The Union Cabinet today approved some amendments made to the Food Security Bill including the extension of deadline for implementing the law to one year from six months. On 28th of August, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had approved around nine amendments to the bill without the Cabinet nod as the Food Ministry had sought ex-post facto approval.

The Cabinet also approved the Pharmaceuticals Purchase Policy (PPP) for five years. The renewal of PPP aims at ensuring optimum utilization of the installed capacity of Pharma Central Public Sector Enterprises. The policy in respect of 103 medicines will be valid for five years from the date of issue of orders by Department of Pharmaceuticals.

The Cabinet also gave its approval for declaring airports at Bhubaneswar in Odisha and Imphal in Manipur as International airports.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has reduced the minimum export price of wheat by 40 dollars to 260 dollars per tonne. The CCEA also approved the launching of a new Integrated Processing Development Scheme with a total cost of 500 crore rupees during the 12th Plan. Under it four to six brown field projects and three to five green field projects would be established addressing the environmental issues faced by Textile Processing Units.

The CCEA approved development of four-laning of Sangrur-Pu