KALGACHIA

The pygmy hog

HOWRAGHAT

KALAIGAON

Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi asks agricultural scientists to not only work for food security but also provide nutrition to the people. Gogoi while inaugurating the first commercial tissue culture laboratory, at the Assam Agricultural University here expresses concern over the food crises all over the world. He said that India too had produced less rice this year and the State's rice production had also decreased considerably.

In an indication of the state of affairs in the Power Ministry, even Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's dream project, the 750-MW Bongaigaon power project in Assam, is in a state of neglect after he laid the foundation in January 2006. Work on the Rs. 3,000-crore project being executed by the National Thermal Power Corporation is yet to take off. It was only after Minister of State for Power Jairam Ramesh cracked the whip last week did the NTPC begin civil works at the site. Personal initiative

The stretch of the Indo-Bangla border road project executed by the State PWD would be completed by May 15, said State Assembly' Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chairman Brindaban Goswami quoting the PWD authorities, here on Wednesday. The State PWD is executing the project in a stretch of 206 km. However, six kilometres of this stretch have been eroded by the Brahmaputra and the Gadadhar rivers. The PWD has so far completed execution of the project in a 191 km stretch, Goswami said while addressing the media persons here.

The State Government's role vis-

The State Power Department has prepared a Cabinet Memorandum proposing amalgamation of its three distribution companies into one and outsourcing some functions in a select number of urban and rural electrical circles. Stating this at a press conference here this afternoon, Power Minister Pradyut Bordoloi said that the re-bundling of the distribution companies would of course be done by setting some benchmark for quality improvement, while outsourcing was proposed as a pilot project.