Patna,(BiharTimes): The Nitish Kumar cabinet on Tuesday, once again, restored the decisions taken by the Jitan Ram Manjhi government in its last days. 
It made provisions of 50 per cent reservation for the Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Castes and Extremely Backward Castes and backward caste women in all govern-ment contracts up to Rs15 lakh.
Earlier, the Jitan Ram Manjhi cabinet had made provisions for reservation for contractors of the SCs, STs category in award of contract up to Rs one crore.
After Nitish Kumar assumed charge in February this year, it cancelled the 34 decisions taken by the Manjhi government in its last three cabinet meetings.
In another such decision, the cabinet approved the education department’s proposal giving one-time exemption (for 2015-16 financial year) in 75 mandatory attendance for students of primary, middle and secondary schools to make them eli-gible for benefits like uniform and bicycle schemes.
Briefing media after the cabinet meeting, cabinet secretariat department's principal secretary Shishir Sinha said people belonging to SCs would get 16%, STs 1%, EBCs 18%, BCs 12% and BC women 3% in the 50% quota in contracts.
In another decision to woo government employ-ees/officers, the cabinet cleared the proposal to adjust their strike period absence, from Septem-ber 15, 1997 to March 12, 2013, in their earned leave. Now, their strike period salary would not be deducted.
The government also simplified the procedure of payment of grants to the unaided educational in-stitutions. The amount would be sent directly to Bihar School Examination Board, which will credit it to the bank accounts of the educational institutes concerned through RTGS.
The government also agreed to put Dangi caste (Annexure-I) from backward to extremely back-ward caste category. Tanti (Tatwa) under EBC has been reverted to backward caste category.
The proposal to share the Indira Awas Yojana (IAY) amount (50:50) from the current financial year was also approved. The state share this year would be Rs 1,032.03 crore for the construction of 2,80,255 houses under the scheme.
The cabinet also approved the Bihar Public Ser-vice Commission recommendations for principals in five government polytechnic colleges. They are Dr Barun Kumar Rai, Dr Fazle Sarwar, Dr Anil K Singh, Dr Kumari Anima and Dr Chandrashekhar Singh.