Staff Correspondent
Port Blair, Dec 22: While the staffs of DC office South Andaman, are still struggling to fix all the burned and damaged files of Saturday Fire accident, another minor incident of fire accident triggered panic among some staffs for a while this morning.
According to reports at around 9.00 am some staffs of DC office witnessed smoke coming out from the TP Section.
It is learnt that dense smoke case out because of sparking in the age-old electric wirings inside the TP Section. Sources said that some staffs showed presence of mind and switched off the main switch, which prevented any major fire.
As the matter was controlled internally the matter was not reported to Fire Brigade. However, two incidents of sparking, fire and smoke have raised questions over the fire safety norms of DC office, which houses most crucial records of entire city.

Staff Correspondent
Port Blair, Dec 20: A fire was reported from the diary section of South Andaman DC office yesterday. As soon as the Fire Brigade got the information, several vehicles of Fire Services reached the spot and the fire was doused in no time.
It is believed that the fire erupted because of overheating of a wall fan, which was not switched off by employees on Friday, while leaving the office. As per reports several important files kept in the Diary section of DC office has been burnt in this fire accident. The DC of South Andaman Mr. V K Vidhuri arrived at the spot, when he learnt about the Fire Accident.

Sarthak Kanjilal
Port Blair, December 17: A Bangalore based Island youth has developed and launched a Software Platform namely “PlanMyTour” which can help the local travel agents’ efficiency by 600%, increase their sales by 50% and reduces the operation cost by 40%.
Addressing a press conference today at Megapode nest, Mr. Sunil Kumar Gupta the CEO of ‘PlanMyTour’ said that currently PlanMyTour is serving and changing lives of 47 travel agents. In 2 last months itineraries worth Rs. 11.04 Cr was created and this rate is increasing every month at 120%.
PlanMyTour is getting built by Sunil Gupta with co-founders Sandeep Gorrey and Om Prakash Das. Sunil Gupta winner of Business Excellence & Achievement Awards 2015, Karnataka, in Business Process Improvement & Automation in TRAVEL & TOURISM is an Islander from Andaman and alumni from JNRM Port Blair 1996-1999.
The team is highly experienced with 28 years of combined experience in IT & Management at HCL, TCS, Honeywell, KPMG and in startup ecosystem.
Addressing the Press Conference, Mr Sunil Gupta said that Plan My Tour helps a Local Travel Agents to manage their customers, customize the package including validation, auto costing, manage payments, selection of hotels, boats, cars etc. It would take 0 seconds for a local travel agent to send a customized package to their customer along with multiple hotel set cost for the package. Also we have a well-designed follow-up dashboard with auto reminder for employees so that they do not miss any customer. Mr Gupta said
An example for validation would be like PlanMyTour won’t allow you to add Jolly Bouy on Monday as it is closed, it won’t allow you to add elephant beach after say 2 pm and so on.
“PlanMyTour comes with mobile app that can be used by employees, field managers, drivers, ticketing agents and the traveler itself. These would enable a better service to travelers,” Mr Gupta added.
PlanMyTour entertains only Travel Agents that execute the tours by providing its own logistic supports, book hotel, boot ticket and they are our Local Travel Agent or LTA.
For example a travel agent in Andaman would be a LTA for Andaman and it would be allowed to sell packages only for Andaman in PlanMyTour. We also welcomes a travel agent from Delhi to do Andaman package but on B2B Connect (coming soon) where the Delhi travel agent has to purchase packages form one of the LTA in Andaman and this works vise versa as well. So a travel agent from Andaman can start selling packages for any destination on PlanMyTour by getting connected with any LTA of that destination.
“We were aware about the situation of Internet in Andaman but we were very confident about our team. We have used latest cutting edge technology that is highly secured and has been developed by very qualified engineer to build a cloud based intelligence platform that can work on low bandwidth Internet,” Mr Gupta further added.
The power of PlanMyTour is that it treats and behaves itself as a travel agent. PlanMyTour is taking care of most of the work of LTA and these would allow LTA to focus on service part. We believe a happy travel agent can make many happier travelers. This way we can achieve incredible India.
PlanMyTour in next 2 years aims at empowering around 2500 local travel agents by connecting them to the technology platform. We are targeting to modernize travel and tourism industry completely in at-least 10 destination by next 24 months.
Plan My Tour is also going to launch a B2C Platform by May 2016 where a traveller can customize an error free package as per his choice, compare the cost and reviews from different local travel agents and book a package instantly. This means a local travel agent can get a new booking from PlanMyTour without getting involved in any marketing and sales process, isn’t it a wow thing.
PlanMyTour is also planning to train the unemployed youth of Andaman and make them job ready.
The press conference was also attended by Mr Javed of Emerald Tours And Travels and Mr Ajit of Andaman Connections who shared their experience on how PlanMyTour is helping their business to grow.

Muralidharan Pillai
Mayabunder, Dec 16: The MV Swaraj Dweep which reached Mayabunder yesterday at around 9.00 am, took as much as 14 hours at Mayabunder port to offload cargo. This unwanted delay in cargo offloading work not only left passengers deeply harassed but also showed how unorganized the entire cargo offloading operation was at Mayabunder.
Sources said that offloading only containers at Mayabunder takes 3-4 hours but because of presence of large number of loose cargo in form of gunny bags, TMT bars, Steel Rods and packages, the entire cargo offloading work took so much extra hours.
The ship which otherwise could have left the Mayabunder Port easily by 1.00 PM, finally left the port after mid night because of this 140 tonne of Cargo and hence in reached only by today afternoon at Port Blair.
Passengers request the Director of Shipping Services not to offload any loose cargo at Mayabunder other than those which are inside containers, so that such delay never happens again.

Port Blair, Dec 11: The Students of Girls School Port Blair have brought laurels to the Islands by winning the Winner’s Trophy in the Visual Art Category at the National Level Kala Utsav at New Delhi today evening.
The students and the resource teacher Smti Vidya received the medals and the cheque of Rs one Lakh Twenty Five thousands, by the special guests, Union Minister MHRD Smti Smriti Irani, Noble prize winner Kailash Satyarthi, Eminent Dancer Sonal Man Singh and Shri Ruskin Bond, at Bal Bhavan.
Addressing the children Smti Irani said though they came with the competitive feeling for the Kala Utsav but they would leave with spirit of Unity, celebrating the greatness of the country. She appreciated the efforts of all the 1400 students reached the capital from all over the country, for showcasing their rich traditional folk culture.
The Girls school team had presented the body painting visual art form of the primitive tribes Jarawa and onges. Their e-project depicted the hard work done by the students in collecting details of the less known art form.
In the Kala Utsav the students had to perform in the four categories. The categories were Folk dance, folk song, folk theatre and visual art. The theme was ‘Beti Bachao-Beti Padhao’, as suggested by the Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi. At the National Level the Haddo Tamil medium school presented Nicobari Folk Song whereas Webi School students presented Karen Dance.
The Model school students presented theatre on Nicobari Folk Tale and Girls School presented Visual Art form. The Coordinator of the team Shri Shailendra Lall communicated from New Delhi that all the performances of the Islands’ students were appreciated by the art lovers.

Sarthak Kanjilal
Port Blair, December 09: A unit of National Student Union of India, Jawaharlal Nehru Rajkiya Mahvidhyalaya conducted a fund collection drive in front of the College this morning to collect money for the Chennai Flood Victims. Nearly 25-30 active workers of NSUI, JNRM unit participated in the collection drive.
The unit is going to conduct this drive for three days. Tomorrow again the NSUI unit will be conducting a drive in front of JNRM College and from Thursday the unit will roam in different part of the Port Blair city for collecting funds for the Chennai Flood Victims.
Talking to Andaman Sheekha, a worker of NSUI, JNRM unit, Mr Tanmay urged the people of the islands to contribute for the Chennai Flood Victims in whatever way they can.
“Today we have collected nearly Rs 4000-5000 and after completion of our camp we will deposit the amount in Lt. Governor relief camp,” Mr Tanmay added.