GS- 3 Paper
Topic covered- Food processing and related industries in India- scope’ and significance, location, upstream and downstream requirements, supply chain management.
Sustainable Food Value Chains
Context
A two-day National Conference on Capacity Building of Sustainable Food Value Chains for Enhanced Food Safety and Quality.
About
- A National Conference on Capacity Building of Sustainable Food Value Chains for Enhanced Food Safety and Quality was organized by National Productivity Council (NPC) in New Delhi.
- It was organized in collaboration with Asian Productivity Organization, Tokyo, Japan.
What is Sustainable Food Value Chains?
- A value chain consists of the series of transactions and actors necessary to bring a product from the inputs stage to the final market.
- Every stage of the chain involves adding value, and collaboration among stakeholders.
Impact
- Sustainable food value chains have significant impacts on food systems through enhancing economic sustainability by creating added value (higher incomes).
- It impacts on social sustainability by facilitating more equitable distribution of added value among stakeholders, and environmental sustainability by reducing ecological footprints throughout the value chain.
National Productivity Council (NPC)
- NPC is national level organization to promote productivity culture in India.
- It is established by the Ministry of Industry, Government of India in 1958.
- It is an autonomous, multipartite, non-profit organization with equal representation from employers’ & workers’ organizations and Government, apart from technical & professional institutions and other interests.
- NPC is a constituent of the Tokyo-based Asian Productivity Organisation (APO), an Inter-Governmental Body, of which the Government of India is a founder member.
- It aims to stimulate and promote productivity and quality consciousness across all sectors in the country.
Gs-3 Paper
Topic covered– Various Security forces and agencies and their mandate.
Re-organisation of Army Headquarters
Context
- Raksha Mantri approves decisions regarding re-organisation of Army Headquarters.
About
- The approval for re-organisation of Army Headquarters has been given based on a detailed internal study conducted by the Army Headquarters.
The key decisions are–
- A separate Vigilance Cell under COAS with Tri-Services representation – Presently, the vigilance function for the COAS is through multiple agencies and there is no single point interface.
- An independent vigilance cell will be made functional under COAS.
- It will have three Colonel-level officers (one each from Indian Army, Indian Air Force and Indian Navy). This will be done within the existing posts at AHQ.
- An umbrella organisation under VCOAS for enhanced focus on human rights issues – To give high priority to observance of human rights convention and values, it has been decided to set up a special Human Rights Section headed by ADG (Major General rank officer) directly under the VCOAS.
- It will be the nodal point to examine any HR violation reports.
- To enhance transparency and ensure the best of investigative expertise is available to the section, a Police officer of SSP/SP rank will be taken on deputation.
- Re-location of 206 Army Officers from AHQ to Formations/Units of the Field Army – A total of 206 officers will be optimized from AHQ and these officers will be made available additionally to Formations/Units of the Field Army.
Need
- There has been a long standing demand of Army of more fighting officers on front to lead soldiers.
- Field units were not having required numbers of officer’s strength.
- The 25 officers are considered ideal for a field unit. But there were only 10-12 officers were posted in the field units.
- The more number of officers field units will definitely enhance operational capabilities.
- The re-locating of Army Officers is to enhance leadership in filed areas and enhance its operations in forward areas.
Gs-2 paper
Topic covered– Welfare schemes for vulnerable sections of the population by the Centre and States and the performance of these schemes.
Pradhan Mantri – Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY)
Context
Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare at the high-level review of the implementation of Ayushman Bharat – Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY).
About PM-JAY
- Ayushman Bharat – Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY) is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme.
- It is launched by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW).
- It is an umbrella of two major health initiatives, namely Health and wellness Centres and National Health Protection Scheme.
Objective
- It aims to reduce the financial burden on poor and vulnerable groups arising out of catastrophic hospital episodes and ensure their access to quality health services.
Key features of the Scheme
- Ayushman Bharat – Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY) will provide free coverage of up to Rs 5 lakh per family per year in any government or empanelled private hospitals all over India.
- It will cover beneficiaries families identified on the basis of Socio Economic Caste Survey (SECC) 2011 in 444 districts of 30 states/Union Territories.
- National Health Agency (NHA) is the apex body for implementing this scheme.
- States will be required to form State Health Agency (SHA) to implement scheme and at the district level also structure for its implementation will be set up.
- Around 13000 hospitals both public and private in the country have been coordinated for implementation of the scheme.
- The scheme will be funded with 60% contribution from Centre and remaining from the states.
Benefits
- AB-PMJAY ensures that there will be no cap on family size and age in the scheme.
- The benefit cover will also include pre and post-hospitalisation expenses. All pre-existing conditions will be covered from day one of the policy.
- A defined transport allowance per hospitalization will also be paid to the beneficiary.
- Benefits of the scheme are portable across the country and a beneficiary covered under the scheme will be allowed to take cashless benefits from any public/private empanelled hospitals across the country.
- The beneficiaries can avail benefits in both public and empanelled private facilities.
- All public hospitals in the States implementing AB-PMJAY, will be deemed empanelled for the Scheme.
- Hospitals belonging to Employee State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) may also be empanelled based on the bed occupancy ratio parameter.
- To control costs, the payments for treatment will be done on package rate (to be defined by the Government in advance) basis.
- The package rates will include all the costs associated with treatment. For beneficiaries, it will be a cashless, paper less transaction.
Beneficiary
- AB-PMJAY is an entitlement based scheme with entitlement decided on the basis of deprivation criteria in the SECC database.
- The different categories in rural and urban areas include-
- families having only one room with kucha walls and kucha roof;
- families having no adult member between age 16 to 59;
- female headed households with no adult male member between age 16 to 59;
- disabled member and no able bodied adult member in the family;
- SC/ST households;
- landless households deriving major part of their income from manual casual labour,
- Families in rural areas having any one of the following: households without shelter, destitute, living on alms, manual scavenger families, primitive tribal groups, legally released bonded labour.
- For urban areas, 11 defined occupational categories are entitled under the scheme.
Significance
- It will strengthen healthcare services in India by targeting poor and vulnerable population of the country.
- The scheme allows beneficiary to take cashless benefits from any public or private empanelled hospitals across the country.
- ID documentation required for verifying beneficiary under this scheme may be Aadhaar card or election ID card or ration card.
- Though, Aadhaar card is not mandatory.
- Beneficiaries will QR codes having letters for verification through scanning.
- Scheme also seeks to accelerate India’s progress towards the achievement of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and Sustainable Development Goal – 3 (SDG3).
Way forward
- In-patient hospitalization expenditure in India has increased nearly 300% during last ten years, as per (NSSO 2015).
- Rural households primarily depended on their ‘household income / savings’ (68%) and on ‘borrowings’ (25%).
- The urban households relied much more on their ‘income / saving’ (75%) for financing expenditure on hospitalizations, and on ‘(18%) borrowings.
- Out of pocket (OOP) expenditure in India is over 60% which leads to nearly 6 million families getting into poverty due to catastrophic health expenditures.
- AB-PMJAY will Increase benefit cover to nearly 40% of the population, covering almost all secondary and many tertiary hospitalizations.
- This will lead to increased access to quality health and medication
- This will lead to timely treatments, improvements in health outcomes, patient satisfaction, improvement in productivity and efficiency, job creation thus leading to improvement in quality of life.
For Prelims-
Iron Age Settlement Relics
Highlights
- Iron Age settlement relics have been found by Archaeological Survey of India (ASI).
- The excavation was carried out by ASI in Phupgaon in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra.
- The river Purna, a major tributary of the river Tapi, has witnessed several archaeological sites on its either side of the banks.
- A number of cultural remains in the form of various antiquities and pottery have unraveled the nature of those settlements ranging from Paleolithic to late medieval period.
Significance
- The excavation is significant as it indicates the presence of sedentary (permanent) settlement, belonging to the Iron Age of Vidarbha.
- The settlement comes under the category of a small village with evidence of a small agro-pastoral community with evidences of craftsmanship in the form of beads of agate-carnelian, jasper, quartz and also usage of other artefacts like hopscotch, wheel and barrel shaped beads.
- The finding from Phupgaon indicates its contemporaneity with other Iron Age settlements of Vidarbha like Naikund, Mahurjhari, Bhagimori and Thakalkat.
- ASI is of the view that the excavation at Phupgaon has provided important insights into Iron Age people of Purna river basin.
- Chronologically, the site could be placed between 7th C BCE and 4th C BCE.
