The Cabinet has set the stage for carving out 12 new districts out of the existing 13 by constituting a committee which will work out the modalities.
Chief Secretary Nilam Sawhney will head the committee, which will have the Chief Commissioner of Land Administration, Secretaries of the General Administration (Services) and Planning Departments and a representative of the Chief Minister's Office as members and Principal Secretary (Finance) as the convener.
A decision to that effect was taken at the Cabinet meeting held at the Secretariat on Wednesday.
Besides, the Cabinet resolved to establish a corporation that will exclusively take care of the delivery of sand, which relieves the AP Mineral Development Corporation of its additional responsibility to regulate the mining and supply of sand.
The functioning of the sand corporation will be monitored by a committee of Ministers led by Buggana Rajendranath Reddy and Kodali Sri Venkateswara Rao and Perni Venkataramaiah (members).
Briefing media persons about the Cabinet resolutions, Minister for Information & Public Relations and Transport Perni Venkataramaiah said the creation of new districts was aimed at improving the public service delivery mechanism and better implementation of welfare schemes.
The committee would study ways to limit the expenditure entailed by the creation of new districts and look into other aspects.
Fighting drought
Another significant decision was to establish Rayalaseema Drought Mitigation Projects Development Corporation.
It will be a 100% government-owned special purpose vehicle having a capital outlay of ₹40,000 crore to take up various projects in the parched region.
Further, the Cabinet resolved to make an amendment to the AP Agriculture Land Act, 2006, through an ordinance to facilitate the conversion of farm-lands for setting up solar power plants.
The Cabinet gave its nod for Renewable Energy Export Policy - 2020 for selling solar and wind power in other States.
The Cabinet decided to bring Fish Feed Quality Control Ordinance - 2020 to curb the menace of spurious feed flooding the market.
APIIC can raise loans
The Cabinet cleared the proposal to extend the YSR Cheyutha scheme to 8.21 lakh eligible beneficiaries over and above 17.03 lakh persons who have already applied for it.
G.O. MS No. 22 through which infrastructure works have been taken up in the education sector under the Nadu-Nedu programme was ratified by the Cabinet.
The Cabinet permitted the AP Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (APIIC) to raise loans amounting to ₹2,000 crore with government guarantee.
