BackCabinet okays six-lane bridge in Allahabad
The new 6-lane bridge will also be beneficial for the Lucknow and Faizabad-bound traffic coming from Madhya Pradesh via National Highway-27 and National Highway-76 through Naini Bridge
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New Delhi: A nearly 10-km-long, six-lane bridge is be built across the river Ganga at Phaphamau in Allahabad in order to ease access for the millions of Hindu pilgrims who throng the holy city for Kumbh, Ardh-Kumbh and yearly ritual baths in the Sangam, the government said on Tuesday.
The 9.9-km bridge will be built on National Highway-96 at a cost of ₹ 1,948 crore and is likely to be completed by December 2021 after the Union cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved the project on Tuesday.
“This new 6-lane bridge will also be beneficial for the Lucknow and Faizabad-bound traffic coming from Madhya Pradesh via National Highway-27 and National Highway-76 through Naini Bridge. This will give a boost to pilgrimage tourism and local economy of holy city of Prayag (the original name of Allahabad)," the government said.
The cabinet also approved the revised guidelines of the department of public enterprises (DPE) on a time-bound closure of sick or loss making central public sector enterprises (CPSEs) and disposal of movable and immovable assets. The government said that the revised guidelines would reduce delays in implementation of closure plans of sick or loss-making CPSEs. These guidelines will replace the guidelines issued by DPE in September 2016.
“The guidelines give first priority for utilization of land of CPSEs under closure for affordable housing as per the relevant guidelines of ministry of housing and urban affairs (MoHUA). Since there are employees working in these CPSEs, government decided that closure should not cause hardship to them and has now laid down a uniform policy to give workers VRS at 2007 notional pay scale irrespective of the pay scale in which they are working," the government said.
The cabinet also approved increasing the remuneration of gramin dak sewaks (village postal workers), the backbone for delivering postal services in the rural areas. The move will benefit 307,000 dak sewaks and will cost the exchequer ₹ 1,257 crore in 2018-19, the government said. The increase in wages will also give a fillip to India Post Payments Bank, sponsored by the department of posts, as gramin dak sewaks will play a crucial role in financial inclusion.
To help sugar mills clear accumulated dues of over ₹ 22,000 crore to cane farmers, the cabinet also approved a ₹ 7,000 crore scheme which involves creation of a 3 million tonnes buffer stock, fixing a minimum sale price of ₹ 29 per kg for sugar sales by mills, and helping mills produce more ethanol via capacity addition thereby diverting the excess supply of sugarcane.
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