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.
In 2017, the Aam Aadmi Party had got around 23 per cent votes but the projections for this election is 39 per cent, while Congress seems to have lost around 11 per cent votes, against in last election's over 38 per cent now, to around 26 per cent and may see its tally come down from 77 seats to 25 seats.
Harjot's brother Prabhjot Singh, who resides in Delhi's Chhattarpur, told IANS: "The last conversation I had with Harjot was on February 26 at 9 p.m. I haven't spoken to him since then. On March 2, at night, he contacted the family and informed them about his injuries.
While directing officials to ensure safe return of the remaining students and other persons stuck in Ukraine, he said the state government is sparing no effort to help the distressed families in this hour of crisis.
Over 700 Indian students are stuck in Sumy and they are running out of basic necessities like food and water and they have been urging the Indian government to get them evacuated from there.
Over 7,400 Indian nationals are expected to be evacuated under the 'Operation Ganga' in the next two days, the government said on Thursday. The Centre has initiated an airlift operation to evacuate Indians, who have found their way to the neighbouring countries of war-torn Ukraine.
This advisory, prepared by the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, warns about aerial raids, missile attacks, artillery shelling, small arms and gunfire, grenade explosions and 'Molotov cocktails', including by local people/militia.
