Sources :The Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) and the Indian state-run National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) signed here today (Monday-30-08-2010) a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for improving power stations in Bangladesh.

The NTPC, as government utility of India, as per the MoU will assess the feasibility of establishing coal-based power stations in Bangladesh. It will also make endeavour to improve human resources through training and development and look into the possibilities for developing power generations projects especially one coal-based project in Joint Venture.

Md. Abul Quasem,Chief Engineer (generation) of BPDB and Mr. A K Sharma, General Manager, of NTPC signed the MoU on behalf of their respective organizations at the NTPC Bhawan here this morning.

Indian Power Secretary P Uma Shankar and Chairman of the Bangladesh Power development Board Mr. A S M Alamgir Kabir witnessed the signing of the MoU. Bangladesh High Commissioner to India Mr. Tariq A Karim, Chairman of NTPC R. K. Sharma and senior officials of the NTPC and the members of the Bangladesh delegation were also present.

The NTPC may provide engineering consultancy service to BPDB for feasibility studies, site selection, technology selection, engineering design etc, for developing two coal based power projects approximately 1320 MW each in Khulna and in Chittagong, the MoU envisaged.

“The purpose of the MoU is to create a framework for the general understanding between NTPC and BPDB regarding their cooperation in the power sector of Bangladesh,” the MoU said. Dhaka and Delhi during the visit of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to India in January this year, had expressed their desire to enhance traditional ties of friendship through development of economic cooperation in different fields including the power generation, transmission and energy efficiency.

Under the MoU signed today, the NTPC may provide long-term operation and maintenance consultancy services to BPDB for its underperforming power stations to improve their operating efficiency. The NTPC may also carry out technical assessment of the old power stations of Power Development Board in Bangladesh for efficiency improvement.

The MoU also have provisions to provide training to power professionals through the existing training system of NTPC and to prepare long term plans for BPDB to utilize NTPC’s training facilities.

The NTPC would also conduct simulator training on combined cycle gas turbine as well as coal fired power stations for improvement of Operation and Maintenance skill.

The NTPC and the BPDB may also set up a coal-based power project at Khulna under joint venture with 50:50 equity participation and the Joint Venture Company (JVC) will be registered in Dhaka.

The Joint Venture Company (JVC) will be managed by its Board of Directors with NTPC and BPDB nominating equal number of directors to the board of JVC. The Chairman of the JVC shall be a nominee director of BPDB for the first eight years and the MD shall be a nominee director of NTPC.

Thereafter, the position of Chairman and MD shall be nominated by rotation for 3-year period each from NTPC and BPDB respectively. A Joint Technical team (JTT) constituted with equal representation from both BPDB and NTPC will oversee the implementation of the MoU, it said.
NEW DELHI, Aug 30 – BSS

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In the pantheon of Islamic states, Bangladesh seems an unlikely place for a secular revolution. It is a dry country with no bars, casinos or horse races. Bangladesh is not liberal in its social mores, compared to Muslim-majority countries like Turkey or Indonesia. And secular principles are far from being consistently upheld: Madrassas receive state funding, while citizens are often hounded for perceived slights to Islam.

Yet since its landslide election in 2008, the ruling Awami League party has rolled back the Islamization trend of recent decades. In July, the government banned the extremist scholar Syed Abul Ala Maududi’s books. A historic Supreme Court ruling last month struck down a constitutional amendment that had paved the way for Islamist politics. And a special tribunal to try war crimes of the 1971 Liberation War began its work last month.

These trials are garnering a significant amount of public attention, as the accused are mostly leaders of Islamist political parties. The Awami League is emboldened no doubt by its resounding majority?its alliance controls 264 out of the 300-seat parliament. Its leaders sense a historic opportunity to redress the past. In the late ’90s, the Awami League adopted an arguably more moderate course, but this leniency was violently repaid when an alliance of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Jamaat-e-Islami won power, when repeated terroristic attacks killed top Awami League leaders. This, combined with the desire to see justice done, has shaped the party’s determined mood.

Activists demand war-crimes trials, March 2010.
.Cynics argue that the trials are politically motivated. The principal target, Jamaat-e-Islami, is a crucial ally of the main opposition BNP. Yet, any perceived benefits to the Awami League are not as straightforward as they may seem. Driving Jamaat underground might make it more dangerous, and any votes lost by Jamaat due to the trials will accrue to BNP, not to the Awami League. Indeed, it might have been safer for the Awami League to ignore the historical injustices. With the advent of the trials, many are now anxious of violent extremist reprisals. Yet repeated opinion polls indicate overwhelming public support for the trials.

Aside from the political jousting, the widespread public support for all the secularizing measures is worth closer scrutiny. Bangladesh’s Sufi Islamic roots clearly play a big role. Religious practice in this delta consisted of practices woven gently into the existing cultural fabric, not harshly imposed from outside. While the Islamism that has swept the region in recent decades has left a mark?from greater numbers of madrassas to the prevalence of burqas worn by women?it did not uproot a deeper cultural antipathy to extremism.

Yet this is also a society where the high court dared to declare fatwas illegal and ruled last week that no woman can be forced to wear burqas at work or school; a society where the secular holidays like Bengali New Year and Valentine’s Day?both irritating to the fundamentalists?are celebrated by millions of youth. Even in its heyday, Jamaat never garnered more than 10% of the popular vote.

Why? Credit women’s empowerment, which provide not only a sign of societal progress, but also remain its most salient cause. The prime minister and the opposition leader are both women. The foreign affairs, home and agricultural ministries are all run by women. Women hold top jobs in government, banks and business, and are especially prominent in legal, medical and social industries. They excel in art, culture and sport. They serve in the armed forces and fly planes for the national airlines. In the lower socio-economic spheres, women work in agriculture, microfinance and the garment industry. Tens of millions of women are economic decision-makers.

Of course the struggle for gender rights and equity still has a long way to go. But the attempt to achieve these worthy goals, led mainly by nongovernmental organizations, has also increased social resiliency against religious fanaticism. In fact, it’s not a stretch to argue that the government’s actions to stem Islamism could never have been imagined without society’s secular backdrop.

The foreign community could reinforce these positive trends by supporting the war crimes tribunal. Important in its own right, the success of the trials is crucial to the secularization process as well. Trade and development partners also need to review their economic policies. The United States, for example, could reduce its punitive tariffs on Bangladeshi garments, providing an immediate boost to the economy.

Just as importantly, it’s key to recognize that Bangladesh has come further on its own in the struggle to stay secular than many Muslim countries?even those with greater foreign aid or intervention. Which just goes to show that Bangladeshis can do much to build themselves a better future. Is there a more positive example for the Islamic world?

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Leading business conglomerate Beximco has set up a joint venture with a Saudi firm to invest nearly $1 billion to upgrade Bangladesh’s sole oil refinery.
“Beximco and Marasel Company Ltd of Saudi Arabia will jointly submit interest for funding an upgradation project of the Eastern Refinery Limited,” a statement from Beximco said.
State-owned Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) invited offers in July from international firms and financial institutions to finance the $900 million project near Chittagong port.

“The fund from Beximco and Marasel are likely to be accepted if the terms and conditions are found favourable,” a senior official of BPC told Reuters.

Beximco’s businesses range from textiles to pharmaceuticals. Its subsidiary Beximco Pharmaceuticals Ltd (BXPq.L: Quote) BXPH.DH is listed in London.

The Marasel Company Ltd is owned by Saudi Prince Salman Bin Sultan Bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud and has large investments in different sectors, mainly in energy.

“In line with its business diversification objectives, Beximco Ltd is now poised to enter into the oil and energy sector, and has mobilised necessary resources for this purpose,” the statement said.

Beximco owns the single largest stake in a Bangladesh private bank and a local private airline, a senior executive of Beximco said. But he could not give the size of the conglomerate in terms of equity.

The refinery upgrade will increase ERL’s production capacity by 200 percent to 4.5 million tonnes per year from 2013.

It presently produces 1.5 million tonnes of petroleum products from imported crude to meet 30 percent of the country’s requirement of 3.8 million tonnes a year.

About Eastern Refinery
Corporate Profile

Eastern Refinery Limited, a subsidiary of Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation was incorporated under Companies?? Act 1913(amended in 1994) as a Public Limited Company in 1963 with 35% EPIDC??s( East Pakistan Industrial Development Corporation) shares, 30% shares held by Burmah Oil Company (BOC) and the rest 35% by private entrepreneurs. From November, 1985, Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) became the 100% share holder of the company.

ERL plays a vital role in supplying around 40% of the country??s current petroleum products?? demand and thus maintains stability in the POL Products?? market of the country. ERL sometimes becomes the only fall back system available, to avoid products crisis in the face of disruption of products?? import.

A Board of Directors appointed by the Government, (of which Managing Director of ERL is one of the Directors) manages the company. The Managing Director is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of ERL.

ERL as a profitable company in the Public Sector contributes substantially to the national exchequer in the form of dividend, taxes, VAT etc.

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AGARTALA:The state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation’s (ONGC) 726-MW project coming up in Tripura will help to resolve the power crisis in the electricity-starved northeastern region by 2012, ONGC officials said
India’s hydrocarbons exploration major has been setting up the gas-based power project — its biggest so far — in south Tripura’s Palatana, about 65 km south of capotal city Agartala. The plant is expected to be operational by March 2012.

According to ONGC, the Power plant will start generating electricity by December 2011.

??The first unit (is) to be commissioned by December 11th and second one by March 12th (2011), that is the assurance I have been given by various senior level (authorities),?? said R S Sharma, Chairman of ONGC.
The first unit of the project with a generation capacity of 363 MW
The Palatana power project combined with transmission links and gas pipelines is slated to bring in investments of around rupees 90 billion, the largest ever single investment in northeastern region.

I feel this project which is getting commissioned here is not only significant for the economy of the state. It is very important for the economy of the entire northeastern region. More than that, this project is building bridges between the two countries, said Sharma

The kind of cooperation, the mutual understanding and the support that we have been getting from the Bangladeshi government and all authorities, we feel so much happy as the two nations coming together, he added.

Heavy machinery for the project was transported through Bangladesh, with Dhaka allowing transit through the Ashuganj river port on the river Meghna.

With the Palatana project generating excess capacity when completed, India has offered to link Bangladesh to its electricity grid and sell it power to help it overcome persistent shortages in peak demand periods.
The power plant is being developed by the ONGC Tripura Power Co (OTPC), a new company formed for commissioning the project

The forthcoming power project would be the single largest investment of Rs 9,000 crore ever invested in the northeastern region of India,” ONGC chairman and managing director R S Sharma told reporters here.
ONGC, also a public sector undertaking, has 50 per cent equity stake in OTPC. The balance is held by Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Service (IL&FS) and the Tripura government.

According to ONGC officials, the state-run Power Grid Corp of India Ltd (PGCIL), OTPC and the northeastern states would set up a 660-km transmission line at the cost of Rs 1,771 crore to hook Palatana with the national grid at Bongaigaon in western Assam.

The much expected commissioning of the power project, a co-generation waste heat recovery power plant and ONGC’s first major commercial project, has been delayed due to difficulties in transporting heavy turbines and machineries to south Tripura.

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sources:p Project backed by World Bank and Asian Development Bank has been questioned over impact on indigenous community.
Four years after operations started Lafarge’s gigantic limestone mine in Meghalaya state, north-east India, is still at a standstill, pending a decision by India’s Supreme Court.

In February the court ordered a temporary halt to mining, demanding the French firm carry out an additional environmental impact assessment focusing in particular on protection of biodiversity on the site and in nearby forests, and prevention of sediment dispersal towards the river. The shut-down is costing Lafarge Umiam Mining Private Limited (LUMPL) $3m a month.

In 2006 Lafarge, a global leader in cement, boasted about the diplomatic and technical expertise deployed to locate this massive industrial facility, costing $275m, on the border between India and Bangladesh. A 17km-long conveyor belt can carry up to 6,000t of limestone a day to the cement works on the other side of the border, where the supply of gas, essential to the production of cement, is plentiful.

In 1997 the project gained the financial backing of the Asian Development Bank and the International Finance Corporation, a World Bank subsidiary, on account of its contribution to developing this out-of-the-way area.

But in 2008 a confidential report by an ADB mission highlighted shortcomings, in particular the lack of transparency in the purchase or lease of land belonging to indigenous peoples. The report, which Le Monde consulted, concluded that the use of a go-between fell short of transparency requirements and did not comply with ADB policy on good governance.

The go-between in question was SG Lyngdoh, a member of the Meghalaya state parliament. In the mid-1990s he negotiated the purchase or use of land owned by indigenous peoples. From 1997 onwards he gradually sold the assets of his own company to LUMPL, a joint venture also involving Cementos Molins of Spain.

Under the Indian constitution, land in tribal areas cannot be transferred to “non-tribals”, unless the transaction contributes to the development of local communities. “And so far no one has benefited from it,” says a member of the Shella Action Committee, which opposes Lafarge’s incursion.

Lyngdoh, however, convinced the authorities to allow him to sell the land he had purchased to foreign organisations. “As far as we know land acquisition policy followed the relevant ADB rules,” a Lafarge spokesperson said.

In the village of Nongtrai, where the population has transferred land-use rights to the mine, Lafarge executives show off the recent improvements: a football pitch, an extension to the school, the purchase of six looms for the women of the village and a visit by a mobile clinic at least once a week.

“It is not much. Above all LUMPL has not allocated an annual budget for local community development. Projects are funded piecemeal,” says Kai Schmidt Solau, who took part in the ADB mission.

In February the Supreme Court decided to appoint other bodies to implement sustainable development policies. It also ordered a fund to be set up and endowed with $4m a year ? existing investments are estimated at $200,000 ? to be paid for out of royalties on the limestone. The fund will be managed by NGOs and the state governor for villages near the mine.

At Shella, villagers are demanding more jobs. “Out of 300 jobs on offer, we only got 50,” says village councillor Tobias Tiewdop. “And the lowest wages are only $65 a month, not enough to feed a family.” “Mike Cowell, of LUMPL’s parent company. responds: “A third of the workforce is allocated to security duties and we cannot give that work to local people.”

Lafarge now plans to invest $1m in a scheme for local residents. “But it is difficult for us to deploy sustainable development policies until we are sure we can operate the mine,” Cowell adds.

The villagers are already dependent on revenue from the mine. Although they only receive 25 cents per tonne of mined limestone, a third of what the owners of small mines in the vicinity ? they all dread what would happen if Lafarge actually left. “We would have to take our children out of the school and find other means of subsistence,” says Daioris Stembon, deputy-chair of the Shella women’s council.

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Bangladesh plans to upgrade Mongla, its second largest port, and to build a third sea port at Kuakata. The twin moves are aimed at providing greater sea access to neighbours India, Nepal and Bhutan.

A memorandum of understanding (MoU) has already been signed with David Wignal Associate, a Singapore-based private company. The upgradation of Mongla port to international standards could cost $3 billion, Mongla port authority chairman Commodore M. Faruk told United News of Bangladesh (UNB) news agency.

The project includes construction of international standard jetty, a power generation plant and a water treatment plant, industrial park and container terminal. It will ensure utilisation of port through transit trade with India, China, Nepal and Bhutan.

As per the agreement, all development work are scheduled to be completed by 2030.

The government has simultaneously started the groundwork for the country’s third seaport at Kuakata to facilitate India, Nepal and Bhutan to transit goods, The Daily Star newspaper said Monday.

Kuakata is currently a sea resort and tourist destination in Patuakhali district. It is located 320 km south of the national capital.

A technical committee that visited Kuakata last month and recommended the site for a port, submitted its report to the shipping ministry last week.

Shipping Minister Shahjahan Khan said everything will be finalised based on the technical report and added: ‘It’ll be a small port initially’.

A seaport in Kuakata will make movement of goods more convenient than through the ports at Chittagong and Mongla, the minister had said earlier.

Chittagong, Bangladesh’s prime seaport, handles about 90 percent of the maritime export-import trade with an average 10 percent yearly growth. The Mongla port handles the rest 10 percent of the trade.

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Sources :Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday urged the people to build a poverty-free Bangladesh as dreamt by Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

??Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman always dreamt of a poverty-free Bangladesh. Let us work hand to hand to fulfil his dream and build a prosperous and modern Bangladesh,?? she said.

Hasina was addressing a function arranged at the Bangabandhu Mazar Complex to distribute sewing machines among the economically vulnerable women.

Eighty women were given the sewing machines after a two-month-long training arranged by the district administration.

The PM thanked the Gopalganj district administration for arranging such income-oriented programme.

She expressed the hope that other district administrations will also come up with similar innovative programmes to help remove employment crisis in the society.

Hasina said that Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman throughout his whole life continued politics for socio-economic and political emancipation of the people.

??Bangladesh has achieved independence under the leadership of the Father of the Nation. Now we have to achieve economic emancipation of the people,?? she said.

The premier said that her government is working with various programmes to create social safety net including empowering the country’s women community by providing employment.

Mentioning the government’s ??one house, one farm?? project, she said the present government is strongly committed to removing unemployment from the country. ??Concept of various development programmes being run by the present government has been taken from Bangabandhu’s government.??

About the Gopalganj district administration’s programme to providing the women with sewing machine, the PM stressed ensuring proper and profitable marketing of the products to be produced by these women.

In this regard, she suggested association-based marketing of the products.

Every capable person including the women would have to be involved in productive activities to strengthen the country’s economy, Hasina said.

??We want such a Bangladesh where not a single woman sits idle at home,?? she said.

Earlier, in the morning, the PM placed wreath at the grave of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman at Tungipara.

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By K. ANIS AHMED Sources :
As Chinese wages rise, other developing Asian nations have an opportunity to attract industries that are being priced out of the mainland. Vietnam and Indonesia are already benefitting from shifting investment, and Bangladesh should too. But the country is being held back by one critical shortcoming?hostility to the free market.

The Bangladeshi economy has plenty of other handicaps, to be sure. Some pin the blame for slow growth on political corruption and poor governance. Others cite power shortages and the lack of good roads and efficient ports. All this is true.

However, after decades of reform and tweaking policies, it’s time we admitted that the problem with the business environment goes deeper. Socialist thinking pervades public-policy circles and the public debate.

.This might surprise outsiders, as Bangladesh was never a communist state. But socialism was one of the country’s four founding principles, and many industries were nationalized in the 1970s. Leftist intellectuals who pushed Bangladesh toward socialism four decades ago continue to have an outsized influence in their new incarnations as heads of nongovernmental organizations, think tanks and media outfits.

These thought leaders mean well, and they don’t see themselves as opposing investment. Indeed, no one argues for outright socialism anymore; rather they agitate in the name of worthy goals such as “rights” or “social equity.” The dialogue goes awry, however, because the intelligentsia don’t recognize wealth creation as the ultimate solution to welfare.

The government often includes left-leaning civic leaders on committees to review laws, while excluding industry representatives. The resulting laws are hostile to investors. For example, new legislation in the higher education sector would impose harsh restrictions and penalties on the institutions. Private universities are forbidden from collateralizing any assets, even for the university’s development, though the same law requires them to build expensive campuses.

In the housing sector, a new “Detailed Area Plan” has finally been published. Almost two decades in the making, it has been outpaced by a doubling population and unplanned sprawl. It no longer answers the housing needs of one of the world’s most densely populated capitals. While the government is now trying to broaden the dialogue to find practicable solutions, a segment of the activists and media seem more interested in punishing developers.

More puzzling perhaps is a new telecommunications law that imposes astonishing fines and leaves little room for appeals. It also grants the ministry sweeping powers to change licensing terms. This sector has drawn millions in foreign investment in recent years. In all these cases, the regulators’ need for control seems to override any concern about investor reaction.

All this has created a culture in which companies can be attacked with impunity, with certain NGOs and the media stoking workers’ grievances. Last Friday, a mob of garment workers rioted in central Dhaka, smashing vehicles and attacking police. This despite the fact that the government just raised the minimum wage by 80%. A number of garment-industry owners have sold off their stakes in the industry citing violence by workers, even though their factories were compliant with local and international regulations.

The Bangladeshi people are naturally entrepreneurial. From the hundreds of garment factories to the innumerable workshops and tea-houses lining the roads and highways, the sheer irrepressible desire of the people to work is evident everywhere. Yet this urge is suppressed. It is almost as if the country is divided against itself.

Society puts the highest value on being an intellectual, so that the brightest students compete to get into the public universities. They then join a tiny elite, who imbibe the leftist ideology at school, enter the bureaucracy and NGOs, and keep promoting retrograde policies and ideas.

As long as most local intellectuals consider a capitalist identity or ideology a terrible stigma to avoid at almost all costs, there is little hope for a more pragmatic dialogue. No country that constantly disavows the principles of capitalism can become prosperous. The burden of anti-business laws affects millions of micro-decisions and actions that make up a day’s commercial activity. Even a tiny hesitation at every turn can add up to a large difference between competing economies.

Bangladeshis wonder why their country can’t attract even a fraction of the funds that flow to Vietnam. Fixing infrastructure and tackling corruption will help. But the country won’t succeed until deeply rooted hostility toward business is repudiated.

Mr. Ahmed is vice president of the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh Foundation

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Bangladesh has become the institutional member of Unicode Consortium, an organisation that enables people around the world to use computers in any language.

On being a member, Bangladesh has achieved the voting power to make necessary additions of Bangla letters to be used in various devices of science, information and communication technology (ICT) and to develop the language standard.

Unicode is an internationally recognised system by which any language can be used in different digital devices like mobile phone and computer.

Earlier, only India had the voting right in the consortium about the Bangla language.

The ICT ministry with the personal interest of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has taken the initiative of being a member of the consortium last year.

Bangladesh was declared an institutional member on June 30 this year following an application by the ministry on March 18, 2009.

The Unicode Bangla text has already been initiated in many government offices under the supervision of `Accesses to Information (A2I)’ programme, operated by the Prime Minister’s office.

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Bangladesh is going to use digital enumeration maps and a unique geo-coding system for the first time in holding the 5th Population and Housing Census in the country.

Preparation is going on in full swing to hold the census in five days in March next year, said the chief of the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS).

Digital enumeration maps and the computerized geo-coding system will be used to collect the data and disseminate results simultaneously in hard and soft formats as well as on the web
page, BBS Director General Md Shahjahan Ali Mollah told BSS today.

He said over 70,000 maps, made by aerial photographs, containing each mouja and union across the country would be used in conducting the census.

To conduct the census, Bangladesh will be divided into 3,30,000 enumeration areas, each with about 120 households, the BBS chief said adding it will engage 2,700 zonal officers, 530 upazila or thana coordinators, 120 district, 35 regional and 10 divisional coordinators.

There will be 60,000 supervisors to be selected from the local educated youths to work across the country. One supervisor will be engaged for 6 to 7 enumerators in data collection.

The census will be conducted in three phases. The first one will be the main census for collecting basic characteristics of all households and population of the country.

In the second phase, post-enumeration quality check will be
conducted to determine the coverage and content error of the main
census.

Thirdly, a sample census-collection of data from about one percent household with a long questionnaire on detailed socio- economic characteristics will be done to supplement the main census.

Bangladesh has a long history of census. The first one was conducted in this territory in 1872. Since then censuses have
been conducted in every 10 years.

The present government has taken a number of steps to strengthen the capacity of the state-run BBS to conduct the population and housing census.

The Statistics Division has been geared up to produce and provide better data, the DG said. “Everybody will have their photographs, fingerprints in digital format to promote digital Bangladesh by 2021.”

According to the election pledge of the government, he said, the prime minister is keen to establish a national population register (NPR) and citizens’ database for everyone of the country.

Ensuring reliable data, he said, the US Census Bureau is providing modern software and scanner while the European Union (EU) and UNFPA are giving financial assistance side by side with the Bangladesh government.

Of the total funding for conducting the population and housing census-2011, Mollah said the government is providing about Taka 145 crore while the EU and UNFPA Taka 102 crore.

The amount is enough for holding the census-2011, not for NPR activities, he said.

The director general said census is considered a vital mechanism for providing an adequate data set on the population at all levels of the administrative units as it provides the basis for sound and informed policy making.

“Quality data is essential to improve people’s lives,” he said adding that it would provide population size, growth, composition and distribution for the projection of food, education, infrastructure, employment, health care and assessment of various other basic requirements as well as analysis of past, present and future growth of population.

The BBS chief said all types of print and electronic media will be used for census like television tell-off, radio jingle, news paper supplement, discussion, census film, poster and banner and it will continue for six months starting from October 2010.

Geocoding/Mapping System

The? Geocoding/Mapping System is a web-based tool designed to help financial institutions meet the legal requirement to report information on mortgage, business, and farm loans. Geocoding refers to the Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), State, County, Census Tract combination (address information) that must be provided for each reported loan. The system allows institutions to enter a street address, and it then determines the census tract. When an address is not found, the mapping feature enables the user to determine the property location based on known landmarks without resorting to a paper map. The system also provides Census demographic information about a particular census tract, including income, population, and housing data. Institutions use this information to assess whether they are meeting the credit needs of the communities in which they operate.

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