STATE TIMES NEWS
NEW DELHI: Union Minister, Dr Jitendra Singh 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 and Training (DoPT) and Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG), Department of Pensions and Department of Public Grievances in the Ministry of Personnel and Public Grievances, Department of Atomic Energy and Department of Space.
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, Singh disclosed that the budget presented by Arun Jaitley proposes a hike of 34.38 per cent 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.43,244.64 Cr in comparison to Rs.32,180.08 cr in last financial year.
Similarly, Singh said, the budget allocation for the Ministry of DoNER has been increased by 6.2 per cent at Rs. 2,682.45 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, 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 per cent 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, 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 to 20 lakh, he added.
