Himachal Cabinet decides to provide relief to farmers of rain hit region

Himachal Pradesh Cab­i­net in its meet­ing, presided by Chief Min­is­ter Virb­hadra Singh here today decided to pro­vide enhanced relief to the farm­ers of the State in gen­eral and Kin­naur dis­trict in par­tic­u­lar, affected by recent inces­sant rains, land­slides, cloud­burst and untimely snow by amend­ing the exist­ing relief norms.

Cab­i­net approved enhance­ment in Sup­port Price of pro­cure­ment of mango under the Mar­ket Inter­ven­tion Scheme (MIS) for the year 2013. Sup­port price of Seedling man­gos vari­ety would be Rs 5.50 per kg and that of Grafted vari­ety would be Rs 6.50 per kg, which is 50 paise more than the pre­vi­ous year. The Cab­i­net also approved enhance­ment in sup­port price of apple from Rs 6 to Rs 6.50 per Kg under the MIS for the year 2013.

Ful­fill­ing Bud­get announce­ment made by the Chief Min­is­ter, the Cab­i­net approved reg­u­lar­iza­tion of the ser­vices of daily waged/contingent work­ers com­plet­ing 7 years of con­tin­u­ous ser­vice as on 31^st March, 2013.

Cab­i­net also approved fram­ing of new ‘Com­pre­hen­sive Guid­ing Principles-2013’ for reg­u­lat­ing the trans­fers of offi­cers and offi­cials work­ing under the State Gov­ern­ment, Boards, Cor­po­ra­tions and PSUs etc. with cer­tain modifications.

The Cab­i­net accorded its approval for fill­ing up of 800 vacant posts of Police Con­sta­bles. This includes 600 male and 200 female con­sta­bles in the State Police Department.

Keep­ing in view the vital duties per­formed by the Pat­waris and to save the masses from incon­ve­nience, the Cab­i­net decided to fill 778 posts of Pat­waris (Mohal) in Deputy Com­mis­sion­ers Offices in the State.

The Cab­i­net also decided to fill about 450 posts of dif­fer­ent cat­e­gories on con­tract basis in the Health and Fam­ily Wel­fare Department

The Cab­i­net gave its approval for pur­chase of 125 new ambu­lances under Janani Shishu Surak­sha Karyakram. The Cab­i­net also decided that these ambu­lances would be out­sourced in view of oper­a­tion effi­ciency and bet­ter ser­vice deliv­ery on the anal­ogy of National Ambu­lance Ser­vice 108.

Cab­i­net accorded its approval for sim­pli­fi­ca­tion of norms by amend­ing the HP Ten­ancy & Land Reforms Rules, 1975 for grant­ing per­mis­sion under Sec­tion 118 of HP Ten­ancy & Land Reforms Act, 1972 for pro­vid­ing land for indus­trial pur­pose in the State. This deci­sion would ful­fill the com­mit­ment of the present State Gov­ern­ment to pro­vide all approvals required from var­i­ous depart­ments for set­ting up indus­trial units in the State within a period of 90 days.

The Cab­i­net decided to open sub tehsil at Ispur in dis­trict Una.

The Cab­i­net accorded its approval to estab­lish Indian Insti­tute of Infor­ma­tion Tech­nol­ogy (IIIT) in Una dis­trict in Pub­lic Pri­vate Part­ner­ship (PPP). HP Power Cor­po­ra­tion Ltd., HP Power Trans­mis­sion Ltd and Rolta India Ltd. would be asso­ci­ated for pro­por­tion­ate con­tri­bu­tion of funds by each indus­try part­ner to set up IIIT. The Cab­i­net gave its approval to open new ITIs at Dargi and Jalog, in tehsil Sunni of Shimla dis­trict from cur­rent aca­d­e­mic session.

The Cab­i­net decided to pro­vide med­ical reim­burse­ment to the chil­dren of retired Gov­ern­ment Employ­ees on the same basis as those of the serv­ing employ­ees, keep­ing in view the exor­bi­tant cost of life threat­en­ing diseases.

In order to encour­age open­ing of new hotels and tourist facil­i­ties in the back­ward pan­chay­ats of the State, the Cab­i­net gave its approval to exempt lux­ury tax in these pan­chay­ats under the HP Tax on Lux­u­ries (in Hotels and Lodg­ing Houses) Act, 1979 for a period of 10 years from the date the hotel starts func­tion­ing. Approval was also accorded to amend cer­tain pro­vi­sions of HP Tax on Lux­u­ries (in Hotels and Lodg­ing Houses) Act, 1979 and HP Tax on Lux­u­ries (in Hotels and Lodg­ing Houses) Rules, 1979. For ensur­ing early reg­is­tra­tion of new deal­ers approval was accorded to abol­ish reg­is­tra­tion fee under the HP VAT Act, CST Act, Pas­sen­ger & Goods Tax Act and Lux­ury Tax Act. These deci­sions have ful­filled the announce­ment made by the Chief Min­is­ter while pre­sent­ing Bud­get for the year 2013–14.

The Cab­i­net gave its approval for imple­men­ta­tion of pro­posal of State Experts Com­mit­tee which met on 29^th March, 2013, regard­ing removal of pay anom­alies arisen due to revi­sion of pay structure/grade pays in respect of State Gov­ern­ment employ­ees. This would ben­e­fit var­i­ous cat­e­gories of Class-IV employ­ees of the Government.

In order to strengthen De-adiction Cen­ters at dis­trict level, the Cab­i­net gave its approval to hire 12 Clin­i­cal Psy­chol­o­gists as Coun­selors and 12 Med­ical Social Work­ers on con­tract basis.

The Cab­i­net approved cre­ation of 11 posts which includes four Med­ical Offi­cers, six Staff Nurses and one post Oper­a­tion The­atre Assis­tant for Civil Hos­pi­tal Nurpur.

Cab­i­net gave its approval for the pur­chase of lap­tops and print­ers for 1185 Gram Pan­chay­ats through HP Elec­tron­ics Devel­op­ment Corporation.

The Cab­i­net also gave its approval for plac­ing the 26^th Annual Report of Himachal Pradesh Lokayukta for the year 2012 in the ensu­ing ses­sion of State Vid­han Sabha.

The Cab­i­net also approved cre­ation of one post of Civil Judge (Sr. Divi­sion) in High Court of HP under e-Court Project as per rec­om­men­da­tion of the e-Committee of Hon’ble Supreme Court of India.

Cab­i­net gave its approval for cre­ation of 5 new posts of Clerks in the Offi­cer of Advo­cate Gen­eral, Himachal Pradesh through direct recruit­ment by HP Sub­or­di­nate Selec­tion Board in the pay band of Rs 5910–20200 plus grade pay of Rs 1900.

Cab­i­net approved Revised Guide­lines for allo­ca­tion of Post Com­mis­sion­ing Funds gen­er­ated from One per cent Addi­tional Free Power on account of Local Area Devel­op­ment Fund (LADF) of Hydro Elec­tric Projects (HEP) in the State. Now, out of the total amount received against sale of One per cent addi­tional free power on account of LADF, 50 per cent would be divided to all fam­i­lies in Project Affected Areas equally sub­ject to BPL fam­i­lies who would get higher amount as per pol­icy noti­fied ear­lier, while bal­ance 50 per cent of the total amount would be divided between the fam­i­lies in ratio of the land acquired in their respec­tive Pan­chayat, sub­ject to BPL fam­i­lies would again get higher amount.

The Cab­i­net granted exten­sion to M/s Harza Engi­neer­ing Com­pany exe­cut­ing 70 MW Dhamwari Sunda HEP for the period of 12 months as spe­cial exten­sion with an exten­sion fee of Rs 20,000 per MW. The Cab­i­net gave its con­sent to allot Mool­ing (1MW) Small Hydro Elec­tric Project (SHEP) in Lahaul & Spiti dis­trict to M/S Lahaul Val­ley Hydro Power Co-op Soci­ety, Lahaul-Spiti.

The Cab­i­net accorded approval for charg­ing Capac­ity Addi­tion Charges from Tindi, Rana, Sian­der, Parari and Makkan SHEPs as their power gen­er­a­tion had increased after change in Location/Elevation.

The Cab­i­net gave its con­sent for enhanc­ing the Autho­rized Share Cap­i­tal of Himachal Pradesh Elec­tric­ity Power Trans­mis­sion Cor­po­ra­tion Ltd. from Rs 150 crore to Rs 200 crore.

The Cab­i­net can­celled the allot­ment of Khauli-II Hydro Elec­tric Project allot­ted to Himachal Pradesh State Elec­tric­ity Board Ltd (HPSEBL) and allowed the allot­ment of this Project based on direct bid­ding as per Hydro Power Pol­icy, 2006; sub­ject to con­di­tion that allot­tee would reim­burse the expanses already incurred by HPSEBL in sur­vey and inves­ti­ga­tion of the Project.

The Cab­i­net decided to ask the suc­cess­ful bid­ders to deposit Project Devel­op­ment Suc­cess Fee as per pro­vi­sions of Request for Pro­posal (RFP) Doc­u­ment for con­struc­tion of Bhuntar-Bijli Mahadev and Palchan-Rohtang rope­ways. The Cab­i­net also gave its approval for allow­ing the bid­der for incor­po­rat­ing one more com­pany in the joint ven­ture as a con­sor­tium part­ner in Palchan to Rohtang Rope­way project.

The cab­i­net gave its approval for lev­ing 4 per cent VAT on sales of goods through Can­teen Store Depart­ment (CSD) Canteens.

With a view to sim­ply the pro­ce­dure and pro­vid­ing relief to gen­eral pub­lic and depen­dents of the deceased Govt. Ser­vants, the Cab­i­net gave its nod to amend the Busi­ness of the Gov­ern­ment of Himachal Pradesh (Allo­ca­tion) Rules, 1971.

Cab­i­net gave its con­sent to allow Himachal Pradesh State Coop­er­a­tive Mar­ket­ing and Con­sumers Fed­er­a­tion Ltd (HIMFED) to raise work­ing Cap­i­tal Loan of Rs 25 crore from National Coop­er­a­tive Devel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (NCDC) through the State Government.

Cab­i­net gave its con­sent to pur­chase school uni­form for boys and girls from class 1^st to 10^th of HP Gov­ern­ment Schools under Mahatma Gandhi Vardi Yojana to pro­vide free uni­form to these students.

Cab­i­net approved Himachal Pradesh Munic­i­pal (Amend­ment) Ordi­nance, 2013 and Himachal Pradesh Munic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tion (Amend­ment) Ordi­nance, 2013 to restore old sys­tem of indi­rect elec­tions to the office of Pres­i­dent & Vice Pres­i­dents of Munic­i­pal Councils/Nagar Pan­chay­ats and for the post of Mayor and Deputy Mayor in Munic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tion Shimla.

Himachal Cabinet decides to provide relief to farmers of rain hit region