It is steadily getting worse and could easily spin out of control if it acquires a virulent form. The latest outbreak of the avian influenza sweeping West Bengal is the most serious India has ever faced

Bird flu has hit hard India's Rs 36,000-crore poultry industry, already smarting under a steep rise in essential feed prices. Although the flu is restricted to West Bengal, crashing wholesale prices

baglihar inspection: Pakistan has said that it will inspect the Baglihar dam before it becomes operational. Spokesperson of Pakistan's foreign office, Mohammad Sadiq, said on January 30 that the

Spurred by environmental concerns, the West Bengal Government is set to make it mandatory to have rainwater harvesting and solar power facilities in buildings. "Global warming and climate change are threatening us. We must, therefore, have greenhouse concepts like solar power and rainwater harvesting in new buildings. I am talking to my urban development minister to include these in the Municipal Act so that it becomes mandatory for all,' Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said today. Inaugurating the 'Realty Expo 2008' of the Confederation of Real Estate Developers Association of India (CREDAI), he described paucity of housing as a national problem and said his government was stressing on construction of housing projects both by the government, private players and through public-private partnership (PPP). With the PPP model having been successfully implemented in the state's housing sector, the government now wanted the private players to take up construction of related infrastructure like roads, bridges and flyovers, he said. Pointing out that Rs 15 crore had been collected towards construction workers' welfare after the government made it mandatory for real estate developers to contribute to it, the Chief Minister appealed to private developers for greater contribution towards the welfare fund.

Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav's budget has good news for Tata Motors. The Railway Budget proposes a dedicated freight corridor from Ludhiana in Punjab to Dankuni, located near Tata Motor's small car project site at Singur. Needless to say, the dedicated corridor will connect the Tata factory with the rest of India. However, there's some bad news for the company as well. As the preliminary survey work for the project from Dhanbad to Dankuni remains incomplete, funds have not been allocated. With Nano expected to hit the roads by October-November this year, the dedicated freight corridor might be a long way away for the Tata Motors to reap its benefit, unless put on fast track. Apart from this, however, there is not much for West Bengal to be happy about. The state has got only four new trains. Moreover, long standing projects like development of Howrah and Sealdah stations, Shalimar terminal station, the Kolkata station in Chitpur and extension and improvement of the Metro have been ignored. "Continuing the trend of the past few years, the Railway Budget is hopeless for Bengal. The dedicated freight corridor will benefit the much talked about Singur project. The original corridor was from Ludhiana to Dhanbad, which has now been extended to Dankuni. But no funds have been allotted and even preliminary survey is incomplete. Therefore, it will take years to become operational,' said Bhaskar Chaudhuri, a retired chief commercial manager of Eastern Railways. Tata's small car project lies in Singur, which is close to both the Dankuni Expressway, part of the Golden Quadrilateral, and the proposed freight corridor. The four new trains for West Bengal state are

The poultry industry, which has suffered losses on account of the recent outbreak of avian flu in West Bengal, is eagerly waiting for the government's subvention on interest rates charged on loans extended to them by banks. The Reserve Bank of India, last week, had issued guidelines to banks suggesting a one-year moratorium on repayment of outstanding loans, conversion of working capital loans into term loans, and re-schedulement of term-loan repayment as a relief to the affected poultry industry. According to sources, the finance minister P Chidambaram may announce the government's subvention rates on loans extended to the poultry industry either before the Budget or may spell it out in his Budget speech. The Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar had earlier announced that the government would work out separate relief packages for the poultry sector - one exclusively for poultry farmers in West Bengal and the other for the poultry industry in the country as a whole, which has suffered in sales due to a dip in prices in the country and the ban imposed by different countries on Indian poultry imports. The government's package would include subvention rates on interest charged by banks. He had assured that the financial package would be an improved one over that announced in March 2006 on account of the outbreak of bird flu. The March 2006 package contained 4% interest subvention, a one-year moratorium period for repayment of loans, conversion of working capital into loans, and extension of fresh loans for working capital. "The poultry industry had demanded zoning of poultry areas in the country based on geo-climatic conditions, so that exports from bird flu-free zones can be business as usual, ban on export of corn and soybean to augment feed availability, 7% central government's interest subvention on loans, and a two-year moratorium on repayment of loans,' said Anuradha Desai, chairperson of the National Egg Coordination Committee. The government has turned down the proposal for zoning of poultry areas, even though the industry had pointed out such zoning or compartmentalisation exists in the US and is allowed by the world animal health organisation - OIE. It has also refused to impose a ban on exports of corn or soybean. India has a poultry population of 489 million (nearly 3% of world's poultry), out of which 51% is concentrated in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal. Due to the recent incidence of avian flu in West Bengal, culling operations were undertaken not only in those states but also in parts of the neighbouring states - Assam, Bihar, and Jharkhand.