The State Cabinet during its meeting on Wednesday has announced that the people who go to the district magistrate’s office or others to have their grievances addressed are now free to approach the Ministers concerned at their offices. To facilitate the aggrieved people to talk to the Ministers, the Ministers from now onwards would sit in their offices at least twice a week on Wednesday and Thursday.
However, they can sit in their offices for more than fixed two days in a week, depending upon their convenience.
Besides, the Cabinet has decided that the children studying in the schools would be served with piping hot and freshly cooked lunch under the mid-day meal scheme. The food being served under the scheme would be prepared by Akshaypatra, an NGO. Initially, it would serve food among the children studying in the Government-run schools in the four plain districts of the States — Dehradun, Haridwar, Udham Singh Nagar and Nainital. In all, 3,729 schools have been roped in under this scheme and around 3.5 lakh school children would get nutritious lunch under the scheme. Mention worthy, the State education minister Arvind Pandey is instrumental for the State Government to envisage the plan. Determined to provide piping hot, nutritious and hygienic lunch to school children, he extensively toured the State-run schools across the State to understand things at close quarters. The Cabinet is supposed to have given the in- principle nod to the plan at the insistence of the Minister.
This aside, the Cabinet has also incorporated some amendments in the Uttarakhand Road Safety Rule and approved road safety fund (RSF) too. The State food scheme, meant to provide subsidised food grains to the economically unprivileged sections of the society, would be made applicable since May 2017. In another important decision, the Cabinet has decided that Assam Rifle Purv Sainik Kalyan Samiti which is set to buy 45 hectare of land would not pay the circle rate as the State Government is waiving off the circle rate previously enforced on it. The relief is being provided under the Sarai Act, the Cabinet said, adding that it can now buy a piece of land to house their office without paying circle rate to the State Government.
As per the Cabinet’s decision, all the registrations recorded earlier will also be valid while new registrations would be done under Uttarakhand Tourism Development Council (UTDC).
The Cabinet has approved the merger of commercial tax department with State tax department while providing for the merger of the State entertainment tax employees in the State tax department.
This aside, one kilometre Rishikesh - Kaudiyala stretch of Rishikesh Devprayag State highway has been attached with Haridwar - Roorkee Development Authority (HRDA) as per the Cabinet’s decision. This has paved way for HRDA to do all the maintenance work of the roads. Notably, the State Government had recently declared a few roads labelled as State highways as other district roads (ODR) following the apex court’s blanket ban on sale and consumption of liquor from the outer edges of the national and State highways.