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Jaipur, March 14 (HS). A meeting of the State Cabinet was held in the Chief Minister's Office on Thursday under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma.
After the meeting, Chief Minister Sharma, while addressing the journalists along with Deputy Chief Minister Diya Kumari and Dr. Prem Chandra Bairwa, said that while providing great relief to the people of the state, the state government has reduced the VAT on petrol and diesel by two percent, in different districts. Important decisions have been taken to remove the discrepancy in the rates of petrol and diesel and to increase the dearness allowance to government employees by four percent at par with the Centre.
Chief Minister Sharma said that people in the border and remote districts of the state were having to pay higher rates of petrol and diesel by about five rupees, besides, dealers of oil marketing companies were also facing losses due to this discrepancy. He said that fulfilling the guarantee of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the state government has reduced the VAT rate of petrol and diesel by two percent. As per the instructions of Union Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri, the price of oil transportation from depot to petrol pump for remote districts has also been reduced. He said that with this decision, the price of petrol in the state will be reduced by one rupee 40 paise to five rupees 30 paise per liter and on diesel by one rupee 34 paise to four rupees 85 paise per liter. The new rates will be effective from 6 am on March 15, 2024. Providing this relief to the common people will put an additional financial burden of Rs 1500 crore on the state government.
Increase in dearness allowance of 12 lakh 40 thousand government employees and pensioners.
The Chief Minister said that the State Government has decided to increase the dearness allowance by 4 percent in line with the Central Government to support the government employees and pensioners. With this, dearness allowance will increase from 46 percent to 50 percent. 8 lakh employees and 4 lakh 40 thousand pensioners of the state will benefit from this decision. The increased rates of dearness allowance will be effective from January 1, 2024. The employees will be paid in cash the increased dearness allowance from the salary of March 2024 (due April 2024). The amount for the months of January and February will be deposited in the GPF, GPF-2004 or GPF-SAB accounts of the concerned employees. To provide this relief to government employees and pensioners, the state government will bear an additional financial burden of Rs 1640 crore per year. Panchayat Samiti and Zilla Parishad employees will also get the benefit of increased dearness allowance.
There will be an investment of Rs 2.25 lakh crore in the energy sector in the state.
The Chief Minister said that our government is working to make the state self-reliant in the field of energy. After three years, Rajasthan will be in a state of surplus in power generation and the state will be able to sell power to other states instead of purchasing power. He said that in this sequence, MoUs worth about Rs 1 lakh 60 thousand crore have been signed recently for setting up joint ventures of 3 thousand 325 MW thermal projects and 28 thousand 500 MW renewable energy projects. Power Purchase Agreement has been signed between Rajasthan Energy Development Corporation and SJVN for supply of electricity from 600 MW solar power projects. In this, electricity will be supplied for 25 years at the rate of 2.62 paise per unit under the 100 MW tariff based tender process and 2.57 paise per unit under the CPSU scheme of 500 MW MNRE. Sharma said that the process for setting up 4 x 800 MW coal based project and 8000 MW solar power project through tariff based tender process has been started. An investment of approximately Rs 64 thousand crore is expected from the establishment of these projects. Thus, there will be a total investment of about Rs 2.25 lakh crore in the energy sector in the state.
Rs 1357 crore approved under CRIF for roads
Chief Minister Sharma also informed that the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has sanctioned Rs 972.80 crore for widening and strengthening of 31 major district roads and state highways in Rajasthan under CRIF. Also, Rs 384.56 crore has been sanctioned for the construction work of 07 ROBs, RUBs, flyovers in various districts under Setu Bandhan Scheme under CRIF.
