T Ravikanth, principal secretary of theindustries and commerce department, andRIICO MDArchana Singh met senior central officials to seek support for two flagship projects.
The state has submitted a concept note for a MITRA park at Jodhpur and will be formally submitting a project proposal shortly. Both senior officials also met the Union secretary, department of chemicals and petrochemicals, who assured support to the proposedPetroleum, Chemicals and Petrochemicals Regionat Pachpadra.
The state cabinet on Wednesday approved theRajasthan Control of Organized Crime Bill, 2023, with stringent provisions.
The cabinet noted that the nature of crime has changed in recent years and criminals have now formed gangs to carry out crimes while there is no special law to deal with such crimes in the state.
The Bill has made a provision for death or life imprisonment in case of death caused by a criminal gang, and a minimum fine of Rs 1 lakh. Those who indulge in criminal conspiracy and give shelter to gang members will invite a minimum of five-year jail term and a maximum of life term and a minimum Rs 5 lakh penalty. Those who acquired wealth through organized crime may invite a minimum of three-year jail term and a maximum of a life sentence and a minimum fine of Rs 2 lakh.
The Bill also makes a provision for special courts for the trial of such cases. The trials will be held in closed courts, and witnesses identities will be kept secret. There is a provision for seizure or demolition of property acquired through organized crime.
Theminesdepartment has earned close to Rs 36 crore from the amnesty scheme launched in 2022 to recover dues while giving exemptions. In 565 cases, the department has also given relief of Rs 129 crore.
In the amnesty scheme, the department had given exemptions on lease rent, royalty and others with the maximum relief going up to 90%, and a minimum relief of 40% on dues with a complete interest waiver.
The ACS, mines and petroleum, Subodh Agarwal said the maximum number of cases resolved came fromJodhpurregion. From 179 cases, the department earned Rs 17 crore and gave relief of about Rs 44 crore.
Jodhpur was followed by Rajsamand and Jaipur both in the number of cases and the amount of dues recovered.
The state’s department of personnel (DoP) on Monday issued the order appointing 1985 batch Ias officerUsha Sharmaas the new chief secretary ofRajasthan, making her the second woman to hold the post. In addition, the outgoing chief secretary, Niranjan Arya, who retired on Monday, was appointed as advisor to CM Ashok Gehlot.
Sharma has also been given additional charge of Rajasthan State Mines and Minerals Ltd, Udaipur. She will hold this charge till further orders.
The DoP order also stated that salary, allowances and terms of service of Arya will be issued separately after the Consent of the finance department. Sharma, who was secretary, department of youth affairs, government of India, returned to Rajasthan, her parent cadre, following the ‘s request on Sunday. Sharma is the sister-in-law of state assembly Speaker CP Joshi. She will retire from service in June, 2023.
Ecosystem players in the startup community here said the state needs to reload the energy to move up the ladder. They pointed out that the state has one of the best incubation facilities in the country in Bhamashah Techno Hub.
Jaipur has been a Home to some unicorns and can compete with any location. Representatives of the sector said that the government needs to create a buzz again by holding events to make the ecosystem happening.
In theState Business Reform Action Plan(SBRAP)-2020 or , the state has lost some ground to other states. In the last rankings, it had secured 8th position in the country. Now, in the new report the government has scrapped the ranking system and introduced category.
Rajasthan has come in the third category Aspirer, clubbed among seven other states. Top Achievers ranking was shared by seven states and Achievers by six states.
The State Business Reform Action Plan (SBRAP)-2020 comprised 301 action points spread across 18 departments/agencies covering 15 reform.
The statespanchayatiraj department has sanctioned Rs 2 crore each for building 47 new panchayat samiti bhawans in the state.
A total amount of Rs 46.20 crore has already been sanctioned for the construction of new panchayat samiti bhawans inRajasthan, a proposal made during the 2020-21 budget, read an order issued by rural development and department.
The total budget for building 47 new panchayat samiti bhawans in the state is Rs 94 crore.
According to the order, the funds for the construction of panchayat samiti bhawans have been generated through the 6th state Finance Commission 2022-23.
Rajasthangovernment has opposed the Centres proposal to allocate reducedNREGAlabourbudgetof 20 crore for the financial year 2023-24. The has demanded a minimum labour budget of 37 crore for the financial year 2023-24, said states rural development department secretary Manju Rajpal.
Rajasthan has so far generated 34.87 crore persondays under MGNREGA even as the Centre had revised the labour budget up to 34 crore for the financial year 2022-23. The Centre had initially approved a labour budget of 24 crore for 2022-23.
In the last couple of years, the state has generated persondays above 40 crore (Covid years). Even in years before Covid, we have generated persondays above 30 crore, she added.
The state’s food and civil supplies department has identified 7.38 lakhNational Act(NFSA) beneficiaries who have not picked up wheat from fair price shops in the last seven to eight months. Out of these, the names of 2.89 lakh beneficiaries have already been deleted from theNFSAlist.
The department has launched an exercise to identify those beneficiaries who are now financially Sound (or do not require benefits under the scheme anymore) and have stopped availing themselves of the benefits under the scheme.
There are around 4.44 crore NFSA beneficiaries in Rajasthan. The department has so far recovered Rs 72.69 crore from 59,260 defaulter government employees who had received benefits under NFSA. In all, 83,687 such employees have been identified in the state.
With improvement in and basic facilities in schools across the state,Rajasthanis now at Level 2 of the performance grading index (PGI) to assess school Education with a score of 903. This is likely the first time that Rajasthan has reached Level 2 in the PGI report.
The index was released by the ministry of education on Thursday. Seven states and Union Territories (UTs) have received Level 2, the highest rating given in the latest report.
The PGI helps you to understand the status of school education in different states and UTs and checks parameters such as Learning outcome and quality, access, infrastructure, and facilities, among others, and identifies areas that require improvement.
Since 2019-20, the state has shown improvement in indicators such as access, infrastructure and facilities, and Governance processes, as per the report.
These categories are further divided into five domains – learning outcomes (LO), access (A), infrastructure & facilities (IF), Equity (E) and governance process (GP).
The finance department has stopped Right to Education (RTE) entitlements for 50,000 state private schools citing that the schools were shut due to the pandemic and the bills could not be cleared without verifying if regular online classes were conducted.
The has to pay more than Rs 300 crore to the private schools under RTE. According to sources in the department, the proposal of releasing the amount was cleared by the finance department earlier and funds for some schools were also released, however, the department decided to take back the amount released.
As the schools remained closed in the session 2020-21, and students were made to study online. The finance department has asked the government to make a complete plan and verify the quality of education on the basis of which funds will be released and the mode of payment will be decided.