The spectre of infant deaths continued to haunt government hospitals in West Bengal, with 19 cases reported in Malda and Bankura over the past two days. While nine infants died in the Malda Medical College and Hospital, 10 children were reported dead in the Bankura Sammilani Medical College and Hospital.

The babies who died in the Bankura hospital were “suffering from pneumonia and birth asphyxia, while some had low birth weight,” superintendent Panchanan Kundu said.

BANKURA/PURULIA, 24 JAN: Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh today granted Rs 2,000 crore for providing safe drinking water to the people of Bankura district. “The Centre has approved Rs 1,000 crore for the first phase implementation of the project,” the minister said here today. Mr Ramesh held a meeting with Bankura district administrative official today. He urged the officials to lay more stress on the flagship MGNREGA project to address the crisis in the Maoist-hit blocks.

PURULIA, 4 DEC: Around 1,500 students of several primary and upper primary schools in Ayodhya hills have been studying in classrooms that do not have either electricity or proper drinking water facilities for many years now due to lack of funds.

. 20,000-cr project was put on a backburner after demand for steel got affected due to recession in 2008
After three years of shilly-shallying, a business group looks set to give wide-eyed villagers in Salboni in West Bengal their first factory and the state its largest industrial project in years.

Oil and gas major ONGC and two other companies have taken preliminary interest in developing solar projects at Purulia district in West Bengal. The total capacity of such project(s) may range up to 900 MW.

Purulia, Nov. 6: A Maoist couple in Purulia today became the first to surrender after Mamata Banerjee announced a revised rehabilitation package in August.
Some rebel sources suggested that the two might have been persuaded to give themselves up by police who had “picked them up” a couple of months ago.
Balarampur residents Durjodhan Rajwar, 32, alias Sujan, and wife Akri Sahis, 20, alias Lata, surrendered before Purulia police chief Sunil Chowdhury.

KOLKATA, 28 SEPT: The state public health engineering department will supply piped water to the arid districts of Purulia and Bankura from Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC) by undertaking a Rs 2,600 crore project which would be funded by Japan International Coorporation Agency (JICA).
State PHE minister Mr Subrata Mukherjee announced this while releasing a “Vision 2020” document which promises that the department will ensure supply of at least 70 litres of water per head to the entire rural population by the end of the decade.

It is ironic that India, which is aiming to become a hub of medical tourism and boasts of world class medical facilties, cannot provide even basic midwifery services and primary health care to thousands of pregnant women. Not only is the country’s maternal mortality rate high, in some districts like Purulia nearly half the women die during pregnancy and child birth

PURULIA, 14 SEPT: Despite the Centre having introduced the Forest Rights Act in 2006 to distribute forest land to the tribals, the district administration here is yet to do so for most of the Kheria Sabars due to its lackadaisical attitude.

Calcutta, Aug. 7: The hospital chain run by cardiac surgeon Devi Shetty has submitted a detailed proposal to the Mamata Banerjee government for the development of crucial infrastructure now missing in rural hospitals.

The blueprint proposes to set up dialysis units, diagnostic laboratories, cardiac catheterisation laboratories and coronary care units near the district hospitals at Purulia, Birbhum, East Midnapore, Nadia and Malda.