Several key decisions were taken by the Andhra Pradesh Cabinet which convened for a meeting at the Secretariat in Velagapudi on Wednesday. The meeting was chaired by Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy.
Disclosing the details, Information and Public Relations (I&PR) Minister Chelluboyina Venugopala Krishna said that the Cabinet approved the Bills relating to the Guaranteed Pension Scheme for government employees and Regularisation of Contract Employees besides the amendment bills of A.P. Vaidya Vidhana Parishad, Endowments, PoT of assigned lands, Private Universities, APSSG, APGST and Bhoodan Acts. It has also approved the Jagananna Aarogya Suraksha programme that will run for 45 days from September 30, he said.
The Minister said that the Cabinet has decided to introduce the Jagananna Civil Services Incentive Programme and allot 50 per cent seats to tribal youth in Kurupam Engineering College. Under the programme, the government will award incentives of ₹1 lakh and ₹1.50 lakh to candidates who pass the UPSC Preliminary and Mains examinations respectively, he said.
The Cabinet has also approved the MoU with the American educational agency International Baccalaureate (IB) and decided to provide house sites to government employees who do not own houses upon their retirement, make applicable fee reimbursement and Aarogyasri schemes to the children of the retired employees. The amendment to the Private Universities Act will make it compulsory for all private universities to have a tie-up with top-100 foreign universities to provide joint certification to the students. It will also help bring 35 per cent seats under convener quota in all private colleges, which will be transformed as universities, he said.
The Cabinet also gave approval to the zero vacancy policy and fill up 353 vacancies in cancer units of government hospitals in Visakhapatnam, Guntur and Kadapa and 34 teaching and 10 non-teaching posts in Adoni Government College. It has also decided to allot 10 cents of residential land to tennis player Jaffrin Syed and give her a job as a deputy registrar in the Cooperative Department.
Mr. Venugopala Krishna said that the Cabinet has approved proposals to fill up one assistant director’s post in the Sericulture Department, 13 special deputy registrar and six deputy registrar posts, two engineer posts in the Electricity Department, 40 office subordinate posts and 28 driver posts in the Andhra Pradesh High Court, 168 posts in the nursing colleges in Vijayawada, Ongole and Eluru, 99 posts in 11 government hospitals and medical colleges, 10 posts in Coastal Zone Management Authority, five posts in the Hazardous Activities Tribunal and existing vacancies in the Chief Electoral Office.
The Cabinet has also decided to shift the bulk drugs factory from Kakinada to Nakkapalli and allot one acre of land to the State Bank of India (SBI) for setting up a rural self-employment training centre at China Mushidivada in Visakhapatnam, seven acres to Guntur-based Viswa Manava Samaikyata Sansad for the construction of a maternity and paediatric hospital and five acres to the Tourism Department for construction of a convention centre. It has also approved the decision to grant clemency to nine life convicts on the occasion of Azadi ki Amrit Mahotsav and also make all university recruitments through the Andhra Pradesh Public Service Commission, he said.
