Allowed to die its own death on earlier occasion, the rural bus service scheme would be revived again in the State. The Cabinet on Tuesday went ahead with a proposal to amend Jharkhand Motor Vehicle Act, 2001 that would have provisions for running mini-buses at block and divisional levels connecting villages.
Buses running under the scheme would encourage preferably unemployed youths of ST and SC communities to operate the buses with seating capacity ranging between 6 and 21 passengers.
“The buses would be of blue colour and ‘Grameen Seva Yan’ would be written on the white stripe on both sides of it besides, the route designated. The buses would connect villages with State or National Highways. Besides increasing transport amenities for rural households, it would also become a source of income for youths,” said Additional Chief Secretary NN Pandey after the Cabinet meeting.
“The selected persons would be linked with the bank loans under Mudra scheme and other similar programmes,” he said.
Earlier, when Babulal Marandi was Chief Minister, youths were provided bank loans for purchasing and running such buses. However, most of the operators turned defaulters and the scheme failed to yield much.
Initially, the permit for running the service would be given for five years that may be extended further following satisfactory operation. “Based on educational qualification, successful candidates would be selected. They would give written commitment for duly running the service and have to submit a certificate from concerned Mukhiya in this regard for further extension. Regional Transport Authority would extend the contract based on the certificate,” he explained.
The Cabinet, in a step towards women empowerment, also decided to cut stamp duty and registration fee by 10 per cent for land registration done in the name of fairer sex. “It has also been decided to adhere to the amendments done in 2015 in the Mines and Minerals Act, 1957. Under this, District Mineral Foundation would be formed in all the districts. It would lead to a corpus fund consisting of the revenue coming through certain percentage of mineral value,” added the Secretary.
A Governing Council headed by DC would be formed to supervise the corpus that would be used for chalking out schemes locally. DDC, SP, DFO, DSE, Civil Surgeon besides, elected representatives of Zila Parisad, MP, MlAs and Mukhiyas and their deputies of the affected panchayats would be its members. Another Managing Committee under DC, SP, DDC, DFO etc would be responsible for managing the fund.
The Government also approved CM Free Diagnostic Scheme under which pathological and radiological diagnostics can be availed free of cost by BPl families or anyone earning less than Rs72,000 yearly. The provision was earlier not included in the medical assistance given by the Government for critical ailments related to cancer or kidney.
The Cabinet also amended recently approved solar policy. Now, the tariff of solar electricity generated by private firms in the State would be decided based on competitive bidding. “Earlier, JSERC was the authority and we were getting rate of Rs 6.71 per unit. Whereas rates are much lower in other states and thus the Cabinet decided to fix the tariff through transparent bidding process,” said Pandey.
A public relations body for communication has also been formed that would share all the communications, publish internal magazines, pamphlets, tenders, messages, folders, leaflets etc of various Departments, Boards, Corporations and Government enterprises and share these with the media organisations. The Chief Minister would be Chairman of the body along with Secretaries of PRD, Finance, IT, Tourism and Industry.