I-T raid hauls Rs 23 cr from trust

KOLKATA: Income tax officials carried out a six-month long survey (read investigation) and found that a Diamond Harbour-based trust had evaded Rs 23 crore tax in the last fiscal. Bank accounts of Sunmarg – the trust – have been frozen and the entire amount has been recovered by the I-T department.

In July 2011, the department had got whiff that the trust was actually violating some clauses that allowed it exemptions as a charitable trust. Officials carried out lengthy surveys to corroborate these doubts and found the allegations to be true. “We immediately attached their bank accounts and recovered the money. This is perhaps the biggest haul from a trust. They have gone to our appellate division seeking exemption. That is a procedure that will take some time to conclude. For the moment, we are happy that our officers were able to discover pitfalls in their claims and started investigation,” said Ajay Singh, director, I-T department, West Bengal.

Sumarg remains registered as a charitable trust to this date. However, it had been dealing in microcredit and its receipts were checked to see if it was fulfilling its criterion of social responsibility. There were several loopholes in this and tax officers assessed the amount of tax evaded by the trust, which was immediately deducted.

“It took us so long to book the company because they claim to be a trust. There are several ways in which they can claim tax exemption. They kept buying time from us on the pretext that they would be able to produce receipts for the charitable work that they had conducted. However, most of their claims were false,” said an officer involved in the probe.

CID may question former minister in Iron ore scam

KOLKATA: With two IAS officers already in custody, the CID is now zeroing in on a former minister for his alleged role in the iron ore scam in which West Bengal Essential Commodities Supply Corporation Ltd lost more than Rs 300 crore.

Investigators have reasons to believe that most of the board members were aware of the financial irregularities. Significantly, the minister in charge of food department is the ex-officio chairman of the board and he can’t deny his role in such important decisions, hinted a CID officer. He confirmed that they may question the then minister after going through the records.

Records say the decision of supplying iron ore to some Chinese firms was taken during the tenure of Kalimuddin Shams and it was operation in the end of 2004 during formerForward Bloc MLA and then minister Naren De’s regime.

According to the formation of Corporation’s board of directors, the minister-in-charge acts as the chairman and the managing director is the ex-officio secretary. Apart from the duo, a bureaucrat from the finance department and the principal secretary of the food department are the members of the board.

The investigators claimed that a few members of the board pointed out some financial irregularities in export business, but the influential section of the board ignored their objection and allowed the corporation to pay five installments to the shipping company in advance.

When contacted, former food minister Naren De said , “I took charge after Kalimuddin Shams and it is true that during my tenure the export was done. If CID wants to interrogate me, I would cooperate.”

The investigators said that along with De, they may speak to his successor Paresh Adhikary since the scam was detected during his tenure.

“In May 2006, I took charge and I was informed about the scam after few months. I ordered an inquiry and found some of our employees involved. Police complaint was made in 2007,” said Adhikary.

He hinted that several documents related to the scam are missing and it was spotted during the departmental inquiry. CID officers also admitted that some crucial documents are missing including some financial detail and some letters. “We are trying to recover the lost documents that may provide fresh clues,” said another officer.

Sufi trail leads world to Bengal

KOLKATA: From the biggest music magazine of Europe to the tribal drumming association of Ghana, Kolkata, the classical music capital, now has the world’s attention for its love for sufi.

Come Friday, artistes from Azerbaijan, Denmark, Egypt, Hungary and Morocco will rock Mohar Kunj and exchange notes with their cousins in West Bengal, Delhi and Kashmir. The stage is set for Sufi Sutra II, organized by Banglanatak.com and designed by fusion maestro Tanmoy Bose, on February 3-5. And this time, the music extravaganza will feature both European and Persian sufi, alongside Indian performances. Bauls and fakirs from Nadia and Murshidabad will showcase Bangla qawwali, and there will be workshops every morning, followed by akhras, which will also feature Nirgun artistes from Bihar, an exclusive sect of Kabir followers.

“This event will be an amalgamation of sufi practitioners and sufi performers. At Mohar Kunj, one will get to see mystics who sing at dargahs and holy shrines all over the world,” says Banglanatak head Amitava Bhattacharya. “Following the success of Sufi Sutra I, rural singers showcased their art in places like Tunisia, Geneva and London. Last night (Tuesday) another rural group performed in Damascus, Syria,” says Bhattacharya, whose Art for Life initiative has earned support from a wide range of global organizations.

“The spirit of the Morocco Sacred Festival will be invoked with the participation of artistes from Fez. They sing sufi in a mixture of Arabic and tribal languages. I had the opportunity to see them in action while on a tour with guruji Ravi Shankar ji,” says Tanmoy Bose. “I would like to find out what last year’s audience listened to for one long year… How much homework have they done on world music following last year’s festival,” he laughs.

Sufi is meant to blur barriers. Sufi compositions convey a message of peace, acceptance, brotherhood and universal love. But the Orient West Choir from Denmark, composed of Israeli and Palestinian orchestra members, is a lesson in itself. Led by Dalia Faitelson, the ensemble attempts to “break down the barriers between Jewish and Palestinian musicians, thereby embracing one of the most pertinent political topics of our times.”

AMRI fire: A tale of three heroes

KOLKATA/KOTTAYAM: All three of them are aged around 22; their sense of responsibility had prompted them to risk their own lives and save others; and each one hails from a very poor family. And that is where the similarities end.

While Keralite nurses Vineeta P K and Ramya Rajappan died unable to survive the soot and carbon which blackened their lungs, Panchanantala resident Shankar Maity pulled through after battling for life for 15 days. But, as honour and financial help keep pouring in for the two nurses, Shankar has to be content with a medal, 5,000 in cash and a yet-to-be-fulfilled promise of a job.

Accolades, blessings and felicitation has poured in for this undergraduate youth – one from his own Lake View High School which he cherishes the most – but nothing that has changed the drudgery of his life. A government reward of 5,000 and an NGO that came forward to help his family didn’t make much difference. The only difference : Shankar used to wash cars earlier; now his failing health doesn’t even permit him to do that.

Shankar’s father Sashadhar, 50, is a railway hawker who struggles to make ends meet. Shankar’s elder sister Saraswati – a cost accountancy student – remains the only hope for the family. Shankar had to stop studying after two years in college due to lack of money.

That fateful day, Shankar had braved smoke and fire to singlehandedly rescue 25 patients from the AMRI annexe buildings. Many of them and their families paid him a visit at the Ramkrishna Mission Seva Prathisthan where he was being treated all this while, to bless him and pray for him.

For the poor families of Vineeta and Ramya in Kerala, the story has been somewhat different. The KR Narayanan Memorial Super Specialty Hospital, which is under construction in Uzhavoor – the hometown of former President K R Narayanan – will have two blocks named after the heroic nurses who saved eight patients on December 9, 2011. Ramya hails from Uzhavoor.

In Kothanalloor, the home town of Vineeta, the local administration will name a road after her. Financial aid, too, has poured in – even from Keralites based abroad. Both families are expected to get around 20 lakh. Both families received a cheque for 5 lakh from AMRI Hospitals and another 5 lakh from the Kerala government . Apart from that, the respective panchayats had sanctioned an amount of 75,000 for the families under the Indira Awas Yoyana. Two days ago, an organisation of Malayalis based in London handed over an amount of 40,000 each to both families. “Apart from these, there are many others who have helped us financially. On Saturday, members of two local wealthy families handed over some money to us,” said Vineetha’s father Kunjumon.

In another instance, an individual from Thrissur district, who did not want his identity disclosed, gave Ramya’s family 25,000. The chief minister of Kerala, Oommen Chandy, said the government will provide job for a family member of both Ramya and Vineetha. The government has also recommended the names of both nurses for National Bravery Awards. Aid has come from Kolkata too – nurses at RIICTS had given 51,600 to each family.

On Monday in Thiruvananthapuram , the Indian Nursing Council will hand over cheques worth Rs 1 lakh to each family, said Kunjumon. Rajesh, Ramya’s brother, told TOI that the West Bengal government has offered to give them 5 lakh. “We got a cheque for 5 lakh from the Kolkata hospital and another 5 lakh from the Kerala government. Bengal will give us another 5 lakh. The police verification regarding this was done the other day,” he said.

And what does Shankar have to speak about? The youth, somewhat reticent for his age, mentions that Ramkrishna Mission Seva Prathisthan didn’t take a single paisa for his treatment. “They took good care of me. Without the Ramakrishna Mission Maharajas, I wouldn’t be talking to you today,” he said. When asked about AMRI’s promise to pay them 10,000 and the state government’s offer for jobs, Shankar doesn’t have an answer. He smiles and says: “We don’t know where to apply for either. An NGO took my bio-data . Someone else had also met me with a job promise, but didn’t commit. A job will make a lot of difference to me and my family.”

Even after a month, the events of that fateful day refuse to let him alone, Shankar says. “Whenever I’m alone or I close my eyes, those images come back to haunt me. People clinging to me desperately, begging to take them out, helpless and weak. I did what I could. I dragged 25 people out and lowered them through the window to the fire ladders with hospital bedsheets,” he says.

He kept at it till he could take no more smoke, he said. He says he would have collapsed, till the OC of Lake police station called out to him forced him to have a cup of tea and a few bananas, which he still feels stopped him from collapsing. “Even now when I look out of my window at the hospital building, those images of people shouting and breaking window panes return. That day when we entered the hospital scaling the boundary walls, we didn’t realise the implications. Now when people and clubs invite me to speak, I realise that I have perhaps done something good,” he says.

But doesn’t he feel bad that in spite of the promises, his life still remains the way it is? Shankar says: “I only hope that somehow I get a job. I can’t perhaps do physically strenuous jobs like I could have done before, but I need to help my father as the only son to meet the family requirements. At this age, he leaves home early and returns late only for us. But even in this hardship, he often tells me that he couldn’t have been more proud of me.”

Forum for justice

KOLKATA: The families of AMRI fire victims have come together to fight for justice. The Human Health Right Forum (HHRF), formed by around 20 families, met on Sunday to chalk out its future plan of action. Apart from seeking justice and cooperating with the government, they also plan to move court regarding the compensation that the AMRI authorities promised.

“We want a case to be registered under Section 302 of the IPC against the AMRI authority,” said HHRF secretary Subhasis Chakraborty, who lost his wife Munmun in the inferno.

Ex-servicemen in railways write to President

KOLKATA: They stood guard along the borders while rest of the country enjoyed their sleep. Many of them did battle in inhospitable terrain and missed death by a whisker. Many of them are graduates and some even hold post-graduate degrees.

Today, these ex-servicemen work as gangmen and trackmen under railway Public Way Inspectors (PWI), packing sleepers with ballast, clearing undergrowth near tracks and changing rails. This is how the country treats its veterans.

Unable to stand this physical and mental torment, 27 ex-servicemen working for the Sealdah division of Eastern Railway have written to the President, Prime Minister, defence minister and railway minister, seeking deployment in suitable jobs.

“Not only do we have to perform tasks that we are not used to, we also have to remove carcasses and other items from the tracks. We are always concerned that we may not be able to do justice to our jobs as we are not properly trained. Moreover, there are no career prospects for trackmen. While in the defence services, we attained higher rank and supervisory posts. The skills that we picked up there are not put to use. We are made to do menial jobs instead,” the letter to the President states.

Most of them are between 40-50 years old and received some training in different trades before their retirement from the services. There are several security-related posts vacant in the railways that could have been filled up by them. The ex-servicemen have stated from the Railway Establishment Book – 2010, that ex-servicemen can be directly employed as Group-C employees by the railways. The veterans have claimed that there is a rule that a soldier, who is a matriculate and has served in the services for 15 years, may be treated at par with a graduate.

The former soldiers are worried that they are untrained in the job they are made to do and this may result in an accident. Any such accident would be a cause of for embarrassment for the ex-servicemen, widows and serving soldiers and officers in the Army, Navy and Air Force.

Recently, during a re-employment rally in West Bengal, senior officers of the Eastern Command and Bengal Area had urged prospective employers not to typecast the veterans into those capable of doing menial jobs. For several years now, the soldiers and JCOs receive training in various trades before retirement. If employed, they can serve as skilled and dedicated workers.

CM wants special status forPresidency University

KOLKATA: Chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday expressed that she was in favour of granting special status to Presidency University. She also announced that five professor chairs at Presidency would be named after five state luminaries.

“We want institutions in West Bengal to do well, and we may as well consider special status for Presidency, and there is need for funds for the institution,” the CM said. Harvard professor and chairman of the mentor committee, Sugato Bose, had called on the CM on Monday evening, and these were part of the discussions, said officials.

Mamata said that a discussion was currently on for Presidency’s proposed special status. She said Jadavpur University had recently got Rs 50 crore from the Centre and even Bengal Engineering and Science University (BESU) is demanding Central status, adding that “even Presidency requires money”.

This is in line with the suggestions given by the mentor group. According to a report submitted by the mentor group to the state government, though Presidency is a state university, it should be given a special status, given that it is a “crown jewel” of institutions of higher education in Bengal.

Also, that in addition to the state government’s resources and the university’s own fund generation, a proposal should be sent for substantial capital grant from the Centre. Many radical changes were suggested, saying that a special status would help attract the best academics, who cannot be expected to come to teach at Presidency without a good compensation package.

With the chief minister also feeling the same about the “special status”, the chances of Presidency getting the tag becomes much more easier now.

The CM also announced that following the mentor group’s suggestion, the government was approving the proposal for four chairs of professorship in the names of Jagadish Chandra Bose (on natural sciences), Rabindranath Tagore (on literature and cultural studies), Swami Vivekananda (on philosophy) and Subhas Chandra Bose (on economics, political science and history).

And the state government in addition, had decided on its own to create another chair in the name of poet and revolutionary Nazrul Islam. This had already been passed on to the higher education secretary.

A chair at a university is a professorship – while some professorships are named, either after a founder or donor or a luminary in order to commemorate someone, a named chair is more prestigious than one without a name.

Asked whether the same would be done in other universities, the CM said the state government would decide on these issues once state higher education minister Bratya Basu is back in town.