Stone quarrying on forest lands likely to be legalised

The State government seems to be keen on relaxing the norms to allow stone quarrying within 100 meters of forest areas across the State.

 According to official sources, the Cabinet meeting scheduled for Thursday is likely to take a decision on ‘legalising’ stone quarrying in forest lands.

 Incidentally, the Forest department has already cited 143 cases of illegal stone quarrying in Kanakapura taluk in Ramanagar district. This also includes one case involving the recently-elected Congress MP from Bangalore Rural D K Suresh. As per the Forest department report, around 90 of these cases pertain to quarrying within 100 meters of forest land.

SDC posts

The Cabinet is also scheduled to consider a proposal to raise the minimum educational qualification for the posts of second division clerks (SDC) and Group ‘D’ employees in the state government departments. 

According to the sources, the government is planning to raise the minimum educational qualification for the SDC  post from the existing SSLC to second year PUC. Similarly, the plan is to increase the minimum educational qualification for group ‘D’ posts from the existing seventh standard to SSLC. In all, 14 subjects are likely to be discussed at Thursday’s Cabinet meeting.