Helping hand

The Assam government plans to give pension to 1.6 million senior citizens of the state, said chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal while reviewing the implementation of the programmes and schemes of the Panchayat and Rural Development Department at a meeting at Janata Bhawan, Guwahati last week, says a report in The Assam Tribune. The P&RD officials have to expedite the pension process in a bid to empower senior citizens.

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Under the new initiative, the state government would provide pension to all senior citizens who are 60 years and above irrespective of whether they belong to the above poverty line or below poverty line category. The pensioners would get Rs 250 per month and this will be transferred to their accounts online. Moreover, to weed out any discrepancy in the list of pensioners, the preliminary list of selected beneficiaries would be displayed in the gaon panchayat offices and would be discussed in the gaon sabhas. Further, names of beneficiaries for entry in the list will be reopened every six months.

Not welcome

Manipur police sent back 45 illegal immigrants who were allegedly trying to enter the state without valid identification proof and arrested three immigrants from different check posts at Indo-Myanmar border, says a report in the Imphal Free Press.

Police reportedly sent back 38 immigrants from the Mao check post and seven from Jiribam. Moreh police also arrested three immigrants from the Indo-Myanmar border town.

Security measures at the state borders have been beefed up considerably after chief minister, N Biren Singh, issued a strong directive to police not to allow entry of illegal immigrants into the state.

If any illegal immigrants are detected under the jurisdiction of certain police station, then all the officers concerned of the police station will face stringent action for giving passage to illegal immigrants, Biren cautioned.

The chief minister issued the directive following a series of arrests of illegal immigrants including Rohingyas from the state particularly from Imphal.

River dolphin capital

Chhaygaon MLA Rekibuddin Ahmed has called upon the government to tap Kulsi river resources in order to make Kulsi a tourism destination, says a report in The Assam Tribune. Asking the government to harness the river-centric civilisations as a tool for attracting tourists from all over the world, Ahmed stressed on the need to declare Kulsi as the “River Dolphin capital of Assam”.

Speaking in a public meeting last week after laying the foundation stone of a 38-metre bridge (estimated value Rs 2.35 crore) that will link Champupara and Bhaurabhitha village under Chhaygaon LAC in Kamrup district, Ahmed lamented that the Assam government has so far not devised an adequate policy for tourism-centric development of the rivers of Assam in line with the rivers of Switzerland, Hong Kong or Singapore.

“I have visited beautiful river-based tourism destinations of Singapore, Switzerland et al, and the same could be done using the rivers of Assam like Kulsi,” he said.

Ahmed said that Kulsi river has reportedly the thickest population of Gangetic river dolphin (platanista gangetica), an endangered aquatic mammal in the world and, hence there is tremendous potential to project Kulsi as a tourism hotspot.