Bhubaneswar: Odisha Cabinet Saturday approved a proposal to increase the corpus of Odisha Contigency Fund from the existing Rs 400 crore to 1600 crore through an ordinance.
Briefing newspersons after the Cabinet meeting Chief Secretary A P Padhi said the need for increasing the fund was felt to meet the requirement of funds for the implementation of the Krushak Assistance for Livelihood and Income Augmentation (KALIA) scheme which required Rs 10,180 crore over a period of three years.
The Chief Secretary said since the Odisha Legislative Assembly is not in session an ordinance would be clamped for hike in the corpus fund.
Earlier, the Odisha Corpus fund was enhanced from Rs 150 crore to Rs 400 crore to meet the emergent expenditure.
During 2018-19 the fund was further enhanced from Rs 400 crore to Rs 1400 crore temporarily through an ordinance dated July 27,2018 to meet the state’s share and Central share of centrally sponsored scheme (CSS) such as Swachha Bharat Mission under Panchayati raj and Drinking water department.
In another decision, the Cabinet approved a proposal to formulate Odisha Farmer Producer Organisations (FPO) Policy to address the challenges of agriculture and empower the small and marginal farmers.
But the ordinance has lapsed on expiration of six weeks from reassembly of the legislative assembly under Article 213(2) (a) of the Constitution of India.
The Policy will register FPOs in Agriculture and allied sectors to provide end to end service covering all aspects of cultivation?financial, input supply, technology transfer, procurement, packaging, marketing, insurance and networking services.
Funding will be made through convergence of funds from the existing schemes of the relevant departments.
A corpus fund with an allocation of Rs 100 crore per year shall be set up with Department of Agriculture and Farmers Empowerment to support FPOs, Resource Institutions, Producer Organsiation promoting Institutions and PMU in all sectors.
The Cabinet also approved a proposal to extend the timeline of private dealers by one year for the smooth functioning of Public Distribution System in the state.
A decision was also taken to revise the pay scale of University and government college and aided college teachers.
Nearly 5203 teachers working in different State Universities, Government College and Non- government-aided Colleges teachers would be benefitted by it.
The revision of pay scale would cost an approximate additional expenditure of Rs 136 crore per annum to the state exchequer.
The new scale would be implemented retrospectively with effect from January 1, 2016.
PNN