BHUBANESWAR: In a bid to increase revenue in excise sector, a proposal to empower Odisha Government to fix licence, permit, excise adhesive label, vend and literage fees was approved by the State Cabinet on Tuesday.
The Cabinet meeting, presided over by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, decided to amend the Odisha Excise Act, 2008 to bring in the changes. Earlier, fixation of fee was decided at the Excise Commissioner level. The amendments will also do away with several sub-sections in the Act which required the State Government to take the approval of the Assembly for fixing of the fees.
Now, the power to fix fees on licence, permit and excise adhesive label will be with the Chief Minister. “Government means the Chief Minister,” Chief Secretary AP Padhi said.
In a significant decision, the Cabinet approved the proposal to treat employees of Block Grant Sanskrit colleges on a par with 662 category college employees. The employees of Sanskrit colleges will now get basic pay, grade pay with one increment as per the Odisha Revised Scale of Pay Rules, 2008.
The decision will benefit 300 employees of 43 colleges and cost the exchequer Rs 2.78 crore per year. The new pay scale for teaching and non-teaching staff of Sanskrit colleges will be implemented with retrospective effect from January 1, 2014.
The Cabinet approved the proposal to revise the fee structure of Advocate General and other law officers of the High Court. As per the revision, the retainer fee of the Advocate General has been doubled from Rs 25,000 to Rs 50,000 per month while fee for an appearance in Supreme Court has been revised from Rs 10,000 to Rs 20,000. The fee structure was not revised since 2012.
The Chief Secretary said retainer fee of Government advocates will also be doubled from Rs 13,000 to Rs 26,000 while their fee for daily appearance will increase from Rs 2000 to Rs 2700. Similarly, the retainer fee of additional Government advocates increased from Rs 10,000 to Rs 13,500 per month while the fee per appearance went up from Rs 1500 to Rs 2200.
The proposal to amend the recruitment criteria for district judges as per the recommendation of the High Court was approved. Fifty per cent of the posts of district judge are filled up by promotion from the cadre of senior civil judges having not less than three years of service.
The Chief Secretary said the High Court has recommended to enhance the qualifying service from three to five years so that more experienced judicial officers will be eligible for promotion.