POLICY CHANGES & NEW PROGRAMME : ================================== Deendayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana ------------------------------------------------------------ The Rajiv Gandhi Rural Electrification Scheme is now the Deendayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana — a change of the programme’s nomenclature from English to Hindi, and of its mascot from the former Prime Minister to one of the Jana Sangh’s icons. Ministry of power, coal and new and renewable energy’ ambitious Deendayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana for feeder separation will augment power supply to the rural areas and for strengthening sub-transmission and distribution systems. A sum of Rs. 500 crore has been set aside for this scheme. Salient Features: • The scheme is aimed at ensuring around eight hours of quality power supply to agricultural consumers and 24-hour electricity to households. In addition, it would also help reduce India’s aggregate transmission and commercial (AT&C) losses by five percentage points from the present 27%. • Government plans to spend Rs.75, 600 crore to supply electricity through separate feeders for agricultural and rural domestic consumption. • Outlay also includes expenditure towards an integrated power development initiative, which involves strengthening sub-transmission and distribution systems. • Rs.43,000 crore has been earmarked for the Deendayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana for feeder separation, Rs.32,600 crore is the outlay for strengthening sub-transmission and distribution systems • Separating electricity feeders is aimed at ensuring that while farmers get the desired amount of electricity, the quality of power and its availability for households improves. It will also ensure that users are billed and technical and commercial losses because of theft are reduced. • The scheme is based on an initiative called Jyotigram Yojana in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat and is named after late Deendayal Upadhyaya. State-owned Rural Electrification Corp. Ltd (REC) is the nodal agency for the ambitious scheme. • State-owned Rural Electrification Corp. Ltd (REC) is the nodal agency for the ambitious scheme. According to the World Bank, India’s per capita power sector consumption of around 800 kilowatt hours is among the lowest in the world. Around 600 million Indians do not have access to electricity and about 700 million Indians use biomass as their primary energy resource for cooking, according to the Planning Commission. -------------------------------------------------------- Shyama Prasad Mukherji Rurban Mission -------------------------------------------------------- Ministry Of Rural Development’s ambitious Shyama Prasad Mukherji Rurban Mission aims to provide integrated project based infrastructure and urban amenities in rural areas. Recently, Centre has set up a committee to study in detail the reasons for failure of similar initiatives in the past and recommend ways to ensure that this project succeeds. Salient Features: • The scheme includes development of economic activities and skill development. • The preferred mode of delivery would be through PPPs while using various scheme funds. • It is based on the example of Gujarat that has demonstrated successfully the Rurban development model of urbanization of the rural areas, through which people living in the rural areas can get efficient civic infrastructure and associate services. • Rurban Mission addresses one of the biggest challenges the country is facing that is migration from rural areas to urban areas. • Shyama Prasad Mukherji Rurban Mission scheme is rooted in former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam’s idea of Providing Urban Amenities to Rural Areas (PURA). • The objectives of the PURA Scheme are provision of livelihood opportunities and urban amenities in rural areas to bridge the rural - urban divide. The Scheme envisages holistic and accelerated development of areas around a potential growth centre in a Gram Panchayat (or group of Gram Panchayats) in a Public Private Partnership (PPP) framework. ------------------------------------------------------------ Soil Health Card Scheme for Every Farmer ----------------------------------------------------------- Farming as an activity contributes nearly 1/6th of our Gross Domestic Product and a majority of our population is dependent on it for their livelihood. Deteriorating soil health has been a cause of concern and that has been leading to sub optimal utilization of farming resources. Imbalanced use of fertilizers, low addition of organic matter and non-replacement of depleted micro and secondary nutrients over the years, has resulted in nutrient deficiencies and decrease in soil fertility in some parts of the country. Salient Features: • Government, under the ministry of Agriculture, has launched a scheme to provide every farmer a Soil Health Card in a Mission mode. • The card will carry crop wise recommendations of nutrients/fertilizers required for farms, making it possible for farmers to improve productivity by using appropriate inputs. • Central Government provides assistance to State Governments for setting up Soil Testing Laboratories for issuing Soil Health Cards to farmers. • A Soil Health Card is used to assess the current status of soil health and, when used over time, to determine changes in soil health that are affected by land management. • The card will carry crop-wise recommendations of nutrients/fertilizers required for farms, making it possible for farmers to improve productivity by wisely using inputs. • Though a few states including Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Haryana had successfully distributed such cards a couple of years ago, most states did not make it operational beyond villages around various agricultural universities. The Centres fresh move will make it universal. • Health of the soil will improve productivity through judicious use of fertilizers and water. • Distributing Soil Health Card to all farmers and providing irrigation facility to all villages under the launch Pradhan Mantri Gram Sinchai Yojana across the country will be two major components of agricultural policy. • The government has proposed to set aside a sum of Rs 100 core for this purpose. ----------------------------- Must Knows ---------------------- To boost agricultural yield, the Union Agriculture Ministry is going to launch Pradhan Mantri Gram Sinchai Yojana in the country. This scheme would facilitate access to irrigation. Finance Minister in his Budget speech said that a sum of Rs.1, 000 crores is being set aside for this scheme. ------------------------------------------------------- Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana -------------------------------------------------------- The Government has proposed to initiate the scheme “Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana”. It is proposed to meet the need to provide assured irrigation to mitigate risk to the farmer since bulk of the farm lands are rainfed and depend on monsoon. Salient Features: • This scheme would facilitate access to irrigation. • A sum of Rs.1, 000 crores is being set aside for this scheme.
Posted on: Mon, 17 Nov 2014 16:10:36 +0000
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