'Bifurcation of dists appreciable, will ease administrative work'

KOLKATA: The announcement for bifurcation of districts in Bengal on Monday by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has been applauded by former bureaucrats, who claimed that the bifurcation will help in speeding up the administrative work of the government.

Basudeb Bandhyopadhyay, former Chief Secretary of Bengal government, said: "The bifurcation of districts is truly appreciable as it will help to ease the administrative work. With the bifurcation of the districts, it will help the district courts to dispose of cases early as more district judges will be appointed once the bifurcation process is completed."

According to Bandhyopadhyay, it was found that many criminal cases remain pending for several years due to lack of district judges.

Now with the bifurcation of districts it will help to ease such criminal cases.

Another retired IAS officer, who does not wish to be named, said: "With the increase in population, it is necessary to bifurcate districts, so that it will help the population at large and at the same time it will help the district administration to work quickly as the area has now been bifurcated and working gets easier in small area."

Bandhyopadhyay said: "In 2015, Burdwan was bifurcated into Purba Burdwan and Paschim Burdwan. Similarly, Jhargram district was bifurcated in 2017 as Paschim Midnapore and Purba Midnapore. With the bifurcation of the districts, it has eased the administrative work immensely."

Rajiva Sinha, former chief secretary of state government, said: "We welcome the decision of the bifurcation of districts as it will immensely help in the smooth running of the administration."

On Monday, after the Cabinet meeting Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced that the state would get seven new districts, raising the total number of districts to 30.

The six of the seven new districts that were announced are—Sunderban, Ichhemati, Ranaghat, Bishnupur, Jangipur, and Berhampur.

One district will be

named Basirhat.