Chief minister Shibu Soren lights the inaugural lamp at a workshop on tribal forest act in Ranchi on Thursday. Picture by Prashant Mitra

Ranchi, Sept. 18: Chief minister Shibu Soren today gifted his political bastion of Santhal Pargana with a new pilot training centre at Dumka, the second in the state after Jamshedpur.

The infrastructure at Dumka, which has 4,000 sqft of runway area, will now be upgraded with the setting up of an ATC or air traffic control.

“The plan is to start a gliding unit first,” said a senior civil aviation department official who added that talks would be initiated with the welfare department to recruit trainee pilots from the underprivileged section.

Those in the Cabinet were taken by surprise at the decision as according to the state cabinet secretary, P.K. Jojoria, the proposal was not part of the day’s agenda.

It was an “extra” one he added, thereby giving the game away for the chief minister. There were other key decisions taken at today’s meeting:

Rs 93 lakh was set aside for the maintenance of the state’s lone chopper, Dhruv, by its manufacturers, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), for the next year. This meant, a monthly payment of Rs 7.75 lakh would be made out to HAL for maintaining the armoured craft.

A ministerial sub-committee was constituted to assess the drought-like situation in the Palamau commissionary area.

The committee, headed by agriculture minister Nalin Soren, would include two ministers from Palamau, Kamlesh Kumar Singh and Bhanu Pratap Sahi. Secretaries of natural disaster management department, agriculture, revenue, water resources would also be part of the committee.

The ordinance passed by Governor Syed Sibtey Razi as chancellor of universities for increasing the retirement age of Birsa Agriculture University (BAU) vice-chancellor N.N. Singh to 68 from 65 was okayed. It would now be placed before the Assembly for ratification as a bill.

A Jharkhand Accounts Service was constituted where 377 posts would be earmarked for various officials with salaries ranging between Rs 8,000—Rs 13,500 to Rs 18,400—Rs 22,400. These officials would be posted in treasuries, sub-treasuries, district accounts offices and provident fund offices.

These offices were being manned by officials of the erstwhile Bihar Finance Service.

The retirement age of district board employees was increased rom 58 to 60.

For streamlining and simplifying, among other things, the treasury code, budget manual and the internal audit management, the state would take the help of Centre of Good Governance, Hyderabad. It would cost the state exchequer Rs 39.56 lakh.