Metro rail projects for Vizag, Vijayawada approved

The Andhra Pradesh Cabinet on Friday approved Metro rail projects for Visakhapatnam and Vijayawada-Guntur-Tenali-Mangalagiri regions.

Briefing reporters after the Cabinet meeting, IT Minister Palle Raghunatha Reddy said that a Special Purpose Vehicle would be established to mobilise funds and implement the projects.

He also announced that a Backward Classes Commission would be established to study the feasibility of including Kapus in BCs list without affecting the present quantum of reservations. The committee would study the socio-economic conditions and make its recommendation. A committee was also being set up to examine the possibility of giving special economic package to economically backward persons among the forward castes.

Temple trust boards to be reconstituted

The Cabinet also decided that all officials from the rank of MRO to secretaries, including police officials, would be transferred from their existing posts within a month. An ordinance would be promulgated to reconstitute trust boards of temples and endowments committees, including Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD).

Mr. Reddy said that in a revolutionary decision the Cabinet approved a proposal to award contracts for sand quarrying to women self-help groups as a means of empowering them. He said it was also decided to have reasonable sand rate for the poor and a different one for industrialists. Modern equipment, including CCTV cameras, would be used to monitor mining activities.

As part of the measures to make agriculture profitable, officials and agricultural experts would visit farms every Tuesday and Wednesday for three months to educate farmers under the ‘Polam Pilustondi’ scheme.

Following the launch of the ‘Badi Pilustondi’ scheme by Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on July 25 to ensure that all children between six and 14 years were enrolled in schools, he said 24,956 of the 31,286 out-of-school children were enrolled. He said that biometric system would be introduced to ensure attendance of students, teachers and lecturers in schools and colleges. The mission of the government was to achieve 100 per cent literacy in the State.

The Cabinet decided to allow persons who were maimed or permanently disabled in extremist attack, police firing or in communal riots, to exercise their option in recommending jobs to those nominated by them or avail a monthly pension of Rs. 10,000 by each of them.