Kolkata to get country’s first floating market
Kolkata is to get the country’s first floating market on the lines of the one in Bangkok, Thailand. More than 200 shops in four clusters, for vegetables, fish, grocery and meat, would come up over 30,000 sqm at Patuli, where the local water bodies were recently cleaned at a cost of `10 crore. Walkways would be built in each cluster, with shops on boats on both sides of the walkways. The market would provide employment to shopkeepers who lost their livelihood after the Eastern Metropolitan Bypass was widened to six lanes. Though Dal Lake in Srinagar has a floating market, it is not organised, and customers arrive by Shikaras.
Derogatory Facebook page back
A Kolkata-based Facebook page, ‘Specified Tarkata’, is back on track, posting derogatory memes after administrator Manimay Aich was recently released from Kolkata police’s custody. The page was reported by several Facebook users, who also sent messages to the Facebook page of Kolkata Police about offensive memes on Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and other freedom fighters. However, returning under the name ‘Specified Tarkata 2’, Aich asserted that he would not be silenced by arrests, and made memes on Kolkata Police and the public for curbing his “creativity”.
East-West Metro corridor to miss June deadline
Kolkatans will not get to take the first ride on the East-West Metro corridor in June 2018 as proposed earlier. With the first delivery of the 14 BEML-made rakes for the corridor to begin only in March, the project is already delayed by five months. Bengaluru-based BEML has blamed the delay on the time taken to import a special cable from France, as the whole of Europe is currently enjoying a long Christmas and also New Year holidays.
Buses to ply throughout night in 2018
The new year has brought good news to Kolkatans who have to work till late at night and worry about their safety while booking cabs to go home. Special GPS-enabled 34-seater buses run by the West Bengal government will operate throughout the night on some busy routes, including Howrah and Sealdah railway terminuses and Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport, from March. The air-conditioned buses will be equipped with CCTV cameras for the safety of travellers, particularly women.
Our correspondent in West Bengal chanda.aishik@gmail.com