Imphal, May 14: Along with approval on setting up of the District Council Delimitation Committee in connection with the election of the Autonomous District Councils, the State Cabinet has today given its nod to conversion of 8th Indian Reserve Battalion into a commando force.

The Cabinet meeting proposed that the delimitation of the District Councils should be carried out within 45 days.

In each of the six Autonomous District Councils, there would be 24 members and the election would be based on the electoral roll.

Former Commissioner Ch Birendra will be appointed as the Chairman of the delimitation with Deputy Commissioners concerned of the districts as the ex-officio members.

Besides mooting setting up a State Election Commission for holding the election to the Autonomous District Councils, the Cabinet recommended that the Chairman of the Commission be appointed by the Governor.

Today's Cabinet meeting has also given its approval to the proposal of the Centre to convert the 8 IRB into Commando forces.

Accordingly, the Cabinet has recommended recruitment of 107 officer posts.

The additional expenditure of Rs 11.85 crores that would be needed after the conversion as against Rs 24 lakhs that used to be spent in a year on maintenance of IRB would be met by the Govt.Furthermore, the Cabinet has approved framing the rules of the Loktak Development Authority under the Manipur Loktak Lake protection Lake and appointment of a Project Director of the Authority.

The person to be appointed to the post should be not below the rank of Additional Chief Engineer or IAS or MCS.

LDA will also have its own Steering Committee comprising the Chief Secretary as the Chairman, three officials and three nominees of the State Government who would be either legal experts or environmental experts or social workers.

The term of the office of the nominees would be three years.

Lastly, the Cabinet has approved construction of brick-walled and tin-roofed three-room houses for the affected people of Mapithel Dam instead of paying Rs 15,000 each for resettlement as decided earlier.

In case of any objection, it was decided that the State Govt would use its authority and ensure completion of the dam.

Comment