The state cabinet on Tuesday increased the money given to Class IX students of government schools for buying bicycles to Rs 3,000 from Rs 2,500, and approved the release of Rs 250 crore to the education department.

From the Rs 250 crore, all unmarried girl students (around 2.5 lakh) who passed the Intermediate examination in 2018 will be given Rs 10,000 each as part of the Mukhya Mantri Kanya Uthan Yojana.

The approvals came at a cabinet meeting chaired by chief minister Nitish Kumar.

Cabinet secretariat department principal secretary Sanjay Kumar said the meeting approved 45 proposals, including the agriculture department’s plea to increase from 2018-19 the diesel subsidy given to farmers in case of irregular monsoon, drought, scanty rainfall and similar emergency situations.

They will be given subsidy for five rounds of irrigation for paddy crop in kharif season instead of three, four rounds of irrigation for wheat crop during rabi season instead of three rounds earlier, and three rounds of irrigation for maize crop instead of two provided previously. The decision will impose an additional burden of Rs 175 crore, which will be provided from the Bihar contingency fund.

The cabinet also approved the recent decision of the commercial taxes department to cut VAT on petrol and diesel from 26 per cent and 19 per cent to 22.20 per cent and 15 per cent, respectively.

Sanjay said the cabinet approved transfer of 4.36 hectare land in Munger free of cost to the National Highway Authority of India for construction of the approach path for the rail-cum-road bridge over the Ganga.

The cabinet extended the tenure of special survey currently being conducted in the state to update land records for two years from April 1, 2018, to March 31, 2020, for which the state and the central governments will spend Rs 1,826 crore.

Sanjay said the cabinet approved the health department’s proposal to spend Rs 260 crore from the Bihar contingency fund on creating infrastructure facilities. Of this, Rs 30 crore each would be spent on super speciality hospitals in Darbhanga and Muzaffarpur under phase-III of the Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Mission, while Rs 100 crore each would be spent on construction of hospitals at Bettiah and Madhepura, being executed by Larsen & Toubro.

The cabinet also approved the proposal to create a Rs 50-crore revolving fund for the Bihar Medical Services and Infrastructure Corporation Limited to procure medicines for government hospitals if there is a delay in allotment of funds.