Some officials seek bifurcation of N 24-Parganas, cite size as a problem

Kolkata: A section of the district administration in North 24-Parganas feels the growing necessity for bifurcating the administrative machinery as it is never easy for one District Magistrate to monitor all the aspects in all the five sub-divisions, so huge in size and also in terms of population particularly during the pandemic.

There are two police commissionrates covering two sub-divisions – Bidhannagar and Barrackpore and the rest three sub-divisions – Barasat, Bongaon and Basirhat had been made as three different police districts to maintain law and order situation.

But in case of administrative functioning, the huge area is controlled by one District Magistrate (DM). A section of officials believe that the time has come when there must be an administrative bifurcation.

The Mamata Banerjee government had created two police commissionarates and also set up the police districts for better law and order. As per the 2011 census, the total population in the district is around 10,009,781 and the density is 6,300 per square meter. The population may be little higher as the next Census is due in 2021.

The number of Covid cases in a single day is going up in North 24-parganas in the past few days and it now tops the list surpassing Kolkata's figure. The district administrative officials were 'pulled up' by the Chief Minister during her meeting on Monday. A senior administration official said that there is a spike in Covid cases as more tests are being conducted per day. When contacted, the DM North 24-Parganas, Chaitali Chakraborty said: "The infection rate did not increase. Infection rate and absolute number are two different things. Infection rate is decreasing whereas the total number of number of infected patients per day has slightly gone up. The district has a huge population. State government owned hospitals and health units in the district are conducting 3,000 sample tests the number would be much higher if private figures are added.

There are however nodal officers in each sub-division and the monitoring committees as well to handle the Covid situation but it is not always easy for the top administrative official to monitor the situation at the ground level.

Around two months ago, on June 25 the daily infection stood at 117 and the total number of infected patients remained at 2,329. On July 25 the daily infection rate stood at 524 and the total infected patients was 11,866.

Exactly one month letter, on August 24, the daily infection touched 700 mark. The number again little dropped on August 25 as it went down to 590.