The State Government finally woke up to the necessity of being humane to an acid attack victim and decided to bring changes in the compensation structure in the interest of the victim.
On Saturday, the State Government finally approved compensation of Rs 3 lakh to victims of acid attack. The decision was the part of a total of 48 agendas that were presented for the approval of the State Cabinet.
Notably, the decision came in the wake of Supreme Court directive in July 2013 to all State Governments to pay compensation of Rs 3 lakh to a victim as care and rehabilitation cost. The directive also made it incumbent upon respective State Governments to payRs 1 lakh of the compensation within 15 days from the reporting of the incident. The SC directed the remaining part of the compensation to be paid within two months and asked them to bring changes in the concerned scheme.
“The Cabinet has given administrative approval to amendments in Jharkhand Victim Compensation Scheme of 2012,” said Principal Secretary, Cabinet Co-ordination, JB Tubid.Incidentally, Jharkhand has its share of harrowing tale of acid attack victim. The State was rocked with clamours of justice to acid attack victim —Sonali Mukherjee — who is still battling to lead a normal life and faced a lot of hurdle due to indifferent attitude of the Government.
Meanwhile, the State Government also gave assent to partner with Government of India in developing an industrial zone along the dedicated freight corridor to be developed by Indian Railways. The freight corridor linking Amritsar to Kolkata via Delhi will pass through seven states, including Jharkhand hence aiding industrialization and job creation. Jharkhand government will contribute about five per cent (Rs 5-crore) of Rs 100-crore to be spent for forming a company that is likely to be spearheaded by the central government. Other States in the consortium are Punjab, Haryana, Utter Pradesh, Uttrakhand, Bihar and West Bengal.“The State government has given approval to setting up industries in the 150 to 200-km band along the freight corridor,” continued Tubid.
The State government also took decision to increase Dearness Allowance (DA) of State government employees (now 100 per cent of the basic salary), construction and renovation of as many as five roads under Deoghar district, improving monitoring of schemes under MNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act), setting up centres for development of silk industry besides, a software technology park at Jamshedpur at an estimated cost of Rs 63.87lakh. The park will be developed by JINFRA. To provide more teeth to the Special Task Force, the State Government approved more than Rs 22-crore for the force. Taking further the centrally sponsored Comprehensive Handloom Cluster Development Programme the State Government will develop Mega Handloom Clusters in as many as 6 districts with Godda as its headquarters.
While the Centre will contribute 80 per cent of Rs 83.19-crore project the State’s share will be around 20 per cent. Significantly, looking at the opportunities in silk trade the coalition government is likely to setup as many as 315 general centres for post cocoon mostly related to weaving and spinning work at an estimated cost of Rs 34.70-crore. The State government envisages providing job to 9,450 women with the step and aims to develop the centres as a hub of organic silk.
Considering a large number of irregularities in MNREGA the Hemant Soren dispensation gave assent to the constitution of directorate of Social Audit and Examination.The decision came after a request made by the Rural Development department in this regard to address leakages in the MNREGA delivery system.