Punjab: Cabinet nod to ordinance to remove Centre’s objection to use fund for waiving off farm loans

The Centre had said that the RDF, levied by Punjab on the Centre while procuring foodgrains for the Central pool, could not be used for a populist scheme and did not release Rs 1,150 crore pertaining to the Kharif procurement season of 2021.

“Resultantly, the Punjab Rural Development Act, 1987, has been amended on the lines of the revised principles laid down by the Department of Food & Public Distribution, Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Government of India on February 24, 2020,” a government statement said.

It may be recalled that the Centre in its letter dated October 23, 2020 had sent the Provisional Cost Sheet (PCS) for Kharif Marketing Season (KMS) 2020, wherein it did not account for statutory dues of RDF calculated at 3% of the MSP. However, the PCS provides as “Matters related to deductions from MSP made by state and utilisation of RD Fee for the purpose of development of procurement centres is under scrutiny”, the statement added.

The statement also said, “With the amendment ordinance, the RDF shall be spent for the purposes/activities including construction or repair of approach roads to mandis/procurement centres and street lights thereon enabling farmers in transportation of their produce, construction/development of new mandis/procurement centers and development of old/katcha mandis/procurement centres, for making arrangements for supply of drinking water and for improving sanitation in the mandis/procurement centres, for providing well equipped rest houses/night shelters/sheds for farmers and labour engaged in procurement operations.”

“RDF would also be spent for augmenting storage facilities in mandis to store procured stocks so as to strengthen the procurement and marketing systems in the State, to provide relief to debt stressed farmers of the state to eliminate any possibility of distress sale, development of hardware/software related to procurement/linking of land records, crop survey, bio- authentication of farmers at the mandi/State level which may improve transparency and facilitate the procurement activities, Installation/Purchase of computerized electronic weighbridge/weighment facilities/quality testing equipment’s/sieving facilities in the mandi/procurement centres and its integration with e-procurement module, For automation and mechanization of mandies with facility of cleaning, sorting, drying, analysing quality of grains, small shipping silo, bag sacking and stitching and for carrying out such purposes which may lead to strengthening of mandies/procurement operations,” said a spokesperson.

Cabinet approves to fill up 145 posts in Water Supply and Sanitation Department

The Cabinet also approved to fill up 145 posts of various categories (25 Sub Divisional Engineers, 70 Junior Engineers, 30 Junior Draftsmen and 20 Steno Typists) by direct recruitment through PPSC and the SSS Board within a year in the Water Supply and Sanitation Department.

According to a spokesperson of the Chief Minister’s Office, the Council of Ministers had given approval to fill up 88 posts in the Water Supply and Sanitation Department in the year 2021. In addition to those, the Cabinet Wednesday approved to fill 57 more posts of these categories falling vacant in the year 2022 due to retirement or promotion of officers or employees.

Nod to addendum for upgrading existing BharatNet Infrastructure to provide connectivity in gram panchayats

In pursuance of the earlier Memorandum of Understanding between the Department of Telecommunications, Government of India, and the state government in April 2013, the Cabinet approved an addendum to help upgrade the existing BharatNet infrastructure to connect all gram panchayats with the national broadband network under the BhartNet scheme of the Centre.

In a statement, the government said, “The state government is committed to facilitate the delivery of e-governance, e-health, e-education, e banking, Internet and other services to rural areas by establishing a highly scalable network infrastructure which is accessible on a non-discriminatory basis. This will enable provision of on-demand affordable broadband connectivity for all households and institutions and assist in realizing the vision of Digital Punjab, in partnership with the Government of India.”