Haryana will develop the largest jungle safari park outisde Africa, the state government said on Sep 29.

The 10,000-acre curated safari park will come up in the Aravalli range and cover parts of Gurugram and Nuh districts.

At present, Sharjah is home to the largest curated safari park outside Africa. Opened in February 2022, the Sharjah Safari covers an area of about 2,000 acres.

Union Minister for Forest, Environment and Climate Change Bhupender Yadav and Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar visited Sharjah Safari in this regard, the state government said.

Khattar reached Dubai on a day's visit on Sep 28. Upon his return on Sep 29, Khattar said the NCR region of Haryana had immense potential for the development of a jungle safari.

All Public Sector Banks (PSBs) will begin a special campaign drive from October 2 this year for filling up the backlog vacancies of Scheduled Castes.

National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) Chairman Vijay Sampla informed about the drive a day after conducting a review meeting along with the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman regarding the performance of Public Sector Banks (PSBs) on credit and other welfare schemes for scheduled castes.

The NCSC chairman and finance minister had reviewed the various measures taken by PSBs in giving credit to persons belonging to the scheduled caste community and their welfare in terms of reservation, backlog vacancies, functioning of welfare and grievances redressal mechanism and other issues.

Balwant Singh Mankotia, a former president of the Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party, joined the BJP.

The government has deferred the implementation of the proposal to make six airbags mandatory in passenger cars by one year to October 1, 2023, Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari said.

The government had earlier planned to make six airbags mandatory in eight-seater vehicles for enhanced safety of occupants from October 1, 2022.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone and dedicated various projects worth more than Rs 3,400 crore in Surat during his two-day visit to his home state on Sep 29.

These include water supply and drainage projects, DREAM City, Biodiversity Park and other development projects such as public infrastructure, heritage restoration, city bus/BRTS infrastructure, and electric vehicle infrastructure as well as joint projects by the central and state government.

Phase-I of road infrastructure and the main entrance of Diamond Research and Mercantile (DREAM) City was also inaugurated.

The DREAM City project has been launched with the vision to meet the growing demand for commercial and residential space for the rapidly growing diamond trading sector in Surat. The prime minister also laid the foundation stone for Phase II of the project.

Senior Congress leader and first chairperson of the National Commission for Women Jayanti Patnaik died. She was 90. Her husband and former Odisha chief minister and ex-Governor of Assam J B Patnaik had passed away in 2015. She is survived by a son and two daughters.

Jayanti Patnaik, who was married to J B Patnaik in 1953, was elected to the Lok Sabha from both Cuttack and Berhampur.

The government on Sep 28 appointed senior advocate R Venkataramani as new Attorney General for three years. 

Venkataramani will succeed KK Venugopal after his term ends on September 30.  On Sep 25, senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi declined the government’s offer to be appointed as the AG.

Born in 1950, Venkataramani enrolled in July 1977 in Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and shifted to the Supreme Court practice in 1979. He was designated as senior advocate by the Supreme Court in 1997. He has an experience of 42 years. He has practiced in various branches of law, prominently constitutional, indirect taxes, human rights, civil and criminal.

Ahead of assembly elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, the government on Sep 29 extended by three months its programme to provide free rations to the poor at a cost of Rs 44,762 crore as it looked to ease pain from high inflation.

The scheme to provide 5 kg of wheat and rice free of cost to 80 crore poor every month, which was ending on Sep 30, will now run through December 31, 2022, I&B Minister Anurag Thakur said.

The Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) was started in April 2020 to help the poor whose livelihoods were shuttered by a nationwide lockdown aimed at containing the spread of the Coronavirus.

The scheme has been extended multiple times and was to end on Sep 30.

Under this scheme, 5 kg of foodgrain per person per month is provided free of cost for all the beneficiaries covered under the National Food Security Act (NFSA).

Thakur said the government has so far spent Rs 3.45 lakh crore on the PMGKAY scheme since its launch in April 2020.

With the additional expenditure of about Rs 44,762 crore for the latest extension, the overall expenditure of the PMGKAY will be about Rs 3.91 lakh crore for all the phases, he said.

Thakur said 122 lakh tonne (12.2 million tonne) of foodgrains will be given out free of cost in the three months from October 1.

The total allocation of foodgrain for phases I-VII will reach about 1,121 lakh tonne (112.1 million tonne).