Mumbai, Oct 14 (PTI) The Maharashtra cabinet on Wednesday gave its nod to scrap the decision taken by the previous Devendra Fadnavis-led dispensation to create an independent state election department, and restored its earlier status as a branch of the General Administration Department (GAD).

The decision was taken during the cabinet meeting.

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A statement from the Chief Minister's Office (CMO) said the decision taken on August 14, 2019 to create a new state election department has been scrapped.

The earlier status as office of the chief electoral officer, a branch of GAD department has been restored, it said.

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A government resolutionwas issued on August 14, 2019 for creation of a new departmentwith 128 posts.

The Election Commission of India's directives are to create new posts and not a new department. The amount of Rs 1.02 crore sanctioned for the purpose has also been scrapped, the statement said.

In other decisions, the draft of the Maharashtra Pulses (Regulation of Price and Control) Act 2016 has been withdrawn.

The draft was sent to the Centre for approval, but with the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill was passed by the Parliament, the state legislation was not required, it said.

The decision to start air-conditioned broad-gauge metro train in Nagpur was approved. The broad-guage will be linked to the Nagpur metro route as feeder service.

MahaMetro has submitted a proposal worth Rs 333.60 crore.

The broad-guage metro railway project will be from Nagpur to Wardha, Nagpur to Narkhed, Nagpur-Ramtek, Nagpur- Bhandara Road and there will be 42 stations.

The cabinet also gave its approval to increase by Rs 10,000 the stipend of the resident doctors in post-graduate ayurveda colleges from May 1, 2020.

There are 550 post-graduate students in four ayurveda colleges and the government will incur Rs 6.6 crore financial burden, the statement said.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)