Coming out with welfare measures for senior citizens and visually impaired, the Himachal Pradesh Cabinet on Saturday decided to provide additional insurance cover to the elderly under Senior Citizen Health Insurance Scheme (SCHIS) besides relaxing eligibility criteria in quota posts for visually impaired of 35 plus age.
Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh presided the meeting of Cabinet, which approved SCHIS to provide easy access to the curative geriatric health care services by way of additional insurance to senior citizens of over 60 enrolled under Rashtriya Swasthay Bima Yojna. The scheme shall provide an additional coverage of Rs. 30,000 per senior citizen per year in the eligible RSBY beneficiary family. A beneficiary under SCHIS will be able to get cashless treatment in any of RSBY empanelled hospitals. At present there are 1,30,587 senior citizens enrolled under RSBY in the State.
In a measure for welfare of the visually impaired, the cabinet decided to relax educational and other qualification for direct recruitment on class-IV posts and services against direct recruitment quota posts in favor of visually impaired persons who have crossed age of 35 years. It also gave relaxation in other qualification prescribed for direct recruits for the post of Junior Office Assistant (IT) i.e. diploma in computer science in favor of visually impaired. The selected visually impaired persons after appointment may not be insisted up on to complete the diploma as required in the light of recruitment rules and may be imparted basic computer training by the concerned departments.
The Cabinet also approved that the staff nurses and other para-medical staff appointed under Rogi Kalyan Samitis (RKS) through Staff Selection, Hamirpur, would be considered for regularisation after 3 years service, at par with the other contractual employees of the State.
Facing flak for poor law and order in the state, the Cabinet approved increase in remuneration of Special Police Officers (SPOs) from Rs. 4000 to Rs. 6000 per month from prospective effect to fulfill the announcement of the Chief Minister as they render vital support to state police and security forces deployed in difficult and remote areas of district Chamba and lahaul bordering Jammu and Kashmir. The services of 518 SPOs have been approved in above districts by Government of India.
As a big relief measure to the power producers, the Cabinet gave its nod to reduce the Capacity Addition Charges from Rs. 20 lakh per MW to Rs. One lakh per MW or the upfront premium quoted whichever is higher, for those projects whose installed capacity after capacity enhancement is more than 5 MW. This provision will be applicable only to those projects where revised capacity agreements for enhancement of capacity have not been signed and for all projects which will have capacity enhancement after the notification of this provision. The above provision shall not be applicable to the projects where revised capacity agreements have already been approved and signed.
To meet power requirements of remote areas investing in Micro-hydel projects upto 100 KW, the Cabinet decided that the HPSEBl will buy the power from the projects up-to 100 KW capacity and the royalty rates for these projects will be 2 percent for first 12 years, 12 percent from 13 to 30 years and 18 percent from 31 to 40.
Cabinet gave its nod for setting up of Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) for the implementation of the Smart City Mission at Shimla. Shimla smart city will have a robust advisory mechanism in shape of city advisory forum comprising of all stakeholders for rendering support to SPV at all stages of planning and implementation.