Cabinet dissolves 153 market panels

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 30

The Cabinet today dissolved 153 market committees across the state. With this, it terminated the services of nominated chairman and members of the committees.

The decision affects about 1,600 chairman and members of the market committees.

The Cabinet okayed the “super-session” (supersede) of the existing nominated Market Committees

As per the decision, Section 12 of the Punjab Agricultural Produce Market Act, 1961, will be amended to appoint administrators, who will perform the official duties and exercise powers of the market committees for one year or till the nomination of political appointees in the committees, whichever is earlier.

The Cabinet also decided to convert the Shagun scheme into Ashirwad scheme and announced that the money will go to the bank accounts of beneficiaries, and not routed through sarpanches.

Under the Shagun scheme, financial help of Rs15,000 is provided for marriage of daughter, who is above 18 years, to poor families.

It decided to give a monthly assistance of Rs8,000 to women victims of acid attacks under the proposed Punjab Financial Assistance to Acid Victims Scheme, 2017.

The Cabinet gave its nod to a new compensation policy to be formulated for victims of accidents and fire incidents as well as martyrs from the Army, paramilitary forces and Punjab Police .

The Cabinet also decided to extend the contract of the pharmacists working as service providers and Class IV employees in 1,186 subsidiary health centres of Zila Parishads in Rural Development and Panchayats Department for one year, from April 1, 2017, to March 31, 2018, or till regular recruitment (whichever is earlier) at the existing rates of Rs7,000 and Rs3,000 per month respectively.

Beant Singh’s grandson to be DSP 

The Cabinet approved the appointment of Guriqbal Singh, a grandson of former Chief Minister Beant Singh, as a DSP in the Punjab Police on “compassionate grounds”. Guriqbal is the youngest grandson of Beant Singh, who was assassinated by terrorists on August 31, 1995. He is the brother of Ludhiana MP Ravneet Bittu. The Cabinet gave “special permission” to relax the age limit since he has crossed the maximum age of 28 for direct recruitment as DSP in Punjab. The service rules have been relaxed to enable the appointment as a special case.

Other decisions 

• The Cabinet renamed the Department of Agriculture as the Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare 
• Changed the nomenclature of the Department of Irrigation to the Department of Water Resources to focus on matters related to water, and its optimum, efficient and sustainable use
• Extension to Civil Aviation Advisor Capt Abhay Chandra for five years (from May 10, 2017 to May 9, 2022) to carry out VIP flying operations, besides handling other key issues of the Department of Civil Aviation