DW Bureau | Chandigarh: The Punjab Cabinet led by Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, on Thursday, gave its nod to formulate a new agriculture policy for ensuring the welfare of farmers as well as giving impetus to food production. A decision to this effect was made at a meeting of the Council of Ministers here.

A spokesperson for the Chief Minister's Office said that with traditional agriculture in the state reaching a plateau stage, it is imperative to formulate a robust agriculture policy to give a boost to food production.

It is also necessary for saving groundwater for the coming generations and making agriculture a profitable pursuit. For that, it was decided that the new agriculture policy would be formulated by taking into confidence all major stakeholders.

The Cabinet also gave its concurrence for introducing an education policy for giving a major thrust to skill and technical-based education.

This will help in opening new avenues of employment for the youth, thereby making them an integral part of the socio-economic growth of Punjab. The policy will focus on effectively transforming education.

The Cabinet also gave its consent to expand the ambit of the one-time settlement (III) for pending VAT cases for benefitting the maximum number of traders. It was observed that the ongoing scheme has immensely benefited the traders and in comparison to the previous schemes, which were totally flop, the government had earned Rs 164 crore more than the previous fiscal years through the one-time settlement scheme.

The formal orders for the expansion of this scheme will be issued shortly.

To enhance the revenue, the Cabinet also gave a nod to enhance the VAT rate on diesel by 92 paise per litre and petrol by 61 paise per litre.

The government also abolished the subsidy given to power consumers having a load of more than 7 KW.

This will enhance the revenue by around Rs 2,400 to Rs 3,000 crore. In a major relief to the owners of good vehicles and three-wheelers (passenger auto rickshaws), the Cabinet gave nod to do away with the process of paying tax after every quarter that caused harassment of the owners.

The owners of these old commercial vehicles can now deposit the lump sum tax of their vehicles annually, thereby saving their time, money and energy. The buyers of new such vehicles have been given the option of paying this tax for four years or eight years thereby availing a discount of 10 or 20 per cent, respectively.

/IDW