Sai Cabinet Decision: Many important decisions taken

Many important decisions were taken in the cabinet meeting held at Mantralaya Mahanadi Bhawan here today under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Vishnu Dev Sai.

It was decided to reorganize Bastar, Surguja, Central Area Tribal Development, Scheduled Caste Development Authority and Chhattisgarh State Rural and Other Backward Classes Development Authority. Its objective is to make the working system of the five authorities effective and strong as well as to speed up the public facilities work in those areas. The command of these five authorities will now be directly in the hands of the Chief Minister. One of the local MLAs will be nominated as its Vice President. Regional MLAs will be members of these authorities. The Chief Secretary or Secretary of the Chief Minister will be the Member Secretary of these five authorities.

It is noteworthy that in the year 2004-05, Bastar, Surguja and Scheduled Caste Development Authority were formed by the then government. Thereafter, in the year 2012, Chhattisgarh State Rural and Other Backward Classes Area Development Authority was formed. The Chief Minister used to be the Chairman of these authorities. After the formation of the authorities, many important works of basic necessities were done in Scheduled Tribe areas, Scheduled Caste dominated villages, Majra-Tola, Para-Mohallas, wards and rural areas. In the year 2019, the then government made radical changes in the process of functioning of these authorities, due to which not only the importance of the authorities decreased, but there was no effective control at the government level along with lack of transparency monitoring in their work. Keeping in view the above situations, the Cabinet has approved the proposal for reorganization and fund rules of the five authorities.

It is worth noting that under the non-official resolution passed on February 23, 2024 during the budget session of the Chhattisgarh Legislative Assembly, all the plain areas of the state, including those areas where Scheduled Tribes have more than 25 percent majority, villages and blocks of those areas have been included in the areas of the Central Area Tribal Development Authority.

The authorities will do their work by getting suggestions from the local public representatives, in accordance with the vision of the Chief Minister by consensus. Under the chairmanship of the Chief Minister, the Authority will focus on social, economic and all-round development. The Authority will be made strong, transparent and effective. At present, a provision of Rs 50 crore each has been made for Bastar, Surguja, Central Region, Scheduled Caste Development Authority for the development works to be done through the Authority and a provision of Rs 80 crore has been made for Rural and Other Backward Classes Area Development Authority.

The Cabinet approved the Guest Lecturer Policy-2024 in the Higher Education Department.

Regarding the purchase of gram at the issue price for distribution of gram under the Public Distribution System, the Cabinet decided that for distribution of gram to Antyodaya and priority families in the Scheduled Area and Moda area under the Public Distribution System, gram will be purchased at the total rate obtained by adding the issue price fixed by the Government of India and the milling and transportation rate of raw gram received by the Civil Supplies Corporation.

The Council of Ministers gave post facto approval for the sanctioned amount of Rs. 19 crore 37 lakh 93 thousand to 14 thousand 369 persons and institutions from the Chief Minister’s discretionary grant item.

The Cabinet approved the wholesale purchase of foreign liquor directly from the manufacturing units, ending the currently prevalent FL 10 AB license system for the wholesale sale and storage of foreign liquor. It is worth mentioning here that the purchase of foreign liquor was earlier done by licensees. Along with ending this system, the government has now given the responsibility of purchasing foreign liquor to Chhattisgarh Beverage Corporation.