Agartala: In a goodwill gesture, Bangladesh government has agreed to allow its territory for ferrying food grains and other essential commodities through Ashuganj port to landlocked Tripura, a top official said on Sunday.

“Bangladesh government has allowed transportation of food grains through Ashuganj port in their territory from Kolkata and the Food Corporation of India (FCI) has taken the initiative to bring the foodgrains using the water route which would cut off the distance and hassles of carrying the supply through the mountainous region by trucks,” said B K Roy, the Commissioner for Food and Civil Supplies.

“We would like to bring 5000 MT rice from Kolkata to Agartala via Ashuganj port bypassing the Assam-Agartala National Highway (NH-44)”, he told PTI.

While the distance between Agartala and Kolkata via Guwahati is 1650 km, it is just 350 km when it is transported through Bangladesh.

“Due to shortage of rail wagons, inadequate storage facilities and various other bottlenecks, the northeastern states have been suffering from poor supply of food grains, especially during the monsoon,” he said.

The northeastern states are largely dependent on supply of food grains from other states like Punjab and Haryana. Roy, however, assured that Tripura has sufficient buffer stock of two months for the rainy season which was created to avoid transport bottlenecks in the Public Distribution System (PDS).

The Centre has agreed provide Rs 25 crore to set up 16 godowns in Tripura for storing 10,000 MT of rice.

India had long been demanding transit and transshipment of goods for the landlocked north eastern region for shortening distance and smooth transportation.

The region has a 4,095 km long border with Bangladesh.

In the monsoon, road transport through Assam via Siliguri in West Bengal becomes extremely difficult due to the hilly terrain, landslide and the occassional flood. (PTI)

Kohima: After the announcement of ‘non-cooperation’ by the youth organisation of Kohima under the leadership of Angami Youth Organization (AYO), the Federal Government of Nagaland (NNC/FGN) has alleged that there are duplicate Naga National Council (NNC) and duplicate FGN in Nagaland creating problems in the state.

In a statement from the FGN, responding to give a ‘clear-cut’ clarification in the aftermath of April 7 Kohima incident, where one civilian was injured in a shootout, said such groups led by the ‘renegades’ have been creating trouble by ‘extorting money and intimidating the people in the pretext of the nation’.

Referring to the April 17 last incident, the statement clarified that the said ‘ss capt’, involve in Kohima incident, was from Yoruba Village, Chakhesang region and is an active worker of Singnya-Zhopra group, the duplicate FGN and not original NNC/FGN’. It alleged that such persons were tarnishing the image of the ‘Naga nation’. (UNI)

Guwahati: Intelligence Bureau Additional Director R N Behura, who had suffered serious injuries in a road accident on April 9, died on Sunday morning.

Behura (56) breathed his last at the Guwahati Neurological Research Centre (GNRC), where he was undergoing treatment for past six days, officials said.

A 1979 batch IPS officer of the Manipur-Tripura cadre who hailed from Orissa, he had met with an accident at Sonapur near Guwahati.

He was on his way back to Guwahati from Numaligarh in Golaghat district when his car collided with a truck. He had been admitted to GNRC in critical condition. Behura was returning after investigating the blast which took place at Numaligarh Oil Refinery on April 7.

Assam Police Additional DGP Pallab Bhattacharya, who was in the same car, was also injured in the incident and is undergoing treatment but his condition is stated to be stable. Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi visited GNRC to pay his last respects to Behura.(PTI )

Agartala: Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar, who along with a few other chief ministers had forced the central government to convene a special meeting on setting up of National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC), left here Sunday to attend Monday’s crucial meet in New Delhi.

A Tripura government official said here on Sunday that the April 16 meeting, which will be inaugurated by Prime Minister DrManmohan Singh, would review the internal security situation in the country.

Sarkar, also a Communist Party of India-Marxist politburo member, earlier in a letter to the prime minister strongly opposed the proposed counter-terror intelligence centre and demanded a meeting of chief ministers.

Many non-Congress ruled states including West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, her Odisha counterpart Naveen Patnaik and Tamil Nadu counterpart J.Jayalalithaa besides Tripura chief minister have opposed the NCTC alleging that in its present form it amounts to infringement of the power of the state. (IANS)

Agartala: The Tripura government on Sunday launched an ambitious programme to make its capital Agartala a Hepatitis free city, considering northeastern India’s vulnerability to this highly contagious disease.

According to experts, the northeastern states are highly prone to various types of hepatitis.

Agartala Municipal Council (AMC), Tripura health department in association with Hepatitis Foundation of Tripura (HFT), an NGO, Sunday initiated the ambitious scheme to make the capital city Agartala Hepatitis free.

“This is for the first time in India such type of health programme was launched to make the capital city free from the virus disease,” HFT president and renowned gastro-enterologist Pradip Bhowmik told IANS.

He said: “Around 50,000 people irrespective of their age are to receive the vaccine at highly subsidised rate. The second and third doses would be administered May 20 and Oct 14.”

Tripura Health Minister Tapan Chakraborty accompanied by AMC chairperson Prafullajit Sinha formally launched the mass vaccination programme here Sunday. The Tripura government in alliance with HFT, had launched the ‘At birth Hepatitis vaccination’ programme since January last year. The HFT is actively working in the northeastern state since 2002 and conducts mass vaccination of Hepatitis B and has attracted national attention for its unique battle against the disease. The ICMR, the apex body to formulate plans, coordination and promotion of biomedical research and one of the oldest medical research bodies in the world, recently decided to carry out a study to determine the incidences of hepatitis in the northeastern region, bordering China, Bhutan, Myanmar and Bangladesh.

The head of the department of gastro-enterology of Gauhati Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) and principal investigator for the study, Bhabadev Goswami said that Arunachal Pradesh has the highest incidence of Hepatitis B infection in the country.

Goswami said that they would start work on the study within the next couple of months. The three-year study will cover the entire northeastern region, including Sikkim. (IANS)

Agartala: Two Mumbai-based entrepreneurs have expressed interest in making bamboo-based products like handicrafts, furniture and sticks for Agarbatti (incense stick) making, official sources said on Sunday.

“They have agreed to invest Rs. 80 crore for setting up two industrial units – at the proposed Bamboo Park at Bodhjungnagar – and have already bought five acres of land from us”, Chairman of Tripura Industrial Development Corporation said.

Chief Minister Manik Sarkar laid the foundation stone for the Bamboo Park on January 27 which aimed to ensure value addition to bamboo and also to ensure the rise in economic standards by the increase in production of bamboo based products.

The central government has sanctioned Rs. 29 crore for its development, spread over 69 acres of land which is just 12 km from here.

“Now infrastructures like roads, provision for water and electricity are being built which is likely to be completed by next six to seven months”, he added.

Tripura has registered a 240 per cent absolute growth rate and 35.8 per cent compound annual growth rate in the production of bamboo-based products like handicrafts, furniture and sticks for Agarbatti-making.

Expressing satisfaction at the growth rate, state’s Forest Minister, Jitendra Chowdhury, informed Tripura assembly last month that there had been a commensurate increase in the revenue also.

“While in 2006-07 our turn-over was Rs 28 crore, it grew more than three fold at Rs 93.05 crore this year which represents a 240 per cent absolute growth rate,” Chowdhury said.

Buoyed by the development, the state government has set an ambitious target of Rs 200 crore per annum by 2016.

The minister, who also holds the industry portfolio, said the state earned 80 per cent of its profit in bamboo products by making sticks for Agarbatti which met 60 per cent of the country’s total demand for the product.

He said the state had set a target of Rs 54 crore as revenue next year, compared to Rs 30.93 crore this year, from the sale of bamboo and handicrafts alone. (PTI)