Mangaluru: MLC Ivan D’Souza held a press meet at his office in MCC premises Lalbagh here, on July 11.
Addressing the mediapersons, Ivan said, “As per the announcement made by the CM in the Budget speech 2013-14 and on the basis of the central government’s classification of the cities, towns in the state have been reclassified as A, B and C categories. For the purpose of HRA, according to the classification Mangalore Corporation falls under a C category city. Hence, state government employees working are entitled to get HRA at the rate admissible to “C” category cities.
“Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has assured to increase the house allowance to 14,100 government employees in Mangaluru. There is a 20% increase in the house rent allowance for all the government employees such as state government employees of KSRTC, KPTCL, MESCOM, KMF, MUDA, City Corporation, all aided educational institutions, Collegiate education, co-operative societies and co-operative banks. All these employees are staying in rented houses and their house rent has been increased. In this regard, I had discussed with the CM to increase the house allowance which was earlier rejected. But now, the state government has accepted the request and increased the house rent allowance to 20% of the basic salary.”
In Urva Stores and other places, government quarters have been renovated at a cost of Rs 8.6 crore. In DK district, there are 504 government quarters which were renovated at a cost of Rs 9.6 crore.
Ivan further said that the District Information Officer was travelling by bus to attend programmes and there was a request to provide a vehicle for him which was also discussed in the session. The CM accepted the request and assured to provide a vehicle to the information officers in 21 districts.
Praveenchandra Alva, Ashok Kumar and others were also present.