The Manipur state cabinet on Thursday decided to hold pending elections for Autonomous District Councils (ADCs) and municipal councils in October this year.
The decision was adopted during a cabinet meeting chaired by chief minister N Biren Singh on Thursday.
Earlier there were only six ADCs in the state but as decided by the state cabinet, the number ADCs has been increased to 10 to strengthen grassroots administration. Besides, it was also decided that if an ADC has a maximum of 26 members, 24 of them should be elected.
However, the agenda for holding elections of gram panchayat was differed and was not considered at Thursday’s cabinet meeting.
Speaking to the media IPR minister Sapam Ranjan said that physical classes for standard VIII and above will be resumed from July 25 and the honorarium of VDF persons will be hiked by ₹500 annually as adopted in Thursday’s cabinet. This will come to effect from January 2023.
It was also decided that VDF personnel can take leave of 15 days in a year since they are working on Sundays as well. Moreover, a VDF personnel who had served for a minimum of eight years will be delegated to the rank of a corporal and those who served for 16 years will be promoted to the rank of sergeant since there is no definite structure of promotion for them, the cabinet decided. However, the same will be monitored by a screening committee, he added.
And, VDF personnel will be covered as eligible beneficiaries of CMHT and PMJAY. The minister further noted that the government ordered closure of schools till July 24 in view of the rising COVID-19 cases.
However, with the vaccination efforts underway for students up to class VII, further steps to resume physical classes for lower classes will be announced accordingly.
He further clarified that the government has so far not yet ordered the closure of hotels, and public parks among others. Nevertheless, the government is strictly monitoring the COVID-19 situation, he added.
