Cabinet clears bonus for Rly staff

NEW DELHI: The Cabinet on Thursday cleared 65-day bonus for 16 lakh railway employees for’05-06. The railway had paid 59-day bonus for ’04-05 which costed it Rs 700 crore. This year’s bonus would cost the railways Rs 800 crore.

The Cabinet also gave its nod for reconstitution of Law Commission for a term of three years from September one, ’06 to August 31, ’09.

It has been decided that the Commission would consist of a chairman, three full-time members, one member secretary and three or more part-time members.

The Cabinet also approved setting up of 100,000 rural common services centers (CSC) across the country at a total cost of Rs 5,742 crore. Of this, the Centre’s outlay would be Rs 856 crore, and the state governments’ share would be Rs 793 crore. The balance amount of Rs 4,093 crore would be chipped in by the private sector.

The Cabinet also approved borrowing funds from NABARD to finance construction of rural roads under Bharat Nirman. National Rural Roads Agency will act as the agency for borrowing funds from separate window under Nabard.

Meanwhile, the Cabinet committee on economic affairs has cleared a proposal to asssign the remaining dredging works on Sethusamudram Ship Channel Project to Dredging Corporation Of India (DCI).

The CCEA also gave its approval to Rs 975.96 crore investment approval for eastern region strengthening scheme-1 of Power Grid Corporation Of India.

The CCEA also approved construction of new international terminal building at Thiruvananthapuram in two phases at an estimated cost of Rs 245.58 crore with a foreign exchange component of Rs 26.92 crore.