The Himachal Cabinet in its meeting held at Dharamshala on Saturday decided to amend the Himachal Pradesh Town and Country Planning Rules 2018 to allow sealing of unauthorised buildings or portions thereof so that the authorised building could be put to its approved and permitted use.
Sealing would be done after giving the defaulters an opportunity of being heard under the amendment in the Act. This will give relief to the hoteliers and their objections will be invited under the Rule.
The Cabinet meeting was presided over by Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur. Approval was accorded by the Cabinet to grant interim relief to the regular Government employees, pensioners, family pensioners at the rate of 8 per cent basic pay to be payable from January 1, 2016, as was announced by the Chief Minister on January 25, at Ani, in Kullu district. This will benefit the employees and pensioners by Rs 700 crore.
The Cabinet also decided to increase the maternity leave of women employees on contract basis from 135 days to 180 days, thus equating them with regular women employees in case of maternity leave.
It was also decided to impose ban on general transfers with immediate effect and till further orders.
The Cabinet decided to invite Expression of Interest (EOI) for procurement of design consultant for carrying out detailed feasibility study of 2,000 kilometres of road length under proposed World Bank assistance for Himachal Pradesh State Road Project Phase-II.
It was also decided for detailed engineering designs including socio-environmental and roads safety safeguards for 650 kilometres of road length in the State, besides periodic maintenance work of 1,350 kilometres of road length of State road network.
Cabinet decided to allow recruitment process out of the purview of Himachal Pradesh Public Service Commission and Himachal Pradesh Staff Selection Commission on compassionate ground, against 3 per cent sportspersons quota, from amongst the specially-abled persons, on batch-wise basis as per specific method provided in the respective recruitment rules and posts reserved for Ex-servicemen. In all other cases the departments concerned will examine all the aspects and put up to the CM for approval.