Kolkata: Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will visit Kalitala at Samshernagar under the Kalitala Gram Panchayat in North 24-Parganas on Tuesday to distribute land pattas from a government programme and follow it up with the worship of nature in the Sunderbans.
Banerjee will perform 'Pratiki Puja' (nature's worship) at Hingalganj to protect inhabitants from elephant attacks, a senior official said.
"I will perform 'Prakriti Puja' in Hingalganj. Of late, elephant attacks have increased as jumbos are straying out of forests in search of food," she had said on November 25 in the state Assembly.
The Chief Minister may officially announce the Sunderbans and Basirhat as two new districts of the state during the administrative meeting scheduled on November 29, the official said.
The two districts are set to be carved out of South and North 24-Parganas districts, he said.
"All the necessary work to create the two new districts has been completed. The Chief Minister may announce the names tomorrow (Tuesday) in Hingalganj during the administrative meeting," the official said.
The district of the Sunderbans is likely to have around 13 blocks of South 24-Parganas while Basirhat may have six of North 24-Parganas, he added.
Banerjee will stay at a government guesthouse in Taki on Tuesday night and will leave for Kolkata on Wednesday afternoon. The Chief Minister will be reaching the programme venue by helicopter.
"Usually, government programmes are held in Taki or Basirhat where administrative and security challenges are not much of a worry. This is for the first time that any chief Minister will be visiting such a remote area in the Sunderbans for public outreach," a senior official of the district said. Any high-profile visit to the place is a rarity.
"You can't compare other remote places of South Bengal with these areas of the Sunderbans. It takes around four hours to travel to Kalitala from the nearest tourist destination of Taki in Basirhat," he added.
Although Kalitala is around 54 km from Taki, it takes over three hours to cover the distance by car or a 25-seater vehicle through narrow roads. The cars have to cross the wide Ichhamati by a vessel, which is also time-consuming.
Kalitala is itself a Gram Panchayat with around 7,000 people.
"This is a place where man-tiger conflict has been a regular phenomenon. So, the locals are very excited about the visit of any Chief Minister for the first time," a Gram Panchayat leader said.
Banerjee wants to get a first-hand idea of the basic problems faced by the people in such remote pockets before the rural polls, felt political experts.