Various decisions taken earlier in Chief Minister Harish Rawat’s cabinet meeting held on April 21 were officially passed at a cabinet meeting presided over by the Chief Minister here in secretariat on Thursday. The decisions and proposals officially passed on Thursday are aimed at addressing a wide range of issues from benami properties, to regularisation of slums and other measures aimed at eradicating corruption and redressing the various problems being faced in different spheres including social welfare, sports infrastructure, education, establishment of private universities in the State and facilitating essential facilities like potable water supply.
Holding the first cabinet meet after lifting of president’s rule in Uttarakhand, the chief minister stamped approval to most of the issues discussed in the April 21 cabinet meeting.
The cabinet decided to issue an ordinance to enact the Uttarakhand Benami Property Bill 2016 which could not be passed in the Vidhan Sabha earlier. Similarly, the route of issuing ordinance in order to enact the Uttarakhand Parvatiya Bhoomi Jot, Sudhar Evam Vyavastha Bill 2016 to facilitate land consolidation in the mountainous villages regions was also finalised by the cabinet which also discussed the Benami transaction bill 2016. Regarding this, it was decided that the State Government will bring out an ordnance to enact the Benami property regulations. One of the One of the important decisions finalised in the cabinet meeting on Thursday was approval of Rs 50 crore budget for the first phase of regularisation and development of slum settlements falling under the purview of urban local bodies.
It is pertinent to mention here that the report of the committee on slum settlements regularisation and development had been submitted to the State Government about six months ago and further action was taken on this issue with a total of about 582 slum settlements being identified across the State.
The required process had also been started for regularisation of these slums and provision of land ownership rights for the residents of these slum settlements. However, the political uncertainty which also resulted in imposition of president’s rule had resulted in some delay at the time, which is not expected to be faced now following official sanction and budget provision.
The other major decisions finalised by the cabinet on Thursday include Rs 200 raise per beneficiary in all types of pensions provided by Social Welfare department; administrative and financial approval for construction of international cricket stadium in Dehradun and the Gaulapar, Haldwani international sports complex to develop international level sports infrastructure in the State; solving the potable water issues in summer; establishment of private universities in the State; changing the name of Rispana Chowk in Dehradun to “Shaktiman Chowk” and construction of Inter State Bus Terminal (ISBT) in Haldwani.