In view of recent flood situation in Guwahati, the Assam cabinet on Tuesday decided to introduce the Assam Urban Water Bodies (Preservation and Conservation) Bill, 2024 in the legislative assembly. Apart from that, the cabinet also decided to streamline the pension processing.
Here are the highlights of the key decisions taken in today's cabinet meeting:
To ensure protection and conservation of water bodies within the Master Plan Area of all towns and cities of the State, the Cabinet has accorded approval to the Assam Urban Water Bodies (Preservation and Conservation) Bill, 2024 to be placed in Assam Legislative Assembly.
The Bill will have the salient provisions
It will provide for the preservation, protection, rejuvenation, conservation, regulation and maintenance of water bodies (which includes natural water channels) falling within the notified Master Plan Areas of Assam.
All the water bodies within the Master Plan area shall be Scheduled and notified with details of the Dag numbers and villages making it easier for all concerned to demarcate and protect them from the encroachers.
It will enable authorities to chalk out a plan of action along with the formulation of appropriate schemes and projects for conservation and protection of the water bodies.
All information related to the water bodies shall be uploaded to a GIS portal, which will bring transparency regarding the water bodies.
All private water bodies with an area of two acres or more and all community water bodies/ponds/tanks including those belonging to religious institutions, irrespective of its size will fall under the ambit of this bill except private water bodies having an area less than two acres and those located in areas notified as Reserved Forest/Wildlife Sanctuary/National Park.
Protection and conservation of water bodies will also strengthen the local drainage system by strengthening the retention capacity of the water bodies thereby mitigating the issue of flash floods in towns and cities of Assam.
There will be two levels of committees under this Bill- one at the district level and one at the state level. The district-level committee shall undertake a detailed survey for the identification of all water bodies for publication in the schedule.
After the Act comes into force, no authority shall allot or initiate any action for allotment of any land identified as a water body without prior approval from the State Level Committee, while activities such as debris dumping, construction, etc shall be barred.
Violation of any of the provisions of the Act will be a punishable offence with provisions for three years imprisonment or with a fine up to Rs 1,00,000 or both. Further, the offender shall have to restore the water body to its original position.
To improve the digital footprint of pension processing, the cabinet has accorded approval to the proposal for the transfer of management of 33 Pension Sewa Kendra (PSKs) from the Department of Administrative Reforms, Training, Pension and Public Grievances (ARTPPG) to the Department of School Education with effect from September 1, 2024.
Significant cost efficiency will be achieved by the government by leveraging existing infrastructure and expertise within the Education Department.
PSKs would be efficiently managed through permanent employees of the Education Department to improve the quality of service delivery with accountability.
