Summary:
SHIMLA: The Himachal Pradesh cabinet on Saturday decided, in principle, to implement 10% reservation in state government jobs and education for the economically weaker sections (EWS) in the general category.The cabinet meeting chaired by chief minister Jai Ram Thakur also decided to implement “Compensation Scheme for Women Victims and Survivors of Sexual Assault and other Crimes-2018” to provide compensation to the women who had suffered loss, injury, as the vase may be, as a result of the offence committed and thus required rehabilitation.Under this scheme, compensation would be provided to the victims under Women Victims Compensation Fund as decided by the State Legal Services Authority or District Legal Authority in the range of Rs 2 lakh to Rs 10 lakh keeping in view the gravity of the crime.The cabinet also decided to constitute the State Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management Authority and creation of Special Fund to be known as State Compensatory Afforestation Fund for compensatory afforestation on degraded forest land/non forest land and Net Present Value (NPV) of the diverted forest land.The authority will consist of a governing body to be chaired by the chief minister, a steering committee headed by the chief secretary and an executive committee to be chaired by principal chief conservator of forests as chairperson ex-officio.The cabinet also approved guarantee of Rs 10 crore in favour of Himachal Pradesh State Forest Development Corporation Limited to avail cash credit limit at lower rates of interest subjected to charge of monthly guarantee fee of 0.5% from the corporation.It also approved the upgradation of the 50-bed Shahpur Civil Hospital in Kangra district to 100-bed alongwith creation of 26 posts in different categories to manage the hospital.It also gave its consent to increase the bed capacity of Nerwa Civil Hospital in Shimla alongwith creation of 46 posts in different categories..