The Budget session of the Vidhan Sabha will be held in Dehradun from February 11 to 22. This and other decisions were taken by the state cabinet in its meeting held here on Wednesday.
Addressing the media about decisions taken in the cabinet meeting, Cabinet minister and State Government spokesman Madan Kaushik said that a total of nine issues were taken up in the cabinet meeting.
It was decided that the budget session of the Vidhan Sabha will be held in Dehradun from February 11 to 22. Further, the cabinet also approved five per cent horizontal reservation in state services for children in registered orphanages.
Presently there are about 1,000 such children in the state and the decision is aimed at encouraging them to complete their studies towards securing a decent job. The cabinet also approved import of 240 Merino sheep from Australia at a total cost of Rs six crore. The cost of the project will be borne in the ratio of 90:10 by the Central and State governments respectively. Forty males and 200 females will be imported and then bred in the state under this plan for which Rs 4.36 crore has been released.
The cabinet also decided to get documentaries on Kedarnath reconstruction made by National Geographic at a cost of Rs 1.5 crore. The two documentaries- one 44 minutes long and the other 10 minutes long will be in English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Bengali languages.
The documentaries will be telecast on National Geographic channel and a channel of the Fox network apart from being publicised widely through the social media, said Kaushik.
Earlier, the six months arrears of government employees under the seventh pay commission had been paid and in its meeting on Wednesday, the cabinet cleared payment of arrears for the remaining six months. This will entail an additional financial burden of about Rs 300 crore on the state.
The cabinet also approved some amendments in paragliding rules, appointment to vacant temporary posts in government medical college, Haldwani and revised allowances barring dearness allowance to government employees as per the recommendations of the seventh pay commission.
The revised house rent allowance alone will entail an additional financial burden of about Rs 101 crore per year on the state government. Chief secretary Utpal Kumar Singh was also present at the Press briefing.