Cabinet on Tuesday revised procedures in place for paddy procurement in the State which would now see a start as early as December 1. The Cabinet in its meeting rolled out series of measures to regulate the process and also in order to provide timely relief to the farmers.
Informing about the decisions taken Food and Civil Supplies Secretary Amitabh Kaushal said that against the practice of providing paddy in advance to the millers now bank guarantee from them would be taken. “We have also set a regulation for manning the paddy procurement centers which are coming up in 239 numbers. Computer operator cum accountant would be deputed who would work on software developed by the GOI. Tender for transportation of paddy procured would take place. Also godowns of Bazar Samiti would be used for keeping additional stock purchased from the farmers after LAMPS/PACS godowns are filled up,” said the Secretary.
He also informed that the farmers would be paid within 15 days of the purchase made at the rate of Rs 1750 per quintal and the Cabinet has approved utilising Rs 200 crore of revolving fund kept aside for sugar purchase for this purpose. “We have set the target to purchase four lakh metric tonnes of paddy this year and the process is going to start from December 1. Rate right now is what the Center has set but we are in the process of announcing bonus after approval of the Chief Secretary and the Chief Minister,” said Amitabh Kaushal.
This apart the Cabinet approved handing over 0.15 acre of GM land at Dumri of Giridih to GAIL for building infrastructure for Prime Minister Urja Ganga project. The project is to setup the Jagdispur-Haldia-Bokaro-Dhamra gas pipeline. The land would be given against Rs 41.55 lakh on 30 years of lease which can be renewed.
Besides that decision to use the platform of MSTC, Kolkata for e-auctioning of minor minerals was taken and the company has been nominated for that. At the same time provision of mandatory post-mortem of the dead body in the case of deaths taken place due to natural disasters and State specific disasters has been relaxed.
Now the victim compensation can be paid in case the kin have published missing report with photo in newspaper, lodged an FIR with the local police station and investigation report from magistrate or any other competent authority is in place if the body is missing after the calamity.
Cabinet Secretary SKG Rahate further informed that another extension to the Commission setup for identification of Jharkhand and JP revolutionaries has been given. “This is the fourth extension given to the Vikramaditya Prasad Commission for one more year ending in August 2019. Till now 212 JP revolutionaries and 3500 Jharkhand and Vananchal Revolutionaries have been identified. There are about 30,000 more applications pending with the Commission and the extension has been given for that,” said Rahate.