Punjab Cabinet gives nod to new food grains labour policy
Darpan News Desk IANS, 26 Aug, 2022 10:14 AM
Chandigarh, Aug 26 (IANS) The Punjab Cabinet, chaired by Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, on Friday gave nod to the new Punjab Food Grains Labour Policy, 2022 and the revised Punjab Food Grains Transportation Policy, 2022 to ensure wider competitive participation with increased transparency and, at the same time, reduce frivolous litigations.
A spokesperson for the Chief Minister's Office said the revised transportation policy is now in sync with the custom milling policy for procurement and milling of paddy, approved by the Cabinet a few days back.
The revised transportation policy mandates, for the first time ever, the installation of vehicle tracking systems in every vehicle used for transportation of food grains procured by the government.
The Department of Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs has already initiated the process of empanelling companies, which provide vehicle-tracking systems, and making the existing Anaaj Khareed Portal compatible with these systems.
Likewise, the new labour policy aims at ensuring wider participation of labour associations by abolishing the prevailing Labour and Cartage Policy.
The existing policy, prevailing for past many decades, was perceived by many to favour participation of contractors, since it involved providing labour and transportation services by the same person.
But the new policy has completely delinked labour and transportation services, thereby providing increased opportunities to labour associations to directly participate in the tender process, which will directly increase their incomes by removing the contractor margin, the spokesperson said.
Sidhu has been left out in the cold ever since the party lost the elections in Punjab earlier this year. He was asked to resign after the party appointed Amrinder Singh Raja Warring as the new President of Punjab Congress. Since then the Congress has set up a new team in Punjab, reportedly annoying the former state Congress chief.
Announcing to replicate the Delhi Model in the state, the Chief Minister said 117 government schools and an equal number of mohalla clinics will be set up with one each in every assembly segment across the state to impart quality education and the state-of-the-art healthcare facilities.
A spokesperson for the Chief Minister's Office said the move is aimed at sprucing up the health and education infrastructure of Punjab by replicating the Delhi model in both these core sectors.
After launching the web-portal amidst presence of DIG (Cyber Crime) Nilambari Jagdale and DSP Samarpal Singh, the DGP congratulated the entire team for developing this user-friendly portal, which could be easily accessed by anyone to report cyber frauds.
A division bench of Acting Chief Justice Vipin Sanghi and Justice Navin Chawla noted that the interim status report filed by the Delhi Police shows that the police force failed to prevent miscreants from reaching the residence of the Chief Minister and vandalising the area.
In a record, the Punjab Government said it cleared payments of Rs 13,000 crore of farmers for procurement of wheat till Monday, state Food and Civil Supplies Minister Lal Chand Kataruchak said. He said this was the highest payment in the past decade.
