The State Cabinet approved I1 proposals at a meeting presided over by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik at the State Secretariat here on Saturday.
Chief Secretary AP Padhi told reporters that the Government decided to take up two rural piped water supply projects at a total cost of Rs 387.59 crore in Puri and Ganjam districts out of the funds provided under the State sector scheme Basudha.
By this projects, over 2.9 lakh people of 305 villages of five blocks under the two districts would have access to safe, assured and sustained supply of drinking water. Over 60,000 people of 92 villages under Krushnaprasad block of Puri district, over 53,000 people of 55 villages under Ganjam block in Ganjam district, over 1.4 lakh people of 126 villages under Kanas block, over 20,000 people of 18 villages under Brahmagiri block and 15,000 people of 14 villages under Satyabadi block of Puri district would be benefitted.
The Government with an aim of enhancing the motor vehicle revenue decided to reduce the tax slabs on personal vehicles and limit the onetime tax to six per cent, eight per cent and 10 per cent as per powers conferred under Section 15 of the OMVT Act, 1975. Vehicles costing below Rs 5 lakh would be charged six per cent tax, vehicles between Rs 5 to 10 lakh would be charged eight per cent and vehicles above Rs 10 lakh would now have to pay 10 per cent tax. The Cabinet also decided to bring amendment to AC bus taxation. Tax was slashed for standing passengers.
The Government also decided to reduce the rental charges for core space and incubation space in all Government-owned IT towers, facilities to Rs 20 per sqft for super built area for Startups and existing IT, ITES and ESDM companies.
Besides, the Government decided to restructure and strengthen the Odisha labour Service cadre. After restructuring, the base-level post of the cadre would be the Assistant labour Officer, who would be posted at block while UlB would extend the benefits of the labour Directorate at the grassroots level.
Now, 25 industrial districts would have two labour Officers. Besides, it was decided to merge the posts
of Assistant labour Commissioner and Deputy labour Commissioner and rename them as Divisional labour Commissioner. Besides, the 314 blocks of the State, NACs and municipal corporations would have Additional labour Officers.
The Cabinet too decided, under the Biju Swasthya Kalyan Yojana, to bring all RSBY and BKKY families to a uniform platform of Rs 1 lakh-insurance coverage and then the OSTF can give top-up platform Rs 4 lakh to all RSBY and BKYY families. So, the Government would undertake enrolment of the left-out 12, 09, 167 RSBY families under BKKY Stream-II so that her entire 44,08. 070 families which have already been enrolled under the RSBY could be fully covered by the BKKY.
The Government also decided to increase the corpus of the Contingency Fund from Rs 400 crore to Rs 1,400 crore.
It was also decided to amend the Odisha Ministerial Services and enhance the entry level qualification for posts of Junior Assistants in the Heads of Department offices from a pass in Plus Two in Arts, Science and Commerce to Plus Three with knowledge of computer skill.