The Haryana Cabinet today increased the fee for grant of mining lease from Rs 5,000 to Rs 20,000, whereas fee for application for transfer of mining lease has also been increased from Rs 100 to Rs 20,000. The Cabinet also took significant decisions to exempt renewable energy power projects from any CLU charges and increased educational qualification of gram sachivs from matric to Plus Two. It also approved revised criteria for allotting 100 square yard plots to SCs and BPL families. Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda presided over the meeting. The Cabinet also amended provisions relating to settlement of compensation with the land owners to ensure that land owners get their compensation from lease holders. Apart from the hike in application and transfer fee, the Cabinet also increased fee relating to grant of short term permits and mining lease registers. The Cabinet also granted exemption to the renewable energy power projects from levying of change of land use charges, external development charges, scrutiny fee and infrastructure development charges. The Town and Country Planning Department would permit these projects without levying the charges. To promote the renewable energy power generation, the government had notified a policy for promoting generation of electricity through renewable energy sources. Haryana Renewable Energy Development Agency, which is the nodal agency to promote and implement renewable energy projects and programmes, has entered into a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with independent power producers for setting up 23 biomass-based power projects, four wind energy-based power projects and three small hydro-based power projects with a cumulative capacity of 697.7 MW at a total cost of Rs 3,278 crore. The meeting gave its ex-post-facto approval to the revised eligibility criteria to provide house sites of 100 square yards to families belonging to Scheduled Casts and families living below poverty lines. According to the revised criteria, the income of the family belonging to castes, other than Scheduled Castes, should not exceed Rs 45,000 and the income of the family should be certified by the head of the family himself. The condition that the family should not own house or plot measuring 100 square yards has been substituted with the condition that the family should not own agriculture land exceeding one acre. It also raised the minimum educational qualification for the post of gram sachiv from matric to Plus Two. It also approved institution of the "Haryana Rural Roads and Infrastructure Development Agency'. The aim and objective of the agency will be to undertake infrastructure projects to benefit rural areas of Haryana, particularly rural road works approved under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojna. It will also plan, execute, monitor and review the implementation of Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojna and other similar programmes. The meeting allowed Haryana Power Generation Corporation to borrow Rs 3,489.03 crore from NCR Planning Board, Power Finance Corporation of India and Rural Electrification Corporation of India for the construction of 2x600 MW Rajiv Gandhi Thermal Power Project at Khedar in Hisar. The NCR Planning Board will finance Rs 500 crore for the project, Power Finance Corporation of India would finance Rs 1,453 crore and Rural Electrification Corporation of India a sum of Rs 1,536 crore. The total cost of the project is Rs 4,300 crore and these three financial institutions will provide 80 per cent debt portion of the project. The Cabinet has also approved the proposal of the Secretary to Governor, Haryana Raj Bhawan, for taking out the Class III posts of Haryana Raj Bhawan from the purview of Haryana Staff Selection Commission. The Cabinet gave ex-post-facto approval to raise limits of discretionary grants regarding the year 2007-08.