HIMACHAL PRADESH

Giving approval to the excise policy for financial year 2021-22, the state cabinet on Monday approved in principle to have excise Police in the Excise and Department to check the inter-state and intra-state smuggling of liquor, illicit trade and bootlegging of liquor leading to substantial loss of excise revenue to the government exchequer.

According to the new policy, low-price brands of IMFL will be cheaper as license fees and excise duty have been reduced. However, the liquor quota of bars attached to hotels has been reduced by 50 per cent in the state.

Under the new policy, the facility of transfer of quota within district and inter-district has also been approved.

The new policy envisages collection of Rs 1,829 crore revenue during the year which is Rs 228 crore higher than the financial year 2020-21 thereby registering an increase of 14 per cent

The Himachal Pradesh government signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Indian School of Business (ISB) on Thursday to integrate data of all government departments under a common platform, ”Him Data Portal”.

The MoU was signed by IT Secretary Abhishek Jain on behalf of the and ISB Executive Director Ashwini Chhatre in the presence of Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu.

The chief minister said ISB would collaborate with the Department of Information Technology as a research and technical support partner for building an open-source ”Him Data Portal” that would enable visualization of multiple data sets through advanced analytics and identity-access-management-controlled dashboards and reports to support the state’s policy-making and Governance.

He said it would strengthen the state’s benefit delivery systems through ”Him Pulse” which would support and enhance the capacity of ”Him Parivar” (all departments) in linking digital identity to the delivery of benefits to the targeted Population.

He said the Him Data Portal would bring valuable data from multiple domains together of various departments thereby helping in visualizing patterns, gaps, opportunities and connections cohesively which would result in strengthening efficiency in governance. A website for the same would also be developed.

Himachal Pradesh State Electricity Board Limited has come up with an innovative trust-based billing system for its domestic and commercial consumers with a load up to 20kw.

HPSEBL employees have been demanding the status of frontline workers as they are out in the field to ensure uninterrupted power supply. The government, however, has not acceded to their demand yet. The employees also regretted the fact that they have not been given priority for vaccination like bus drivers, Conductors and depot holders.

Punjabchief minister Bhagwant Mann had a breakfast meeting with his Himachal counterpartSukhvinder SinghSukhu on Wednesday following which Sukhu clarified that the hill states move to impose water cess would only be limited to the projects located in Himachal.

Last week, both Punjab and Haryana had passed resolutions in the Vidhan Sabhas to oppose the Himachal governments decision to impose water cess and Punjab Resources“>Water Resources Minister Gurmeet SinghMeet Hayerhad claimed the new levy would mean an additional annual burden of Rs 1,200 crore for partner states, a major portion of which would have to be borne by Punjab.

The state witnessed an overall rain deficiency of 36 per cent from January 1 to February 27. The most affected districts are Solan (67 per cent deficient rain), Mandi (60 per cent), Bilaspur (53 per cent) and Hamirpur (45 per cent). The maximum crop loss due to dry weather was reported from Solan (Rs 36 crore). The overall crop loss has been pegged at Rs 75 crore till January 10, said an official of the Agriculture-notes-for-state-psc-exams”>Agriculture Department.

To mitigate the effects of the dry spell, Saxena has directed the Jal Shakti Department to complete work on 12 water schemes, which are nearing completion, in a month.

The Budget has left a bitter taste in the mouth of apple growers. With their profits sliding year after year due to a volatile market, sharp increase in input costs, and heavy import of apple from other countries, the growers feel the Budget has failed to address any of their concerns.

The biggest disappointment is the unchanged import duty on apple, which continues to be 50 per cent. We have been demanding for long that the duty be raised to 100 per cent. The unchanged duty will continue to hurt the domestic apple market, said Lokinder Bisht, president of the Progressive Growers Association.

Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur had also requested the Centre to increase the import duty on apple to 100 per cent during his meetings for consultation on the Union Budget in Delhi last month. Thakur had even made the suggestion that apple be excluded from the list of fruits and other commodities brought under the Open General License.

Governor RV Arlekar has given approval to the Himachal Pradesh Freedom of Religions (Amendment) Bill, 2022 and nine other Bills. Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu gave this information in the House on the second day of the Winter Session here today. These Bills were passed during the tenure of the previous BJP government.

According to the HP Freedom of Religions (Amendment) Bill, 2022, the definition of mass conversion will now mean the conversion of two or more persons at the same time. Under Section 7 of the Act, any person, who converts to another religion, shall not take any benefit of his parent religion or caste after conversion. If a person gives a false declaration and takes the benefit of caste or religion after conversion, he or she shall be liable for imprisonment of not less than two years, which can be extended up to five years, and a fine up to Rs 1 lakh.

The amendment also states that anyone found involved in mass conversion in contravention of the provisions of the Act shall be liable for five to 10 years of imprisonment. If the offence is committed for the second time, the minimum imprisonment term shall be seven years, extendable up to 10 years and a fine up to Rs 1 lakh. Other Bills that were tabled in the House include the Himachal Pradesh Appropriation (Number 3) Bill, 2022. It provides authorisation of Rs 474 crore out of the consolidated fund of Himachal Pradesh to meet certain expenditure of financial year 2013-14.

The HP (Amendment) Bill 2021 provides for the appointment of a judge as Lokayukta. Earlier, only the High Court Chief Justice was eligible for the post.

The Himachal Pradesh Ground Water (Regulation and Control of Development and Management) Amendment Bill aims to regulate the use of underground water. It has a provision of five years of imprisonment for the violation of provisions.

The Himachal Pradesh Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (Amendment) Bill 2022 provides that the Fiscal Deficit in the state Budget for financial year 2020-21 can exceed by 3 per cent to 4 per cent of the state GDP.

TheHimachal Pradeshcabinet on Tuesday approved the draft electric vehicle policy to promote sustainable transport system. The said the policy aims to makeHimachala global hub for electric mobility development and manufacturing and to create public and private charging Infrastructure for electric vehicles. It is also going to provide subsidy and incentives to theelectric vehiclesmanufacturing industries.

The council of ministers, chaired by chief minister Jai Ram Thakur, also gave its nod to introduce the Sardar Patel University, Mandi, (Establishment and Regulation) bill, 2021 in the state legislative assembly.

In order to double the farmers income by enhancing production and productivity of traditional crops and to improve nutritional security and income of growers, thecabinetdecided to implement Swaran Jayanti Paramparagat Beej Suraksha Avam Samvardhan Yojna in the State.

It gave its nod to provide relaxation for the year 2020-21 to toll units given that traffic was hit from June 2020 to September 2020.