Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Oct 10: State Cabinet, which met under the chairmanship of Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah here this afternoon, endorsed the report of the Special High Powered Committee (SHPC) on Amarnath pilgrims woes and now the same will be placed before the Supreme Court tomorrow.
Sources said that after threadbare discussion on the recommendations of the SHPC the Cabinet endorsed the same for submission before the Apex Court, which has fixed October 11 as next date of hearing.
The Special High Powered Committee was constituted by the Apex Court on July 20 this year to recommend measures to prevent the growing number of casualties among Amarnath pilgrims. The Court had passed the order after taking suo moto note of media reports of pilgrims’ deaths allegedly due to lack of proper facilities and medical care for them.
The Committee has examined various issues, which include widening of passage, checking pilgrims’ health, improving medical facilities for them, deployment of adequate security personnel and assessing environment impact.
It is pertinent to mention here that during last Cabinet meeting, the Ministers had desired to deeply analyze the recommendations of the Committee because of the issue being very sensitive.
The Cabinet also gave its consent for 100 % hike in the allowances of the members of the State Legislature.
Now, the Members of State Legislature would get Rs 1000 for attending the sittings of the House and its Committees. Their PAs will get monthly remuneration of Rs 5000, Legislators to get Travelling Allowance of Rs 1 lakh.
Similarly, the advance, both house building and car along with interest, will be recoverable in instalments not exceeding 72 and in case the amount of advance along with interest is not liquidated during the tenure, the amount of instalments will be fixed at such rate so as to restrict the number of total instalments within 72 only.
The recapitalization of Anantnag, Baramulla and Jammu Central Cooperative Banks was also discussed and it was decided to chalk out a strategy to meet the directions of the Reserve Bank of India.
The Cabinet also accorded sanction to the creation of 165 posts in different categories in Power Development Department including one post of Engineer-in-Chief. The 165 posts in different categories have been created by corresponding reduction of 67 posts including 10 posts of Assistant Executive Engineers (Electrical) and 57 posts of Junior Engineer (Electrical) for restructuring and unbundling of J&K Power Development Department.
With this arrangement, the sanctioned strength of the post of Chief Engineers has increased from 7 to 8, Superintendent Engineers from 21 to 43 and of Executive Engineers from 86 to 119.
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