Assam govt approves replacing paper ballots with EVMs in Guwahati local body polls

@the_news_21

Assam Cabinet in its meeting presided over by the state Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Monday gave nod to the proposal to replace paper ballots with Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) in the Guwahati Municipal Corporation polls.

The Assam government also said trade licences will no longer be required for operating commercial institutes, barring some categories, as part of its initiatives under ‘Ease of Doing Business’.

Announcing decisions of the Assam Cabinet meeting, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said several important issues pertaining to repealing of obsolete laws, revision of land premium rates, ensuring safety of workers, empowering law enforcers and transparency in Guwahati Municipal Corporation polls were discussed.

“Approval to the Guwahati Municipal Corporation (Amendment) Bill, 2022 for replacing paper ballots with EVMs to ensure transparency and efficiency in elections,” reads a bulletin tweeted by Sarma.

“At today’s Assam Cabinet, we took several important decisions pertaining to repealing of obsolete laws, revision of land premium rates, ease of doing business, ensuring the safety of workers, empowering law enforcers, raising loan from NABARD, transparency in GMC polls, etc,” he tweeted with snapshots of the bulletin.

In a bid to improve ease of doing business in the state, the Assam Cabinet has decided that no trade license will be required for running any commercial institute, except brink kilns, liquor shops, hospitals, schools and other industries which generate heavy pollution.

The bulletin also adds that the concept of revenue town has been abolished.

“All revenue towns will be treated as rural areas for the purpose of land revenues, except the district headquarters and few other important towns while the periphery of all other towns will be treated as rural areas and land premium and other charges will be fixed as per notified rates of rural areas,” reads the bulletin.

The Cabinet on Monday also approved “Assam Occupational Safety, Healthy and Working Conditions Rules, 2022” to secure the working condition and safety of workers.

It includes provisions like an annual medical examination for every worker who has completed 40 years of age and constitution of the safety committee for every establishment employing 100 or more workers.

Meanwhile, the Assam Excise (Amendment) Bill, 2022 to strengthen law agencies to eliminate intoxicants has also been approved in the meeting. Assam Excise Repealing Bill has been approved to improve ease of doing business in the Excise department.

For the better management of finances, the Cabinet has decided to raise “Rs 142 crore as loan from NABARD for the continuation of projects sanctioned under RIDF-XXVII in Animal Husbandry and Veterinary, Elementary Education and Irrigation department.” Corpus of contingency funds has also been increased from Rs 200 crore to Rs 2,000 crores to meet exigencies like natural calamities, COVID-19 pandemic.