Cabinet takes crucial decisions before polls

Amaravati: Expecting that the election notification would be issued either towards end of February or early March, the Andhra Pradesh cabinet, which is considered to be the penultimate one before elections, took some major decisions on Friday like interim relief of 20 per cent for employees and health cards for outsourcing employees.

The Cabinet has approved a proposal for providing full-time scale salaries to the contract employees working in various government schools and colleges, including residential schools. The contract employees working at KGBVs, Intermediate, APRS, Model Schools and others will get these benefits. 

In addition to providing the minimum time scale to these contract employees, the cabinet also approved other proposals to allow them to provide 12-month payment and maternity leaves.

The Group of Ministers approved a proposal to establish two new universities. JNTU Amaravati will be established in the new capital city and Gurajada university to be established in Vizianagaram.

The Chief Minister explained how the Telangana High Court had appreciated the stand of the state government on AgriGold issue.  He said the government had informed the court that it was willing to come to the rescue of the poor depositors who had invested up to Rs 10,000.

This would cost the exchequer Rs 250 crore. The court, he said, had permitted them to do so and expressed hope that it would be done by March 27.

Among other decision taken were to approve the construction of Vaikunthapuram barrage on River Krishna. The 3.25-km long barrage is estimated to cost Rs 3,875 crore.

Another important decision was to modernise 31 hospitals across the state and increase their bed strength from 30 to 50 with funds from NABARD. It is estimated that this would cost about Rs 2,000 crore. It has also been decided to spend Rs 255 crore for improvement and development of the facilities in the hospitals.

Kalyanadurgam, Eleswaram, P Gannavaram, Badvel, Porumamilla, Mylavaram, Jaggayyapet, Macherla, Allagadda, Dhone, Rapur, Kumbam, Dornal, Darsi, Yalamanchili, Chintapalli, Kotarutla, Nakkapalli and Kurupam. The Cabinet also approved a proposal for developing Eluru city as smart city and set up Vizianagaram government medical college.