Jammu, Apr 18: The state cabinet today approved the draft ordinance for amendment in the Water Resources Act 2010 which will pave the way for utilizing the money collected as water usage charges from power producers in the state for building and buying back of hydro electric projects.
The state cabinet which met Wednesday under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Omar Abdullah approved the draft of the ordinance and same will be forwarded to the Governor NN Vohra for issuance.
“The cabinet unanimously approved the draft and it will be sent to the Governor with the request to issue an ordinance in this regard”, Minister for PHE, Irrigation, Flood Control Taj Mohi-ud-Din told Greater Kashmir.
He said that ordinance would pave the way for using the funds generated from water usage charges for buying back of hydro electric projects and construction of new ones.  “As per J&K Water Resources Act, the funds generated from water usage charges are treated as non-plan funds which cannot be used for capital investment. The Act bars the state government to use the funds to buy back power projects from NHPC or construct new power projects in the state,” he said and added that with the issuance of the ordinance the money generated from the water usage will be used only for the development of power infrastructure.
Greater Kashmir was first to report that the government is contemplating to bring an Ordinance in this regard. The funds generated on account of water usage charges are expected to swell to around Rs 1000 crore by next year.
Pertinently, the state government was till recently unable to use the funds realized by the state government. However, Jammu and Kashmir High Court recently permitted the State Government to utilize the money collected from NHPC as water usage charges.
“Permission is granted with the condition that in case the petitioner succeeds, the respondents, without loss of time, will deposit back the entire amount in the said separate account along with interest as would accrue on such amount if would remain in the account maintained in the J&K Bank,” the High Court had directed in its order.

6 POSTS OF LECTURERS CREATED FOR SSHS
The state cabinet gave nod to the creation of six posts of Lecturers in various disciplines for Super Specialty Hospitals of Jammu and Srinagar.
The Cabinet also approved the creation of two posts of Senior Sister Tutors with the corresponding reduction of two posts of Sister Tutors for AMT School Jammu and one post of Principal Tutor in the AMT school Srinagar.
The cabinet also decided to declare wind storm as natural calamity in the category of cyclone.

Lastupdate on : Wed, 18 Apr 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Wed, 18 Apr 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Thu, 19 Apr 2012 00:00:00 IST