Mamata, Bengal top brass to draw up development blueprint

Ministers and secretaries of all departments along with the Chief Secretary Basudeb Banerjee and Home Secretary Malay Dey will be in attendance at the meeting that will commence at 12 noon in Town Hall. It may be mentioned that there were 25 administrative meetings in Town Hall in the first tenure of the Trinamool Congress government. In the last administrative meeting before the elections, the Chief Minister had urged all senior officials that development should not be  stalled on account of election duty.  

According to Nabanna sources, at Friday’s meeting the issue that will top the agenda will be renewed thrust to stalled development work. Everyone, starting from government employees including the IAS, IPS officers and the ministers were caught up in the election process for the past two months. Thus, soon after the formation of the government for the second term, all the ministers got cracking at the chief minister’s behest.

Ministers of all the departments held meetings with senior officials of their respective departments. Each and every department has prepared their reports stating the progress of the ongoing projects that were taken up before the Assembly elections were announced. The report will  also highlight the financial status of the departments.

Usually, the heads of the departments send their respective reports to the Chief Secretary a few days ahead of the administrative meeting. The Chief Minister goes through the report before holding the meeting and gives her comments/suggestions to minister of the concerned department during the meeting.

This time, too, the reports were sent to the Chief Secretary and there will be discussions on different projects at Friday’s meeting. It was learnt that the blueprint of the next five years will be discussed at the meeting on Friday.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee knows that the expectations of  people have gone up following her landslide victory. The Opposition has been whitewashed, so she can push ahead with her development-agenda unhindered.

Immediately she would have to distribute 15 lakh bicycles among the students of class IX who are studying in state run, aided and sponsored schools. Agriculture would be another thrust area where the government would try to introduce schemes to develop agro based industries. Also, the thrust area of the new government would be industry, housing sector and MSME. The Chief Minister has welcomed the Tatas to Singur. It is expected that WIPRO and Infosys who have purchased land in New Town would now to come to West Bengal and set up their establishments.  Banerjee will work to ensure that every household in West Bengal gets electricity within a year, and that all districts become defecation free in the next five years.