Port Blair, July 04: The Congress Party has recorded its sincere gratitude to the Lt Governor, Lt Gen (Retd) Bhopinder Singh for overall socio-economic and infrastructure development of these Islands.
“The notable sphere of his activities are uncountable. He was instrumental to help the Tsunami victims after taking over the charges of LG in 2006 under Rajiv Gandhi Relief and Rehabilitation scheme, has increased in the pension amount of widowed, handicapped and elderly person, removed the buffer zone area for the benefit of the people of these islands, given tireless efforts to get rid of ATR problems, established Fish landing centers, introduced fishermen friendly schemes, opened many health centere besides introducing telemedicine facilities, introducing optic fibere cable between Chennai and Singapore which will connect these islands giving fillip to IT sector in the coming days, waived exorbitant ferry service charges for the welfare of the poor commuters, opened evening shift of JNRM, opened Graduation courses in Engineering in BRAIT, enhanced the stipend of the lecturers, introduced many new graduate and post graduate courses in colleges, tackled the age old water crises by raising the height of Dhanikari dam, encouraged the sports personalities, opened grounds for the sportsmen,” Mr. Kuldeep Rai Sharma said in a press release today.
There are various factual inaccuracies in the news report. Let me elaborate upon a few :
1) […instrumental to help the Tsunami victims…] – Fact is it landholdings has been taken away in lieu of compensation that was fixed without consulting the tsunami affected.
2) […removed the buffer zone area for the benefit of the people of these islands…]- Fact is the 5km buffer zone notified during October 2007 remains as it is.
3) […given tireless efforts to get rid of ATR problems…]- Fact is the original 8 convoy system has been reduced to 4, during Sept 2011 thereby creating in-numerable hurdles in the ATR Journey.
4) […introducing telemedicine facilities…]- Fact is Telemedicine facility at GB Pant was introduced on 3rd July 2002 by PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee via Teleconferencing.
5) […introducing optic fibere cable between Chennai and Singapore…]- Fact is NIT has been issued but pending finalisation for the last so many years.
6) […waived exorbitant ferry service charges for the welfare of the poor commuters…]- Fact is ferry charges has been raised exorbitantly twice within a year gap, public protest led to partial roll back of harbour ferry chagres. Inter-island and mainland fares still remains hiked.
7) […enhanced the stipend of the lecturers…] Fact is none of the lecturers are getting stipend, hence the question of enhancement is ruled out.