TMC party supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee addresses a rally in Kolkata. (PTI/File)The West Bengal Cabinet on Monday approved the setting up of seven new districts in the state, taking the total number of districts to 30, up from the existing 23.
Announcing the Cabinet decision, the Chief Minister said the seven districts will be carved out of five existing districts — Murshidabad, Nadia, South and North 24 Parganas, and Bankura.
A new Sundarban district will be carved out of both South and North 24 Parganas districts; two new districts, Ichhamati in Bongaon subdivision and a yet unnamed district in Basirhat, will be created out of North 24 Parganas district; Ranaghat, a city and municipality in Nadia district, will become the fourth new district; a new district of Bishnupur will be carved out of the existing Bankura district; and two new districts of Baharampur and Kandi will be created out of Murshidabad district.
Sources in the state administration said the new districts were created to streamline administrative operations. “It is purely an administrative decision. The Chief Minister wanted to decentralise the system and that is why she went in for smaller districts. Earlier, the government had carved out Kalimpong from Darjeeling, Jhargram from West Midnapore and split Burdwan into East and West districts.”
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Dismissing reports of a possible dissolution of the state Cabinet, CM Banerjee said she would carry out a reshuffle and fill in key vacancies. She added that the new ministers – four to five of them – would take oath Wednesday evening.
“Subrata Mukherjee and Sadhan Pandey are no more. Partha da (Partha Chatterjee) is in jail. They had held important departments like panchayat, industry, consumer affairs and many more. I cannot take any more pressure. So I have to get some new faces in the Cabinet. Some leaders will be sent to the party organisation too.”
Sources also said the revamped Cabinet will have TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee’s imprint, and will have young faces.
Babul Supriyo, Partha Bhowmick, Udayan Guha, Snehasish Chakraborty are among the young faces who may be included in the Cabinet. Sources also said minister Paresh Adhikari, whose name features in the teacher recruitment scam, and another senior minister, Soumen Mahapatra, may be dropped from the Cabinet.
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First published on: 01-08-2022 at 01:24:44 pm