Uttarakhand: 1st cabinet meeting under Dhami resolves to rise to people's expectations

The first meeting of Uttarakhand Cabinet chaired by new Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami adopted six resolutions to rise to the expectations of people ahead of the 2022 assembly polls. The resolutions included giving people a corruption-free administration, transparent, sensitive and speedy services through maximum use of information technology and ramping up health facilities for effective control of the COVID-19 pandemic, Cabinet Minister Subodh Uniyal said at the media briefing on Monday.

The cabinet meeting was held hours after Dhami's swearing-in along with a team of 11 ministers on Sunday but the media briefing was held on Monday as the meeting went on till late in the night.

Other resolutions passed by the cabinet at the meeting included creation of job and self-employment opportunities for youths, uplifting Dalits and empowering women, Uniyal said.

Apart from the resolutions some major decisions were taken by the cabinet, including raising the salary of guest teachers from Rs 15,000 to Rs 25,000 per month and deploying them in their home districts, he said.

Other important decisions were maintaining the continuity of service of around 200 contractual employees of polytechnic institutes, payment of salaries to MGNREGA workers of the strike period and filling around 22,000 vacancies in different departments, Uniyal said.

It was also decided to revive the defunct district employment offices. A cabinet sub-committee headed by Uniyal was also constituted to look into pay-related issues of the police department.