Date:02/02/2004 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2004/02/02/stories/2004020201041300.htm

Other States - Orissa

DA hike for Orissa Govt. staff

By Our Staff Reporter

BHUBANESWAR, FEB. 1. With the Orissa Assembly scheduled to be dissolved on February 6 for early polls, the State Cabinet has announced a series of sops.

After a meeting on Saturday, the Cabinet announced a three per cent hike in dearness allowance for State government employees, ratified sales tax waiver on several items and decided to provide grant-in-aid benefit to 1,429 high schools and 153 colleges.

Briefing presspersons, the Chief Secretary, P.K. Mohanty, said that grant-in-aid rules for private schools and colleges would be amended and that the bulk-grant concept would be applicable only to new schools and colleges.

The Cabinet also decided to completely waive sales tax on saal leaf plates and cups, silkworm cocoon and raw silk. It announced a reduction in sales tax on cooking gas from 12 per cent to eight per cent and on cellular phones from 12 per cent to four per cent.

Talking to media, the Orissa Gana Parishad president, Bijay Mohapatra, said the Chief Minister, Naveen Patnaik, was trying to cover up his non-performance by rolling out the sops. Countering Mr. Patnaik's claim that there was a "feel-good" factor in the State, the he said the people only had a "feel-bad" experience under the alliance government. "The four-year-rule of the BJD-BJP coalition stands for no jobs, no food and no work."