The Cabinet meeting held on Wednesday with Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat in its chair has taken a slew of decisions while it also discussed as many as 60 matters. Among the most important decisions taken in course of the cabinet meeting is sending the subsidy amounts straight into the accounts of the beneficiaries of State Food Scheme (SFS) from November this year.
What would happen is that the card holders would buy rations at the market rate and thereafter, the Government would transfer the subsidy amounts into the accounts of the beneficiaries under Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT). Besides, to enhance the financial resources earned through mining, the cabinet has decided to award tenders to the miners through e-auction.
This aside, the Cabinet has given in-principle approval to providing the children free education and also to the constitution of the Metro Board which would be known as Uttarakhand Metro Rail Infrastructure Board to be endowed with both financial and administrative power. Besides, the cabinet has also taken decision to clear the arrears of the sugarcane growers.
Furthermore, the cabinet has also approved restructuring of the Uttarakhand Tourism Directorate cadre. It has been decided that if the employees agree to switch to Uttarakhand Tourism Development Council (UTDC) they would be sent with promotion. The cabinet has also approved the proposal of providing loan worth Rs 1 lakh at the rate of two percent interest to the farmers engaged in agriculture or in agriculture- based projects under Deendayal Cooperative Assistance Scheme.
The cabinet has approved territorial extension of 35 local bodies - three municipal corporations, 22 municipalities and 10 urban panchayats. This means that the jurisdictional limits of three municipal corporations — Dehradun, Haldwani and Kashipur- would be increased. Consequently, the state government has decided to expand the area of the urban development department at the expense of the rural development department.
Observers say the decision has been taken in view of a string of civic body elections slated to be held soon. “However, the execution is unlikely to be smooth, given the fact that some gram pradhans are against it. They have been staging stir against such a move for long while involving the villagers in it. The ruling party’s strategy is that as some villages adjacent to the civic areas would be merged in the re-jigged territories of the civic bodies the villagers would cast their votes for the first time in the civic body elections. “The ruling party strategists think that these first- time voters would vote for BJP,” says a state watcher.