State to have water resource panel

Briefing newspersons at the end of the first of the two-day State Cabinet meeting being held here, Deshmukh said, the authority will predominantly decide on the water distribution within various regions of the State.

The Cabinet decided to take up on priority work on all irrigation projects of the Krishna Valley Irrigation Development Corporation, falling with Marathwada region, Deshmukh said.

The Chief Minister said an exercise will soon be launched to bring about uniformity in the rules and regulations and powers of each of the four irrigationdevelopment corporations to ensure that the State Government is in full control of their functioning and no region remains neglected.

In another major decision, the Cabinet also decided to allow untrained teachers appointed in private schools prior to 5 November, 1997, to fulfil their qualifications by appearing at the postal D.Ed courses and continue in their posts.

The Cabinet, on its first day, concentrated on reviewing the Rs 27,000 crore Marathwada development programme first announced by the Shiv Sena-BJP Government in 1997. Without actually criticising or launding the previous government efforts in the project8217;s implementation, Deshmukh said, the total project cost has now risen to Rs 3,297 crore.

While in all Rs 1,806 crore had been spent on the development programme, the Government faced a challenge of implementing projects worth over Rs 1,500 crore, Deshmukh said.

Of the total 55 programmes announced in the original plan, work on 18 had been completed while that on 34 other projects was inprogress, he added.