Tuesday 5 April 2011

Bihar News, Latest News from Bihar, News of Bihar, Biharprabha News

Bihar News, Latest News from Bihar, News of Bihar, Biharprabha News

RRI system at Patna junction to be ready in 3 months

Posted: 05 Apr 2011 11:15 AM PDT

PATNA: Work on the route relay interlocking (RRI) system at Patna Junction has been going on in full swing. To be completed at an estimated cost of about Rs 20 crore in two to three months, the work is being personally monitored by East Central Railway (ECR) GM K K Srivastava.

Divisional railway manager (DRM), Danapur, Gyan Prakash Srivastava said the railways is likely to make the RRI system functional in June or July this year to cater to the needs of traffic operation of Patna Junction, in particular. The indoor work, including the RRI building, has already been completed while the outdoor work is going on, he said.

The DRM said the system of advanced technology has been available at several railway stations in India. It has become a must for Patna Junction as well keeping in view the increased traffic movements under the division. The division has been coping with the operation of about 140 pairs of passenger trains, including mail and express, either originating or passing through the mainline section of the division, he said.

Under the RRI system, monitoring of train movements will be centralized and the possibilities of head-on collision or any other mishap within the periphery of the station will be virtually negligible. Besides, the RRI system has the capacity to clear traffic movements quickly, too. The entire system will be computerized, too, the DRM said.

According to sources, there will be no manual pulling of “lever” either to lower signals or lock the railway crossing gates. With the touch of a button, the whole system will become functional. A tower house has been built at Patna Junction to house the new system machinery. The new system will facilitate smooth movement of goods trains as well. It will save much time being spent currently in shunting of passenger train rakes and locomotives, sources said.

The RRI equipment and machines are indigenous. These machines would be installed soon at Patna Junction under direct supervision of technical experts. The railways, which has already floated tender for installation of the machinery plant, is likely to finalize machinery installation in a proper way. The safety measures on tracks will further improve with the installation of the RRI system, the DRM said.

The newly built platform no. 10 at Patna Junction will also be thrown open at the time of commissioning of the RRI system. The railways will earmark platform nos. 8 ,9 and 10 for the dedicated run of Patna-Gaya passenger trains while platform nos. 1 to 7 will cope with the traffic load of mainline from both Delhiand Howrah ends, sources said

 

 

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New VAT rates comes to effect in Bihar

Posted: 05 Apr 2011 08:08 AM PDT

PATNA: The hike in value added tax (VAT) announced in the state’s 2011-12 budget has become effective from April 1.

Deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi, who heads the finance and commercial taxes departments, said that the notification in this regard had already been issued by the commercial taxes department. Prior to this, the legislature had passed the Appropriation Bill concerned for the 2011-12 fiscal.

The last time a tax increase had been made in the state was on April 1, 2006.

Modi said the tax hike would yield an additional Rs 450 crore annually to the state exchequer, which would be used to support welfare schemes, including the CM’s Cycle Yojana and CM Poshak Yojana.

Incidentally, the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) for the 2009-10 fiscal, released last week, had noted that the state government ought to find means to increase its revenue receipts through both tax and non-tax routes, if the state does not have to get caught into debt trap.

The CAG’s advisory meant that the debt incurred by the state should be sustainable. In this context, the tax hike announced in the 2011-12 state budget gains contextual significance and relevance with the fiscal situation, as assessed by the CAG.

In keeping with the rise in taxes, VAT on some Schedule-3 items has been increased from four to five per cent, while the tax charged on items like motor vehicles, TV, fridge, cosmetic items, zarda and cigarette would now be 13.5% compared to 12.5% earlier. Besides, the new 10% luxury tax charged for holding functions (conferences, workshop, exhibitions and various social functions) utilising venues like hotel, halls or open-air grounds also became effective from April 1.

Modi said the tax hike had been announced in keeping with the decision taken at the empowered committee of the finance ministers of all the states. The tax increase on select items has also been made in states such as Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh, among others.

Speaking at a function on Monday, Modi said the NDA government, in the last five financial years, not only improved the law and order situation, but also managed to make business-friendly atmosphere in the state, which resulted in relative decrease in migration of people to other states. Moreover, traders and business circles enjoyed security, he added.

Modi, while reviewing the revenue collection, directed the officials of commercial taxes department to maintain the tempo of collection. During the 2010-11 fiscal, the department netted a revenue of Rs 6,666 crore, which is Rs 1,131 crore more than Rs 5,535 collected during the 2009-10 fiscal.

He also said the department should achieve 100% computerisation as part of the e-governance initiative, during the current fiscal, and also asked traders to go for computerisation.

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Bihar’s roadmap to be the next IT hub

Posted: 05 Apr 2011 05:59 AM PDT

Patna: The Bihar government has decided to constitute a Bihar Information Technology Authority (BITA) to develop and expand the IT sector in the state to attract investment.

The state government had said last week it would soon announce an Information Communication Technology (ICT) Policy, 2011. An IT department official here said Monday that BITA will be constituted as the apex body to oversee the comprehensive development of the IT sector in the state.The authority will be headed by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

A high level committee headed by the chief secretary will be constituted for monitoring the implementation of IT projects. All departments will be required to regularly submit comprehensive reports on the execution of these projects to the committee, the official said.

After BITA, district e-governance societies (DeGS) will be constituted in under the chairmanship of the district magistrate with the representation of various departments, including the National Informatics Centre (NIC), to formulate, monitor and implement IT schemes and programmes at the district level.

“In the new IT policy, which is yet to be announced, the plans to constitute BITA has been made categorically clear. The BITA will work to develop the IT sector and e-governance monitoring in the state,” principal secretary of IT Arun Kumar told IANS here.

In a bid to attract investments, the new policy will give industry status to the IT sector.

“Nitish Kumar is keen to develop the IT sector in the state,” an official from the chief minister’s office said.

“The thrust of the new IT policy would be to attract national and multinational IT companies to invest in the state,” he said.

According to Kumar, the government was committed to providing all possible facilities to IT companies investing in Bihar.

He also said the government had decided to introduce IT education in all Plus Two schools in the state.

“Students will be given IT education from Class 9 onwards,” he said.

Besides, 10 percent of school teachers will be given IT training.

Last year, the government had put out its draft IT policy on its official website for suggestions and comments.

According to officials in IT department, suggestions of people associated with different sectors have been incorporated in the new policy.

The officials also said that there will be four components of the policy – for citizens, education, governance and for industries.

The state government created the department of IT in 2007 to act as the nodal agency for the implementation of the IT policy and computerisation within the state

Read more at: http://www.ndtv.com/article/patna/how-nitish-plans-to-make-bihar-an-it-hub-96327?cp

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Bihar locomotive projects to be kickstarted next month

Posted: 05 Apr 2011 03:57 AM PDT

New Delhi: Railways has decided to call financial bids for key public-private partnership (PPP) projects to manufacture locomotives next month, the latest effort to facilitate setting up of factories.

The national transporter will call financial bids for diesel locomotive at Marhaura in Bihar on May 10, while the bids for the electric locomotive unit at Madhepura in Bihar will be submitted on May 11. Incidentally, the bids for the projects have been postponed more than thrice since October 2010.

The two units, to be set up in joint venture at a combined cost of close to R3,300 crore, were announced by previous railway minister Lalu Prasad with an aim to develop the backward areas of Bihar.

However, the present railway ministry and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee thinks that the bid documents for the projects were tilted in favour of the shortlisted bidders, and hence, it is in the process of changing the same.

The railway board proposes to instil a clause on technology transfer from private firms for maintenance of the locomotives. It also wants to give railways the first right of refusal in case the private partner wants to exit the project.

At present, the projects are to be set up with 26% equity from railways while the balance will come from the private companies.

"We will have a pre-bid meeting before calling the bids to discuss the changes that we think are suitable," a senior official in railway ministry told FE.

However, other officials in the ministry raised doubts on railways' ability to call the bids on the decided dates. "Bidders had asked certain questions in the last meeting in 2010, but railways has still not answered those questions. On the contrary, it is about to change the bid documents. In this situation, I don't think that bidders will come forward to submit bids on the given dates," another official said.

Global engineering firms GE, Alstom, Siemens and Bombardier are the four shortlisted bidders for Madhepura plant. For the Marhaura factory, railways has shortlisted GE and Electro Motive Diesel.

The two projects are first of their size projects taken up by railways in PPP mode and they are considered to be a model for other capacity expansion projects planned like a locomotive component unit at Dankuni and a coach unit at Kanchrapara, both in West Bengal. Railways has envisioned procuring 5,334 diesel engines and 4,281 electric engines by year 2020.

 

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Power Crisis in Bihar after Farakka shutdown

Posted: 04 Apr 2011 11:23 PM PDT

PATNA: A major part of Bihar plunged into darkness on Monday following the shutdown of unit-5 of NTPC’s power generating plant at Farakka for annual maintenance. The unit-2 of NTPC’s Talcher power plant is already non-operational.

The power situation is the state is not likely to improve during the coming months as Bihar has not made much progress in the energy sector in the last one decade or so. Power crisis is a perennial story, particularly during summer months.

“The annual maintenance work at Farakka power plant is likely to continue for more than a month. Power generation has declined as a whole in the eastern region,” said an official. As a result, Bihar got only 725 MW from the central sector on Monday as against its normal allocation of over 1600 MW, saidBihar State Electricity Board spokesman H R Pandey.

Bihar’s lone power generating plant at Barauni could generate 55 MW of power on Monday while Bihar’s joint venture power plant at Kanti in Muzaffarpur generated 80 MW. During the last one month, there has been no let-up in the power situation in the state. Rather, the situation has gone from bad to worse.

In protest against the scanty power supply, people have hit the streets in different parts of the state. Bihar is not able to buy power from the neighbouring states as they have no surplus power.

The situation is likely to worsen during the peak summer season. Due to power crisis, people are facing acute water crisis in districts like Banka, Munger, Jamui and others. State government has already expressed its inability to provide power to all in view of the alleged step motherly treatment by the Centre in respect of power supply from the central sector.

According to reports reaching here from districts, power availability is for barely a couple of hours. “We have been accustomed to live without power. We have to pay heavily for getting power from generator,” Ajay Singh, a businessman of Begusarai, said. Similar is the story in Samastipur, Gaya, Bhagalpur, Banka, Darbhanga, Madhubani and other districts.

The situation in the state capital is much better. Patna gets over 300 MW of power to meet its requirement. An equal amount of power goes for essential services like railways, border areas etc. A meagre amount of power is left to meet the needs of remaining parts of the state.

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Meet Some of the Dhoni’s friends

Posted: 04 Apr 2011 11:04 PM PDT

The Captain Courageous the world is celebrating went through many twists and turns, having started from a state side that struggled to go beyond the preliminary rounds. From a teammate whose chocolates he had whacked to skippers startled by his calm almost a decade ago, from the gear seller in Calcutta who got the country's most popular ad face his first endorsement to the coach who shaped an uncut diamond in a railway yard in Kharagpur, this is Mahendra Singh Dhoni's journey from being a struggler to a leader

DAY INDIA CAME CLOSE TO LOSING CRICKETER DHONI

Rana Chowdhury

Former Bihar and Bengal batsman whose association with Dhoni started with a limited-overs tournament in Dhanbad in 1999Today's Captain Cool had lost his fuse on a train from Howrah 11 summers ago and the country had almost lost Mahendra Singh Dhoni the cricketer.

Ignored for the East Zone squad, an emotional 19-year-old had dragged his kit bag towards the door of a running train to fling it away for good. If MSD lifted the World Cup on Saturday night, the nation should thank his former Ranji teammates from Bihar who had wrenched the bag and put it back under the seat of the Jamshedpur-bound train.

"Every one of us was trying to convince him that he was too good to be ignored for long," says Rana Chowdhury, a couple of years senior to Dhoni in the state team. Dhoni didn't drop his kit and India didn't drop yet another World Cup. In 2000, Jharkhand had still not been carved out of Bihar. Rana, 33, from Kulti in Bengal's Burdwan district, had shared the Bihar dressing room with Dhoni for a year before returning to his home state. That uncontrolled anger was an exception, Rana adds. "Even then he was very composed. That was all the more reason why we rushed to calm him down." That man calmed the nerves of 1.2 billion people on Saturday night with some ferociously wristy drives in the biggest stage of cricket. "He was always very friendly and mixed equally well with teammates and opponents. He'd never get flustered. If bowlers sledged him, he gave them a twinkling smile — something that irritated them beyond words. His only retort would be a smash hit to the fence," Rana recalls.

As Dhoni went hammer and tongs at the bowlers having opened the innings in a four-day Ranji match, the coach sent word asking him to settle down. Twelfth man Rana ran up to the middle at CC&FC in Calcutta.

"He smiled at me and said 'Tereko jo bolne ke liye bola gaya woh tu bol diya na? Ab wapas ja (You've said what you were asked to… now go back)'," says Rana. Dhoni slammed five boundaries the next over. "The coach hauled me up: 'Yeh kya chal raha hai? Tu ne ulta nahin na bol diya (What's going on? Sure you didn't give him the wrong message)'?" Dhoni got a 68 in no time against Assam in that match.

The steel in his innings in the World Cup final is an asset acquired with time. The Leader Dhoni knows to sacrifice flair for utility.

The lesson Rana learnt from his association with Dhoni? Keep your chocolates safe.

An inflated bill stumped him as he checked out of a Calcutta hotel after a Wills Trophy tie in 1999. The front office wanted Rana to pay for the chocolates in his refrigerator but he hadn't had any. A tiff was around the corner when

Dhoni appeared and said ever so casually that he had eaten all of them.

"He loved chocolates. He also loved his tandoori chicken. He had one full by himself."

MORNING OR EVENING, NEVER TIRED AT THE NETS

Subrata Kumar Banerjee

Coached Dhoni the ticket collector in Kharagpur

You can't beat him at sincerity and dedication, says Banerjee.

"When he joined us, he was a Ranji player but still he could never have enough of the game. He practised with the senior team in the morning and returned in the evening to play with the school kids in my academy," smiled Dhoni's Baghada.

"He'd throw a soft ball at a wall and practise wicketkeeping on his own. When he would tire of this, he'd slowly come up to me and say if he could keep wickets at the children's session. Eventually, he'd bowl and, when everyone else was done, he'd ask if he could bat."

Baghada would tell him "what good will it be playing against the kids"?

Dhoni would say "just 10 minute knock karega" and go on and on.

Was he ever stern with his pupil? Once, during an inter-railway tournament in

Nagpur in 2002-03, when captain Dhoni was with his friends in the opposite side more often than not and his own team was floundering. "After he spent a night with them, I called him aside and told him

'Mahi, you ought to be ashamed of your behaviour. You should be setting an example for the whole team'," said Banerjee. Dhoni scored a 78-ball 156, a 92 and an unbeaten 125 in the remaining matches and his friends' were among those mauled.

Tournament over, Dhoni asked: "Baghada, aap santusht huye hai na?"

On another occasion, when Banerjee was bowling to Dhoni in the nets and he was just blocking, the coach fished for a compliment and asked how well he was bowling. Mahi said he was wonderful even at that age and asked him to use a newer ball for more purchase off the wicket. "When I got carried away and changed the ball, he sent it out of the stadium, winked and said the old one wouldn't have gone very far."

I DON'T DRINK, YOU DON'T DRINK

Robin Kumar

Dhoni's skipper in the South Eastern Railway team with whom he had shared a one-room tenement in Kharagpur

A prankster and a fantastic cricketer, says Robin about his former colleague.

"Dhoni never touched liquor.

But some of us did. One day, while we were returning home around 1am, he drew a straight line on the road and

we tried walking along it for 45 minutes," says Robin.

He met Dhoni after a long time in 2006, a year after he had got married and his friend had debuted for the Indian Test team. When Robin showed his now famous friend his wife's photograph, Dhoni exclaimed: "Tereko gori ladki kahanse mil gayi (How did you manage a fair girl)!"

The next question: "S***, tu ne mujhe bulaya nahin!" Robin said he no longer had the famous Dhoni's address and MSD put on the smile he does after stumping batsmen: "You should have written Mahendra Singh Dhoni and left it anywhere in Ranchi. It would have reached me."

Dhoni loved soft drinks and gulped down a couple of bottles every day. "There was this friend of ours who would drink alcohol a lot. Mahi once asked him not to drink, at least that evening. He in turn asked Mahi to stay off his drink. That evening, both had lassi."

Robin thinks Dhoni's game has changed. "Six years ago, he wouldn't have been calm enough to take his team home in a World Cup final."

BRANDWAGON STARTS ITS ROLL FROM SHYAMBAZAR

Somnath Dasgupta

Owner of B. Dasgupta and Co, the sports goods shop in Shyambazar that got Dhoni his first endorsement deal

Dhoni was a regular Ranji player for Bihar when he walked into the small shop for a pair of half spikes.

"It was in 2000. He wanted half spikes but could not afford an Adidas, Nike or Reebok, which would come for around Rs 3,000. He picked up a pair made by Taurus, a

Jalandhar company," says Dasgupta. Sehwag, Harbhajan and Yuvraj had earned their India caps by then.

Dhoni was yet to land the job with South Eastern Railway — he joined in February 2001.

When Dhoni returned to the shop later that year, Dasgupta promised to arrange for him a sponsorship. The endorsement bandwagon started rolling in a slip of a north Calcutta shop. Dhoni's association with sports gear maker Beat All Sports (BAS) paved the way for the giants in the trade. "Don't think he got any money for it. They just provided him cricket gear free," says Dasgupta. "But you need to start somewhere."

With time, Dhoni moved on to SS bats. "You see a Reebok sticker on the blade but the edge has TON printed on it. That is an SS brand. Reebok has made an exception and allowed Dhoni to use the actual maker's name somewhere on the bat," says Dasgupta.

Dhoni approached him at the Eden in 2007 to fix a bat that he had used in the 2007 T20 World Cup. "The toe had split but he liked the bat so much I had to bind it for him."

FIRST SIGNS OF THE FEARLESS CRICKETER

Devang Gandhi

Dhoni's skipper in his first appearance for East Zone

Courage, Devang reckons, is what set Dhoni apart. "It is this courage that made him promote himself up the order in the World

Cup final. "In the 2003-2004 Deodhar Trophy final, Central Zone led by Mohammad Kaif had got around 345 in 50 overs. "Dhoni was to open for us. I asked him 'kya hoga'? He nonchalantly said 'Aap chinta mat karo DG Bhai, hum log jeetenge," recalls Devang. Dhoni scored 80-odd and the East won. "He used to hit the cricket ball much harder than Virender Sehwag does now," says Devang.

Later that season, then India skipper Sourav Ganguly had asked Devang what he thought of Dhoni. "Sourav wanted to try Dhoni as a wicketkeeper in the Duleep Trophy final though he was playing the tournament as a batsman and Deep Dasgupta was wearing the big gloves."

A SMALL STEP TO STARDOM — INDIA A

Pranab Roy

National selector from East Zone when Dhoni made his ODI debut

Fellow selectors had allegedly called him mad for backing Dhoni as the India keeper at a time he did not even keep for the East."It wasn't easy. Bengal's Deep Dasgupta was the India keeper then. But I took a risk in the Duleep Trophy final versus North Zone in 2003-04 and pushed for Dhoni.

The selectors had come down to see him but I did not tell Dhoni they were there especially for him. He started by hooking Nehra's first ball for six and got 70-odd.

He kept well, too, and that was the start of the road," says Roy.

"Deep will surely forgive me after Dhoni got us the Cup."

Dhoni was next selected for a couple of India A tours, including a tri-series involving Pakistan A and Kenya in which he got 362 runs in 7 matches at 72.40.

These knocks captured the imagination of skipper Sourav. The rest, as they say, is…

 

 

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