Govt bans places of worship at public places

RANCHI: The government on Tuesday decided to impose a ban on the construction of places of worship at public places. The decision was taken following a directive issued by the Supreme Court recently.
A division Bench of judges Dalveer Bhandari and Mukundkam Sharma had asked the states to decide the fate of millions of existing unauthorized places of worship on public land on a case-to-case basis.
The Bench had also issued an order directing both the Centre and the state to evolve a consensus so that no unauthorized place of worship should be allowed to be built on any public land in future. According to Cabinet secretary Aditya Swaroop, no temple, gurdwara, mosque or church could be built at a public place.
Again, aimed at bringing relief to the common man, the Cabinet decided to keep food items like rice, wheat, suji, flour, potato and onion free from value added tax. It also reduced VAT on helmet, spare parts of vehicles and ice-cream from 12 to 4%.
Also, to strengthen the police department here in the state capital, the cabinet approved of the home department's proposal to increase the number of officers of the rank of deputy superintendent of police from six to 11.
In another proposal, the Cabinet decided to increase the dearness allowance of government employees to 35% from 27% at present.