Blog

General Studies- II

Topic- Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.

National Horticulture Board (NHB)

Context:

National Horticulture Board (NHB), has cleared a record 1278 subsidy applications for integrated development of hi-tech commercial horticulture in the country.

• The NHB has also taken a lot of steps for ease of doing business by simplification of scheme guideline, documentation and processing process of new applications.
• NHB has also facilitated the convergence of its back-ended capital investment subsidy schemes with the Agri Infrastructure Fund Scheme.
• It aims to encourage farmers and entrepreneurs to take advantage of subvention of 3% interest on the loan with credit guarantee coverage for a loan up to Rs 2.00 crores for setting up post-harvest and cold chain infrastructure in the horticulture sector.

About NHB:

National Horticulture Board (NHB) was set up by Government of India in April 1984 on the basis of recommendations of the “Group on Perishable Agricultural Commodities”, headed by Dr M. S. Swaminathan.

• NHB is as an Autonomous organization under the administrative control of Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare.
• Headquarter of NHB is at Gurugarm and it has 29 field offices located all over the country.

Aims & Objectives:

The main objectives of the NHB are to improve integrated development of Horticulture industry and to help in coordinating, sustaining the production and processing of fruits and vegetables.

What is the Agri-Infra Fund?

The Agriculture Infrastructure Fund (Agri-Infra Fund) is a medium – long term debt financing facility for investment in viable projects for post-harvest management infrastructure and community farming assets through interest subvention and credit guarantee.

• The Agri-Infra Fund was part of the Rs 20 lakh crore stimulus package announced in response to the COVID-19 disaster.
• The duration of the Scheme shall be from FY2020 to FY2029 (10 years).

Key features of the scheme

• Loans will be disbursed in four years starting with sanction of Rs. 10,000 crore in the current year and Rs. 30,000 crore each in next three financial years.
• Interest subvention: All loans under this financing facility will have interest subvention of 3% per annum up to a limit of Rs. 2 crore.
• This subvention will be available for a maximum period of seven years.
• Credit guarantee: will be available for eligible borrowers from this financing facility under Credit Guarantee Fund Trust for Micro and Small Enterprises (CGTMSE) scheme for a loan up to Rs. 2 crore.
• The fee for this coverage will be paid by the Government.
• In case of FPOs the credit guarantee may be availed from the facility created under FPO promotion scheme of Department of Agriculture, Cooperation & Farmers Welfare (DACFW).

Significance:

The Project by way of facilitating formal credit to farm and farm processing-based activities is expected to create numerous job opportunities in rural areas.

 

General Studies- II

Topic- Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources.

Har Ghar Jal Scheme

Context:

Puducherry has become ‘Har Ghar Jal’ Union Territory by ensuring that every rural home in the Union Territory gets a household tap connection.

With this, the UT becomes the fourth State/UT after Goa, Telangana and Andaman & Nicobar Islands to provide assured tap water supply to every rural home under Union Government’s flagship programme, Jal Jeevan Mission.

About Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM):

Jal Jeevan Mission is a flagship programme of the Union Government, which aims to provide tap water connection to every rural household of the country by 2024.

• The Mission is being implemented in partnership with States/ UTs to provide safe tap water in adequate quantity of prescribed quality on regular and long-term basis to every rural home.
• Under the mission, source sustainability measures also being implemented as mandatory elements, such as recharge and reuse through grey water management, water conservation, rain water harvesting.
• JJM looks to create a jan andolan for water, thereby making it everyone’s priority.

Objectives:

The broad objectives of the Mission are:

• To provide Functional House Tap Connections (FHTC) to every rural household.
• To prioritize provision of FHTCs in quality affected areas, villages in drought prone and desert areas, Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana (SAGY) villages, etc.
• To promote and ensure voluntary ownership among local community by way of contribution in cash, kind and/ or labour and voluntary labour (shramdaan)
• To bring awareness on various aspects and significance of safe drinking water and involvement of stakeholders in manner that make water everyone’s business

Implementation:

For the implementation of JJM, following institutional arrangement has been proposed

• National Jal Jeevan Mission (NJJM) at the Central level
• State Water and Sanitation Mission (SWSM) at the State level
• District Water and Sanitation Mission (DWSM) at the District level
• Village Water Sanitation Committee (VWSC) at Village level

Village Action Plan (VAP)

Every village will prepared its Village Action Plan, It will have three components–

• Water source & its maintenance
• Water supply and
• Greywater (domestic wastewater) management.

Why the safe access to Water is necessary?

Safe access to potable water in household premises is necessity absolute and this facility will improve the health of rural people in terms of control of water-borne diseases.

• It will also provide opportunity for economic activities for rural women by saving their precious time, which otherwise is lost in fetching water from a distance.
• Most importantly, the provision of household tap connection in rural areas will help in removing ‘drudgery’ of women, especially girls as fetching water is their responsibility.

 Significance of JJM

• India has 16% of the world population, but only 4% of freshwater resources.
• Depleting groundwater level, overexploitation and deteriorating water quality, climate change, etc. are major challenges to provide potable drinking water.
• It is an urgent requirement of water conservation in the country because of the decreasing amount of groundwater level.

Therefore, the Jal Jeevan Mission will focus on integrated demand and supply management of water at the local level.

General Studies- II

Topic- Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.

’Connected Commerce: Creating a Roadmap for a Digitally Inclusive Bharat’- a report

Context:

NITI Aayog and Mastercard has released a report titled ‘Connected Commerce: Creating a Roadmap for a Digitally Inclusive Bharat’.

The report identifies challenges in accelerating digital financial inclusion in India and provides recommendations for making digital services accessible to its 1.3 billion citizens.

Background:

Between October and November, experts discussed ways to accelerate digital financial inclusion, enable global opportunities for MSMEs, inspire trust and security in digital commerce, prepare India’s agri-enterprises for connected commerce, and build robust transit systems for smart cities.

Key issues addressed during the knowledge series were:

• Acceleration of digital financial inclusion for underserved sections of Indian society.
• Enabling SMEs to ‘get paid, get capital and get digital’ and access customers, and ensure their continued resilience.
• Policy and technological interventions to foster trust and increase cyber resilience.
• Unlocking the promise of digitization in India’s agriculture sector.
• The essential elements of a digital roadmap to make transit accessible for all citizens.

Key recommendations in the report include:

• Strengthening the payment infrastructure to promote a level playing field for NBFCs and banks.
• Digitizing registration and compliance processes and diversifying credit sources to enable growth opportunities for MSMEs.
• Building information sharing systems, including a ‘fraud repository’, and ensuring that online digital commerce platforms carry warnings to alert consumers to the risk of frauds.
• Enabling agricultural NBFCs to access low-cost capital and deploy a ‘phygital’ (physical + digital) model for achieving better long-term digital outcomes. Digitizing land records will also provide a major boost to the sector.
• To make city transit seamlessly accessible to all with minimal crowding and queues, leveraging existing smartphones and contactless cards, and aim for an inclusive, interoperable, and fully open system such as that of the London ‘Tube’.

Chrome facts for Prelims

Drug 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2-DG)

It is an anti-COVID-19 therapeutic application drug.

• 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2-DG) has been developed by Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Allied Sciences (INMAS), a lab of (DRDO), in collaboration with Dr Reddy’s Laboratories (DRL), Hyderabad.
• Clinical trial results have shown that this molecule helps in faster recovery of hospitalised patients and reduces supplemental oxygen dependence.
• Higher proportion of patients treated with 2-DG showed RT-PCR negative conversion in COVID patients.
• The drug will be of immense benefit to the people suffering from COVID-19.