Minister for Youth Services & Sports, Information Technology and Technical Education today informed the House that Basmati rice exported outside the State is exempted from toll tax.Replying to a question by Mr Kuldeep Raj, the Minister however said that neither any such exemption is available for Basmati paddy being exported to the Punjab State nor any proposal was under consideration of Government as it will adversely affect the local Rice Sheller Units.The Minister informed the house that as per entry No 34 of Schedule A to Notification SRO 167 of 16 June, 2005, paddy is already under zero-rated category. He said the continuation of the said entry is reviewed annually by the Government and presently the said item has been kept in zero per cent rate category upto ending March 2017.Check irrationality; carry on spot assessment for hand pump installations: Andrabi
Minister of State for PHE and Irrigation & Flood Control, Power Development, Industries & Commerce and Hajj & Auqaf, Syed Farooq Ahmad Andrabi today directed the concerned officials of PHE department to carry out spot assessment for installation of hand pumps in Bandipora.Replying to supplementaries by legislators, the Minister said that complaints of irrational distribution of hand pumps in various areas in Jammu region would be addressed. He said that the Chief Engineer Jammu would be instructed to look into the irrational distribution of hand pumps besides rectifying the already installed hand pumps in some constituencies of Jammu region.In reply to the main question, the Minister said that 54 hand pumps have been installed and commissioned during 2013-14 and 2014-15 in Bandipora constituency. He said that the construction of hand pumps is being taking up on the Not Covered (NC) partially covered (PC) status obtained from the Territorial Divisions and in consultations with public representatives.
The Minister said that repair of the hand pumps is being taken up on the demand of respective PRIs and the payment for repairs is also being made by the respective Block Development Officers.He said that since piped water supply doesn’t remain available round the clock, in most of the areas and as an interim relief construction of hand pumps mitigates the water demand. He said that the same is being done on the basis of recommendations made by the Territorial Divisions.GM Saroori, Vikar Rasool and Choudhary Muhammad Akram raised supplementaries to the main question.Govt working on infrastructure up-gradation of colleges: Naeem Akhter
Minister for Education, Mr Naeem Akhter today said that rather than opening new colleges, Government is working on the upgradation of existing college infrastructure that will go a long way in making available world class education to students of the state.“There are 95 degree colleges functional in the State out of which 22 Degree Colleges were sanctioned during the year 2011. 58 colleges out of 95 are functioning in their own building and the remaining 37 are functioning in the makeshift arrangements,” Mr Akhter said.
“Rather than going for expansion, right now the Government is in a phase of upgrading the existing infrastructure in the educational sector including buildings, laboratories, libraries etc and teaching, non-teaching faculty to make them fully functional rather than expansion,” he said.In reply to a question by Advocate Mohammad Yousuf Bhat today in the House, the Minister said that the Higher Education Department has constituted a Committee on June 26, 2014 to discuss various issues related to introduction of new / additional subjects in Government degree colleges of the State. He said that the issue of introduction of PG subjects would also be considered by the Committee subject to the availability of infrastructure, teaching faculty and in light of other para-meters like subject being taught in the adjoining college, feeding higher secondary schools, scope of subject’s stream etc.The Education Minister said that, the Government Degree College Shopian has already been allowed to introduce Commerce stream. Besides, it has also been allowed to introduce new job oriented course in Horticulture and Plant Management.