Land for group housing societies at reserve prices to employees in Punjab

The Punjab cabinet Wednesday approved the allotment of land by improvement trusts and urban local bodies for employees' cooperative group housing societies at reserve prices.

The cabinet meeting, chaired here by Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, also gave its nod to reserve three per cent of residential plots for the allotment of land to government employees by these bodies.

A long-pending demand of the employees has been fulfilled with the decision, an official release said.

The scheme would be soon notified with complete details by the state government for allotment of one acre of land to a group of 40 employees on the lines of Maharashtra.

The three per cent reservation would be provided to the employees of the state government, besides its boards, corporations, Punjab & Haryana High Court, officials of the institutions working under Cooperation Department of the state government like Markfed, Milkfed, Punjab State Cooperative Bank, Housefed and universities funded by the Punjab government.

The applicant should have completed at least five years of regular service or should have retired within the last five years from the date of commencement of the scheme. Persons on deputation in Punjab from Government of India or any other state would not be eligible to apply under this scheme, according to the release.

The cabinet has also approved an action plan drafted by the Punjab State Council for Science & Technology for conversion of conventional brick kilns to the less-polluting "induced draft technology".

The conversion has to be done till September 30, the release said.

This move is aimed to check air pollution cities and towns across the state.

"No new brick kiln will be allowed to be established in the state without having induced draft technology," the release said.

"The brick kilns in the process of conversion are required to pay environmental compensation on the basis of polluter pays principle to the Punjab Pollution Control Board with effect from February 1 till the adoption of the new technology, it said.

The compensation has been set Rs 25,000 per month for kiln of capacity equal to more than 30,000 bricks per day and Rs 20,000 per month for kiln of capacity less than 30,000 bricks per day.

Around 2,800 brick kilns are operating in Punjab, producing around 15-20 billion bricks per annum.

This constitutes about eight per cent of total production of the country and the brick kiln industry employs about 0.5-0.6 million workers.