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Cabinet approval for amendment to ESI Act

P. Sunderarajan

NEW DELHI: The Union Cabinet on Thursday gave the nod for amending the Employees State Insurance Act to allow ESI hospitals to expand their scope of services, by offering health cover to beneficiaries of the Rashtriya Swasthya Bhima Yojana (RSBY), which provides health insurance cover to people living below the poverty line.

Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram noted that the RSBY beneficiaries were eligible for accessing medical facilities in government hospitals, as also some private institutions, and with the amendment to the Act, they would be able to access the ESI Hospitals too. The amendment would also benefit the ESI Corporation, as it would help in the optimum utilisation of its infrastructure and augment its funds.

The Cabinet gave its approval for declaring 2008-09 as Food Safety and Quality Year with a view to promoting safe, healthy, and sustainable food supply, bringing about consumer awareness to demand safe and quality food, and encouraging the practice of good hygiene amongst food producers and processors and the consumers.

Schemes would be launched for establishing mega food parks with integrated value chains to facilitate linkages of farmers to the processors and industry and to the market, setting up integrated cold chain facilities to enhance the shelf-life of perishable products and linking them to the market and improving the quality of food provided by street vendors, besides upgrading the food testing and quality control laboratories and developing quality and safety standards for various food products.

Modernising abattoirs

In addition, schemes would be taken up to modernise abattoirs for promoting scientific and hygienic slaughtering practices. Seminars and workshops would be organised to create public awareness on various aspects of food safety and quality. A special postage stamp would be released to mark the year.

Chaired by Prime Minster Manmohan Singh, the meeting cleared a proposal for India to become a full member of the International Organisation for Migration, which covered areas such as welfare of emigrant workers. The meeting also gave the nod for preparing a detailed project report for setting up a National Police University. The Home Ministry had proposed the setting up of the university in Delhi.

The Cabinet gave approval for establishing a national institute for corporate affairs with an outlay of Rs. 211 cores and for replacing the Limited Liability Partnership Bill — which was pending in Parliament since December 2006 — with a new Bill to incorporate the various suggestions made by a Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance.

The Cabinet gave the nod for moving official amendments to the Code of Criminal Procedure (Amendment) Bill, 2006, to take into account the recommendations of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs to make it more effective.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on Thursday decided to allow fertilizer manufacturers to charge up to a maximum of 10 per cent over and above the MRP of subsidised fertilizers for zincated urea and boronated single super phosphate and up to a maximum of 5 per cent over and above the notified selling prices for all other FCO-approved fortified/ coated subsidised fertilizers.

The decision, however, comes with a rider.

The manufacturers would be allowed to produce the fortified/coated fertilizers only up to a maximum of 20 per cent of their total production of the respective subsidised fertilizers to ensure that even while value-added fertilizers were made available, there was no shortage of non-fortified/coated fertilizers.

The Department of Agriculture and Cooperation would review the percentage from time to time, taking into account the demand and availability situation.

Waiver of dues

The CCEA also approved waiver of dues by Cuban companies. The dues amounted to Rs. 347 crore.

The decision would facilitate resumption of credit facilities and insurance cover by Exim Bank and the Export Credit Guarantee Corporation of India to Cuba.

In addition, the CCEA decided to allow Agam SPV Six Limited of Cayman Islands to set up a wholly owned subsidiary with a foreign direct investment of up to $ 300 million (Rs. 1,170 crore).

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