Patna, March 8: The state cabinet today approved the final version of the right to service bill.

The proposal will now be tabled on the floor of the state legislature and after the approval of both the Houses, the bill would become an Act.

The right to service bill entails to make services provided by government offices to people time-bound.

“There are over thirty services which would be covered under the Act to begin with,” a highly placed state government source said.

The Act would have provisions to impose fine on those government officials who would fail to deliver services, covered under the Act, within the stipulated time.

After being voted to power for the second consecutive term, chief minister Nitish Kumar had made his intentions clear that he wanted to introduce an era in which people didn’t need to make rounds of government offices to get their work done.

He had also, on many occasions, said that his government intended to introduce the bill for approval of the state legislature in the budget session of the state legislature. The session is going on at present.

Another major decision taken in the cabinet meet pertains to providing subsidised foodgrain to below the poverty line (BPL) families which have not benefited from the central scheme.

“Government has decided to cover around those 80 lakh BPL families under this scheme which would be known as Chief Minister Food Security Scheme,” said the source and added that the beneficiaries under this scheme would get 25kg of foodgrain at subsidised rate every month.

At present, only 65 lakh BPL families get the benefit of the central government’s food security scheme.

The state government, however, is claiming that there are over 1.4 crore BPL families in the state and has been asking the Centre to revised its list.