Fake currency worries Malda

Statesman News Service

MALDA, 28 JULY: The English Bazaar MLA, Mr Krishnendu Choudhury has informed the finance minister Dr Asim Dasgupta that fake Indian currency is spreading across the district, creating a ‘parallel economy'.

He has urged the finance minister to check the menace with an ‘iron hand’ and pointed out that though the police and BSF were recovering fake Indian currency, a huge amount of such counterfeit notes were being smuggled, evading the security forces along the border.

Apprehending security concerns and law and order problems, Mr Choudhury, in his written representation to Dr Dasgupta, has pointed out that fake Indian currency racketeers have created a ‘safe corridor’ between Jharkhand-Bihar and Bangladesh on the eastern side.

Submitting the representation to the finance minister and a group of cabinet ministers at a meeting held at Old Circuit House on 26 July, the English Bazaar MLA also informed him that a large number of arms, ammunitions and explosives (powerful IEDs) are being recovered by the police on a regular basis from Kaliachak police station area which has further necessitated that Malda, located along the Indian-Bangladesh border, should be considered from a different angle.

Recently recovered powerful IEDs from Kaliachak area were also discussed in the meeting on that day and the Malda police superintendent replied ‘satisfactorily’ before the group of ministers.

Besides the issue of security concerns, the MLA English Bazaar has approached the finance minister for expansion of the present English Bazaar town, adding a rural belt Sahapur located on the Mahananda. He claimed that “the land can easily be developed as a Second Township or notified area before the entire area goes into the hands of a few promoters and political goons.”

The English Bazaar MLA also demanded, among other things, the implementation of a medical college in Malda, a Lakshmipur drainage scheme to check water-logging and floods due to excessive rain, implementation of the proposed Silk Park, the development of a rationing system and more focus on the distressed minority community.

“The office of minorities, which was set up with the sole mission to mobilise this community both socially and economically, is falling far short of its avowed goal,” Mr Choudhury pointed out.