Bihar abolishes advances for employees to buy car, motorcycle

The Bihar Cabinet today decided to do away with payment of advances to state government employees and judicial officers to buy car and motorcycle in the light of seventh pay commission recommendations.

The cabinet meeting presided over by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, however, has increased advances to government employees for construction and expansion work of house, an official said.

"The state cabinet has taken a decision to abolish advances for state government staff and judicial officers to buy car and motorcycle. The decision has been taken in the backdrop Centre's decision to do away with the provisions of advances in view of seventh pay commission's recommendations,"Principal Secretary Cabinet department Arun Kumar told reporters.

The state government employees used to get Rs 5 lakh and Rs 4 lakh as advances for buying first and second car respectively while they used to get Rs 30,000 on the purchase of first motorcycle and Rs 24,000 on second motorcycle, Singh said.

Similarly, the Bihar Judicial Officers used to get Rs 8 lakh as advance for buying car, he said adding that advances for buying car and bike have been done away with.

The state government employees, who used to get Rs 7.50 lakh as advance for construction of house and Rs 1.80 lakh for expansion work, would not get Rs 25 lakh for house construction and Rs 10 lakh for expansion work on the lines of Central government employees, he said.

The state government employees would now get Rs 50,000 as advance for buying computer against the earlier norms of getting advances of Rs 80,000 and Rs 75,000 for buying first and second computer, Singh said adding that now an employee can avail an advance of Rs 50,000 for five times in his/her career for buying computer.

In another decision, the cabinet gave its nod for transferring one acre of land on lease for setting up a branch of Software Technology Park of India (STPI) at Darbhanga, the principal secretary said while hinting that one acre of land of Darbhanga ITI would be made available for the purpose.

Similarly, it also decided to transfer one acre of land on lease for setting up additional branch of National Institute of Electronics & Information Technology (NIELIT) at Muzaffarpur, he said adding that probably one acre of land of Muzaffarpur Institute of Technology (MIT) will be made available for the purpose.

The cabinet also decided to set up a railway police station at Hilsa in Nalanda district and gave its nod for creation of 97 different posts for setting up the police station, the principal Secretary said