Karnataka government orders, circulars to go online

The state government is planning to upload documents such as government orders, circulars and announcements on internet so that public may access them without any hassles.

Higher education minister VS Acharya told this to reporters after a meeting of the state cabinet on Thursday. The government departments will have to upload the documents immediately upon issuing them.

Acharya said as per the proposal, all the departments would have to upload all of their following documents on internet: orders, circulars, announcements, land records, survey records, land conversion records and other records related to land.

The documents related to land will be scanned, indexed and catalogued. Department of e-governance will implement the project. The exercise will take place in a phased manner at state-level as well as district- and taluk-level. Acharya said the cabinet had approved a grant of Rs32 crore for the project. It will be launched in Bangalore and all the district headquarters.

Later, it will be extended to all the taluks. Through this initiative, the government aims to cut the hassles that people face in getting access to government orders/circulars/announcements.

KPTCL, Escom staff get pay hike

Further, the cabinet approved pay hike for the employees of Karnataka Power Corporation Ltd, Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Ltd and various electricity supply companies (Escoms). The employees will get an increment of 25% on their basic pay with retrospective effect from April, 2010. The decision is expected to benefit more than 40,000 employees.

Also, the cabinet put the revised estimate for construction of Suvarna Vidhana Soudha in Belgaum at Rs391 crore. The original estimate was Rs232 crore but it had swelled up to Rs415 crore. Acharya attributed the increase in the cost to additions to the original building plan, such as a central hall and high-tech infrastructure.

The state cabinet approved more than 3,500 acres of land for cement companies that will come up on the proposed cement industrial belt in Bagalkot, Raichur and Gulbarga. Sri Cements (Rajasthan) has been allocated 1,200 acres, and India Cements and Dalmia Cements have been allocated 1,666 acres and 544 acres respectively.