NE NEWS SERVICE
PUDUCHERRY, JAN 16
Pongal bonanza continues to pour for Puducherry citizens. Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry, Kiran Bedi, has directed the Home and Finance Departments of the Union Territory to immediately authorise a sum of Rs 22 crore in place of “compensatory pay for police personnel for the year 2019”.
“Lt Governor has directed the Home Department and Finance Departments to immediately authorise expenditure for Rs 22 crore to disburse forthwith compensatory pay for police personnel for the year 2019, their honorarium towards Parliamentary election duty and arrears of duty allowance to Home Guard,” a release by the Lt Governor’s Secretariat on Wednesday read.
According to the letter, the Lt Governor also approved two proposals, benefitting Adi-Dravidar and BPL families, respectively, in Puducherry.
Under the first proposal, each adult member of the Adi-Dravidar family was supposed to receive Rs 1,000 (500 each for Diwali, 2019 and Pongal, 2020), the Lt Governor accorded the approval to incur an expenditure of Rs 13 crore and also advised the department to include adults of the Scheduled Tribe (ST) community also under the scheme.
In the second proposal, the Department of Women and Child Development sought the Lt Governor’s approval for distributing Rs 900 to each BPL family, and Rs 450 for a single-member family on the occasion of Pongal. The approval was given to incur an expenditure of Rs 12 crore for the same, to be deposited directly into the bank account of BPL families by Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) method, which will benefit 1.4 lakh families.
