Cabinet gives green signal for Vijayanagar district
BENGALURU: The State Cabinet, which met here on Friday, gave the green signal to the newly-constituted Vijayanagar district, carved out of Ballari district in the Kalyan-Karnataka region. While Hospet is expected to be the capital, six of 11 taluks of Ballari district will come under the new entity.
The new district will have Hospet, Harappanahalli, Hoovinahadagali, Hagaribommanahalli, Kotturu and Kudligi taluks under its administration. The decision will be notified and objections called for, said Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister J C Madhuswamy.The meeting was held with a reduced quorum as many ministers are in Delhi to take part in party national General Secretary C T Ravi’s office inauguration. Among those absent were Ramesh Jarkiholi and R Ashoka.
Eyeing the bypoll at Maski, which is round the corner, the cabinet approved irrigation and canal modernisation projects worth `52.54 crore. Local residents pointed out that this will be a game-changer as it is expected to benefit thousands of farmers from the Scheduled Tribe community in this agriculture-dependent constituency. The BJP has already started working at the grassroots level in the constituency to ensure victory.
The Cabinet is also expected to approve three more names for the high-powered committee which had 11 members to look into the Metro Rail project that already has the chief secretary and other senior bureaucrats.
The three additional members are Bengaluru Police Commissioner, South Western Railway Divisional Railway Manager and KRIDE Director. The decision was taken to include Lakshmipuram under Yeshwanthpur and Kanshiramnagar and Lakshmipuram Ward No. 12, which are a part of Dasarahalli, into Bengaluru. The cabinet also discussed filling up of backlog of SC/ST posts in different departments. There was a delay as Govind Karjol was replaced by B Sriramulu as social welfare minister.
The government has taken permission to set up a centre of excellence in collaboration with the Software Technology Park of India at `27 crore and the cabinet decided to release its share of `17 crore. Permission was given to take up development works at regional offices of Visvesvaraya Technical University in Belagavi, Davanagere and Chikkaballapur at Rs 43 crore.
The cabinet okayed the building of a check dam at Tindi in Dakshina Kannada at `36.34 crore that will benefit thousands of farmers. The cabinet has increased the number of leaves that can be carried forward to the next year by government employees from 30 to 45 days. When Madhuswamy was bombarded with questions on the reservation to the majority Lingayat community, he said that the issue was not taken up at the cabinet meeting.
D7,276 crore okayed for urban housing programmeAddressing a long-pending demand for urban housing, the cabinet approved one of the biggest housing programmes at Rs 7,276 crore through the Karnataka Housing Board. Residential sites will be distributed to economically weaker sections in 98 towns across the state under the programme.