Panel set up to study 6th Pay Commission's report

New Delhi: The Union Cabinet has approved the setting up of a Committee of secretaries to screen the 6th Pay Commission report.

The 13-member panel will be headed by Cabinet Secretary KM Chandrasekhar and the committee's recommendations will be submitted for cabinet approval so that the report may be implemented at the earliest, said Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal.

To a question, he said no time frame was set for the committee. "The panel would be expected to complete its task as fast as possible so that the Pay Commission report could be implemented at the earliest after Cabinet approval."

The committee would include the Revenue Secretary, the Expenditure Secretary, the Home Secretary, the Defence Secretary and the Special Secretary, Internal Security, apart from the Secretaries of the Departments of Personnel and Training, Pension and Pensioners Welfare, and Posts.

The Secretaries of the Ministries of Health and Family Welfare, and Science and Technology, the Deputy Comptroller and Auditor-General and a Railway Board representative, either the member (staff) or the Financial Commissioner would also be part of the committee.

The Cabinet also gave its nod for transfer of nine acres of defence land at Akhnoor, Kashmir, 13.56 acres at Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh, 4.9 acres at Kalimpong, West Bengal and 6.48 acres at Dappar, Punjab, to the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan for setting up schools for children of defence personnel.

The Government has already constituted a committee headed by Finance Secretary D Subbarao to look into the grievances of armed forces and IPS officers.

The Cabinet's Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) decided to not only continue but also expand during the 11th Plan period coverage of the Mahila Samakhya Programme, which aims at promoting women's education and empowerment in educationally backward areas.

Launched in 1989, the programme would now cover 60 more districts, with an outlay of Rs 210 crore for the Plan period.

It is being implemented with the assistance of the UK's Department for International Development (DFID), which bears 90 per cent of the cost. The DFID has committed £35 million for the 11th Plan period.

The CCEA also cleared a proposal to create additional mini-tool rooms for small, medium, and micro enterprises in public-private partnership mode in cooperation with the State governments, industries, associations, companies, non-governmental organisations and philanthropists.