yojana.

Hazari, the Vice Chairman of Medica Superspecialty Hospital near Booty More, believes that every doctor should be accountable for the health of people living in the country. 

“We are all accountable for the health of our citizens – the government, the hospitals and the doctors,” Hazari said. The 246 surgeries that he performed includes Bypass Grafting, Valve replacements, Tetrology under Ayushman Bharat till now, Dr. Hazari started operating cases under this scheme from October 2018. Since then the graph of patients getting treatment under this scheme has just gone up. Today, out of every 40 patients he operates monthly, at least 35 are covered under this programme.

The scheme provides a cover of Rs 5 lakh per family annually for 10 crore poor and vulnerable families.

The beneficiary under this programme can undertake cashless benefits from public and private hospitals across the country. While Private versus Public Hospitals spark an endless debate in terms of facilities and also the eligibility to cover Ayushman Bharat patients, all the hospitals in the nation are accountable to treat patients under this scheme,said Hazari.

“If you are to provide healthcare facility, all the government hospitals need to be strengthened and equipped. Healthcare of its people is the liability of the Government,”he said.

The system or the chain of procedures for getting covered under the scheme is simple and requires the patients to have a ration card which in turn is needed to generate golden cards —  a facility available at the hospitals.

“The procedure and paper work involved has become so systematic and mechanised that now as doctors we can really focus on treating the patients. It also saves time. Talking about cardiac surgeries, time loss is equivalent to muscle loss,” said Dr Hazari.

The golden cards can be generated within half an hour after producing the ration cards meanwhile the patients can be admitted and the treatment procedures can start, he said.

The hospitals are known to receive funds from the Government within the stipulated time.

“Ayushman Bharat is much simpler for both patients and hospitals compared to the earlier BPL healthcare programme. The simple paperwork, systematic checking of facts post treatment, clearing of payments have all cumulatively built trust among private hospitals and doctors. The trend shows that they are taking it up now,” told Dr Hazari on the current scenario of the programme in the State Capital.

The programme cannot be fully crowned as a success as it has its own set of lacunas. Regularised price slabs for a certain type of medical procedure is one of the major issues that has to be resolved.

“With patients the treatment gets customised according to their body response, one patient can take five days to get discharged while others may take up to 10 days and one price bar cannot accommodate both. We are constantly trying to find solution to this gap,” said Dr Hazari who is also a member of Ayushman Bharat board for the state of Jharkhand.

There is a motion to increase the flexibility of the amount by 10 to 15 per cent.

“The satisfaction I get after treating the needy patients is the prime incentive for being an active force in this scheme by the PM for a healthy nation. Finance always comes secondary,” said Hazari.

The enthusiasm of government, doctors and the public is required for this scheme to be a success, government’s feedback and check system being the major drivers of the movement, he added.

Jharkhand to pay Rs10-cr as ‘performance guarantee’ to anti-pollution body

Source: hindustantimes.com

Following the direction of National Green Tribual (NGT), the state government is set to pay Rs10 crore as performance guarantee to the central pollution control board (CPCB) with assurance of lowering down biochemical oxygen demand below 3mg/litre in seven rivers’ stretches in three years, officials said.

The NGT recently asked the state government to deposit the said amount to the central pollution board as performance guarantee so that the issue could be dealt with serious efforts in a time bound manner.

“Jharkhand is not alone. The performance guarantee was asked from all states having polluted river. The NGT has fixed the rate of guarantee on the basis of pollution level in rivers. Since Jharkhand has seven stretches of seven rivers, the state was asked to pay Rs 10 crore as performance guarantee,” said Jharkhand state pollution control board (JSPCB) chairman AK Rastogi. Rastogi, however, claims Jharkhand stands at four in the river pollution category, which means pollution level is less in rivers of the state.

The stretches of seven rivers Garga, Sankh, Subarnarekha, Damodaro, Jumar, Konar and Nalkari – would go under rejuvenation drive in next three years. The JSPCB has submitted its action plan to the CPCB suggesting ways to reduce pollution level in the stretches.

According to the action plan report, highest BOD level at 8.4mg/litre was found at 10-km stretch of Sankh river, while 6.2mg/litre was recorded at eight kilometre stretch of Garga river along Telmuchu. BOD level at 3.4mg/litre to 10mg/litre was found at 120-km stretch of Subarnarekha river, while 3.9mg/litre BOD found at on 12-km stretch of Damodar near Phusro, Bhandaridah and Dhanbad. Similarly, the BOD level from 3.3mg/litre to 3.8 mg/litre was found on stretches of Jumar, Konar and Nalkari. “We have been given three-year timeline to bring down the BOD level from the stretches below 3mg/litre,” said JSPCB member secretary Rajiv Lochan Bakshi.

Experts say BOD causes a serious threat to the aquatic life due to the depletion of dissolved oxygen. They blame large-scale mining operations in the state for river pollution.

A JSPCB official said about 130 million litres of industrial effluents and 65 million litres of untreated domestic water are released to Damodar drainage system.

The JSPCB suggested hordes of measures in its action plan to reduce the pollution in rivers.

The measures suggested for industries are setting up effluent treatment plants, adaption of zero liquid discharge concept by industries, tailing ponds management plans such as dewatering and drying, water recovery and re-use and discharge legislation compliance.

Pollution abatement measures at domestic source suggested under the action plan included sewerage systems to capture raw sewage flowing into the rivers though open drains and diverting them for treatment and setting up sewage treatment plants for treating diverted sewage.

Bihar to waive off 50 per cent taxes levied on e-rickshawas

Source: newindianexpress.com

PATNA: Alarmed at growing rate of  pollution, the state government’s seven departments have collectively prepared an integrated action plan to tame the menace of pollution in Patna and other cities.

According to a survey report of WHO, Bihar’s three cities namely Patna, Gaya and Muzaffarpur have been found to be among the most 20 polluted cities of world.

Speaking at a world environment day function on Wednesday evening, deputy chief minister of state Sushil Kumar Modi said that all possible steps are being taken to check the pollution in cities growing at an alarming rate.

“In a move to beat air pollution,the government has decided to waive 50% of total taxes levied on the purchase and running of battery-propelled e-rickshawas”, he said.

He further claimed that arrangements have been made to check the pollution emission from vehicles at over 500 fuel refilling centres in addition to run eco-friendly electric buses.

“On 45 fuel-refiling centres in Patna alone, arrangement has been made to issue online pollution check certificates in order to down the level of pollution”he said, adding that state government was committed to control the pollution through awarness among vehicle users and systems.


Bihar’s 1.48 crore power consumers to get smart prepaid meters by 2020

Source: newindianexpress.com

PATNA: Come August 2020 and Bihar’s 1.48 crore power consumers will get smart prepaid electricity bill measuring meters installed in their houses. 

After successful completion of the target, Bihar would become the first state in the country with all its power consumers availing facility of prepaid electricity meters.

Buoyed by recent Lok Sabha victory, the Nitish Kumar government has directed officials of Bihar State Power Holding Company Limited (BSPHCL) to achieve the target of complete installation of smart prepaid electricity bill measuring metres by August 2020, ahead of the state assembly elections in 2020.

CM Nitish Kumar has assigned the task of completing the installation to chairman-cum-chief managing director(CMD) of BSPHCL Pratay Amrit, who has played an effective role in ensuring the complete electrification of villages in record time in the state. 

In the last five years, Bihar has spent a whopping Rs 55,000 crore on electrification works and ensuring availability of power.
 
The CM while lauding the performances of electricity department at a function organised to inaugurate and kick-start various schemes worth Rs 697 crores on Tuesday, said that department should also achieve the target of installing the prepaid meters on top priority.

“Once the prepaid meters are installed, consumers will face not problems like inflated bills of which is major complaint by consumers”, Kumar said.
 
He also asked the power officials to replace all the old wires within the stipulated time frame and ensure separate power connection under the agriculture incentive plan to the farmers.

Deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi, also present at the function, said that the number of power consumers in the state has increased from 37 lakh in 2012 to 1.48 crores in 2019.

“Thanks to the ample availability of power in even remotest parts, state government got a huge revenue of Rs 9,072 crores. The ample power availability has reduced the sales of inverters and gensets in the state to a great extent”, Modi said.

Pratay Amrit said that installation works of smart prepaid meters will start in July from Arwal and Sheohar districts of the state. He informed the government in his welcome speech that old wires in 28874 circuit km were replaced. “The number of power sub-stations has increased also from 95 to129 with a registered demand of power around 5389 megawatts in the state”, he said.