General Studies- II
Topic- Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arisingout of their design and implementation.
UJALA & Street Lighting National Programme
Context
Governmentof India’s UJALA & Street Lighting National Programme Complete Five Successful years of Illuminating India.
About
- Unnat Jyoti by Affordable LEDs for All (UJALA) and LED Street Lighting National Programme (SLNP), marked its fifth anniversary.
- SLNP is the world’s largest streetlight replacement programme and UJALA is the world’s largest domestic lighting project.
- Both have been spearheaded and implemented by Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL), a joint venture of PSUs under the Ministry of Power, Government of India.
Street Light National Programme (SLNP)
- The SLNP has been launched on 5th January 2015.
- Street Light National Programme (SLNP) is the world’s largest streetlight replacement programme.
- SLNP is an initiative of the Government to promote energy efficiency in the country.
- Government aims to replace 3.5 crore conventional street lights with energy efficient LED lights.
- This would result in annual energy saving of 900 crore units and the total cost savings of municipalities every year will be Rs 5,500 crore.
Objective of SLNP
- Mitigate climate change by implementing energy efficient LED based street lighting
- Reduce energy consumption in lighting which helps DISCOMs to manage peak demand
- Provide a sustainable service model that obviates the need for upfront capital investment as well as additional revenue expenditure to pay for procurement of LED lights
- Enhance municipal services at no upfront capital cost of municipalities
UJALA programme
- Unnat Jyoti by Affordable LEDs for All (UJALA) is the world’s largest zero-subsidy domestic LED bulb programme.
- Under the scheme, 20W LED tube lights and BEE 5-star rated energy efficient fans are distributed to the consumers.
Objectives
‘To promote efficient lighting, enhance awareness on using efficient equipment which reduce electricity bills and help preserve environment.’
Rationale behind UJALA Programme
- An ordinary bulb is an extremely energy inefficient form of lighting with just 5% of the electricity input converted to light.
- Efficient light bulbs like Light-emitting Diode (LEDs) consumes only one-tenth of energy used by ordinary bulb to provide the same or better light output.
- However, high cost of LEDs has been a barrier in adoption of such efficient lighting systems.
- The scheme “UJALA” – Unnat Jyoti by Affordable LEDs for All was launched to overcome such matters.
Achievements of UJALA & Street Lighting National Programme
Under the SLNP programme
- over 1.03 crore smart LED streetlights have been installed till date.
- It has enabled an estimated energy savings of 6.97 billion kWh per year and an estimated greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction of 4.80 million CO2 annually.
- LED streetlights have been installed in various states across the country, helping generate approximately 13,000 jobs to support GoI’s Make in India initiative.
Under UJALA initiative
- Over 36.13 crore LED bulbs have been distributed across India.
- This has resulted in estimated energy savings of 46.92 billion kWh per year, and an estimated GHG emission reduction of 38 million t CO2 annually.
Significance
- India’s street lights form a crucial component of the nation’s investment on lighting and road safety.
- These ambitious projects will make a tremendous difference, enabling peak demand reduction of energy; enable annual energy savings and reduction of CO2.
Implementing Agency
Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL)
- Energy Efficiency Services Limited, a Public Energy Services Company under the administration of Ministry of Power, Government of India (GoI) is the implementing agency for SLNP.
- EESL is a joint venture of four National Public Sector Enterprises – NTPC Limited, PFC, REC and POWERGRID.
- Under the programme, EESL replaces the conventional street lights with LEDs at its own costs, with no upfront investment by the municipalities, thereby making their adoption even more attractive.
- A seven-year contract with the local bodies guarantees a minimum energy saving of typically 50% and provides free replacements and maintenance of lights at no additional cost to the civic partners.
General Studies- II
Topic- Welfare schemes for vulnerable sections of the population by the Centre and States and the performance of these schemes;
Fertilizer Application Awareness Program
Context
To make farmers aware of new developments in the field of fertilizer usage and management, the Union Minister inaugurated the bi-annual Fertilizer Application Awareness Program.
About
- The bi-annual Fertilizer Application Awareness Program was inaugurated at PUSA in Delhi.
- The event is organised jointly by the Union Ministry for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare and Union Ministry for Chemical and Fertilizers before Kharif and Rabi season each year with the help of State Governments.
Aim of the Program
- To disseminate knowledge to farmers on optimum usage of fertilizer nutrients based on various parameters to sustain agricultural productivity.
- To make farmers aware of new developments in the field of fertilizer usage and management.
Fertilizer Nutrients
- A fertilizer is any organic or inorganic, natural or synthetic material added to soil to supply one or more plant nutrients essential to the growth of plants.
- These fertilizers provide six macronutrients and eight micronutrients to the plants for well balanced growth.
Six macronutrients are-
- Nitrogen (N),
- Phosphorus (P),
- Potassium (K),
- Calcium (Ca),
- Magnesium (Mg),
- Sulfur (S);
Eight micronutrients are-
- Boron (B),
- Chlorine (Cl),
- Copper (Cu),
- Iron (Fe),
- Manganese (Mn),
- Molybdenum (Mo),
- Zinc (Zn)
- Nickel (Ni)
- The macronutrients are consumed in larger quantities and that is why they make the bulk of the fertilizers.
- For sustained agricultural growth and to promote balanced nutrient application, fertilizers need to be made available to farmers at affordable prices.
Controlled fertilizer in India
- Urea is the only controlled fertilizer in India.
- It is sold at statutory notified uniform sale price.
- The Phosphatic and Potassic fertilizes are under a decontrolled regime and are sold at indicative maximum retail prices (MRPs).
Nutrient Based Subsidy (NBS) scheme for other fertilizers
Government of India is implementing Nutrient Based Subsidy (NBS) policy since 1st April 2010.
The key features of this scheme are-
- This scheme is for 22 grades of decontrolled fertilizers namely DAP, MAP, TSP, DAP Lite, MOP, SSP, Ammonium Sulphate and 15 grades of complex fertilizers.
- These fertilizers are provided to the farmers at the subsidized rates based on the nutrients (N, P, K & S) contained in these fertilizers.
- Additional subsidy is also provided on the fertilizers fortified with secondary and micronutrients as per the Fertilizer Control Order such as Boron and Zinc.
- The subsidy given to the companies is fixed annually on the basis of its nutrients content.
- Under this scheme, Maximum Retail Price (MRP) of fertilizers has been left open and manufacturers/marketers are allowed to fix the MRP at reasonable level.
Indian Agricultural Research Institute (PUSA)
About
- The Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) is commonly known as the Pusa Institute.
- It is India’s national Institute for agricultural research, education and extension.
- The name Pusa Institute is derived from the fact that the institute was originally located in Pusa Bihar as the Imperial Institute of Agricultural Research in 1911.
- It was then renamed as the Imperial Agricultural Research Institute in 1919 and following a major earthquake in Pusa, it was relocated to Delhi in 1936.
- The current institute in Delhi is financed and administered by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR).
- The IARI was responsible for the research leading to the “Green Revolution in India” of the 1970s.
For Prelims
‘Cyber Safe Women’ initiative
Highlights
- ‘Cyber Safe Women’ initiative is launched by Maharashtra government across the state, on the birth anniversary of Indian social reformer, Savitribai Phule.
- It aims – to spread awareness regarding the atrocities committed against women and children as well as the laws regarding cybercrime.
- It will educate women about how the web is used by anti-social elements to commit various types of crimes.
Yoga Diwas Media Samman
Highlights
- The Ministry of I&B had instituted the first Antarashtriya Yoga Diwas Media Samman (AYDMS) in June, 2019.
- It aims to mark the contribution of media in spreading the message of Yoga.
- First Antarrashtriya Yoga Diwas Media Samman to be conferred to 30 media houses.
- The International Day of Yoga has been celebrated annually on 21 June since 2015.
