PIB Analysis : 12th June 2020

PIB Analysis for UPSC CSE

Topics Covered

  1. Small Farmers’ Agribusiness Consortium (SFAC)
  2. Sahakar Mitra
  3. CPI -IW
  4. IIP
  5. World Against Child Labour

1 . Small Farmers’ Agribusiness Consortium (SFAC)


Context : Union Minister of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare, Shri Narendra Singh Tomar asserts that Small Farmers’ Agribusiness Consortium (SFAC) has the important responsibilty of formation of 10000 FPOs and strenghthening of the e-NAM platform

About SFAC

  • The Government established Small Farmers’ Agri-Business Consortium (SFAC) as a Society in 1994 to facilitate agri-business ventures by catalyzing private investment through Venture Capital Assistance (VCA) Scheme in close association with financial institutions. 
  • The setting up of State level SFAC as counterpart agency of Central SFAC for agribusiness projects was part of the Scheme. The Scheme envisaged a corpus contribution from Central SFAC of Rs. 50.00 lakh to each State which establishes a State Level SFAC.  

Functions of SFAC

  • Promotion of development of small agribusiness through VCA scheme;
  • Helping formation and growth of Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) / Farmer Producer Companies (FPCs);
  • Improving availability of working capital and development of business activities of FPOs/FPCs through Equity Grant and Credit Guarantee Fund Scheme;
  • Implementation of National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) Electronic Trading platform.

Schemes implemented by SFAC

Agri-Business Development (ABD) through Venture Capital Assistance (VCA) and Project Development Facility (PDF). 

  • The Scheme aims to facilitate the promotion of agri-business projects establishing backward linkages with farmers, providing assured market to their produce, thereby generating employment and enhancing farmers’ income.

Equity Grant and Credit Guarantee Fund Scheme for Farmer Producer Companies:

The scheme has two components :-

  • A grant of upto Rs. 10.00 lakh to each registered Farmer Producer Company is given to match the member equity raised by the institution. This enhances the equity base of the FPC and enable it to approach financial institutions for raising working capital.  
  • Credit Guarantee Fund (CGF) has been set up in SFAC with a corpus of Rs. 100.00 Crores. The CGF will offer a cover of 85% to loans extended by banks to Farmer Producer Companies without collateral, upto a maximum of Rs. 1.00 Crore.  

2 . Sahakar Mitra


Context : Union Minister for Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare Shri Narendra Singh Tomar launches Sahakar Mitra: Scheme on Internship Programme, an initiative by National Cooperative Development Corporation

About Sahakar Mitra Scheme

  • Sahakar Mitra scheme is expected to assist cooperative institutions access new and innovative ideas of young professionals while the interns gain experience of working in the field giving confidence to be self-reliant.
  • It is expected to be a win-win situation both for cooperatives as well as for the young professionals.
  • Under the scheme, professional graduates in disciplines such as Agriculture and allied areas,IT etc. will be eligible for internship. 
  • Professionals who are pursuing or have completed their MBA degrees in Agri-business, Cooperation, Finance, International Trade, Forestry, Rural Development, Project Managementetc. will also be eligible.
  • NCDC has earmarked funds for Sahakar Mitra paid internship program under which each intern will get financial support over a 4 months internship period.
  • Online application portal for internship application available on NCDC website, was also launched by the Union Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare Minister.

3 . Consumer Price Index – IW


Background

  • This index is the oldest among the CPI indices as its dissemination started as early as in 1946.
  • The history of compilation and maintenance of Consumer Price Index for Industrial workers owes its origin to the deteriorating economic condition of the workers post first world war which resulted in sharp increase in prices.
  • As a consequence of rise in prices and cost of living, the provincial governments started compiling Consumer Price Index.The estimates were however not satisfactory.
  • In pursuance of the recommendation of Rau Court of enquiry, the work of compilation and maintenance was taken over by government in 1943.
  • Since 1958-59, the compilation of CPI(IW) has been started by Labour Bureau ,an attached office under Ministry of Labour & Employment.

What is CPI – IW

  • Consumer Price Index Numbers for Industrial workers measure a change over time in prices of a fixed basket of goods and services consumed by Industrial Workers.
  • The target group is an average working class family belonging to any of the seven sectors of the economy- factories, mines, plantation, motor transport, port, railways and electricity generation and distribution .
  • CPI (IW) is currently calculated at base 2001=100 for 78 centres and prices are collected from 289 markets across these 78 centres. 
  • The index has a time lag of one month and is released on the last working day of the month.
  • It is used for wage indexation and fixation of dearness allowance for government employees.

4 . Index of Industrial Production


About IIP

  • Index of Industrial Production (IIP) measures the quantum of changes in the industrial production in an economy and captures the general level of industrial activity in the country.
  • It is a composite indicator expressed in terms of an index number which measures the short term changes in the volume of production of a basket of industrial products during a given period with respect to the base period.
  • The current base year for the IIP series in India is 2011-12. .
  • IIP is a short term indicator of industrial growth till the results from Annual Survey of Industries and National Accounts Statistics are available.
  • However, IIP is considered to be one of the lead indicators for short-term economic analysis because of its strong relationship with economic fluctuations in the rest of economy. Most of services, like transport, storage, communication, real estate, insurance and banking are industry dependent and are considerably influenced by industrial performance.
  • Index of Industrial Production is compiled and published every month by Central Statistics Office (CSO) of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation with a time lag of six weeks from the reference month. i.e., at the time of release of IIP data, quick estimates for the relevant month along with revised and final indices of previous two months respectively, (on the basis of updated production data) are released.
  • The general scope of IIP, as recommended by United Nations Statistics Division includes Mining & Quarrying, Manufacturing, Electricity, Gas steam, Air conditioning supply, Water supply, Sewerage, Waste management and Remediation activities.
  • But, in India, due to constraints of data availability and other resources, the index is compiled using figures of mining, manufacturing and electricity sectors only.

Categorization of IIP

  • Sectoral classification
    • Industrial production for the purpose of IIP is divided into three sectors, i.e, Mining, Manufacturing and Electricity. In sectoral classification, relative weights of Manufacturing, Mining and Electricity are 75.5%, 14.2% and 10.3% respectively.
  • Use-based classification
    • Users also require the indices in respect of different use-based categories, i.e., basic goods, capital goods, intermediate goods, consumer durables and consumer nondurables. Recognizing the above requirements, compilation of use- based indices was started in the 1980-81 base series of IIP from the year 1990-91 onwards.
    • In “Use Base” classification, relative weights of Basic Goods, Capital Goods, intermediate goods and Consumer Goods are 45.68%, 8.83%, 15.68 and 29.81% respectively.

5 . World Against Child Labour


About World Against Child Labour Day

  • The World Day against Child Labour, held every year on June 12, is intended to foster the worldwide movement against child labour in any of its forms.
  • It was first launched in 2002 to raise awareness and prevent child labour.
  • The ILO, the United Nations body that works on global labour-related issues, launched the World Day against Child Labour to bring attention and join efforts to fight against child labour.
  • This day brings together governments, local authorities, civil society and international, workers and employers organizations to point out the child labour problem and define the guidelines to help child labourers.
  • The theme of World Day against Child Labour 2020 is ‘Covid-19: Protect Children from Child Labour, now more than ever!’

Child labour and COVID

  • According to figures available on the United Nations’ website, approximately 152 million children have been pushed into child labour. Out of the 152 million, around 72 million are involved in hazardous work.
  • Further, the data also reveals that around 48 per cent victims of child labour are aged between 5-11 years, 28 per cent are aged between 12 to 14 years and the remaining 24 per cent fall in the 15 to 17 years bracket.
  • Majority of the child labourers, around 71%, are involved in the agricultural sector that includes fishing, forestry, livestock herding and aquaculture.
  • The situation is more likely to get exacerbated especially during these times. It is known that the novel coronavirus pandemic has had a huge impact on the livelihoods of scores of people. The economies of most countries have been badly affected.
  • In such a scenario, the chances of the working conditions of child labourers deteriorating are high.

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