RAJASTHAN FOREST ACT WILL BE AMENDED

Jaipur, January 23. The Council of Ministers of the state government has decided to rationalise the Rajasthan Mission on Livelihood (RMOL) to generate employment opportunities for 15 lakh youths in the state. Chief Minister Smt. Vasundhara Raje chaired the meeting of the cabinet held in the State Assembly on Thursday. Another important decision of the cabinet was to amend the Rajasthan Forest Act 1953.

Smt. Raje had assured the people of the state for implementation of these decisions during her Suraj Samkalp Yatra and the same were later included in the election manifesto of her party as well.

After the cabinet meeting, the Parliamentary Affairs Minister Shri Rajendra Rathore released the details of its decisions. He said that the decision to re-organise the RMOL under the chairmanship of the Chief Minister was taken to address immediate need of employability skills of the unemployed youth of Rajasthan. Now, Principal Secretaries of eight departments Planning, Power, Agriculture & Animal Husbandry, Panchayati Raj & Rural Development, Industries, Technical Education, Tourism and Urban Development; six experts; and six representatives of the industrial sector will form the Mission. This would be the highest body for imparting of skills, training and livelihood sector in the state. Chairperson of the Rajasthan Skills and Livelihoods Development Corporation (RSLDC) would be the vice-president of RMOL. This new organisation would ensure better management of policy making, coordination and implementation in the livelihood sector.

He said that the state government constituted RMOL in year 2004, but the previous government replaced it with Rajasthan Skills and Livelihood Mission and formed a council under it, which did not hold any meeting even once. This resulted into the difficulties in functioning of RMOL for generation of employment opportunities.

Shri Rathore further told that the previous government had amended section 26 of the Rajasthan Forest Act, 1953 in year 2013 to provide for penalty worth Rs. 25 thousands for the offences related to forest produce. The state cabinet now decided to amend section 26 of the Act in order to reduce the penalty to merely Rs. 500 for a person who commits the offence of encroachment, grazing of animals, cutting or felling of trees or destroying trees, plants etc in any other manner in the reserve forest area.

Similarly, in section 33 of the Act, the penalty for offences related to forest produce in the protected forest areas had been amended to Rs. 25 thousand previously, which would now, as per the cabinet decision, be re-amended to make it Rs. 500 for an offence.

In the meeting, the draft of Pacific Medical University, Udaipur Bill, 2013 was also approved, which would now be tabled in the Assembly.