Hyderabad: The Telangana state Cabinet on Friday approved four Ordinances to bring amendments to existing laws.
The Cabinet which met at Pragathi Bhavan for four hours also took a major decision to scrap the existing three-tier zonal system and replacing it with the two-tier zonal system for government recruitments. For this, Article 371(D) needs to be amended, which requires President’s assent. The Cabinet approved the resolution and referred it to the President for approval.
The Cabinet approved the Ordinance bringing an amendment to Record of Rights Act (RoR Act). With this amendment, there is a ban on registration of all kinds of government lands and cancellation of illegal registrations done for these lands.
The decision was taken in the wake of Miyapur land scam where jagir lands were registered to private individuals. The discretionary powers of sub-registrars in registration of lands were also scrapped. Also, a deadline of 15 days has been set and prescribed for getting the mutations done after the registration of properties.
The Cabinet also approved an Ordinance amending the Gaming Act that will now impose a ban on online gambling. The third Ordinance pertains to amending the PD Act to check sale of spurious seeds and fertilisers, adulteration of food items and fake educational certificates.
The fourth Ordinance was cleared to amend VAT Act, to enable it to be in force for six years after the rolling out of GST, to help the authorities resolve pending VAT disputes.
Briefing the media on the Cabinet decisions, Deputy Chief Minister Kadiam Srihari said, “A committee headed by the Chief Secretary held discussions with all employees' associations earlier, where a consensus was evolved on scrapping existing zonal system. The Cabinet approved the same and referred it to the President for final approval.”
The three-tier zonal system, namely state, zonal and multi-zonal system was adopted in 1974 as part of six-point formula in undivided AP to provide equal job opportunities for Andhra, Rayalaseema and Telangana regions.
However, after bifurcation, the TS government felt that there was no need to continue the old system and decided to introduce the two-tier system namely district-cadre and state-cadre system.
Referring to online gambling, Mr Srihari said, “After formation of Telangana, the CM had ordered a crackdown on gambling clubs across the state. Now there is no gambling in the state. But the government received complaints that with no physical gambling clubs, people are shifting to online gambling.”
