Tribal Affairs and Hills set for separation
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, April 20 2013 : Respon-ding to the demand of Auto- nomous District Councils to open a separate head for them, the State Cabinet has decided to bifurcate Tribal Affairs and Hills Department and open a separate head for hills.

This was informed by Go-vernment spokesman M Okendro after the Cabinet meeting held this afternoon with Chief Minister O Ibobi in the chair.

The State Government took serious note of the ADCs' demand for devolution of more powers who even took the matter to Government of India.

Accordingly, the Cabinet meeting deliberated on devolution of powers to ADCs for maximum departments.

After studying the departments and degree of power which would be devolved to ADCs, another Cabinet meeting would approve devolution of more powers to the ADCs shortly.

Another agenda of today's Cabinet meeting was computerisation of land records for the four valley districts and some parts of Churachandpur district.

Overlapping of boun-daries among these five districts would be examined in the next Cabinet meeting, Okendro stated.

Meanwhile, sources informed that the Cabinet mee- ting resolved to collect all land records of the valley districts kept at the Directorate of Settlement and hand them over to Deputy Commissioners for safe keeping.

The Cabinet adopted this resolution in view of the failure of the Directorate of Set- tlement to computerise land records properly during the past 25 years.

Villages enlisted under Bishunupur district which ac-tually belong to Churachand- pur district would be transferred back to the parent dis- trict and this process must be completed within April 30, the State Cabinet directed relevant officials.

Although the Cabinet meeting discussed about allotment of around 100 acres of land by private parties to Assam Rifles near Moreh, it did not take any definite decision.

The Cabinet meeting was followed by a CLP meeting which was again presided by the CM.

Management of hospitals under public-private partnership model was the primary agenda of the CLP meeting.

The initiative to run hospitals under PPP model is aimed at better delivery health care service to public.

There is no question of privatization of hospitals.

The PPP model would not be applied to all departments of hospitals.

It would be limited to certain sectors.

Private parties would be allowed to install medical equipment like MRI machine, X-Ray machine etc which could not be procured by the Government and minimal fees would be charged for using such equipment.

The reaction of opposition parties on the matter is too early and immature, claimed Okendro.

The Government could not take it as constructive suggestion but rather smacked of an intention to mislead the public.

The Government has been examining the same initiative.

A committee has also been constituted to study thoroughly the PPP model of running hospitals, Okendro added.

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