Shimla: The Himachal cabinet on Friday approved setting up of a commission for poorer sections of general category and also approved the draft excise policy for 2012-13 and the supplementary demands for 2011-12.
Presided over by chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal the commission was mandated with making recommendations to formulate polices for development of economical backward sections of general category, a cabinet spokesman stated. The cabinet also sanctioned 16 posts for making the commission functional.
In face of agitations from private sector transporters, the government rescinded an earlier cabinet decision (3 December, 2011) about rationalization of token tax and decided to revert back to old rate of taxes with immediate effect.
Income levels for being counted among rural and urban poor were raised to Rs 30,000 per annum by the cabinet. This will enable them to avail benefits under Swarojgar Yojna, Ambedkar Laghu Rin Yojna, Aadivasi Mahila Sashaktikaran Yojna and Hast Shilp Vikas Yojna, being executed through HP Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Development Corporation to provide housing subsidy, scholarships and other benefits said the spokesman.
Approval was given to shift toll tax barrier from Bagheri to Tikari in Baddi-Barotiwala area of district Solan; close down the toll tax barrier at Shelaghora, near Naina Devi, in district Bilaspur and open one new on at Minus in district Sirmour.
The cabinet also decided to exempt ‘Aerial Rope Ways’ from entertainment duty for five years and reduce the existing 100 percent tax to 10 percent on all other types of entertainment activities in the state.
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Setting up another State appendage by way of a commission for people below poverty line (in this case those belonging to the non-reserved categories) for making recommendations for their development will not mitigate the problem. The department mandated with looking after the implementation of the anti-poverty programmes will lock horns with this new creation and also examine the meaningfulness or otherwise of the recommendations made by them. Creation of additional 18 positions will entail a few million rupees of additional expenditure, adding to the already excessive salary burden. This step in the terminal year of the tenure of the present government will not be able to do justice to the hallowed objectives for which it is being set up due to lack of time for analysis and evolving policy prescriptions which go beyond the scope and content of the various ongoing anti-poverty programmes. Attempting an alternative paradigm for tracking of poverty incidence based purely on economic parameters which has been one of the utterances of the present political outfit in the past could have become more meaningful because the incidence of poverty among the underprivileged (other than the general categories) bears testimony to the general belief that poverty is more rampant among them on the one hand, and they also lack entrepreneurial capacity to make best out of the existing programmes, on the other.