Block Level Information

Sonarpur Block is an administrative division located in the Baruipur Sub Division , It has a total area of 504 sq km and its head quarter is situated at Bosepukur , The main problem of this area is scarcity of safe drinking water as the block is an arsenic prone semi urbanise Block. There are 11 (eleven) gram panchayats under this block namely Bonhoogly I, Bonhoogly II, Kalikapur I, Kalikapur II, Kheyadah I, Kheyadah II, Kamrabad, Langalberia, Poleghat, Pratapnagar, Sonarpur-II . In the two Gram Panchayats, namely Kheyadah I, Kheyadah II, a part of Ramsar Wetland of East Kolkata is situated where the principal livelihood of the people is fishing. The population of this block is largely dominated by SC community while a small portion of the population in Kheyadah I, GP belongs to ST community , similarly people belonging to minority community make up a part of the minority population in Bonhoogly I, Bonhoogly II & Poleghat GPs . Although people of different communities live here but they live in absolute harmony.

The Block shares its boundary with KMC & Rajpur Sonarpur Municipality in North , Baruipur Block in South , Canning –II Block in the East and Bishnupur-I Block in the west respectively. This is also to be stated that Rajpur Sonarpur Municipality with an area of 55 sq km is a densely populated urban area situated adjacent to this Block.

The Block is well connected by railways as well as Road ways with The City of Kolkata. The nearest Railways station is Sornarpur, which is just two km away from the head quarter of the Block .

Major Scheme & Achievement:

The Kanyashree scheme is the brainchild of Honble Chief Minister of West Bengal. It is formulated for the upliftment of the girls of poor and downtrodden families and to impart education among them. It is a scheme under the purview of the Deptt. Of women and child development and social welfare, Govt. of W.B..The performance of Sonarpur Development Block has been very consistent since the inception of the scheme. For the year 2013-14 Sonarpur got the 2nd place regarding performance of Kanyashree in the whole district. For the year 2014-15 also the target was achieved. For the year 2015-16 about 97% of the target set by the district has already been achieved so far.

In 2015, labour budget target was 5.48 lakh and Sonarpur Block achieved 106% of said labour budget. This year the said labour budget has been fixed up as target to achieve by December 2016. _The Block authority has been holding meetings with NS in order to achieve the goal within the stipulated time period. The Block authority is confident that they will be able to hold on to the first position in the District in terms of percentage of women’s participation as it had done in the previous few years. This year special emphasis has been put on strip plantation so that the maximum possible number of trees can be planted and survived overcoming the deficiencies noticed last year. Apart from this, this year the Block Authorities are placing special emphasis on different convergence schemes like IAY, IHHL, ICDS centre construction, etc. At present as per the directives of the District authorities the Block administration is taking special initiative to run at least one scheme in every gram samsad.

The Block administration is successful in releasing the second installment of almost 95% cases for the financial year 2015-16 out of which a large no of beneficiaries have completed their houses after receiving the third installment. The project had got some impetus after its convergence with MGNREGS started which helped the indigent or poor beneficiaries to get their wages in addition to the cost of housing . Recently there is a transformation in this project as the IAY has been converted into PMAY where the unit cost of the housing has been raised to Rs 1.2 lakh in order the meet the sudden increase in material cost. The Block administration is stressing hard on hundred percent physical verification in order to make this Project successful.

Gitanjali is a rural housing scheme where people with a monthly income of Rs 6000/- or less can be selected as the beneficiaries The scheme is run by three departments in this State namely Backward Caste Welfare, Fisheries and Minority Affairs. In order to make this Housing Programme successful Block Administration is stressing hard on the 100% physical verification of said scheme. Regarding the implementation of this Scheme this can be stated that the Block Authority has already released the first instalments of more than 85% of the sanctioned cases out of which 30% of the beneficiaries have completed their housing.

Under this project six RSMs are actively participating. Although District Administration has fixed 31st March 2017 as the deadline for completion of this project, the Block Authorityis determined to complete the job by the end of December 2016. If the daily production of IHHL is 40, this target becomes achievable. To make the project a success, the GPs have been assigned the duty of verifying the survey report submitted by the AWW workers. The objective of the Sonarur Block administration is to make sure that every family living in this Block gets free access to a toilet. Special emphasis is being put on construction of community toilets for those who have no fixed places to live in like tramps and indigent people. To make this programme a success the Block administration is holding regular meetings with educational institutions, religious organisations, AWWs and SHG groups so that they can make some impact on the mind of the people.

The cumulative report of IIHL construction is as follows:

Since from this year, online scholarship is being introduced from class I, special emphasis has been put on the opening of accounts with different banks by the students. To facilitate the process of online application by students setting up a help desk at Block level is under consideration. The objective of the Block is to make sure that none of the eligible students is left outside the purview of the scholarship. In this regard regular meetings are held with all the Sikshabandhus with the SI of Schools acting as a medium for holding such meetings..

The project is taken up in order to felicitate the School going students living far away from their Schools. All the students of class X,XI,Xii and the girls students of class X have already come within the purview of this scheme. In this connection names of 5026 students were registered under this project. And 4387 No of bicycles have been received at this end out of which more than 96% have been distributed. The difference still exists as a few schools have mistakenly shown their roll strength to be more than what is actual.

This scheme brings security to the poorest of the poor people of the society. Regarding Old Age Pension it can be stated that although some bonafide beneficiaries were not getting the benefits from this scheme, now after cosulting the SEBA List the problems of most of such people have been solved. Recently in this regard the process of AADHAAR seeding and physical verification is on the verge of completion.