The Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister has
announced its decision to introduce the practice of ‘Tithi Bhojan’ as a
part of the Mid Day Meal scheme. The HRD Minister headed a meeting of
the Empowered
Committee
on Mid Day Meal Scheme to review the functioning of the Mid Day Meal
scheme. The meeting consisted of representatives of State Governments,
Food and Nutrition experts and senior officers of the Central
Government. The Committee was formed last year.
Decisions of the Committee
The committee made the following decision during its meeting:-
- The members agreed to strengthen the monitoring system of the scheme
- Ensure greater community participation in the execution of the Scheme through Tithi Bhojan
- Introduce and implement a protocol for standards in food safety and testing, from 2015, to ensure the quality of the meal and compliance with appropriate nutrition standards
- Focus on establishing a community participatory model and use that
to act as a system of checks and balance on the implementation of themid
day meal scheme
- Creation of an open forum on the Mid Day Meal scheme’s website so
that people’s opinion of the scheme may be shared online. Complaints can
also be made on the forum.
- Crucial role for the community in checking quality of ingredients and preventing contamination
- Mandatory checking of meals at kitchen level
Tithi Bhojan
Some of the features of Tithi Bhojan are:-
- Tithi Bhojan was first successfully implemented in Gujarat, and will now be replicated across the country
- It seeks to involve the members of the community in the effort to provide nutritious and healthy food to the children
- The members of the community may contribute/sponsor either utensils or food on special occasions/festivals.
This is completely voluntary, and the people in the community may
contribute food items supplementary to the mid day already being
provided like sweet, namkeen or sprouts.
- Greater participation and involvement of religious and charitable institutions is also being promoted
October 15, 2014
The Labour Ministry has drafted the Small Factories
(Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Services) Bill, 2014 and
asked for comments from stakeholders. The Bill is likely to be tabled
in the
Parliament during its winter session.
Application of law
This law will apply to micro, small and medium enterprises that employ up to 40 employees.
Consolidation of law and procedure
The Bill, if passed, will replace over 44 central labour laws and
100 state laws and streamline the process. A single compliance report,
that can be filed online, will fulfill all the requirements under
various legislations. Outdated provisions, with no relevance in today’s
age and time, have been removed.
Registration of units
The factories covered under the bill will have to register within 60 days of commencement of
business. Each employer will be provided a labour identification number, and he can register his factory online.
Payment of wages
The employer will have to transfer the wages to the accounts of the
employees. Payment of wages in cash is disallowed. This will help the
regulatory agency monitor payment of wages and also give a boost to
financial inclusion.
Protection of basic rights
The registration of the units with the authorities will help them
monitor the benefits being provided to the employees by employer. The
bill clearly
states
the working hours, minimum wages, overtime wages, provision of leave,
social security benefits and conditions for retrenchment of workers.
Any malpractices can be challenged before the Conciliation Officer, appointed in accordance with the Bill.
Need for legislation
The requirement of a separate labour law for small scale
industries was identified by the Second
National
Commission on Labour in 2000. The Commission said that such a law would
encourage small scale industries and also boost employment
opportunities.
October 14, 2014
On the birth anniversary of Jayaprakash Narayan, PM Modi launched the
Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana keeping his commitment, he made to the nation in his Independence Day speech.
The scheme is properly and religiously implemented will revolutionize the village economies and
culture.
It encourages MPs or Sansads to identify and develop one village from
their respective constituency as a model village by 2016 and two more by
2019. This will ensure development of 2500 villages. Here are some of
the highlights of the Yojana:
- MPs are required to pick one village with a population of 3000-4000
in plains and 1000-3000 in hills within a month of the launch.
- MPs cannot pick villages which belong to themselves or their spouses.
- The scheme requires them to draft a village development plan,
motivate inhabitants to participate in growth via different activities,
identify gaps in funding and mobilising MPLAD funds to create additional
resources specifically from CSR initiatives of various corporate
houses, in areas of sanitation and water supply.
- The outcomes of the same should cover a wide spectrum of indicators like health, nutrition and education through organising and monitoring immunization drives, improving standard and quality of mid-day meal schemes, improving Aadhaar enrolment, setting up “smart schools” with IT-enabled classrooms and e-libraries, Panchayat infrastructure improvement under schemes such as MGNREGA and Backward Regions Grants Fund etc.
- Social development and harmony should be encouraged through
activities like identifying and celebrating a village day, a village
song and also laying stress on alternate modes of dispute resolution.
- The scheme also has provisions to plug all gaps which were hitherto a
mark of every government yojana. The implementation will be ensured by
web-based monitoring and an initial 5-month review by an independent
agency. District Collectors will carry ground-level surveys along with
monthly review meetings to monitor progress . At the State-level too,
Chief Secretaries will head empowered committee on the same and the Minister for Rural Development and Secretary, Rural Development, will chair two national-level committees to track the scheme.
This will transform lives of many for whom economic development never
happened and also bring about a sense of pride, volunteerism, and self-
reliance in villages.
October 11, 2014
The Centre has deferred the rollout of the
National Food Security Act for the second time in a year. The deadline of October 2014 has been extended for another six months
Background
The National Food Security Act was passed in July 2013. At that time,
states
were given one year to identify beneficiaries and put in measures to
provide subsidized foodgrains to them. However, after a year’s time,
most states had still not made progress. Hence, an extension of another
four months till October was given. But, since many states have still
not managed to put the required
infrastructure
in place for implementation of the provision of the National Food
Security Act, another extension of six months has been given by the
Central Government.
Lack of readiness
A large number of states wanted the nation wide rollout of the
National Food Security Act to be deferred because they were not ready to
implement it. The onus of identifying the beneficiaries was put on the
states by the National Food Security Act. Many states have yet to
finalise the beneficiaries, and there has been a lot of debate on how to
identify them. Also, most states who weren’t implementing their own
foodgrain distribution programs have to establish infrastructure from
scratch. Information about fair price shops have to be digitised and
godowns built to store enough foodgrains for such a far-reaching
program. 11 states and Union Territories, namely
Punjab,
Haryana,
Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh,
Bihar,
Chhattisgarh,
Maharashtra,
Karnataka,
Delhi and Chandigarh have partially or fully implemented the National Food Security Act. However, many of the large states like
Uttar Pradesh,
West Bengal,
Odisha,
Jharkhand,
Andhra Pradesh and
Telangana have not yet put the required mechanism in place.
October 4, 2014
More than 2,47,000 gram panchayats across the country will receive Rs. 20 lakh each per annum for the Clean
India campaign of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan that was launched by the PM on October 2.
The discretion as to what project/work the funds should be used for is upto the
gram panchayat, but it will have to be used towards improving sanitation.
Allocation of funds
This 20 lakh per gram panchayat will be provided from the Rs,
1,96,000 crore that will be spent on the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan over a
period of five years. Of this, the Ministry of Urban development has
been allocated Rs. 62,000 cr for cleanliness and sanitation of urban
areas while the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation has been
allocated Rs. 1,34,000 cr for the programme
Source of Funds
Only a marginal portion of the funds will be appropriated from the
Central Government. The remainder of the funds will be raised through
PPP mode by Stated and urban local bodies, private sector, levy of user
charges, Corporate Social Responsibility, Swachh Bharat Kosh and other
such measures.
September 29, 2014
The
Union Cabinet has granted its approval for the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (SBA) which will be officially launched on October 2, 2014.
The main goal of the programme is a clean
India with all gram panchayats being open defecation free by 2019.
The Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Urban) will last a span of five years and
cover 4,041 statutory towns. The earlier mission on sanitation, Nirmal
Bharat Abhiyan, will be restructured into Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Rural).
The urban component of SBA will be implemented by the Ministry of
Urban Development, and the rural component by the Ministry of Drinking
Water and Sanitation. The total outlay is Rs. 62,009 crores with Rs.
14,623 coming from the Centre.
The scheme aims to stop open defecation through construction of IHHL
(individual household latrines), cluster toilets and community toilets
(especially through PPP mode). Solid and liquid waste management also
forms an important component of the programme. Major thrust is being
given to information,
education and communication of importance of cleanliness.
A cleanliness drive under SBA was launched on September 27 in the
Rashtrapati Bhavan. and will last till October 2. The Swachh
Bharat-Swachh Vidyalaya campaign involving schools where cleanliness
drives will be conducted, was launched by the Minister for Human
Resources Development. A multi media campaign promoting cleanliness,
sanitation and hygiene and focusing on creating awareness will be
launched on October 2 by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
Also, in a CSR (corporate social responsibility) initiative, L&T
has announced that it shall construct 5,000 toilets across India.
Significantly, the SBA identifies CSR initiatives as one of the sources
for the programme’s funding.
September 26, 2014
Union government is planning to scrap the
5/20 Rule prevalent in the Indian
aviation industry. Thus, Govt. plans to fulfill the demand of a few private airlines that want the rule to be relaxed.
5/20 Rule: As per this rule,
a carrier must be 5-year-old and have at least 20 aircraft in its fleet before being permitted to fly abroad.
The UPA-II Government had started the course of scrapping the 5/20
rule but was not able to finish the job. Now, the new Modi government
had called a meeting of the CEOs of all the Indian Airlines to look into
the matter. In the Meeting, 4 private airlines (Air
India,
Jet, IndiGo and SpiceJet) requested retention of the 5/20 rule whereas
the new airlines of Tatas, one with Malaysian low-cost carrier AirAsia
and other with
Singapore Airlines, requested the deletion of this rule.
October 10, 2014
The Central government is planning to reconstitute and
revive the PM’s Council on Cilmate Change. This Council oversaw the
implementation of the eight missions under the NAPCC (
National Action Plan on
Climate Change). This advisory body had not met in the last three years.
An Executive
Committee had been set up in
January 2013,
comprising of officials from relevant Ministries, to assist the Council
and monitor implementation of the eight missions. However, despite
this, lack of funding and co-ordination lead to slow implementation of
proposals under the eight missions. Most missions have been
underperforming in relation to their targets.
With renewed emphasis on climate change in the
international,
the government has deemed it imperative to formulate a coherent
domestic climate change policy. The reconstituted Council is expected to
review the implementation of the eight missions and undertake a
comprehensive reassessment of the country’s climate change policy.
Moreover, the composition of the Council is expected to be tweaked to
accommodate more members from the industrial sector.
Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change
The Council was established in 2007. It was responsible for framing
the NAPCC in 2008. The High Level Advisory group was given the role of
co-coordinating action plans for assessment, adaptation and mitigation
of climate change. It also advised the government on multiple climate
change related issues and facilitated inter-ministerial cooperation and
coordination in the arena of climate change.
October 10, 2014
The Minister for Minority Affairs, Najma Heptullah,
announced the establishment of a nation level skill development Academy,
“Maulana Azad
National Academy for Skills” (MANAS) with headquarters in
Delhi.
MANAS will focus on providing skills, upgrading abilities and training members of minority communities in those sectors of the
economy
which are either facing a shortage or labour or where demand for labour
is expected to surge. MANAS will also train people so that they may be
self-employed. The National Minorities Development and
Finance
Corporation (NMDFC) will provide assistance with credit for persons who
have undergone training at MANAS and wish to establish their own
business or be self employed. MANAS will also collaborate with multiple national and
international agencies to provide certification and assistance with placement for the trainees, and also to secure funding for the program.
A MoU was also signed by MANAS and the National Skill Development Corporation to establish an All
India Collaborative Network for MANAS.
October 10, 2014
The Government has modified the timeline for Cable TV
Digitisation. As per the new timeline, Phase III will be over by end of
2015 and Phase IV, a year later, by end of 2016. In Phase III and IV,
cable TV digitization will spread to the rural areas. Phase I was
digitization of metro cities, and Phase II was digitization of cities
with a population of more than 1 million people, Phase III covers all
urban areas and Phase IV covers the rest of
India.
Task Force for Cable Digitization for Phases three and four
This task force was set up by the government to steer Phases III and
IV. The task force was set up to look into indigenous production of set
top boxes (STBs), interoperability between STB service providers and
take efforts to provide tax incentives to boost domestic
manufacturing
of STBs and enable them to compete with foreign manufacturers. The Task
Force will also consult with representatives of all stakeholders,
including the service providers and consumers.
September 26, 2014
In order to make
India a
manufacturing hub, PM
Narendra Modi launched the
Make In India Campaign at Vigyan Bhawan in New
Delhi.
The promotion is intended to appeal foreign companies to set up their
manufacturing units in India and to obtain larger foreign
investment. P.M. Narendra Modi on his Independence Day speech had declared the
Make in India policy.
The aim of the crusade is to get manufacturing sector to grow over 10% on a viable basis over a long run and to transform the
economy
from a Service-driven growth model to Labour-intensive
manufacturing-driven growth. Thus, it will assist in creating jobs for
over 10 million people, who join the workforce every year.
Via ‘Make In India’ campaign, the Union Government wishes to clear
the disheartening image of complex rules and bureaucratic red tape of
Indian administration. It will assist the global investors to promote
their investment choices. This will assist in apprehending the objective
of a liberalized economy.
As per the
World Bank’s ease of doing
business
index, India ranks at very low at 134 (out of 189) nations in 2014. The
‘Make in India’ campaign will act as a guiding for foreign investors on
all aspects of regulatory and policy issues and support them in
attaining regulatory sanctions. The Government has already allowed 100%
FDI under automatic route in construction, operation and maintenance in
rail
infrastructure projects.
The ‘Make In India’ places stress on 25 sectors with emphasis on job
creation and skill development. These include: automobiles, chemicals,
IT, pharmaceuticals, textiles, ports,
aviation, leather,
tourism and hospitality, wellness,
railways, auto components, design manufacturing, renewable
energy, mining, bio-technology, pharmaceuticals and electronics, etc.
Union Government released individual brochures for these sectors
along with a general brochure. The brochures will offer details of
growth drivers, investment opportunities, sector specific FDI and other
policies and associated agencies.
Features of the ‘Make In India’ campaign
- Govt to look into all regulatory processes to ease the load on investors.
- A dedicated cell to answer enquiries from the business bodies via a freshly created web portal.
- A.Q.s on the portal to assist investors find instant answers to their general queries
- Back-end support team to answer specific enquiries within 72 hours
- DIPP and FICCI have together set up an 8-member expert group to
address enquiries and apprehensions of investors. They will explain
Indian policies to the investors and propose reforms to the Central and states governments.
- All Central government services are being integrated with an e-Biz single window online portal.
- States recommended initiating the self-certification
- The Union Ministry of Home Affairs has been asked to provide all security clearances to investment proposals within 3 months.
- An advisory has been sent to all departments/ state governments to streamline and straighten out the regulatory environment.
September 25, 2014
The
DeitY
(Department of Electronics and Information Technology) is working on
creating a user friendly Indian email service on the lines of popular
email service providers like Gmail and Yahoo. The serGovernment Working
on New
National
E-Mail Servicevice will first be made available to the Central
government, then the State government, and then to the citizens for
communicating with the government.
Importance is placed on this project to ensure national security by
ascertaining that the communication systems and data transfers are
effective and not hackable. The service is also expected to be fast
because of enhanced bandwith and servers that will be located in
India. It is expected to be ready by November.
This project is a part of PM Modi’s “
Digital India” programme.
September 17, 2014
Government has permitted the launching of
National Ayush Mission (NAM) to attend to the gaps in
health services in vulnerable and far-flung parts of the country. The judgment to launch the NAM was taken in a meeting of the
Union Cabinet chaired by
Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Via the AYUSH Mission (
Ayurveda,
Yoga and Naturopathy,
Unani,
Siddha and
Homoeopathy),
the Govt. is looking forward to address gaps in health services by
backing the attempts of state governments for delivering Ayush health
services and
education
in the country, mainly in vulnerable and remote areas. The Mission will
assist in improving the Ayush education via improvement in the number
of advanced educational institutions and deliver improved access to
Ayush services via growth in number of Ayush hospitals and dispensaries.
The mission will also assist sustained accessibility of quality raw
material for Ayush systems of medicine and advance accessibility of
quality drugs via growth in number of pharmacies and drug laboratories.
September 17, 2014
Finance Ministry is in the final stages of the course to
double the commission to banks at 2% of the quantum of funds they transmit to individual beneficiaries under the government’s Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) scheme.
The current rate of commission is 1% per for every transaction under the DBT.
The government transfers money to the bank account of consumers of
kerosene, LPG, etc. via its DBT scheme in order to do away with the
loopholes and ascertain
corruption
free delivery. Now, the Finance Ministry plans that for all accounts,
whether under Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana or otherwise, if
subsidy
is routed via the DBT scheme, 2% of the total amount will be given to
banks as administration cost. This money will not be cut from the
consumer’s account but the government will spend extra 2%.
Example, if in a year, a bank transfers Rs 10 crore as DBT payments,
then the government will transfer Rs 10.2 crore to that bank.
Banks play a very important role as Govt agents in routing subsidies via DBT
Schemes.
September 17, 2014
The government has devised a training programme for IAS,
IPS and Forest Service officers on dealing with problem of Naxalism. The
Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) has written to Chief
Secretaries of 8
states requesting nomination of at least 3 officers each from Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian
Police
Service (IPS) and Indian Forest Service (IFoS) for the course. The
nominated officers will be coached by armed forces personnel at the
Chhattisgarh Academy of Administration (Raipur) during October 15-17, 2014. The programme is being held for the first time on Naxalism.
The aim of the programme is to boost exposure of IAS, IPS, IFoS and
other civil services officers to the military, so as to efficiently deal
with unanticipated circumstances at short notice. The programme brings
together civilian and armed force officers from the states of
Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh,
Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, ,
Maharashtra,
Odisha,
Telangana and
West Bengal to a shared discussion forum on the
theme ‘Left Wing Extremism’.
September 17, 2014
The government has made alterations to the norms governing expenses on
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
undertakings under the fresh Company Law (2013). Now a particular class
of profitable companies are necessitated to spend minimum 2% of their
3-year yearly average net profit towards CSR works.
The obligation is part of the Companies Act, 2013, maximum of whose
requirements came into effect from April 1, 2014. As per the rules,
companies are permitted to build CSR capabilities for their own
personnel via other institutions given that such expenses do not exceed
5% of the total expenditure incurred on social welfare activities in one
financial year. This 5% cap would include “expenditure on
administrative overheads”.
The changes have been made to the Companies (Corporate Social
Responsibility Policy) Rules, 2014. As per earlier norms, companies were
allowed to build CSR capacities of their own personnel as well as those
of their implementing agencies via institutions with established track
records of at least 3 financial years but such expenditure shall not
exceed 5% of total CSR expenditure of the company in a single financial
year.
The new CSR norms would be applicable on companies having at least Rs
5 crore net profit, or Rs 1,000 crore turnover or Rs 500 crore net
worth. Such corporates would required to spend 2% of their 3-year
average yearly net profit on CSR activities in each financial year,
beginning 2014-15 fiscal.
Several activities including livelihood improvement and rural
development projects, lessening inequalities faced by socially and
economically backward groups, working towards safeguard of
national heritage, art and
culture, comes under the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) domain.
September 17, 2014
To simplify the procedure of executing better corporate
governance norms by listed firms, the market regulator Sebi relaxed
several provisions of the fresh law, particularly for smaller companies,
and stretched the deadline for appointing at least one woman director
to April 1, 2015.
Although amendments were made to numerous provisions of the Corporate
Governance Code in order to align it with the appropriate sections of
the new Companies Act (2013), the deadline would remain unmoved at
October 1, 2014, except for obligation of a minimum one woman director
on the boards of listed companies. Thus, the listed companies would have
time till April 1, 2015 to fulfill with the woman director-related
provision.
September 16, 2014
Union Human Resource Development Ministry to fund the
Swachh Vidyalaya (Clean Schools) campaign, via the
Swachh Bharat Kosh.
Centre will setup
“Swachh Bharat Kosh” to fund the
“Swachh Bharat (Clean India)” campaign. HRD Ministry will anchor the
“Swachh Vidyalaya (Clean Schools)”
drive. The campaign purposes to make sure the facility of toilets in
all government schools by August 15, 2015. Swachh Vidyalaya campaign is
part of mission to make India a clean country by 2019, the 150
th birth anniversary year of
Mahatma Gandhi.
Swachh Bharat Campaign, announced by PM
Narendra Modi
on the eve of 68th Independence Day on August 15, 2014, is scheduled to
be launched on October 2, 2014. As part of the drive, public sector
units under 25 Ministries have vowed Rs. 400 crore for the drive and
private and public sector companies would be persuaded to build toilet
blocks in schools. Tata Consultancy Services and Bharti Enterprises have
pledged Rs 100 Crore each.
September 16, 2014
India will soon launch “Project Mausam”, a PM
Narendra Modi government’s utmost noteworthy
foreign policy project for answering
China’s
rising impact in the Indian Ocean region. After the astonishing triumph
of China’s “Maritime Silk Road” scheme, India plans to soon takeoff its
own Project Mausam, a transnational program aimed to restore its
ancient maritime routes and
cultural links with republics in the region.
Titled “Project Mausam”: Maritime Routes and Cultural Landscapes crossways the Indian Ocean, the project emphasizes on the
natural wind phenomenon, particularly monsoon winds
used by Indian sailors in ancient times for maritime trade, that has
formed relations amongst nations and groups linked by the Indian Ocean.
Project Mausam purposes to determine the versatile Indian Ocean “world” —
expanding from East
Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, the Indian subcontinent and
Sri Lanka to the Southeast Asian archipelago.
Though India is also amongst the nations asked to join China’s
maritime silk route plan, India has been worried by the curiosity
displayed by Sri Lanka and
Maldives in the Chinese offer, which supposedly looks to restore ancient economic links.
India government will try to pull on its ancient connections with
nations in this region as it proposes an alternative, which could
counter-balance the maritime silk route of China. India also faces the
difficult job of matching China’s stress on building landmark
infrastructure in the region, including ports in Sri Lanka and
Pakistan. Whereas the facilities are held to be civilian, India doubts China obtaining operational control of these.
Dating to AD 500-1000, a sailors’ trading map to constructed on wind patterns, displaying India as the pivot
September 14, 2014
Once synonymous to watches in
India
“HMT” is set to be winded up in a phased manner. Burdened with losses
for more than a decade, the government is set to shut down HMT Watches,
which was restructured in 1999, but nothing changed for HMT.
During 2012-13, HMT reported losses of Rs 242 crore on revenues of Rs 11 crore. In contrast, Titan’s watch
business reported sales of Rs 1,675 crore during the year. HMT employs 1,105, which includes 181 executives.
HMT (HMT Limited, formerly Hindustan Machine Tools Limited), a state-owned
manufacturing company under the Ministry of Heavy
Industries and Public Enterprises in India, was
incorporated in 1953
by the Government of India as a machine tool manufacturing company, as
part of the government’s attempts to shape a modern India. It is like
the Ambassador, another marquee brand of the licence-permit era. Over
the years diversified into watches, tractors, printing machinery, metal
forming presses, die casting & plastic processing machinery, CNC
systems & bearings.
HMT almost had a free run from the time when
in 1961 it set up the country’s first watch manufacturing unit in Bangalore in collaboration with Citizen Watch Co. In fact, it claims
many
firsts to its credit — the automatic day-date watch to the first
Braille and quartz watches. HMT’s ad punch line depicted it as “timekeepers to the nation”.
But it was the quartz watches that turn out to be its downfall along
with the entrance of numerous new players in the 1980s, who brought in
fresher designs and more modern production methods. HMT is said to have
been faltered by slow decision-making, frequently linked with PSUs. As a
consequence, numerous efforts to improve the company’s performance
including capital infusion didn’t work. During UPA government’s term,
HMT Watches was referred to the Board for Reconstruction of Public
Sector Enterprises, which suggested revitalization. While the UPA
desisted from resolving on the matter, the BJP government decided to go
ahead with a hard choice.
September 13, 2014
Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Ministry of Commerce and
Industry, Government of
India
launched a new payment gateway integrated to the e-filing system of the
Intellectual Property Office (IPO). This new facility will be dedicated
to the working of the Indian Patent Office as
International Searching Authority (ISA) and International Preliminary Examining Authority (IPEA) under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT).
The new facility will facilitate payment by means of internet
banking,
credit cards or debit cards of more than 70 Banks as against internet
banking of 2 banks previously. This will result in rise in online filing
of forms for patent and trademarks by 25 to 75%.
Fresh initiatives:
Fresh office of IPO: This new facility will be
dedicated to the working of the Indian Patent Office as International
Searching Authority (ISA) and International Preliminary Examining
Authority (IPEA) under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT).
IP Expressions: First issue of IP Expressions, a
technical magazine released. The magazine offers a stage for the
officials of Intellectual Property Office (IPO) to share the experience
acquired in the field of Intellectual Property. Initially it will start
as a twice-a-year publication, the IP Expressions is likely to help the
IP groups, researchers, scholars, academicians and public at large as a
source of IP information.
Stock and Flow: This facility at present existing
for trademarks has now been extended to patents also. Via this service
the work occurring in the whole Patent office will be now open to the
world. The stock and flow in the Patent Offices at various places is
shown on a real time basis on the official website. IPO is the first
amongst intellectual property offices throughout the world to attain
this extreme transparency.
September 13, 2014
The western zone bench of the
National Green Tribunal (NGT) has banned the burning of tyres in public areas and also the reuse of old tyres as fuel in
industries and brick kilns.
The bench has instructed the
environment division of the state government to take a resolution on the
Maharashtra Pollution Control Board’s (MPCB) suggestions
in 8 weeks and release essential notification in 2 weeks later. Burning
of tyres in open areas, public places and localities, such as
residential areas, schools, hospitals and offices, is banned, the bench
noted whilst holding the
police,
district administration and ULBs (Urban Local Bodies) accountable for
executing the prohibition. Any disobedience has to be regarded as
an offence under section 188 of the Indian Penal Code (disobedience to order promulgated by public servant), it said.
The direction was circulated on a petition filed by city-based Sahyog
Trust, which upraised thoughtful worries over burning of tyres on human
health as tyre burning yields poisonous smoke which is dangerous to the total environment and human health.
The bench observed that the
Central Pollution Control Board (CPBC) is fostering the use of old tyres as fuel in cement,
power and steel
industry,
however several aspects such as the pollution latent, tyre generation
data, technology choices, techno-economic feasibility and social
consequences must be well thought-out.
Why burning of tyres is harmful for environment?
Burning tyres emit toxic soup of pollutants that contains harmful
gases and chemicals viz. carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, chromium,
arsenic, zinc, barium, cobalt, copper, iron, aluminum, manganese and
vanadium, etc. which are hazardous to the human beings as well as to the
environment.
Minuscule particles released during the burning can settle deep in the
lungs. Tyres contain 25 % extender oils derived from benzene, 25%
styrene, a derivative of benzene, and 25% 1,3 butadiene. – both benzene
and 1,3 butadiene are suspected human carcinogens. (A carcinogen is any
substance, radionuclide or radiation, that is an agent directly involved
in causing cancer).
About National Green Tribunal
- A special fast-track court to handle the expeditious disposal of the cases pertaining to environmental issues.
- Established on October, 2010 under the National Green Tribunal Act 2010.
- Objective: For effective and expeditious disposal of cases relating to environmental protection and conservation of forests and other natural resources including enforcement of any legal
right relating to environment and giving relief and compensation for
damages to persons and property and for matters connected therewith or
incidental thereto.
- Shall not be bound by the procedure laid down under the Code of
Civil Procedure, 1908, but shall be guided by principles of natural
justice.
- New Delhi is
the Principal Place of Sitting of the Tribunal and Bhopal, Pune,
Kolkata and Chennai shall be the other four place of sitting of the
Tribunal.
Note: The National Green Tribunal ruling can only be challenged in the
Supreme Court.
September 11, 2014
The
Bihar government recognized recognise kinnar/kothi/hijra/transgender (eunuch) as “third gender”.
The cabinet acknowledged declaring them as backward class annexure II
category which will offer them quota advantage for availing or getting
government jobs. The Transgenders from upper castes will be considered
as OBC annexure II and get reservation advantages, however transgenders
from Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes will continue in the same
castes.
Earlier in 2014, the
Supreme Court
delivered a judgment recognizing transgenders as third gender and
called for the Union Government to consider transgender as socially and
economically backward. The Supreme Court in its judgment held that the
transgenders should be permitted admission to educational institutions
and given work on the footing that they fit in the third gender category
and they should be regarded as as OBCs.
See: Supreme Court creates a ‘Third Gender’ for transgenders
September 11, 2014
The Union Ministry of
Science & Technology also announced
KIRAN (Knowledge, Involvement, Research, Advancement through Nurturing) for women scientists – A unique advertising scheme to bring about, as far as possible, gender equality in the field of science and technology.
Objectives:-
- To increase the number of women researchers in India.
- Provide Research grants particularly to those female researchers and
technologists who had to take a break in career owing to household
reasons.
- Bring about, as far as achievable, gender parity in the field of science and technology.
The scholarships will be provided under three categories-
- For those women linked in research work in basic or applied sciences with any central or state level organization or university
- For those women scientists involved in research and application of innovative solutions for several social problems
- For those researchers who are self-employed.
Under the scheme, the Union Ministry of Science & Technology will
build leadership positions for women. Such a scheme would be beneficial
for women who face unavoidable interruptions in their careers owing to
numerous reasons.
September 11, 2014
Commencing the mammoth
disinvestment drive, the CCEA (Cabinet
Committee on Economic Affairs) headed by
Prime Minister, approved the sale of shares in Coal
India, ONGC and NHPC to garner a combined Rs 43,000 crore.
At current market prices, the sale of shares in state-owned CIL, ONGC
and NHPC could bring over Rs 23,000 crore, Rs 18,000 crore and Rs 2,800
crore respectively, assisting the government meet its disinvestment
target of Rs 43,425 crore for this fiscal. CCEA cleared 10% stake
dilution in CIL (
Coal India Limited), 5% in ONGC (Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited) and 11.36% in NHPC (
National Hydroelectric
Power Corporation) via the Offer For Sale (OFS) route.
The government has earlier missed its disinvestment goal for 5 successive financial years:-
- 2010-11 and 2011-12: Government could raise Rs 22,144 crore and Rs
13,894 crore via disinvestment, against the budgeted target of Rs 40,000
crore in each year.
- 2012-13: Govt. could raised Rs 23,956 crore, as against the target of Rs 30,000 crore.
- 2013-14: Government could raise Rs 16,027 crore, as against the
budgeted aim of Rs 40,000 crore. The target in revised estimates was
scaled down to Rs 16,027 crore.
A planned stake sale in CIL in 2013-14 had to be deferred after stiff
opposition from the trade unions. The coal major had to make up for
that by paying about Rs 19,000 crore as dividend to the exchequer. The
government, which holds a 89.65% stake in CIL, initially sought to
divest a 10 per cent stake but lowered it to 5% on account of opposition
from the unions. Government holds 85.96% stake in NHPC. The stake sale
would help the company comply with the minimum 25% public shareholding
norm of market regulator SEBI.
The disinvestment department has already selected three merchant bankersfor managing the NHPC stake sale:
- Edelweiss Financial
- IDFC Capital
- HSBC Securities
In the current fiscal, the government plans to mop up Rs 43,425 crore from selling its stakes in PSUs.
September 10, 2014
RBI in order to put intense pressure on businessmen,
whose companies default in future, has intensified wilful defaulter
rules. Now if a company is unable to repay then that could lead to other
group units and management being termed ‘wilful defaulters’.
RBI held: “
In cases where guarantees furnished by group companies
on behalf of the wilfully defaulting units are not honoured when
invoked by the banks, such group companies should also be reckoned as
wilful defaulters.”
Thus, this
cross default condition would apply if
the offending borrower has raised up funds on the strong point of the
balance sheet of its other group companies. Banks have also been asked
to recover from personal guarantees offered by promoters even without
draining other ways. The new norms have comes as a result of cases like
Kingfisher Airlines where regardless of having a promoter guarantee and
the existence of cash-rich companies in the group, lenders are realizing
it as a challenge to raise funds.
RBI held that “
It is clarified that this would apply only prospectively
and not to cases where guarantees were taken prior to this circular.
Banks may ensure that this position is made known to all prospective
guarantors at the time of accepting guarantees.”
The modified guidelines nevertheless will not be of much benefit to
banks in recovering from present borrowers like Kingfisher Airlines as
they
apply only prospectively and not to cases where guarantees were taken prior to this circular. Around 5% of the loans in the Indian
Banking
system are in default whereas another 5% are under stress and have been
offered some flexibility in repayment under a restructuring programme.
Clarifying on its earlier norms the RBI had said the defaulting ‘unit’
appearing therein would include individuals, juristic persons and all
other forms of
business enterprises, whether incorporated or not.
The new norms have come soon after the RBI governor Raghuram Rajan
recently held that the wilful defaulter tag is a powerful weapon in the
hands of creditors.
See:
“Willful defaulter tag is a powerful weapon in hands of banks for resolving bad loans”: RBI Governor
September 10, 2014
The RBI brought relief for investors in
HDFC Bank and
IndusInd Bank,
who have been anxious about the destiny of their celebrated chiefs who
have provided massive returns in the past few years. Full-time directors
of Pvt. banks can now continue up to the age of 70, in line with the
Companies Act 2013. The bank boards will, nevertheless, hold the right
to set a lower retirement age for officials.
RBI has been decided that the upper age limit for MD & CEO and
other WTDs (Whole-Time Directors) of banks in the private sector should
be 70 years, i.e.- beyond which no person should remain in the post.
Within the overall limit of 70 years, individual bank’s boards are free
to fix a lower retirement age for the WTDs, counting the MD & CEO,
as an internal policy.
This view received further credence after the P J Nayak
committee
proposed a maximum age of 65 for bank CEOs. The committee, to review
governance of boards of banks, had made the suggestion in its report to
RBI this May.
Whilst RBI can take decision on what can be done at private banks as they are governed by the Companies Act, the
Parliament has to amend the Bank Nationalisation Act to permit parallel provisions for state-run banks.
- This is the first time RBI is prescribing retirement age for Pvt. bank CEOs.
- The RBI Move aligns retirement with the Companies Act 2013
- Minimum age to become Manager is 21 years.
- Maximum age for CEOs, whole-time directors is 70.
- Age of Top Bank CEOs: Aditya Puri (MD & CEO HDFC Bank: 64
Years), Romesh Sobati (MD & CEO IndusInd Bank: 65 Years), Chanda
Kochar (MD & CEO ICICI Bank: 52 Years).
September 3, 2014
With reference to the ‘Guidelines on Implementation of Basel III Capital Regulations in
India’ issued vide circular
DBOD.No.BP.BC.98/21.06.201/2011-12 dated May 2, 2012,
RBI has now notified some amendments to this Circular and these
guidelines along with subsequent amendments have been incorporated in
the latest Master Circular
DBOD.No.BP.BC.6/21.06.201/2014-15 dated July 1, 2014 on ‘Basel III Capital Regulations’.
The earlier guidelines have reviewed further by RBI with a view to
ease raising of Non-Equity Regulatory Capital instruments by Banks under
Basel III framework. Correspondingly, some definite eligibility
measures of such instruments have been amended. These are also
envisioned to incentivize investors and to spread the investor base.
These Amendments relate to:-
- Non-equity Regulatory Capital Instruments (Additional Tier 1 and Tier 2) – Loss Absorption Mechanism
- Additional Tier 1 Capital Instruments – Exercise of Call Option
- Tier 2 Capital Instruments – Maturity Period
- Limits on recognition of Non-equity Regulatory Capital Instruments (Additional Tier 1 and Tier 2) for CRAR
- Non-equity Regulatory Capital Instruments (Additional Tier 1 and Tier 2) – Issuance to Retail Investors
- Coupon Discretion on Additional Tier 1 Debt Capital Instruments
These amended guidelines become applicable with immediate effect and
have been incorporated in the subsequent Master Circular on Basel III
Capital Regulations.
The Amendments:
CBII010914FA
September 3, 2014
In its presentation to
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the
Department of Telecommunications(DoT),
Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, has set a cutoff
date: July 31, 2015, for closing the much debated merger of stressed
state-run telecom companies,
BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd) and
MTNL (Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd).
MTNL runs telecom services in Delhi and Mumbai while BSNL offers telecom coverage in the rest of India.
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) incorporated on
September 15, 2000, is an Indian state-owned telecommunications company
headquartered in New Delhi, India. In India, BSNL is the largest
supplier of Fixed Telephony and 4th largest Mobile Telephony supplier,
and is also a supplier of broadband services. BSNL is India’s oldest and
largest Communication Service Provider (CSP). Till January 2014, BSNL
had a customer base of 117 million.
Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) set by Govt of India on April 1, 1986is a state-owned telecommunications service provider in the metro cities of
Mumbai and New Delhi in India and in the island nation of
Mauritius in Africa via its subsidiary
Mahanagar Telephone Mauritius Limited (MTML). At present, The Government of India holds 100% stake in the MTNL.
Mahanagar Telephone Mauritius Limited (MTML) in Mauritius is a wholly owned subsidiary of MTNL. It proves mobile and
international
long distance services. MTML is the 2nd operator in Mauritius. In
January 2004, MTML obtained necessary licenses to operate in Mauritius.
In current years BSNL’s and MTNL’s revenue and market share have
jumped into substantial losses because of extreme competition in the
Indian telecommunications sector. Government is attempting to revitalize
the two financially stressed telcos, which continue to roll under heavy
losses. MTNL posted a Rs 733.2 crore net loss in the Q1 2014, while
BSNL suffered a Rs 7,085 crore loss in 2013-14.
September 3, 2014
In order to speed up the process of credit decision, the
RBI has asked banks to set up a timeline for clearance of loan
proposals, but did not assign a specific time frame for the same.
RBI in its notification held that the Banks should openly delineate
the process for disposal of loan proposals, with suitable timelines, and
put in place an appropriate monitoring method for reviewing
applications awaiting beyond the specified period. Banks who should make
appropriate disclosures about timelines by conveying credit decisions
via their websites, notice boards, product literature, etc. However, RBI
held that the banks should not compromise on due diligence
requirements.
The move has come following the undue delays by banks to convey credit assessments.
August 30, 2014
Indian
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his maiden
bilateral visit outside the Indian subcontinent to
Japan, inked the
cultural agreement of Varanasi-Kyoto which spotlights on how to preserve heritage while building Smart Cities.
PM Modi visited
Kyoto the ‘smart city’ of Japan, to understand the experiment there bearing in mind that he intends to build 100 smart cities in
India. Kyoto,
the ancient capital of Japan, had been included in Modi’s schedule as
it “dovetails into Modi’s emphasis on rejuvenation of cities while
preserving their cultural heritage.”
August 30, 2014
PM
Narendra Modi’s next giant drive to free up service delivery from the hold of the lower bureaucracy will be in the form of a
‘digital cloud’ for every Indian.
Now, Certificates issued by the Govt.:
Education, residential, medical records, birth certificates, etc. will be saved in separate
‘digital lockers’
and a communication protocol will be established for Govt Departments
to access them without actually having to see the hard copy.
The idea is very clear, it is not desired that copies of
certificates issued by the government itself to be carried everywhere by
people to government offices for several services, e.g. if a student is
applying for a government college and has studied in a government-aided
school, his birth certificate, identity details and educational
certificates, school-leaving details, et al should be available to Govt.
institutes where he is applying. Likewise his medical records, etc.
August 29, 2014
The Union Government has given nod to continuation of production of urea from three plants using
Naptha as raw material
for duration of three months ending on September 30, 2014. This
decision will enable these units to continue urea production for the
next 3 months and help cater to the requirement of urea for Indian
farmers in the ongoing kharif season.
In line with the modified
New Pricing Scheme (NPS)-III, the 3 naphtha based units-
MFL-Manali,
MCFL-Mangalore and
SPIC-Tuticorin – were
permitted to produce urea from naphtha as feedstock till June 30, 2014.
The Centre had directed these units to switch to natural gas otherwise subsidy would not be provided. Ho
wever, these fertilizer firms could not to shift to gas from naphtha, as there were protests from farmers in Tamil Nadu who were against the laying of gas pipeline. Also, gas was not available.
The total cost of production of urea or (concession price) is
calculated on the basis of NPS-III. The selling price of urea is fixed
at Rs 5,360 per tonne. Of the three firms, the MFL is state owned, while
other two MCFL and SPIC are private companies.
August 28, 2014
PM of
India,
Narendra Modi launched the ambitious
‘Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana’ which
aims to achieve comprehensive financial inclusion. Mr. Modi had
announced this scheme on his maiden Independence Day speech on August
15, 2014. On the very first day, a record 1.5 Crore (15 million) bank
accounts were opened under this scheme.
‘Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana’
The ambitious scheme aims to achieve the gargantuan task of enrolling
over 7.5 crore (75 million) households and to open their accounts. In
its current phase, the scheme targets to provide
‘universal access to banking facilities’
starting with Basic Banking Accounts with overdraft facility of Rs.5000
after six months and RuPay Debit card with inbuilt accident
insurance cover of Rs. 1 lakh and RuPay Kisan Card. The scheme will add micro insurance & pension etc. in the next phase.
The
slogan for the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan mission is
“Mera Khata – Bhagya Vidhaata”.
Benefits
Every individual who opens a bank account will become eligible to
receive an accident insurance cover of up-to Rs. 1 Lakh for his entire
family. An additional Rs. 30,000 life insurance cover will be provided
for those opening bank accounts before January 26, 2015. Once the bank
account becomes active for 6 months and is linked to account holders
Aadhar identity, the account holders will be eligible for an overdraft
facility of up to Rs. 2500, which will be enhanced to Rs. 5000 over
time.
The scheme intends to provide incentives to
business
and banking correspondents. The banking correspondents function as link
for the last mile between savings account holders and the bank by
fixing a minimum monthly remuneration of Rs. 5000.
To lay the foundation of a
cashless economy is the
long term vision of the Jan Dhan Yojana which is also complementary to the
Digital India Scheme.
August 28, 2014
The
Delhi
Government made it compulsory for women riding a 2-wheeler to wear
helmets in Delhi NCR region. The objective is to ensure safety of women
in the NCR. The law came into effect after Delhi Government amended Rule
115 of the Delhi Motor Vehicles Rules, 1993.
The Clause (2) of the rule 115 of Delhi Motor Vehicles Rules, 1993
grants exception in favour of women, it makes it optional for them to
wear helmets. This clause was required to be deleted to ensure women
safety.
However, Sikh women have been allowed exemption in order to value religious sentiments of Sikhs.
August 28, 2014
Maharashtra
has become the second state of the country to announce the formation of
Transgender Welfare Board after State Cabinet approved the formation of
the same. The first state of the country to take the same step is
Tamil Nadu.
The Maharashtra Cabinet also decided to include ten sub-castes in the
Lingayat community in the OBC category. It also suggested the Centre to
provide minority status to Lingayat community.
Maharashtra was the first state to conduct complete study on the transgender community and announce welfare
schemes recommended by
Supreme Court.
It is worth recalling that the Supreme Court, on April 15, 2014,
recognized transgender as the third gender. It made 26 recommendations
for the welfare of the transgenders.
August 27, 2014
Union Cabinet
announced to withdraw the limitation of one LPG cylinder per month per
household. However, the Union Cabinet did not alter the overall cap of
12 subsidized cylinders per year. Consumers will now get 12 cylinders of
14.2-kg at subsidized price in a year, even if they don’t consume one
bottle/month.
The government decided to remove the monthly restriction on
subsidized LPG cylinders after observing that people were facing problem
as sometimes there is fluctuation in the need of cylinder. The decision
would help ease difficulties faced by genuine LPG consumers and will
also help meet genuine consumer needs subject to their annual
entitlement of subsidized cylinders. The Union Cabinet had imposed a
monthly restriction in February 2014.
August 18, 2014
The UPSC has informed that marks of questions on English
Language Comprehension Skills, asked in second paper of civil services
(preliminary)
examination, will not be included for gradation.
The union government has decided that for the civil services
(preliminary) examination, 2014 to be held on August 24, this section on
English Language Comprehension Skills (Class X Level) will not count
for gradation or merit.
Candidates must, therefore, note that they do not have to answer these questions.
Important instructions from the Department of Personnel & Training (DoPT); Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination, 2014:-
- The Paper II of the CSE (Preliminary) is of 200 marks and 2 hours
duration. It contains a section on English Language Comprehension Skills
(Class X Level). It contains some questions based on a few paragraphs
in English.
- The Union Government has decided that for the Civil Services
(Preliminary) Examination, 2014 to be held on August 24, 2014, this
section on English Language Comprehension Skills (Class X Level) will
not count for gradation or merit.
- The Paper-II would have a section on English Language Comprehension
Skills (Class X Level). Candidates must therefore note that they do not
have to answer the questions on this English Language Comprehension
Skills (Class X Level) section. These questions will not be evaluated.
- The duration of the Paper II would remain 2 hours and candidates can
utilize the entire time in answering all questions except those in the
Section containing English Language Comprehension Skills (Class X
Level).
- The maximum marks for Paper II would be “200 minus the marks
earmarked for the English Language Comprehension Skills (Class X
Level)”.
- Section on English Language Comprehension Skills (Class X Level)
would not count towards gradation or merit. Even if they attempt it,
marks will not be counted for gradation or merit.
August 18, 2014
The Central Government has re-launched the
Varishtha Pension Bima Yojana, for the benefit of citizens
aged 60 years and above.
The scheme will provide financial security to almost half a million
senior citizens of the country by ensuring regular income during old
age.
The scheme will benefit the vulnerable
section of society with limited resources as it will provide monthly
pension ranging from
Rs 500 to 5,000 per month to senior citizens of the country. The Scheme will be administrated by the
Life Insurance Corporation, LIC.
August 17, 2014
India has join hands with
Singapore to get its expertise in building
‘Smart Cities’ even as the two nations decided to ramp up economic engagement besides
defence and security cooperation. Recently, India allocated over Rs 7,000 crore in its
Budget 2014-15 for development of
100 ‘Smart Cities’.
The new Budget presented by
Finance
Minister Arun Jaitley enunciated the concept of ‘smart cities’ as
satellite towns of larger ones and allocated a sum of Rs 7,060 crore for
the ambitious project.
India is likely to benefit from Singapore’s expertise in smart cities, urban planning and water management strategies.
August 17, 2014
The
Haryana
government announced a windfall for the state government’s employees
which includes raising the retirement age from 58 to 60 years, 25% per
cent increment in Dearness Allowance, full pension after 20 years
service, and various other benefits. After 58 years of service, the
employee will be given the option to either continue his service or seek
retirement.
August 16, 2014
In a bid to introduce radical changes in the functioning of the
Reserve Bank of
India, the RBI board has approved Governor
Raghuram Rajan’s
proposal of shrinking organizational cumbersomeness and reducing
overlaps. It also seeks to create the post of Chief Operating Officer
(COO), an executive who’s likely to be made responsible for executing
the RBI’s reform agenda.
Rajan proposed to bring all aspects of RBI under 5 functional
departments to be supervised by 4 Deputy Governors and a COO. He
suggested merging some departments to avoid overlaps. He is also
inclined to make lateral hires from the private sector as practiced in
the West.
Nachiket Mor is seen as the most likely candidate for the post of COO. Mor is a former executive director of
ICICI Bank and also chaired the RBI panel on financial inclusion.
Since the position of COO is likely to be at the deputy governor
level, the post’s status will have to be discussed further with the
government, and which may also necessitate some legislative amendments.
August 15, 2014
PM
Narendra Modi stressed on the need to
promote tourism saying it provides
employment to the poorest of the poor. He pointed out ‘filthiness’ in the country as a big obstacle in promoting tourism and our national character.
He observed that even after so many years of independence, when we
stand at the threshold of one and half decade of 21st century, we still
live in filthiness. He held that “
cleanliness is very big work”. He called upon the countrymen to make a resolve that they would never spread filthiness and keep their surroundings clean.
He decided to launch a
‘Clean India’ campaign from October 2, 2014 this year on the birth anniversary of
Mahatma Gandhi marking
the importance Mahatma gave to cleanliness. The campaign will be
carried out for next 4 years and will conclude on the 150
th birth anniversary of Mahatma in 2019.
Mr. Modi appealed to the Members of Parliaments to utilize
MPLAD funds for constructing toilets in schools for a year. He called upon the corporate sector also
to give priority to the provision of toilets in schools with their expenditure under Corporate Social Responsibility.
He urged them to achieve this target within one year with the help of
state governments and on the next August 15, we should be in a firm
position to announce that there is
no school in India without separate toilets for boys and girls.
August 15, 2014
Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his maiden
Independence Day speech from the Red Fort shared his dream of a
“Digital India”. He wondered what a quality
education
the children in villages will get, if all the villages of India are
connected with Broadband Connectivity and if we are able to give long
distance education to the schools in every remote corner of the
villages. If we establish a network of telemedicine in the places where
there is a deficit of doctors, we can set a clear guideline of the way
in which
health facilities have to be provided to the poor people living in those areas.
He called upon the countrymen to move towards the direction of
mobile governance.
A direction where every poor person is able to operate his bank account
from his mobile, is able to ask for various things from the government,
can submit applications, can perform all his
business, while on the move, through mobile governance. He said that all this can be done by moving towards creation a ‘
Digital India’.
His idea of ‘Digital India’ is not limited to just connectivity but also includes domestically
manufacturing electronic goods
like televisions, mobile phones, i-pads etc. which we import in large
amount. If we move ahead with the dream of ‘digital India’ to
manufacture electronic goods and become
self reliant at
least there, it would be of great relief for the treasury. He said that
the idea of ‘digital India’ should also be driven by
e-governance which he called “
easy governance, effective governance and also economic governance”.
E-governance paves the way for good governance. He said that IT that
has the potential to connect each and every citizen of the country and
we can realize the motto of unity with the help of ‘Digital India’.
August 15, 2014
While delivering his maiden Independence Day speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort,
Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a scheme on behalf of the Member of
Parliament-
‘Sansad Aadarsh Gram Yojana’.
He called upon the Members of Parliament (MPs) to select any one of
the villages having population of 3 to 5 thousand in their constituency.
They must fix parameters according to the time, space and situation of
that locality. It will include the conditions of
health, cleanliness, atmosphere, greenery, cordiality etc.
On the basis of those parameters, each of the MPs should make one
village of his or her constituency a Model Village by 2016. After 2016,
select two more villages for this purpose, before the General
Elections
in 2019. And after 2019, each Member of Parliament, during his/her
tenure of 5 years must establish at-least five model villages in his/her
area.
He also urged the Members of Parliament from urban areas to adopt one village of their choice. He also called upon the MPs from
Rajya Sabha to adopt one of the villages. He hopes that if one model village is established in each district of
India
then the surrounding villages shall be automatically inspired to follow
that model. He promised to present a complete blueprint of
“Sānsad Adharsh Grām Yojana” (Members of Parliament Model Village Scheme) before all Members of Parliament and State Governments on the birth anniversary of
Jai Prakash Narayan Ji on coming
October 11, 2014.
August 15, 2014
PM
Narendra Modi, in his maiden speech from Red Fort, stressed on achieving economic self-
reliance, saying the country should strive to become
a manufacturing hub for global investors with ‘
Zero-defect products and Zero-effect’ on
environment.
He invited global investors to make
India their manufacturing base and urged the young industrial workforce and entrepreneurs to strive to build the
made-in-India brand. He
appealed the people world over, “Come, make in India”, “Come,
manufacture in India. Sell in any country of the world but manufacture
here. We have got skill, talent, discipline, and determination to do
something”. The PM called upon the Indian enterprise to think of ways by
which the country does not have to import goods, but export to the
world.
“Zero Defect, Zero Effect” manufacturing
PM Modi urged entrepreneurs that they would never compromise, at least on two fronts.
First, Zero defect and, second, Zero effect. He
suggested that Indian goods should be manufactured in such a way that
they bear zero defects and that our exported goods are never returned to
us. The goods should also have zero effect that they should not have a
negative impact on the environment.
August 15, 2014
During his speech on Independence Day,
Prime Minister Narendra Modi
announced a radical measure to replace the Planning Commission with a
new body in a short span of time. Mr. Modi said the new institution
would foster cooperative federalism, facilitate
Public-Private Partnership (PPP) and help tackle the new economic challenges the faced by country in a much better way.
Mr. Modi said that the times have changed since the Planning Commission was established. He said that the new body will foster
greater engagement of states in charting the country’s growth path through
“cooperative federalism”.
The Planning Commission was set up in 1950 during the regime of Prime
Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, who was the first chairman of the Planning
Commission.
Indicating his plan to do away with the old institution and create a
new one, Modi said, “Sometimes it costs more to repair the old house,
but, it gives us no satisfaction. Thereafter, we have a feeling that it
would be better to construct a new house altogether”.
August 15, 2014
In his maiden Independence Day speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort, PM
Narendra Modi announced a new financial scheme named
‘Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana’ to help the poor open bank accounts which will come bundled with a debit card and life
insurance cover.
PM Modi observed that there are crores of families that have mobile phones, but no bank account. He stressed that access to
banking
services is crucial to protect the poor from falling prey to
moneylenders and increasing cases of suicides by farmers who fall in
this trap.
The new scheme has a very different approach from the financial
inclusion approach so far. The scheme seeks to provide a bank account to
every poor in the country, and the account holder will be provided a
debit card and a life insurance cover of Rs 1 lakh.
The government has set a target of 7.5 crore new accounts by 2018 via
regular brick-and-mortar branches, deviating from UPA’s initiative of
banking services in cities with certain minimum population.
The
Union Cabinet
has already approved the two-phase financial inclusion scheme under
which bank accounts will be opened for 15 crore poor persons with an
overdraft facility of Rs.5,000 and accident insurance of Rs.1 lakh. The
scheme seeks to provide two accounts to 7.5 crore identified households
by August 2018.
Key features of
‘Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana’:
- Rs.5,000 overdraft facility for Aadhar-linked accounts
- Ru Pay Debit Card with inbuilt Rs.1 lakh accident insurance
- Minimum monthly remuneration of Rs.5,000 to business correspondents who will provide the last link between the account holders and the bank.
August 15, 2014
Addressing
India on the occasion of country’s 68
th Independence Day,
PM Narendra Modi made a sensational and motivational speech using catchy slogans expressing his vision and mantras for building a new India.
Excerpts from his speech:
Pradhan Sevak: “Today Indians, both in India and all
over the world, are celebrating Independence Day. I convey my greetings
to them not as a Pradhan Mantri, but Pradhan Sevak (prime public
servant).”
Make in India: “We need to build up the
manufacturing
sector. I want to tell the world: Come, make in India.” It is an
invitation to investors with a view to make India a manufacturing hub.
Zero defect, zero effect: “Our manufacturing should
have zero defect so that our products should not be rejected in the
global market. Besides, we should also keep in mind that manufacturing
should not have any negative impact on our
environment.”
This underscores the importance of skilled workforce, while also
keeping in mind the importance of protecting the environment.
Digital India:
“India used to be called a land of snake charmers. Today, our youth has
surprised the world with its IT skills. Our dream is to build a
‘Digital India’.” The digital focus was in consonance with Modi’s
election promises of a new India and focus on IT.
He concluded his speech saluting the devotion, the sacrifices of the
security forces of the country, para-military forces of the country, and
all the security forces of the country to protect Mother India. He
urged the countrymen with the quote
“राष्ट्रयाम, जाग्रयाम्वयम्”, “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty”. He exhorted the countrymen to be vigilant and take the country to new heights and move forward with this resolution.
August 13, 2014
The Governor of
Reserve Bank of
India, Mr. Raghuram Rajan, vociferously supported Direct Cash Transfers (DCT) to the poor, saying this would help curb
corruption by breaking the
“cycle of dependence“.
The DCT system involves the payment of subsidies directly into the bank
accounts of beneficiaries, exscinding the intermediaries.
Rajan insisted that the direct transfer of benefits to cut down leakages in the system. The
Narendra Modi
government is also said to be pondering over the ways in which the DCT
system, rolled out as a pilot project by the previous government, can be
made more effective.
According to Rajan, financial inclusion and direct benefits transfer
can be a way of relieving the poor from dependency on inefficiently
delivered public services, and thus indirectly from the dishonest
politician. He hopes that the system will help the emancipation of poor
from poverty and towards true
political independence.
August 9, 2014
With a view to introduce an ‘anytime anywhere payment system’, the
Reserve Bank of
India (RBI) issued draft guidelines for the implementation of
Bharat Bill Payment System (BPPS).
The draft mentions the requirements and the basic framework of
operating the BBPS, and stipulates the eligibility criteria, standards
for settlement model and customer grievance redressal, roles and
responsibilities and scope for entities seeking to be part of BBPS.
RBI’s plan to implement an ‘anytime anywhere’ centralized payment system is based on a report submitted by the
GIRO (Government Internal Revenue Order) Advisory Group.
GIRO Advisory Group (GAG) was constituted by the RBI in October 2013, under the chairmanship of
Prof. Umesh Bellur, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay
to implement a national GIRO-based Indian Bill Payment System.
The panel had recommended a mechanism for centralized bills payment system in India, mainly by laying out 2 organizations:
- Bharat Bill Payment Services (BBPS)
- Bharat Bill Payment Operating Units (BBPOUs)
Bill Payments in India: Issues and challenges
What do Bill payments in India mainly comprise of?
Bill payments form a key portion of all retail payment
transactions. Bills include utility services such as school/university
fees,
examination fees, Government payments, pre-paid payment instruments top-up, mobile phones recharge/top-up etc.
How are Bill payments at present done in India?
Currently, customers make bill payments at
Bill Owners Customer Point (BOCP), cheque drop boxes, bank branches, agent outlets, and via electronic modes. Options available include:
- Direct payment to billers – biller operated payment centres, Internet Banking / Payment Gateway, ECS (Electronic Clearing Service).
- Aggregators and Banks – Internet Banking, Bill Presentments, Standing Instructions.
- Bill Pay Agents – Collection Points, Business Correspondents.
What are the shortcomings observed in the present scenario of bill collection/ payment process in India?
- Absence of Interoperability- Limited or no interoperability, thus each biller needs to establish and supervise its own collection points (BOCPs.
- Consumer preference for BOCP- A consumer prefers
that BOCP where (s)he feels comfortable by a direct payment and an
instant printed receipt received for the payment. Due to lack of
visibility consumer usually do not trust agents’ networks.
- Poor Accessibility- BOCPs are generally concentrated in urban centers and are not easily accessible to people in rural/remote areas.
- Lack of coordinated initiative- No industry-driven
initiative as of yet to develop a common interoperable system, which
would bring about comfort of payment to users and cost and
functional efficiency to the Billers.
- There is no common website from where all bills can be accessed and smoothly paid .
Why there is a need for a national ‘GIRO-based Indian Bill Payment System’?
Those people who have access to internet banking facility can pay
their bills online, however there are a huge number of consumers who
don’t have access to internet banking and thus they cannot pay their
bills online. Such consumers have to physically go at different places
to pay their different bills. Albeit, the ECS (Electronic Clearing
Service) debit volume is growing in India at the rate of 5% per annum
and in 2012-13 it was Rs 176.50 Million, but, still this is very small
when compared with total billing volume in largely populated country
like India. Most of the consumers in India still pay their bills by
physically visiting different customer outlets.
Therefore, there is a requirement for an interoperable, integrated bill payment system in India which:-
- Provides consumers a single point for their various bill payments
- Near to place of work or residence
- Enables payment of any bill at any place
- Allow payments via any mode (cash, cheque, credit card, debit card, prepaid payment instruments etc.)
- Includes bank branches, post offices, business correspondents,
retail agents of aggregators, ATMs (Automated Teller Machine), etc.
- Furnishes quick confirmation of payment made via SMS or a payment receipt
- Provides facility of payment of bills via internet banking (if
possible a single website), mobile banking and IVRS (Interactive Voice
Response System)
- Is efficient and cost effectual substitute to the present systems
- Motivates billers to switch over to the new system
- Sets up billing standards in India
- Increases consumer trust and experience
- Reduces the expenditure that billers incur on collection of bills at their own collection centres
The above issues and challenges can be resolved if we have a centralized
infrastructure for bill payments in India which brings about interoperability with an all India-standard.
What is the Model for pan-India centralised bill payment in India as suggested by the Umesh Bellur headed GIRO Advisory Group?
The pan-India centralised bill payments infrastructure would have two types of entities:
- Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS)- Will set standards and conduct of centralised payment, clearing and settlement process
- Bharat Bill Payment Operating Units (BBPOUs)- Will act as operating unit(s)
The model would thus be a
2-tier structure with a
single standard setting body (BBPS) with payment and settlement
functionalities/responsibilities and multiple operating entities
(BBPOUs).
Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS)
A ‘not-for-profit organization’ registered under the Companies Act
1956, like NPCI (National Payments Corporation of India). It shall have a
Steering Group constituting of representatives from the participating
BBPOUs and other stake holders.The Roles and Responsibilities of BBPS
include:
- Setting Business standards and processes the BBPOUs, management of dispute resolution, standards for information exchange.
- Marketing and brand positioning of the pan-India Bharat Bill payments system
- Accomplishing payment, clearing and settlement of the transactions executed at several BBPOUs
- Act as final dispute resolution escalation point
- Set up a single website on behalf of the brand for online payment of bills
Bharat Bill Payment Operating Units (BBPOUs)
A
for–profit company registered under the Companies
Act 1956 and has obtained requisite certification from BBPS for
participating in the the centralised bill payments system.
Roles and Responsibilities of BBPOUs:-
- Infrastructure development (including APIs as per standards set by BBPS).
- Transaction handling
- Handling customer grievance / disputes at first place
- Provide Value-added services
- Ensure confidentiality and privacy standards are in place
August 7, 2014
The
Union Cabinet cleared a proposal to enhance the Foreign Direct
Investment (
FDI) limit in defence sector to 49% from the current 26%.
The step is aimed at boosting domestic defence
industry of the country that imports up to 70% of its military requirements.
In the
Budget
2014-15, it was proposed to hike the composite limit of foreign
investment to 49% to be approved through the Foreign Investment
Promotion Board (FIPB) route and with control of the enterprise to be in
Indian hands.
At present, the government
allows 26% FDI in defence manufacturing.
August 14, 2014
The
Reserve Bank of India (RBI)
has allowed Banks to set a limit on free ATM transactions customers can
do at ATMs of rival lenders. Now customers of a bank can make
only three free transactions per month from the
ATMs of rival banks. The banks are also allowed to set a limit on the number of free transactions at their own ATMs at
five. The central bank has also permitted banks to charge up to
Rs 20 for every transaction beyond the limit.
New charges will apply for transactions at ATMs located in six metro centres —
Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Hyderabad.
The move is aimed at rectifying the skewed development of ATMs in the
country. Banks continued to set up ATMs in cities despite high level of
concentration, as these could be used to cross-subsidize other
products. However, there was a disinclination to expand the network in
rural areas. The move by RBI would bring down the number of transactions
in metros and could lead to some level of consolidation.
However, this reduction will
not apply to customers having
no-frills, small or Basic Savings Bank Deposit Account (BSBDA) type of accounts as
well as for transactions carried out by account holders at ATMs
situated outside these six metros. Banks are also allowed to provide
free transactions above the mandated limit.
The number of automated teller machines (ATMs), which stood at a
little over 27,000 as at end-March 2007, has increased to over 1.6 lakh
across the country by end-March 2014.
August 14, 2014
The Supreme Court has set a two-week timeline for the government to submit an affidavit providing details about
what it proposes to do for cleaning the river. This is despite NDA-led government giving top priority to the cleaning of river Ganga. The Union
Budget 2014-15 also set aside over Rs 2,000 crores for cleaning the river.
The government had in June 2014 announced its intent to convert the cleaning of the holy river into a
“mass movement”. Five ministers from water resources,
environment, transport,
power and
tourism
met to devise plans with regard to the redevelopment and cleaning of
the Ganga, while the secretaries of these ministries are designing a
roadmap.
The BJP had, in its election manifesto, emphasized on “purification”
of Ganga for the “spiritual as well as physical wellbeing of
India”.
For the BJP Ganga is “
mukti dayini and jivan dayini”. PM
Narendra Modi had made cleaning of the Ganga one of his major campaign subject in Varanasi.
August 13, 2014
With the Congress and regional parties deciding supporting the NDA’s
Constitution amendment bill to set up the
National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC), the collegium system of appointing judges to the
Supreme Court and high courts is set to become
history. The new legislation seeks to replace the existing judges-appointing-judges system with a
6-member Commission.
Realizing the lack of numbers to stall the bill, the Congress decided
to express its concerns while voting in favour of the bill. Congress
objected to two provisions — giving “veto” to members of the Commission
to reject names proposed for appointments and requiring unanimity in
case a name returned by the
President is reiterated. The party is of the view that these provisions would compromise the independence of
judiciary.
August 6, 2014
Securities Laws (Amendment) Bill 2014 passed in the
Lok Sabha. By the virtue of the bill, Securities Exchange Board of
India (SEBI) will be empowered and strengthened to clamp down on fraudulent
investment schemes and to seek information from any entity related to an investigation.
Key points in Securities Laws (Amendment) Bill 2014
- SEBI will have the authority to seek relevant information and records from any person
- Any pooling of funds in any unregistered scheme or arrangement,
having corpus of Rs 100 crore or more, shall be deemed to be a
collective investment scheme
- It provides for express powers for the settlement (compounding)
- Authorizes SEBI to set up Special Courts – to expedite trial with powers such as the authority to seek call-data records
- It provides SEBI powers of recovery of amounts
- It empowers the institution to increase the penalty imposed by an adjudicating officer
- SEBI will have the authority to conduct search-and-seizure operations related to probes under a designated court in Mumbai.
- Section 15A-HB of the SEBI Act has been amended and prescribed a minimum penalty to be slapped for each violation.
The law in its current form authorizes SEBI to carry out the search
operations only after being permitted by the magistrate of the area,
which compromises with the secrecy of the move. Previously, the Section
15A-HB prescribed one level of penalties to be imposed for various
offences but without any minimum level of penalty or range and without
giving any discretion to the Adjudicating Officers.
August 5, 2014
The
National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA) has been shifted from the Ministry of
Environment to the Ministry of Water Resources . Hereafter, all issues pertaining to
conservation, development management and abatement of
pollution in river Ganga and its tributaries will also be directed by the Ministry of Water Resources.
National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA)
The government of
India gave
River Ganga the status of a national river and constituted the NGRBA in February 2009, under
Section 3(3) of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986.
NGRBA is a planning, financing, monitoring and coordinating body of the Centre and the
states.
The purpose of the NGRBA is to ensure effective abatement of pollution
and conservation of the river Ganga by adopting a river basin approach
for comprehensive planning and management.
The NDA-led central government has given priority for cleaning river
Ganga for which Rs 2,037 crores was sanctioned in the Union
Budget 2014-15 under the
Ganga Conservation Mission named
“Namami Gange”.
August 5, 2014
The central Government has proposed to establish a
Telecom Finance Corporation (TFC) in the
12th Five Year Plan period (2012-17). As per the proposal, TFC would be registered as
Non-Banking Finance Company and Non-Deposit Infrastructure Finance Company. It would be a
Public Sector Unit (PSU) under the administrative control of
Department of Telecom (DoT).
The time frame to establish the main
sources of funds for TFC shall be through issue of taxable and tax-free
bonds. The other sources of funds include term loans from
banks/financial institutions and off-shore borrowings and borrowings
from multilateral institutions such as Asian Development Bank,
International Monetary Fund,
World Bank and other sovereign funds.
August 1, 2014
The
Supreme Court has said that the
judiciary
cannot fast-track cases against MPs and in fact asked the government to
submit a proposal within a month to expedite the Criminal justice
system in
India. The apex court also observed that the pace of criminal justice system is not satisfactory in the country.
This statement from Supreme Court came because recently, PM
Narendra Modi had asked Home Minister
Rajnath Singh and
Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad to devise a mechanism to adjudicate
criminal and other court cases against politicians within a year.
The Law Ministry has already begun working on the roadmap and one of
the options is to pursue the suggestions of the Law Commission made to
the apex court in March 2014. As per the law panel, the trial must be
expedited and concluded within a one-year period for charges framed
against sitting MPs or MLAs. If trial is not concluded within a year
then (either) the MP/MLA may be disqualified at the expiry of the
one-year period or the MP/MLAs’ right to vote in the House as a member,
remuneration shall be suspended at the expiry of the one-year period.
As per a research by the Association for Democratic Reforms, this
Parliament has a significant number of legislators facing criminal charges – 186 members or 34% of the
Lok Sabha.
July 31, 2014
The government has said that a few wetlands in the
country have reportedly been impacted due to various developmental
activities and urbanization.
As per
Environment Ministry, for
conservation and management of wetlands, the centrally sponsored scheme – “
National Wetland Conservation Programme (NWCP)” was implemented till 2012-13. However, for better synchronization and to avoid overlap the
NWCP has been merged with another scheme “
National Plan for Conservation of Aquatic Ecosystems (NPCA)” for holistic conservation of lakes and wetlands. Under NWCP, 115 wetlands in 24
states
and two UTs have been identified for conservation and management. So
far, the central government has released an amount of Rs 133.64 to the
concerned states for undertaking various conservation programmes.
In order to regulate certain activities within the identified wetlands,
the government notified the Wetlands (Conservation and Management) Rules
in December 2010. At the behest of Environment Ministry, the
Space Applications Centre (SAC) Ahmedabad has prepared a
National Wetland Inventory Atlas on 1:50,000 scale using Indian Remote Sensing Satellite III data of pre- and post-
monsoon seasons during 2006-11.
As per the atlas, there are a total of 7, 57,060 wetlands covering an
estimated area of 15.26 million hectare, that is around 4.63% of the
geographic area of
India.
July 31, 2014
The new Narendra Modi led Government has taken up the task of Comprehensive Financial Inclusion. It is projected to be achieved by August 2018 with basic banking accounts for everyone by August 2015. Comprehensive Financial Inclusion intends to make banking services accessible to every household in the country.
The objective is to empower the weaker strata of the society with primary focus on farmers and marginalized laborers. Notwithstanding
the fact that almost 70% of Indians living in rural areas, even after
67 years of independence only 38.2% of total bank branches and 14.58% of
ATMs are there in rural areas. Due to the absence of banks, money
lenders in rural areas continue to exploit the poor by charging
extortionate interest rates.
‘Creative Corner’:
The recently launched web portal MyGov has Creative Corner through which various Ministries can invite creative inputs on issues relating to their departments. In a first, the Finance Ministry has invited designs for logo, name and tagline for their financial inclusion programme. To encourage wider participation there is an
open competition with a winning prize of Rs 50,000. The last date of submission is
August 7, 2014.
The Creative Corner also has another invitation — Designs and a concept plan for mobile app of PMOs website.
July 29, 2014
The RBI will revert to the
Multiple Price method for bond auctions on August 1, 2014, a year after it adopted the present method of
Uniform Price.
On August 1, 2014, the central bank will auction a 10-year bond with a
coupon rate of 8.40% for a notified amount of Rs 9,000 crore using this
method. Two more bond auctions for a total of Rs 5,000 crore will be
conducted on the same day.
Bond auctions could be classified as either
Uniform Price-based or
Multiple Price-based.
- In the Uniform Price-based, all successful bidders
are required to pay for the allotted quantity of securities at the same
rate, the auction cut-off one, irrespective of what they’d quoted.
- In a Multiple price auction, the successful bidders are required to pay for the allotted quantity at the respective price or yield at which they bid.
It was in June 2013 when RBI adopted the uniform price method, when
bond yields were volatile, with foreign institutional investors leaving
the domestic markets amid a dwindling currency. However, the macro
fundamentals have improved since September2013, with the rupee
stabilizing after recovering most of the losses. A new government at the
Centre has reestablished hope among foreign investors. It is expected
to speed up the opening to foreign
investment
and control the fiscal deficit. The fiscal deficit for the current
financial year is targeted at 4.1% of GDP, as compared to 4.5% in
2013-14. The recent Union
Budget set the target at 3.6% for 2015-16 and 3% for 2016-17.
Using a different method RBI would also be able to observe how the market reacts to different methods of auction.
July 28, 2014
The
“Rashtriya Gokul Mission” which aims to
conserve and develop indigenous breeds in a focused and scientific manner will be allocated Rs 150.00 crores for 2014-15.
The Rashtriya Gokul Mission is a focused project under
National Programme for Bovine Breeding and Dairy Development, with an outlay of Rs 500 crore during the
12th Five Year Plan.
The objectives of Rashtriya Gokul Mission:
- Development and conservation of indigenous breeds
- Undertake breed improvement programme for indigenous cattle breeds so as to improve the genetic makeup and increase the stock
- Enhance milk production and productivity
- Upgrade nondescript cattle using elite indigenous breeds like Gir, Sahiwal, Rathi, Deoni, Tharparkar, Red Sindhi
- Distribute disease free high genetic merit bulls for natural service.
The Mission will be implemented through the
“State Implementing Agency” (SIA viz Livestock Development Boards).
July 28, 2014
The Ministry of
Agriculture has a proposal to set up Integrated Indigenous
Cattle Centres or Gokul Grams in the breeding tracts of indigenous breeds.
Key features of Gokul Grams:
- These centres will be established in the native breeding tracts and near metropolitan cities for housing the urban cattle.
- Centres for development of Indigenous Breeds and a dependable source
for supply of high genetic breeding stock to the farmers in the
breeding tract.
- Self sustaining and will generate economic resources from sale of A2
milk, organic manure, vermi-composting, urine distillates, and
production of electricity from bio gas for in house consumption and sale
of animal products.
- To function as state of the art in situ training centre for Farmers, Breeders and MAITRI’s.
- Each Gokul Gram will be set up by the EIA and function under the auspices of the SIA/ EIA or in a PPP mode.
- Each centre will maintain milch and unproductive animals in the
ratio of 60:40 and will have the capacity to maintain about 1000
animals.
- In house fodder production to provide for the nutritional requirements of the animals in the Gokul Gram.
- Regular screening of animals for important diseases like brucellosis, TB and JD.
- Inbuilt dispensary and AI centre at each Gokul Gram.
- Gokul Gram near metropolitan cities for managing urban cattle. It will focus on genetic upgradation of urban cattle.
Background
Traditionally, cattle-rearing has been an important source of livelihood in
India and is closely associated with agricultural
economy.
India with 199 million cattle has 14.5% of the world cattle population.
Of this, 83% i.e. 166 million are indigenous. Nearly 80% of the
indigenous cattle are non- descript and only 20% belong to breeds
recognized by
National
Bureau of Genetic Resources. The cattle genetic resource of India is
represented by 37 well recognized indigenous breeds and there are 13
recognized buffalo breeds. Indigenous cattle, in India, are robust and
resilient and are particularly suited to the climate and
environment
of their respective breeding tracts. They are endowed with qualities of
heat tolerance, resistance to diseases and the ability to thrive under
extreme climatic stress and less than optimal nutrition.
July 28, 2014
A new web platform –
MyGov- launched by
PM Narendra Modi
will now make it much easier for the common man and experts from
different fields to reach out to the government with their ideas and
suggestions.
The web platform –
www.mygov.nic.in- allows the citizens to discuss their ideas with experts within and outside the government and even earn
“credit points” for the tasks which would eventually be approved for implementation by concerned departments\agencies.
The platform will enable flow of ideas\suggestions on various issues
including different projects like cleaning the river Ganga,
education of girl child and job creation.
PM Modi is of the view that the step would enhance people’s
participation by bridging the gap between the people and the processes
of governance. During his past sixty days as PM he observed that there
were many people who wanted to contribute towards nation-building, and
devote their time and
energy for good governance.
How does MyGov work?
The web platform provides an opportunity to the citizens to both
‘Discuss’ and ‘Do’.
There are several theme-based discussions on MyGov where a wide range
of people would exchange their thoughts and ideas. Besides, any idea
shared by a contributor will also be discussed on these discussion
forums, facilitating constructive feedback and interaction. For those
who intend to go beyond discussions and wish to contribute on the
ground, the MyGov offers several options to do so. Citizens can
volunteer for various tasks and submit their entries.
Other members and experts would review these tasks. Once approved,
these tasks can be shared by those who complete the task and by other
members on MyGov. Every approved task would earn credit points for
completing the task.
The platform has been divided into various groups namely Clean Ganga, Girl Child Education, Clean
India, Skilled India,
Digital India,
Job Creation. Each group consists of online and on-ground tasks that
can be taken up by the contributors. The objective of each group is to
bring about a qualitative change in that domain through people’s
participation.
MyGov would also be used as a comprehensive knowledge repository, giving insights from the sharpest and brightest minds across.
The web platform will be managed by the
National Informatics Centre (NIC), Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY).
July 27, 2014
The
Reserve Bank of India will designate at least six banks as
Systemically Important Banks (SIBs),
for the domestic financial market which will need to have higher
capital than other banks to prevent the financial system from collapsing
in the event of a crisis. The central bank would now work on
identifying these banks which are
too big to fail and would release a list of names in August 2015.
As per experts, the list
may include State
Bank of India,
Punjab National Bank,
Citibank, Standard Chartered Bank,
ICICI Bank and
HDFC Bank.
Banks classified under SIB category will have to set aside more capital per loan than their peers. Size, interconnectedness, lack of readily available substitutes or financial institution infrastructure and complexity will determine the systemic importance of banks as determined by Basel global standards. But, as per RBI, in India,
size would be given higher weightage than other factors.
Based on the category it is relegated, a bank will have has to set
aside 0.2% to 0.8% of the loan as capital buffer. In simpler terms, if a
bank was setting aside Rs 1 earlier, it would now have to set aside
between Rs 1.20 and Rs 1.80. As per RBI, banks having a size beyond 2%
of GDP will be selected in the sample. However banks whose size is less
than 2% of GDP may also face rigorous norms. After the 2008 credit
crisis,
banking regulators across the globe are tightening capital norms for banks and other key financial institutions.
July 27, 2014
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has introduced the concept of
“zero hour” at Cabinet meetings.
The “zero hour” will be the free-wheeling discussions
where ministers can bring up any issue they feel relevant for the
Cabinet’s informal consideration.
The practice come from
Gujarat
when Modi was state’s chief minister, the difference being that then
the zero hour happened at the start of cabinet meetings and Modi
absented himself during the deliberations to let ministers speak up
without feeling hesitant due to his presence.
The concept is almost same with a change that now Modi also attends
the discussions to listen to ministerial colleagues though he does not
speaks too often.
The objective behind is to bring issues to
the PM’s notice and getting a sense of the cabinet on how a particular
situation or development is evolving in terms of its public perception
or political ramifications. The Modi cabinet holds its discussions without officials barring the cabinet secretary and
national security advisor who are permanent invitees to ministerial discussions.
July 27, 2014
Government has informed that it is not considering any proposal to integrate the
UID (Aadhaar) project with
National Population Register (NPR). In December 2010, the National Identification Authority of
India Bill 2010 was introduced in the
Rajya Sabha and was thereafter referred to the Standing
Committee on
Finance. The UPA government had to freeze Aadhaar-based direct benefit transfers in the wake of reservations over certain issues.
The new government is likely to continue Aadhaar registrations as Rs 2,039.64 crore has been provided in the
budget
2014-15 for the Aadhaar for the current fiscal, as against Rs 1,550
crore allocated in 2013-14. Around 73.71 crore Aadhaar enrolments have
been done till mid-July, with 8.45 crore rejections by the Unique
Identification Authority of India implementing the project.
Since its beginning,
UIDAI
has generated 64.05 crore Aadhaars and incurred an expenditure of Rs
4,620.61 crore so far. The Aadhaar enrolments are being conducted in all
districts of 22
states
and union territories allocated to the project. The authority was
tasked with collecting biometrics of 60 crore residents and remaining
India’s population was to be covered under the NPR project.
During UPA rule, it was decided by the Cabinet Committee on UIDAI
that all residents would be provided National Multi-purpose Identity
Cards under NPR, and UIDAI would generate Unique identification number
for entire population. Both UIDAI and NPR were to share the biometric
data gathered by them for issuing NMIC and generating unique
identification number.
The NPR is a comprehensive identity database preserved by the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India under the Home Ministry.
July 26, 2014
A new scheme named
‘Van Bandhu Kalyan Yojna’ for holistic development of tribals has been launched by the government. The
Ministry of Tribal Affairs
launched the scheme for holistic development of tribal people and Rs
100 crore has been allocated for the scheme during the year 2014-14. The
Ministry has also started several other
schemes
which include hostels for ST girls and boys, scheme for establishment
of ashram school in Tribal Sub Plan areas, post-matric scholarships and
others.
Besides these schemes, the ministry administers two special area programmes namely
grant under Article 275 (1) of Constitution and the Special Central Assistance to Tribal Sub Plan for upliftment of tribal population including North Eastern states.
As per census 2011, 94.4% of the total population in
Mizoram comprises Scheduled Tribes (STs) while the percentage of STs in
Meghalaya and
Nagaland
is 86.1% and 86.5% respectively. As per figures, a total of Rs 2449.63
lakhs has been released in various states under the scheme of hostels
for ST boys and girls in 2014-15 (as on 23.7.2014). In 2014-15 (as on
July 14, 2014), Rs 82,10,620 has been released to state societies and
NGOs under the scheme of strengthening
education among ST girls in Low Literacy districts. The governments has also released Rs 25525.26 lakhs in 2014-15 under SCA to TSP.
The central sector scheme
Grant In Aid to Tribal Research Institutes (TRIs) implemented by the Ministry focuses on promoting tribal
culture,
customs and art. The scheme provides financial assistance to TRIs for
documentation and preservation of tribal heritage, organizing tribal
exhibitions, dance-painting
sports events and others. Rs 273.69 lakhs was released to TRIs across the country in 2013-14.
July 25, 2014
According to the
Reserve Bank of
India,
banks will not be permitted to trade bonds issued by other lenders for infrastructure lending that would be exempted from mandatory reserve requirements under the new guidelines issued by the RBI.
The RBI recently allowed banks to issue bonds for infrastructure lending, but
forbade them from holding each other’s bonds. Now the central bank has clarified that the
restrictions on cross holding also applies to trading. The RBI wants these bonds for infrastructure lending attract investors from outside the
banking sector.
The idea is funds to come from outside the banking system.
July 25, 2014
Union government will appoint
Suresh Prabhu Committee to review the
gas pricing formula. Suresh Prabhu is a former Union
Power Minister under
National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The other members on the panel will be Pratap Bhanu Mehta,
President and Chief Executive of Centre for Policy Research and Bibek Debroy of the same institute.
The decision to set up Suresh Prabhu Committee comes close on the
heels of the Union government decision to put stay on the revision of
natural gas price. The
Union Cabinet
had recently postponed the implementation of the C Rangarajan
Committee’s pricing formula till September 30, 2014 for conducting a
comprehensive review of the whole issue.
The implementation of the Rangrajan pricing formula would have
doubled current gas rates to at least $8.4 dollars/mbtu resulting in
increasing power cost by over Rs 2/unit, urea production cost by Rs
6,228/tonne and piped gas by Rs 8.50/kg.
July 25, 2014
The
Union Cabinet approved the proposal of increasing the
Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) limit in the
insurance sector to 49% from the existing 26%. The move is in sync with the proposal made by
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in his maiden
Budget speech to raise the FDI cap in insurance sector from 26% to 49%.
However, the management control of insurance firms will be with the
Indian companies only. The step to enhanced FDI limit is expected to
benefit private sector insurance companies, which require a huge amount
of capital.
July 24, 2014
Delhi High Court lambasted the Delhi government for its inability to regulate or check e-rickshaws plying unbridled on the roads.
HC, while hearing a plea, has said that it would not permit unregulated e-rickshaws without license, registration or
insurance and directed the government to ensure that there was no unregulated traffic in Delhi.
After going through an affidavit filed by the chief secretary saying these vehicles are to be treated as
“public service vehicles”
which are required to comply with all extant rules and regulations and
that no separate policy is required for governing e-rickshaws as they
are already covered by the Motor Vehicles (MV) Act and
their operation as per the existing law is unauthorized and illegal, the court asked how they are plying despite being illegal.
As per the affidavit, the Delhi government stopped taking action
against e-rickshaws after Union Minister of Road Transport, Nitin
Gadkari, announced that laws pertaining to such vehicles will be amended
to take them out of purview of MV Act. The union ministry has directed
civic agencies, instead of transport department, to design policy for
regulating operation of e-rickshaws.
The court observed that people are getting injured by e-rickshaws
whose drivers get away scot free because the vehicles are unregistered.
The court was hearing a petition by one Shanawaz Khan seeking a ban on
the vehicles. The petition alleged that e-rickshaws are operating with
four 12 volt batteries with
power
output of 650 to 850 watt and are designed to transport only four
people, including the driver. But the vehicles routinely ferry more than
8 people at a time and endanger lives.
The court had issued the direction after going through the Delhi
government’s reply that though e-rickshaws are operating illegally, the
government is “not competent” to stop them as it will require amendment
to the MV Act.
July 23, 2014
The new
NDA government led by PM
Narendra Modi has designed a plan for re-orientation of the
Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act or MGNREGA which will now
focus on sanitation projects to reduce open defecation, expanding green cover and emphasize on asset-creation.
The new roadmap for the rural employment guarantee scheme, being
supervised by rural development minister Nitin Gadkari, will not just
based on the number of man days of work provided but will also assess
the tangible ground-level changes achieved.
For example, people digging a pond will have to mention the storage
capacity being created, its impact on groundwater level etc. Likewise,
workers building compost pits will have to mention the quantum of
compost they will generate.
It is proposed that about half of the scheme’s fund allocations will
be earmarked for rural sanitation projects and plantation of trees along
highways and rural roads.
While farm-related projects will continue to get 60% of MGNREGA
funds, as under the UPA, the NDA is deploying a more rigorous system to
monitor asset creation.
The plan is in consonance with
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley
Budget
speech where he said that wage employment would be offered under
MGNREGA “through works that are more productive, asset creating and
substantially linked to
agriculture and allied activities”.
While payments won’t be dependent on accomplishing these outcomes, consistently poor outcomes will need to be explained.
The idea of planting trees and granting rights and responsibilities
to the poor to boost their income is not new. It had been used in
undivided
Andhra Pradesh a few years ago.
This idea of planting trees and granting rights and responsibilities
to the poor to boost their income will be implemented nationally in
2014-15. Villagers will be given Rs 15 as maintenance fee for every
sapling that survives. This is expected to work as an incentive for them
to care for the saplings and follow a specified schedule in the first
year of plantation (apart from watering the plants).
Regarding the sanitation part, the national sanitation programme will pay for material and NREGA will pay for labour.
July 22, 2014
The Union Government notified
Public Servants
(Furnishing of Information and Annual Return of Assets and Liabilities
and the Limits for Exemption of Assets in Filing Returns) Rules, 2014.
The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) under Union Ministry
of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions notified the rules under
Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013.
Under the new rules, it has been made
mandatory for all
Government employees to file declarations of their assets and
liabilities and those of their spouses and dependent children.
As per Public Servants Rules, 2014
- The Government will issue new forms that will seek information on cash in hand, bank deposits, investment in bonds, debentures, shares and units in companies or mutual funds, insurance policies, provident fund, personal loans and advance given to a person or any entity, among others.
- The employees will have to declare motor vehicles, aircraft, yachts
or ships, gold and silver jewellery and bullion possessed by them, their
spouses and dependent children.
- The employees will have to furnish detail of their immovable
properties and statement of debts and other liabilities on first
appointment or as on March 31 of every financial year.
- These declarations are in addition to such returns being filed by the government employees under various services rules.
- The employees, who have already filed their declarations,
information and annual returns of property, shall file revised
declarations as on 1 August 2014, to the competent authority on or
before 15 September 15 2014.
- The competent authority may exempt a public servant from filing the
information in respect of any asset if its value does not exceed his or
her 4 months basic pay or Rs 2 lakh, whichever is higher.
The Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013:
As per the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act 2013 which received
President’s assent January 1, 2014, a Lokpal for the Union as well as Lokayuktas for the
States will be established in order to inquire the
corruption charges against Government officials.
As per this Act, a public servant shall furnish to the competent
authority the information relating to the assets of which he, his spouse
and his dependent children, jointly or severally, own. The Act also
makes it mandatory for a government servant to declare his liabilities
and that of his spouse and his dependent children, as per the Act.
July 21, 2014
As per the recommendations of a high-level
committee set up by the Centre, wages under MNREGA should be equal to or higher than the minimum wage in the state.
According to the report submitted by the
seven-member panel, headed by S Mahendra Dev, director of Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research:
The baseline for MNREGA wage indexation from 2014 may be the current
minimum wage rate for unskilled agricultural labourers fixed by the
states under the
Minimum Wages Act or the ‘current MGNREGA wage rate’, whichever is higher.
MGNREGA wage rates must be revised every year on the basis of
Consumer Price Index for Rural (CPI-Rural) as the appropriate index.
At present, wages under MNREGA are linked to the
Consumer Price Index (CPI) and the annual revision is based on the CPI-AL (
Agriculture Labour).
The panel was set up to examine whether the
Consumer Price Index for Agriculture Labour (CPIAL)
is the suitable index for protecting the wages against inflation and
what would be the appropriate index for revising MGNREGA wage rates
every year.
July 19, 2014
In an unprecedented move, t
he Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT)set
up a six-member panel to examine the “efficacy” of the existing primary
litigation mechanism in the Income Tax (IT) Department. The step has
been taken in the wake of an estimated Rs 4 lakh crore of tax revenue
locked up in litigation. The empowered
committee,
under the chairmanship of senior IRS officer and Chief Commissioner of
Income Tax office in Ahmedabad Rani S Nair, has also been mandated to
suggest steps to reduce
legal cases at the IT department’s two dispute resolution forums and asked to submit its report within 8 weeks.
The panel has been constituted with an objective to evaluate the
efficacy of existing dispute resolution forums of Commissioners of I-T
(Appeals) and Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) and to recommend
steps to reduce litigation before these forums.
Currently, there is a four-stage grievance redressal and litigation
mechanism available to a taxpayer. It starts with an appeal to the
Commissioner of I-T Appeals called CIT (A), further up to the ITAT and
subsequently to the High Court and the
Supreme Court.
CBDT, the topmost policy making body of the I-T department, has also
assigned the new committee with the task of undertaking a fresh
initiative and categorize and examine select assessment orders issued by
I-T officers across the country under various income groups (returned
income).
The categories defined by CBDT include income under Rs 25 lakh,
income between Rs 25 lakh-Rs 1 crore, between Rs 1 crore-Rs 10 crore and
above Rs 10 crore.
July 18, 2014
The
Reserve Bank of
India (RBI) issued draft guidelines for setting up of
small banks, which will have a local feel and will provide small-ticket loans to farmers and businesses.
The
apex bank
also issued draft norms for establishing payment banks, which will
provide services to marginalized sections of society, including migrant
labourers, for collecting deposits and remitting funds.
The step from the apex bank comes close on the heels of
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announcement in his
Budget
speech 2014-15 that RBI would create a framework for licensing small
banks and other differentiated banks. Differentiated banks like local
area banks and payment banks have been considered to meet credit and
remittance needs of small businesses, unorganized sector, low income
households, farmers and migrant work force.
As per RBI guidelines:
- The minimum capital requirement for such banks will be Rs 100 crore
as against Rs 500 crore required for normal commercial banks.
- Small Banks will provide a whole range of basic banking services such as deposits and supply of credit, but their area of operation will be limited.
- Payments Banks will provide very basic and limited number of products such as acceptance of demand deposits and remittances of funds.
- Payments banks will have an extensive network of access points mainly in remote areas, either through their own branch network or through Business Correspondents (BCs) or through networks provided by others.
- Foreign investments in these new category banks would be as per the FDI policy.
- RBI has allowed existing non-bank pre-payment
instrument issuers, Non-Banking Finance Companies (NBFCs), corporate
BCs, mobile telephone companies, super-market chains, firms, real sector
cooperatives and public sector entities to apply for the license to set
up payments bank.
- To set up small banks, resident individuals with 10 years of
experience in banking and finance, companies and Societies will be
eligible as promoters.
- Existing NBFCs, Micro Finance Institutions (MFIs), and Local Area Banks (LABs) can also choose for conversion into small banks.
Local focus and the ability to serve smaller customers will be a key criterion in licensing the new category of banks.
July 17, 2014
With a view to promote
infrastructure development and affordable housing, the
Reserve Bank of
India (RBI), exempted long-term bonds from the mandatory regulatory norms such as the
Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR), the Statutory Liquidity Ratio (SLR) and Priority Sector Lending (PSL) if the money raised is utilized for financing of such projects. The easing of norms comes close on the heels of
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s budget speech in which he had said that banks will be encouraged
to
provide long term loans to infrastructure sector with flexible
structuring to absorb potential adverse contingencies, sometimes called
as the “5/25 structure”.
As per RBI:
- Banks issuing long-term bonds with a minimum maturity of 7 years to
raise resources for lending to i) long-term projects in infrastructure
sub-sectors, and (ii) affordable housing have been exempted from
regulatory pre-emption, such as, the CRR, the SLR and Priority Sector
Lending (PSL). Banks are required to keep a portion of deposits as CRR
with the central bank and park certain portion in government securities
known as SLR.
- Banks may use the “5/25 structure” under which bank may fix longer amortization period for loans to projects in infrastructure and core industries sectors, suppose 25 years, with periodic refinancing, say every 5 years.
- The objective of these instructions is to extenuate the Asset-Liability Management (ALM) problems
faced by banks in providing project loans to infrastructure and core
industries sectors, and also to relax the raising of long term resources
for project loans to infrastructure and affordable housing sectors.
- Banks should issue rupee denominated bonds in ‘plain vanilla form’
without call or put option with a fixed or floating rate of interest.
- Affordable housing lending includes loans eligible under the
priority sector, and loans up to Rs.50 lakh to individuals for houses
costing up to Rs.65 lakh located in the 6 metropolitan cities. For other
areas, it includes loans of Rs.40 lakh for houses costing up to Rs.50
lakh.
Realtors’ body CREDAI, appreciated the
RBI’s move to ease norms for banks to raise long-term funds for
financing affordable housing, saying this would lead to cheaper credit
for such projects.
According to the RBI, while banks have been raising resources in a
significantly, issuance of long-term bonds for funding loans to
infrastructure sector has not gathered momentum at all. Infrastructure
and core industries projects have long gestation periods and need large
capital
investments.
India seeks to invest $1 trillion in infrastructure sector by 2017, half of which is expected to come from the private sector.
July 17, 2014
Indian citizens will not have to rush to a gazette
officer or a notary to get their documents attested. Giving relief to
the people, the government has decided to eliminate the necessity of
filing affidavits from a gazetted officer or a notary for a substantial
number of government-related works. Instead of following the old
practice, the government has decided to promote self-attestation of
documents.
The Government has also asked
states
to review the existing necessity of attaching such affidavits with
various application forms and implement self-attestation of documents.
The measure is in line with the recommendations of 12
th report,
‘Citizen Centric Administration-The Heart of Governance’, of the second
Administrative Reforms Commission which suggested simplifying procedures for self-certification provision.
It has been observed that getting an affidavit is a cumbersome
process. Notaries charge Rs 100-500 for providing affidavits. Also, most
of the gazetted officials also do not approve affidavits in the absence
of sufficient documents. In villages and remote areas the situation is
even worse.
Some ministries or state governments have embraced the provision of
self-certification of documents like marksheet, birth certificate, etc
by the applicants or stakeholders instead of requiring them to provide
an attested copy of the documents by a gazetted officer or filing of
affidavits.
Under the self-attestation process, the original documents are required to be produced at the final stage.
July 15, 2014
Encouraged by the
Reserve Bank .of
India (RBI), banks are working on setting up
‘Rural ATMs’
for dispensing currency notes of smaller denominations. Banks have been
encouraged to find a solution for introducing rural ATMs.
Generally, in city or urban centric ATMs, they will give out high
denomination notes (Rs 1,000 and Rs 500), whereas in rural areas, the
demand of people is more of lesser denomination.
So,
banks will have to find an appropriate technology solution for a
different type of ATM to care for the needs of the rural people. Banks
are at present working on that and will hopefully they will come forward
to put ATMs in rural areas (with this new technology).
July 13, 2014
The
Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) has set up an advisory group on
REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts),
which seeks to attract long-term funds to the investment-deficient
realty sector from both foreign as well as domestic investors. The
Budget
2014-15 also offers incentives like exemption from long-term capital
gains tax to promote REITs, which could be listed on the bourses like
company shares and permits retail and institutional investors to trade
in those securities.
The BSE has decided to make an 11-member
advisory group of experts from real estate, securities market participants like merchant bankers,
legal
professionals and consultants in real estate to orderly help develop
the REITs and to make it popular among investors and advise them newly
proposed framework on REITs.
As per experts, REITs can attract humungous
$10 billion foreign funds into the real estate sector.
July 9, 2014
Union Railway Minister
D.V. Sadananda Gowda presented his first
Railway Budget in
Parliament. Below are the highlights of this Budget:
- No new hike in passenger fares and freight charges
- Bullet train in Mumbai-Ahmedabad sector
- Diamond quadrilateral for high speed trains
- Proposal to enhance speed of trains to 160-200 km/hr in 9 sectors
- Online booking to support 7,200 tickets/minute; to enable 1.2 lakh users log in simultaneously
- Revamp of reservation system, ticket-booking through mobile phones, post offices to be promoted
- Online platform for unreserved tickets
- Stations to have Combo parking-platform tickets
- Women RPF Constables to escort ladies coaches; 4,000 women constables to be inducted
- Retiring room facility to be extended to all stations
- Battery powered Cars for differently-abled and senior citizens at major stations
- Feedback services through IVRS on quality of food
- Food can be ordered through SMS, phone; Food courts at major stations
- Cleanliness budget increased by 40% over last year
- CCTVs to be used at stations for monitoring cleanliness
- Forming a corpus fund for stations’ maintenance
- RO drinking water at some stations and trains
- Automatic door closing in mainline and sub-urban coaches
- 58 new trains and extension of 11; 864 additional EMUs to be started in Mumbai over 2 years
- FDI in railway projects, except in operations
- FDI, domestic investments in rail infrastructure
- Office-on-Wheels: Internet & workstation amenities on select trains
- WiFi in A1, A category stations and in select trains
- Railways university for technical and non-technical subjects
- Some stations to be built to international standards through PPP model
- Parcel traffic to be segregated to separate terminals to make passenger traffic unhampered
- Loss per passenger per kilometre up from 10% in 2000-01 to 23% in 2012-13
- Use of Solar energy at major stations
- Highest ever plan outlay of Rs. 65,455 crore for 2014-15
- Expenditure in 2014-15 pegged at Rs. 149,176 crore.
July 9, 2014
The maiden Rail
Budget of
Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led
NDA government
proposes to initiate a number of passenger-friendly measures, aimed at
facilitating the commuters in the long-run and improving the overall
experience of travellers.
The budget has mentioned 8 main common man-friendly measures. Let’s have a look:
High Speed rail network and Bullet trains:
- Bullet trains will be introduced in the Mumbai-Ahmedabad sector.
- Diamond Quadrilateral network of high speed rail linking major metros and growth centres is being worked out.
- Increasing train speeds between several cities to 160-200 km/hour. Railways
will spend Rs 100 crore for high speed trains between metros. The
government needs Rs 9 lakh crore for funding Diamond Quadrilateral.
Revamp of Ticket reservation system:
- Next generation e-Ticketing system, capable of supporting 7200
tickets per minute as against 2000 tickets per minute and allow 1,20,000
simultaneous users at any point in time, will help in the revamp of
railway reservation System.
- Ticket booking through mobile phones and through post Offices will
be promoted. Steps will be taken to provide facility of purchasing
platform tickets and unreserved tickets Online.
- Parking-cum-Platform Combo Tickets to facilitate the passengers and to save their time.
- Online booking facility of railway retiring room will be extended to all the stations during the course of the year.
Improve catering and food:
- Introduce pre-cooked (Ready-to-eat) meals of reputed brands in a
phased manner with a view to improve the quality, hygiene of on-board
catering services and to provide variety.
- Quality Assurance Mechanism through Third Party Audit by NABCB
certified agencies to ensure the quality and standard of catering
services.
- A system of receiving feedback through IVRS mechanism, from the
travelling passengers on the quality of food served. If the service does
not meet the set standards, especially in hygiene and the taste, stern
action would be taken against the vendors including cancellation of the
contract.
- Food courts at major stations to offer the option of ordering
regional food while onboard, through emails, SMS and smartphones, etc.
The railways will soon to launch a pilot project between New Delhi-Amritsar and New Delhi-Jammu Tawi sections.
Global Standard Stations:
- Railway Ministry will develop 10 major stations in the country to
global standards. It will provide Wi-Fi in A-1 and A category stations
and in select trains.
- Large scale integrated computerization of Indian railway systems will be done. Stations will have digital reservation charts.
- Cleaning activities will be outsourced at 50 major stations. The
allocated budget for cleaniness has been raised by 40%. The number of
Bio-toilets will be increased on trains.
58 new trains, 11 existing trains extended:
- Five Jansadharan Trains, 5 Premium Trains, 6 AC express trains, 27
express trains, 8 passenger trains, 2 MEMU services and 5 DEMU will be
introduced this year.
- Special trains to meet the holiday and festival rush would continue to operate.
Improving Safety:
- Indian Railways need around Rs 40,000 crore improving rail safety.
Rs 1785 crore will be provided for road under bridges and over bridges.
- Ultra sonic devices to detect rail fractures and automatic closing
of doors both in mainline & suburban coaches are being considered.
- 17,000 RPF constables will be available for trains.
- Ladies coaches will be escorted by women RPF. Special instructions
are being issued in each class of travel for the safety of ladies
travelling alone.
- Boundary walls will be constructed around stations through the PPP way.
Workstations on Wheels:
- With a view to provide better facilities to business travelers, Indian Railways will provide workstations in select trains on payment basis.
- To start with, railways will provide Mobile based Wakeup Call System
for passengers, Mobile based Destination Arrival Alert, Station
Navigation Information System, Extension of Computerized Parcel
Management System.
Trains dedicated to Tourism:
- Promoting Eco-tourism and education tourism in North Eastern States.
- Special Pilgrim Circuits like Devi Circuit, Jyotirling Circuit, Jain
Circuit, Christian Circuit, Muslim/Sufi Circuit, Sikh Circuit, Buddhist
Circuit, Famous Temple Circuit have been identified
- . For these circuits specially packaged trains will be introduced.
Private participation in this sector will also be encouraged.
July 9, 2014
Rail
Budget was presented in the
Parliament by Union
Railways Minister Sadanand Gowda. Given below is the list of trains announced in the budget:-
Jansadharan Trains
1) Ahmedabad-Darbhanga Jansadharan Express via Surat
2) Jaynagar-
Mumbai Jansadharan Express
3) Mumbai-Gorakhpur Jansadharan Express
4) Saharasa-Anand Vihar Jansadharan Express via Motihari
5) Saharasa-Amritsar Jansadharan Express
Premium Trains
1) Mumbai Central-New
Delhi Premium AC Express
2) Shalimar-Chennai Premium AC Express
3) Secunderabad- Hazrat Nizamuddin Premium AC Express
4) Jaipur-Madurai Premium Express
5) Kamakhya-Bengaluru Premium Express
AC Express Trains
1) VijayawadaNewDelhiAPExpress(Daily)
2) LokmanyaTilak(T)-Lucknow(Weekly)
3) Nagpur-Pune(Weekly)
4) Nagpur-Amritsar(Weekly)
5) Naharlagun-NewDelhi(Weekly)
6) Nizamuddin-Pune(Weekly)
Express Trains
1) Ahmedabad-Patna Express(Weekly)via Varanasi
2) Ahmedabad Chennai Express(Biweekly)via Vasai Road
3) Bengaluru -Mangalore Express(Daily)
4) Bengaluru -Shimoga Express(Biweekly)
5) Bandra(T)-Jaipur Express(Weekly)Via Nagda,Kota
6) Bidar-Mumbai Express(Weekly)
7) Chhapra-Lucknow Express (Tri weekly)viaBallia,Ghazipur,Varanasi
8) Ferozpur-Chandigarh Express(6 days a week)
9) Guwahati-Naharlagun Intercity Express(Daily)
10) Guwahati-Murkongselek Intercity Express(Daily)
11) Gorakhpur-Anand Vihar Express(Weekly)
12) Hapa-Bilaspur Express(Weekly)via Nagpur
13) Hazur Saheb Nanded-Bikaner Express(Weekly)
14) Indore-Jammu Tawi Express(Weekly)
15) Kamakhya-Katra Express(Weekly)via Darbhanga
16) Kanpur-Jammu Tawi Express(Biweekly)
17) Lokmanya Tilak(T)-Azamgarh Express(Weekly)
18) Mumbai_Kazipeth Express(Weekly)via Balharshah
19) Mumbai-Palitana Express(Weekly)
20) New Delhi Bhatinda Shatabdi Express(Biweekly)
21) New Delhi-Varanasi Express(Daily)
22) Paradeep-Howrah Express(Weekly)
23) Paradeep-Visakhapatnam Express(Weekly)
24) Rajkot-Rewa Express(Weekly)
25) Ramnagar-Agra Express(Weekly)
26) Tatanagar Baiyyappanahali (Bengaluru) Express(Weekly)
27) Visakhapatnam-Chennai Express(Weekly)
Passenger Trains
1) Bikaner-Rewari Passenger(Daily)
2) Dharwad-Dandeli Passenger(Daily)via Alnavar
3) Gorakhpur-Nautanwa Passenger(Daily)
4) Guwahati-Mendipathar Passenger(Daily)
5) Hatia-Rourkela Passenger
6) Byndoor-Kasaragod Passenger(Daily)
7) Rangapara North-Rangiya Passenger(Daily)
8) Yesvantpur-Tumkur Passenger(Daily)
MEMU services
1) Bengaluru -Ramanagaram 6 days a week(3Pairs)
2) Palwal-Delhi-Aligarh
DEMU services
1) Bengaluru -Neelmangala (Daily)
2) Chhapra-Manduadih (6days a week)via Ballia
3) Baramula-Banihal (Daily)
4) Sambalpur-Rourkela (6 days a week)
5) Yesvantpur Hosur (6 days a week)
Extension of run of existing trains
1) 22409/22410 Anand Vihar Sasaram Garib Rath Express to Gaya
2) 12455/12456 Delhi Sarai Rohilla Sriganganagar Express to Bikaner
3) 15231/15232 Gondia Muzaffarpur Express to Barauni
4) 12001/12002 New Delhi Bhopal Shatabdi Express to Habibganj
5) 54602 Ludhiana-Hissar Passenger to Sadulpur
6) 55007/55008 Sonpur-Kaptanganj Passenger to Gorakhpur
7) 55072/55073 Gorakhpur-Thawe Passenger to Siwan
8) 63237/63238Buxar-Mughalsarai MEMU to Varanasi
9) 63208/63211 Jhajha-Patna MEMU to Jasidih
10) 64221/64222 Lucknow Hardoi MEMU to Shahjahanpur
11) 68002/68007 Howrah-Belda MEMU to Jaleswar
July 9, 2014
The
Ministry of Minority Affairs is implementing
pre-matric, post-matric and merit-cum-means based scholarship schemes for the educational upliftment of the minority communities.
Post-Matric Scholarship Scheme:
Under this scheme, students are encouraged to pursue technical and
vocational courses in Industrial Training Institutes/ Industrial
Training Centres by granting higher amount of scholarships.
Merit-cum-means based Scholarship Scheme:
Under this scheme, students are encouraged to pursue professional and
technical courses. Students qualifying for admissions in elite listed
institutes are reimbursed full course fee. Fellowship is granted to
minority scholars to pursue higher and professional courses at M Phil
and Ph D levels through the Maulana Azad
National Fellowship.
Multi-Sectoral Development Programme (MsDP)
Essential
infrastructure for
education
and skill development is developed in the identified minority
concentration areas. Thus far 117 ITIs, 44 polytechnics, 645 hostels,
1092 school buildings, and 20656 additional class rooms have been
sanctioned under MsDP.
‘Seekho aur Kamao’ Scheme:
Under this scheme, minority youth are imparted training for upgrading
the skills of minority youths in various modern/ traditional vocations
to enable them to get suitable employment.
The ministry has also started
‘Nalanda’, a project for development of faculty in minority managed institutions for higher education.
July 8, 2014
Union Health Minister, Dr Harsh Vardhan, has set up a
core group to sketch a detailed plan of action to wipe out the vector-borne
disease Kala Azar by
2015.
In 2004, the government had set a target for eradicating the disease,
by 2008. Since then, it has been revised twice to 2010 and finally to
2015. The new governments Health Minister has reviewed the resources at
his command and expressed confidence in achieving the target.
Kala Azar, also known as
Visceral Leishmaniasis, a
zoonotic infection whose carrier is the
sand fly found in the eastern UP,
Bihar,
Jharkhand and
West Bengal, usually attacks during the
monsoon season. It is the
second deadliest vector borne disease after malaria.
At present, the disease is prevalent in about 54 districts, with Bihar
most affected. Around 90% of visceral leishmaniasis cases occur in 5
countries which include
Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Sudan and Brazil.
The treatment of this disease is also challenging as patients have
developed resistance to Sodium Stibogluconate, a 1920s drug developed
through the research of the late Dr U.N. Brahmachari. Now three other
drugs are being administered but they lack strong empirical evidence on
their success. One of them is generally used for chemotherapy of breast
cancer and has grave side-effects.
July 8, 2014
As per the Government,
the Direct Taxes Code, which proposed revamp of the six-decade old
Income Tax Act,
has lapsed. No commitment has been given on reviving the same.
The
Minister of State for Finance Nirmala Sitharaman gave a written reply to a question in
Rajya Sabha which said that with the dissolution of the 15
th Lok Sabha, the
Direct Taxes Code Bill, 2010 has lapsed. The DTC, which proposed replacing the old Income Tax Act of 1961, was introduced in the Lok Sabha on August 30, 2010.
July 7, 2014
The
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) gave relief to diamantaires in
Mumbai and Surat as it
relaxed the rules of ‘suppliers’ and buyers’ credit for importing rough, cut and polished diamonds to
up to 180 days
from 90 days with immediate effect. In 2011, the RBI had decreased the
import payment credit limit for the Indian diamantaires from 120 days
to 90 days. If the 90-day period got lapsed, then the diamantaires were
required to get permission from the RBI to make the payment which
further delayed the process. Also, currency variations during this
period were causing additional burden along with the interest cost for
the diamond traders.
According to RBI notification,
the “Clean Credit” i.e
credit given by a foreign supplier to its Indian customer/buyer,
without any letter of credit/letter of undertaking/fixed deposits from
any Indian financial institution for import of rough, cut and polished
diamond, may be permitted for a period not exceeding 180 days from the
date of shipment.
July 7, 2014
Brushing aside the Tendulkar
Committee report on poverty estimation, a Committee headed by former RBI governor
C Rangarajan has said that the number of poor in
India was much higher in 2011-12 at 29.5% of the population, which means that 3 out of 10 persons are poor.
As per the report submitted by C Rangarajan Committee:
- Persons spending below Rs. 47 a day in cities should be considered
poor, much above the Rs. 33/day mark suggested by the Suresh Tendulkar
Committee.
- Poverty stood at 38.2% in 2009-10 and reduced to 29.5% in 2011-12.
This is in contrast with the Tendulkar report as per which poverty was
at 29.8% in 2009-10 and decreased to 21.9% in 2011-12.
- A person spending less than Rs. 1,407 a month (Rs. 47/day) should be considered poor in cities, as against the Tendulkar panel’s suggestion of Rs. 1,000 a month (Rs.33/day).
- A person spending less than Rs. 972 a month (Rs. 32/day)
should be considered poor in villages which is again a variance with
Tendulkar committee’s suggestion of Rs. 816 a month (Rs. 27/day).
- The number of poor in India was estimated at 36.3 crore in 2011-12,
down from 45.4 crore in 2009-10. However, as per Tendulkar panel, the
number of poor was 35.4 crore in 2009-10 and 26.9 crore in 2011-12.
Background:
Government set up the
Rangarajan Committee in 2013 to review the
Tendulkar Committee methodology
for estimating poverty and clear the ambiguity over the number of poor
in the country. It was a done in a response to the severe criticism of
Planning Commission estimates on poverty based on Tendulkar panel report
in September 2011 when in an affidavit to the
Supreme Court
it was stated that households with per capita consumption of more
than Rs. 33 in urban areas and Rs. 27 in rural areas would not be
considered poor.
July 7, 2014
The government has set up an Inter-Ministerial Group (IMG) under Secretary, Ministry of Civil
Aviation to evaluate the potential of
GAGAN (GPS Aided Augmented Navigation) system for
non-aviation sectors.
The group will examine the potential of sector-specific utilization of
GAGAN system for its use in non-aviation sectors and develop apt work
programmes using GAGAN signals that can
benefit diversified users.
What is GAGAN? It is
GPS Aided Geo Augmented Navigation (GAGAN) system meant for the advancement of air navigation. The system was launched as a payload with
GSAT-8 in 2011. It was also launched with recently launched
GSAT-10.
Advantages of GAGAN:
- It will modernize air traffic management and communication-navigation surveillance system.
- Aircrafts will get more accurate figures while landing, take-off and in-flight.
- India would join the elite club of U.S., Europe and Japan who have the same level of space-based augmentation.
- GAGAN offers free enhanced satellite navigation signals over India which is 10 times more precise than GPS.
- It can offer civilian users integrity, i.e. a measure of trust which
can be placed in the accuracy of the information supplied by the
system, with the user being automatically alerted whenever an error made
by the system is beyond a certain confidence limit.
- The role of integrity is significant in the safety of life
applications in transport, sensitive commercial applications and
liability-critical applications requiring legal recourse.
July 6, 2014
With a view to standardize gold stock, the
Reserve Bank of India has initiated an exercise to
swap old gold in its reserves with a new one. The
apex bank has invited quotations from
nominated banks for swap with the objective to
optimize the management of its reserves.
The nominated banks, including State
Bank of India,
would import gold on behalf of RBI and then the yellow metal would be
exchanged. Under this exercise, RBI would swap relatively impure gold
including some dating back pre-independence period from its Nagpur vault
and get the equivalent worth of purer gold.
The operation would
optimize the gold available with RBI to global standards and the gold
acquired would be delivered to its foreign custodian, the Bank of England. The whole process would take place through book entry and without any cash exchange.
As of June 27, RBI had a gold reserve of worth $20.79 billion while
total forex reserve $315.77 billion. RBI is expected to pass on its old
gold onto the local market through nominated banks which would reduce
the import of gold to that extent.
This would also help in boosting gold supply without straining the
Current Account Deficit (CAD),
which has come under pressure due to surging crude oil prices due to
turbulence in Iraq. In order to curb rising CAD, the government had
hiked import duties and RBI imposed limitations on import of gold and
also introduced various pre-conditions for inward shipments of the
yellow metal. Gold imports slashed 72% to $2.19 billion in May 2014 due
to restrictions imposed by the government on inward shipments of gold to
reduce the CAD. India’s CAD, which is the excess of forex outflows over
inflows, reached a historic high of 4.8% of GDP in 2012-13, mainly
owing to surging imports of petroleum products and gold. Too high CAD
strains the rupee, which in turn makes imports costly and adds to
inflation.
July 5, 2014
Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the 25 km-long
Katra-Udhampur railway line
in Jammu. The rail link will connect the base camp town of Katra
directly with the rest of the country and facilitate millions of
devotees who visit the Vaishno Devi shrine every year.
On the other hand, with
China is now preparing to spread out its railway into PoK (
Pakistan occupied Kashmir), and occasional clashes along Indo-China border, Modi desires that the Ministries of
Railways,
Finance, Home and
Defence
to work together closely and get the strategic Indian Rail projects off
ground as soon as possible. In the interest of country’s security, the
National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Kumar Doval is pushing for building
infrastructure and increasing connectivity with the far flung regions of the country, especially in the North East.
Chinese mainland-Lhasa railways had by now stretched to the Indian
borders with grave tactical and military consequences. Expanding the
infrasrtucture of Indian Railways to the Arunachal Pradesh border will
augment nations’s combat competence and prove decisive in transporting
hardware for military offensive.
July 4, 2014
In a move that would empower the State governments to carry out de-hoarding operations,
the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) approved the inclusion of
onion and
potato under the purview of stock holding limits under the
Essential Commodities Act, 1955.
This has been taken to deal with the problem of artificial scarcity
of these commodities created by the hoarders which leads to increase in
prices. It will also improve the availability of these commodities to
the general public particularly vulnerable sections.
State Governments are now empowered to continue to conduct
de-hoarding operations effectively under the Essential Commodities Act,
1955 by fixing stock limits/licensing requirements etc. in respect of
these commodities especially in view of soaring prices.
Background:
The Essential Commodities Act, 1955 seeks to ensure
the easy availability of essential commodities to consumers and to
protect them from exploitation by dishonest traders. The Act enables
regulation and control of production, distribution and pricing of
commodities, which are declared as essential for maintaining or
increasing supplies or for securing their equitable distribution and
availability at fair prices. Various Ministries/ Departments of the
Central Government and State Governments/Union Territory administrations
exercise the powers of this act to issue Control Orders for regulating
production, distribution, price and other aspects in relation to the
commodities declared as essential.
July 4, 2014
The
Reserve Bank of
India has eased norms for overseas
investment by Indian corporates by enhancing their borrowing limit. The
apex bank has decided to reinstate the limit of
Overseas Direct Investments (ODI)/ Financial Commitment (FC)
to be undertaken by an Indian Party under the automatic route to the
limit prevailing, as per the extant FEMA provisions, prior to August 14,
2013. However, any financial commitment over $1 billion (or its
equivalent) in a financial year would require prior nod of the RBI even
when the total FC of the Indian Party is within the eligible limit under
the automatic route (i.e., within 400% of the net worth as per the last
audited balance sheet).
In 2013, RBI had slashed the ODI limit to 100% of a company’s net
worth from 400% for all firms. However, the limitation was not
applicable on public sector companies like ONGC Videsh and Oil India.
July 3, 2014
The first trial run of the
India’s fastest train on the New
Delhi-Agra route was performed successfully by the Indian
Railways.
The train covered a distance of 200 kms in 100 minutes against the
slated time of 90 minutes. Although the average speed of the train
during the entire journey was 125-130 km/h, its speed reached a maximum
speed of 160 kmph.
Currently, the Bhopal Shatabdi Express is India’s fastest train with a
highest speed of 150 km/h. The recent exercise was just a trial and
further maintenance and
budget
will be announced in the forthcoming Railway Budget. The New Delhi-Agra
train will cut down travel time between the two cities from current 120
minutes to 90 minutes and will facilitate tourists from Delhi planning
to visit the Taj Mahal.
Launching similar trains from Delhi to Kanpur, and Delhi to Chandigarh as Shatabdi trains is also under consideration.
July 3, 2014
As per an announcement made by
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Government of
India plans to introduce
four new vaccines as part of India’s
Universal Immunization Programme (UIP).
The vaccines will be against
Rotavirus, Rubella and Polio (injectable) which will speed up India’s progress on meeting the
Millennium Development Goal (MDG) four targets to bring down child mortality by 2/3
rd by the year 2015 and meet global polio eradication targets.
Besides this, an adult vaccine against
Japanese encephalitis will be introduced in districts with high prevalence of the
disease.
The step will prevent at least one lakh infant deaths, deaths of adults
in working age group and up to 10 lakhs hospitalizations each year.
With the addition of new vaccines,
India’s UIP will now provide free vaccines against 13 fatal diseases to 27 million children annually, the largest birth cohort in the world.
Rotavirus causes diarrhea which kills 80 thousand
children each year, results in up to 10 lakh hospitalizations, pushing
many Indian families below the poverty line. It also inflicts an
economic load of over Rs 300 crore each year to the country. The
rotavirus vaccine which India will introduce in a phased manner is first
indigenously developed rotavirus vaccine, developed under a
public-private partnership by the Ministry of
Science and the Ministry of
Health and Family Welfare.
India’s UIP will also introduce a vaccine against
Rubella
which causes severe congenital defects in newborns, like blindness,
deafness and heart defects. As per estimates nearly 2 lakh babies are
born with congenital defects each year in the country.
An adult vaccine against
Japanese Encephalitis (JE) in 179 endemic districts in 9
states will also be introduced under UIP.
India is committed to the global goal of a polio free world. To meet this goal, India has planned to introduce
Injectable Polio Vaccine (IPV) in sync with 125 countries. In
March 2013, India was certified polio free. The introduction IPV in addition to the
Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV) will provide enduring protection to the population against polio virus.
On 30th October 2014, 