Bihar govt reduces examination fees for women candidates

The Bihar cabinet has reduced the fee for various competitive examinations for women candidates of all categories of the state.

The decision was taken at a cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar yesterday, Cabinet Secretariat Department's principal secretary Arun Kumar Singh told reporters.

The fee reduction would be applicable to the examinations conducted by Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) and Bihar Staff Selection Commission (BSSC), he said.

The examination fee has been reduced from Rs 600 to Rs 150 for preliminary test and from Rs 750 to Rs 200 for mains examination.

The cabinet also gave its nod for creation of posts for reconstitution and restructuring of the Bihar Administrative Service (BAS) cadre, Singh adding that the number of various posts of BAS had gone upto 1634 from current 1150.

The decision would increase the number of posts such as deputy collector, senior deputy collector, under secretary, deputy secretary, joint secretary and special secretary, he added.

It also gave its nod to Road Construction Department's proposal to construct four state highways at a cost of Rs 1482 crore, Singh said and adding four SHs are - Kadiraganj-Khaira (SH-82), Akbarnagar-Amarpur (SH-85), Udakishanganj-Bhatgama (SH-58) and Bihiya-Jagdishpur Bihta (SH-102).

In an another decision, the cabinet enhanced the corpus of Bihar Contingency Fund (BCF) from Rs 350 crore to Rs 7079.61 crore till March 30, 2019 for carrying out relief work in the event of natural calamities, the principal secretary said.

The cabinet also gave its nod to certain amendments to 'Affordable Housing and Slum Rehabilitation and Redevelopment Policy 2017' for lower income group, he added.