Tuesday, March 30, 2010

• Over 200 employees will stand to benefit
• Cabinet clears purchase of 350 MW of power

Bangalore: The State Government has approved pay scales and other fringe benefits as prescribed by the University Grants Commission to the academic staff serving in the Karnataka Animal and Fisheries Science University, which has veterinary colleges in four districts, a dairy science college in Bangalore and a fisheries college in Mangalore.

At a meeting of the State Cabinet held here on Monday, the Government is stated to have approved new pay scales and other benefits with a retrospective effect from January 2006 and the cost of this will be borne by an agency of the Union Agricultural Ministry and the State Government. With effect from April 2010, the State Government will bear the additional cost in the implementation of the new pay scales. Over 200 employees will stand to benefit. The State Government had yielded to a similar request of the staff of the University of Agricultural Sciences in February which involved a cost of Rs. 196.25 crore in granting the retrospective effect for implementation of pay scales, and of this the Centre provided Rs 159.52 crore and the State Government provided Rs 35.75 crore. The staff of the agricultural and horticultural universities apart from the Veterinary university had been seeking UGC pay scales for nearly a decade.

The staff of the Veterinary university made a representation to the Chief Secretary to the State Government S.V. Ranganath that they had been left out of the February order of the State Cabinet . The Cabinet which met here on Monday cleared their request too which involves an additional expenditure of Rs. 25.36 crore towards the arrears for retrospective implementation and a monthly additional cost of Rs. 55 lakh from April 1. The Centre has agreed to give Rs. 17 crore for the arrears and the balance of Rs 8.36 crore will be borne by the State Government.
The State Cabinet also approved the purchase of 350 MW of electricity from co-generation units forming part of sugar factories.

The Government has said that it is committed to ensuring 23 hours of supply in Bangalore, 22 hours in other urban areas and six hours of three-phase and six hours of single-phase in rural areas and adequate fund allocation has already been made for power purchase to meet a supply of 145 million units.

The load-shedding over the past two days has been attributed to technical problems that have surfaced in the Raichur Thermal Power Station which is being attended to.
Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa said the Cabinet decided to provide for funds to meet the State's share of 50 per cent in the railway projects to be undertaken here.