West Midnapore: Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee instructed the district administration on Tuesday to take stringent measures against the sand mafia and ensure that the lorries carrying sand cannot use rural roads. She was addressing the administrative review meeting at Police Lines on Tuesday afternoon.
She said the lorries carrying sand excavated from illegal mines generally use rural roads to evade police arrest. As result, the rural roads constructed under Bangla Gram Sadak Yojna get badly damaged.
"I am not going to tolerate this. I instruct the District Magistrate and Superintendent of Police to intensify vigil. But as it is not possible for the police to work alone to stop this menace, I ask the Gram Panchayat members to put up bamboo poles to prevent the trucks from using rural roads," she said, adding: "Huge fines should be imposed so that they do not make this mistake in future."
The Chief Minister asked the DM, SP and Health department officials to go to Salboni to tell people that the state government has no intention to hand over the superspecialty hospital to private companies. She said recently some doctors belonging to a political party had visited Salboni and told people that the state government would hand over all the superspecialty hospitals to private firms and they will charge to provide treatment.
"This is baseless canard which some doctors with mala fide intentions are spreading. We have no intention to sell the superspecialty hospitals to private companies," the Chief Minister said. She regretted that some people with vested interests are misguiding people about the various projects taken up by the state government.
She said the state government has set up 46 superspecialty hospitals in the districts, to provide best medical facilities to the rural people free of cost and reduce the pressure on the referral hospitals in the district headquarters and Kolkata. "We are facing some problems in giving appointments to doctors, but hopefully this problem will be ironed out soon," she said.
She asked the Panchayat and Rural development department officials to make surprise checks to find out how the toilets built under Nirmal Bangla Mission are functioning. "We should find out whether the people are using them or not and how the toilets are functioning. Surprise checks help the administration perform better," she said.
The Chief Minister asked the departments to complete the tender process by January 10, 2019, as once the date of Lok Sabha election is announced, there will be an embargo on the floating of tenders. Chief Secretary Malay De said the issuance of work order will have to be completed by January 31, 2019, so that the commencement of work can start soon.