A tourism circuit stretching from Ayodhya and Jaichandi hills in Purulia district in West Bengal to Kolkata is being set up, the state's Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today announced here on the first leg of her three-day visit to Jangalmahal.
Banerjee said that work for the circuit, which would also pass through Bankura and West Midnapore districts, had begun for which a sum of Rs 3.10 crore had already been disbursed out of a total estimated cost of Rs 4.80 crore.
She was talking to the media at the end of her two-hour-long meeting with the officials of the district administration including the DM, ADM, Zilla Sabhadhipati and others.
State Panchayat minister Subroto Mukherjee and self help minister Santiram Mahato were also present during her interaction.
Among several schemes she announced for the district, was a plan to revive the once-prosperous cultivation of lac and lac industry.
She also said that two new degree colleges were being set up in the district, one at Manbazar block 1 and the other at Purulia block 1.
In the upcoming Raghunathpur industrial zone in the district, several crores of rupees would be invested by the government, she declared.
She blamed the recent lacunae in the implementation of the 100 days work programme in the district on the Centre, and that rural electrification too had made no appreciative progress because of the Centre's tardy approach.
She said she had talked to the concerned central government officials on the project and hoped to start afresh in six to seven months.
She also called for global publicity for the famous Chou dance of the district.
