Comments
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on Wednesday approved the transfer of three Indian Tourism Development Corporation Ltd’s hotels to state governments.
Briefing newspersons after the Cabinet meeting, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said Hotel Jaipur Ashok will be transferred to the government of Rajasthan. The Lalitha Mahala Palace Hotel in Mysore will be transferred to the government of Karnataka.
It also approved the divestment of ITDC’s 51 per cent equity shares in Donyi Polo Ashok Hotel Corporation Ltd. The disinvestment will be in favour of the Arunachal Pradesh government. The government said that the disinvestment policy has been formulated keeping in view that running and managing hotels on professional lines is not the job of the government or its entities.
The Cabinet also approved the merger and modernisation of 17 Government of India Presses (GIPs) into five GIPs. The five will be at Rashtrapati Bhavan, Minto Road and Mayapuri in New Delhi, Nashik in Maharashtra and Temple Street in Kolkata.
An official statement said that 468 acres of land of other merged presses will be given to the Land and Development Office, Ministry of Urban Development. The modernisation will enable the presses to undertake confidential, urgent and multi-colour printing work of the Central Government offices all over the country.
Bonus for Railway staffThe productivity-linked bonus of Railway Employees before Dussehra/Durga Puja festival season also got the Cabinet’s nod. The Finance Minister said the Cabinet has given its approval to pay Productivity Linked Bonus (PLB) equivalent to 78 days wages to eligible non-gazetted railway employees (excluding RPF/RPSF personnel) for the financial year 2016-2017. About 12.30 lakh non-gazetted Railway employees are likely to benefit from the decision.
The financial implication of payment of 78 days PLB to railway employees has been estimated to be ₹2,245.45 crore. The wage calculation ceiling prescribed for payment of PLB is ₹7,000 per month. The maximum amount payable per eligible railway employee is ₹17,951 for 78 days.
The Cabinet has also given its nod to extending a Special Industry Initiative for Jammu and Kashmir called Udaan has been extended by a year to December 31, 2018 after the Cabinet’s nod. The aim of the scheme is to skill and employee youth in the state with corporate houses.
According to an official statement, 109 leading corporate have partnered with National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) under UDAAN with a commitment to train youth from the State covering organised retail, banking, financial services, IT, ITES, infrastructure and hospitality. Till now, 34,587 candidates have been selected of whom 31,903 candidates have joined, 22,237 candidates have completed the training, 7,649 are undergoing training and 14,694 have been offered jobs.
Khelo India revampThe Cabinet also approved the revamp of the Khelo India – National Programme for Development of Sports. An official statement said that the estimated outlay for the scheme is ₹1,756 crore from financial year 2017-2018 to 2019-2020. Each athlete selected under the scheme will get a scholarship of ₹5 lakh per annum for eight years. The government also aims to set up 20 universities across the country as hubs of sporting excellence.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.