3 SKOCH honours: CM tweets in appreciation

Kolkata: Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday expressed her happiness after the state Minority Affairs and Madrasah Education department received the SKOCH (Gold) award for excelling in the grant of scholarship under the Aikashree scheme while the state Forest Department won SKOCH (Platinum) for Joint Forest Management-A People's Movement.

Taking to Twitter, Banerjee said: "I am delighted to announce that GoWB's Forest Department won Platinum for Joint Forest Management-A People's Movement, and Minority Affairs & Madrasah Education Department won Gold for Aikyashree Scheme at SKOCH Awards 2022."

Congratulating both the departments, she further tweeted: "My heartiest congratulations and best wishes to both departments! With an aim to ensure people's betterment, may we keep scaling greater heights."

Bengal has received three SKOCH awards from the Centre that includes prizes for Aikashree scholarship, for Operation Pushti meant for bringing down the number of SAM (Severe Acute Malnutrition) children and for work by the state Forest department. The SKOCH (Silver) award has gone to the Bankura district administration for bringing down the number of SAM children from 1700 to 400 in eight months during peak Covid. A unique scheme named "Operation Pusti" was officially launched on November 24, 2020, in 23 blocks of the district with key features including feeding every severely underweight child with one egg/day and 1kg NUTRIMIX packet per month through the AWCs, regular health check-up by specialised doctors, provision of piped water through Jal Swapno scheme etc.