Shimla: The Himachal cabinet on Wednesday decided to sign agreements for two hydro-projects, implement the recommendations of the Shetty commission regarding pay and allowances for judicial officers and approved the extension of rural employment guarantee scheme to the full state.
Briefing the media after the meet chief secretary Ravi Dhingra said that the cabinet has decided to bring about appropriate legislation in the next session for implementation of the recommendations of the Shetty Commission. He said the cabinet decided to introduce the HP 2008 Judicial Officers (pay and allowances and conditions of service) Amendment Bill in the next session of the Vidhan Sabha. The pay structure of the judicial officers that would be implemented with retrospective effect from 1999 would incur an expenditure of about Rs 2.5 crore and a yearly expenditure of Rs 97.77 lakhs, he said
The cabinet approved signing of the agreement for the 180 MW Bajoli-Holi project with GMR Energy for which an upfront premium of Rs 82 crore already stands deposited with the state exchequer, said the chief secretary. The cabinet also approved signing of the 108 MW Chattru power project with DCM infrastructure for which and upfront payment of Rs 21.87 crore has been paid, he added.
Against an earlier announcement by the previous government that the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme was being extended to the full state made last September last year, the cabinet of the new government has approved starting the national program from 1st April, 2008.
The chief secretary said that preparatory work was done since the announcement was made earlier and now the state government had started receiving funds for implementation of the scheme.
As Editor, Ravinder Makhaik leads the team of media professionals at Hill Post.
In a career spanning over two decades through all formats of journalism in Electronic, Print and Online Media, he brings with him enough experience to steer this platform. He lives in Shimla.
