Excelsior Correspondent
NEW DELHI, Feb 7: Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh today held a luncheon briefing for media at which he provided details of the highlights in President’s address to joint House of Parliament as well as proposed allocations in Arun Jaitley’s Budget 2017, pertaining to different Ministries and Departments under his charge, including the Ministry of Development of North-Eastern Region (DoNER), Department of Personnel & Training (DoPT) and Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances (DARPG), Department of Pensions and Department of Public Grievances in the Ministry of Personnel & Public Grievances, Department of Atomic Energy and Department of Space.
The luncheon briefing was attended by prominent Delhi-based correspondents and media persons both from electronic as well as print.
A unique feature of the meeting was that it was jointly attended by six Secretaries to Government of India namely, Union Secretary DoPT B.P. Sharma, Union Secretary ARPG C. Viswanath, Union Secretary DoNER Naveen Verma, Secretary North-Eastern Council Ram Muivah, Union Secretary Department of Space A.S. Kiran Kumar and Union Secretary Atomic Energy Shekhar Basu.
Underlining the high priority accorded by the Modi Government to the development of Northeast, Dr Jitendra Singh disclosed that the Budget presented by Arun Jaitley proposes a hike of 34.38% in the overall funds earmarked for the development of Northeast through contributions by 55 non-exempt Ministries in Government of India. Accordingly, he said, the total fund proposed to be contributed by these Ministries in 2017-18 will be Rs.43244.64 cr in comparison to Rs.32180.08 cr in last financial year.
Similarly, Dr Jitendra Singh said,the Budget allocation for the Ministry of DoNER has been increased by 6.2% at Rs. 2682.45 cr while the outlay for North Eastern Council has been fixed at Rs. 925 cr.
Another allocation of Rs. 10,000 cr has been proposed for expansion and construction of Railway in Northeast and by the end of this year, the entire Northeast, barring the State of Sikkim, is likely to get a broad-gauge rail track.
Referring to the achievements of DoPT mentioned in the President’s address to Joint House of Parliament, Dr Jitendra Singh said, there were about 15,694 vacancies for “Divyang” (Specially Abled) which had been lying unfulfilled for the last several years. Soon after the Modi government assumed office, a fast-track procedure was adopted to fill these posts and by now, nearly 83.50 % vacancies already stand filled. The abolition of interviews for Non-gazetted and for Group-C, D posts also finds mention in the President’s address, he said.
With regard to the Department of Pension, Dr Jitendra Singh said, the highlights in the President’s address and Finance Minister’s Budget speech are that the minimum monthly pension to be obtained by any citizen of India has been fixed as Rs. 9,000 per month minimum. The ceiling of gratuity has also been increased from Rs.10 lac to Rs. 20 lac, he said.
Referring to the Department of Atomic Energy, Dr Jitendra Singh said, soon after the announcement of Remonetization by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 8th, Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai, which functions under the aegis of Department of Atomic Energy, switched over to 100% cashless transactions through the use of an exclusive hospital-specific multipurpose pre-paid Smart Card.
In the Department of Space, Dr Jitendra Singh referred to launching of 20 satellites in one go from Sriharikota. He also referred to the extension of the applications of Space technology in construction of roads, buildings, housing and most importantly smart-city programme undertaken by the Modi Government.
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