Cabinet approves ordinance for restoring 200-point roster system

New Delhi, Mar 7: Ahead of the upcoming Lok Sabha election 2019, the Union Cabinet on Thursday approved HRD Ministry's proposal to bring an Ordinance to restore 200-point roster for reservation in faculty jobs in higher education.

HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar had on Tuesday reiterated the government's commitment to the old formula for reservation in teaching jobs in higher education.

Various students' and teachers' organisations had been urging the government to bring an ordinance to restore the 200-point roster taking college or university as a unit for reservation in teaching posts.

Following an Allahabad High Court order, which was upheld by the Supreme Court, the University Grants Commission (UGC) had introduced a new 13-point roster system on the reservation mechanism for university teachers in March 2018.

The 13 point roster system takes each department as a unit and implements the recruitment and reservation policy for teachers keeping the department as a unit. In the previously accepted 200 point system, the reservation and recruitment took place taking the entire university as a single unit.

In 200-point roster system, 99 posts will be reserved for SC, ST and OBC communities uniformly. The remaining 101 posts will be kept for the unreserved. In case of a deficit in reserved seats in one department, more people from reserved communities could be employed in other departments at the university under this system.

Other decisions

In the Cabinet Meet Briefing Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs had approved additional funds amounting to Rs 2790 crore towards sugar mills.

Cabinet nod to NHPC acquiring Lanco's Teesta hydro-electric project

An approval was also given to the recommendations of the Group of Ministers (GoM) relating to issues of stressed Thermal Power Projects.The project would generate 2,400 million units.

Teesta Stage-VI hydro-electric project is a run of river (RoR) scheme in Sirwani Village of Sikkim to utilise the power potential of Teesta river basin in cascade manner.

Jaitley said that the recommendations approved include grant of coal linkage for short-term PPAs, allowing existing coal linkage to be used in case of termination of PPAs due to payment default by distribution companies and procurement of bulk power by a modal agency against pre-declared linkages.

The committee also approved the investment sanction for construction of Kiru Hydro Electric (HE) Project (624 MW) located on River Chenab in Kishtwar district of Jammu and Kashmir.

Along with approving Delhi Metro's phase IV project, the Union Cabinet also approved the proposal of Airports Authority of India for surrendering encroached AAI's land measuring 106.76 acres at Bhopal Airport.

The CCEA also approved the construction of a third railway line between Narayangarh in West Bengal and Bhadrak in Odisha.