PIB Analysis : 2nd July

PIB Analysis for UPSC CSE

Topics Covered

1. Rashtriya Vayoshri Yojana
2. National Food Security Act
3. National Electric Mobility Mission Plan (NEMMP) 2020
4. Border Area Development Programme
5. M-Kisan Portal
6. Classical Languages

1 . Rashtriya Vayoshri Yojana

About Rashtriya Vayoshri Yojana

• Rashtriya Vayoshri Yojana provides for physical aids and Assisted Living Devices for Senior Citizens belonging to BPL category
• Under the Scheme, assisted living devices such as Walking Sticks, Elbow Crutches, Walkers/ Crutches, Tripods/ Quadpods, Hearing Aids, Wheelchairs, Artificial Dentures and Spectacles are provided free of cost to the beneficiary senior citizens.
• The objective of providing Senior Citizens, belonging to BPL category and suffering from age related disabilities/ infirmities, with such physical aids and assisted living devices which can restore near normalcy in their bodily functions.
• The Scheme is being implemented through the “Artificial Limbs Manufacturing Corporation (ALIMCO)”, a Public Sector Undertaking under the Ministry of SJ&E, as the sole Implementing Agency.
• The beneficiaries are identified through Assessment Camps organised in collaboration with the respective State Government/District Administration and the devices are distributed in Distribution Camps organised in the selected districts. For the senior citizens aged 80 years or more, the devices are provided at their doorsteps.

2 . National Food Security Act

About National Food Security Act

• The National Food Security Act was notified in 2013 with the objective to provide for food and nutritional security in human life cycle approach, by ensuring access to adequate quantity of quality food at affordable prices to people to live a life with dignity.
• The Act provides for coverage of upto 75% of the rural population and upto 50% of the urban population for receiving subsidized foodgrains under Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS), thus covering about two-thirds of the population.

Features of the bill

• The eligible persons will be entitled to receive 5 Kgs of foodgrains per person per month at subsidised prices of Rs. 3/2/1 per Kg for rice/wheat/coarse grains. The existing Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) households, which constitute the poorest of the poor
• All Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) or the poorest of the poor group, a priority group to receive 7 kg of subsidised foodgrains per person per month ie. 35 kg of foodgrain/family/month.
• Upto 75 percent of the rural and up to 50 percent of the urban population will be covered by the bill. Of these, at least 46 percent of the rural and 28 percent of the urban population will be designated as priority households. The rest will be designated as general households.
• The Act also has a special focus on the nutritional support to women and children. Besides meal to pregnant women and lactating mothers during pregnancy and six months after the child birth, such women will also be entitled to receive maternity benefit of not less than Rs. 6,000. It is however restricted to two children only.
• Children upto 14 years of age will be entitled to nutritious meals as per the prescribed nutritional standards.
• In case of non-supply of entitled foodgrains or meals, the beneficiaries will receive food security allowance.
• The Act also contains provisions for setting up of grievance redressal mechanism at the District and State levels. Separate provisions have also been made in the Act for ensuring transparency and accountability.
• The eldest women of the household of age 18 years or above will be the head of the household for the purpose of issuing ration cards.
• Prices can be revised after the first three years, up to the level of the minimum support price

3 . National Electric Mobility Mission Plan (NEMMP) 2020

About the Mission

• The National Electric Mobility Mission Plan (NEMMP) 2020 is a National Mission document providing the vision and the roadmap for the faster adoption of electric vehicles and their manufacturing in the country.
• This plan has been designed to enhance national fuel security, to provide affordable and environmentally friendly transportation and to enable the Indian automotive industry to achieve global manufacturing leadership.
• As part of the NEMMP 2020, Department of Heavy Industry formulated a Scheme viz. Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid &) Electric Vehicles in India (FAME India) Scheme in the year 2015 to promote manufacturing of electric and hybrid vehicle technology and to ensure sustainable growth of the same.

Targets

• Target of deploying 5 to 7 million electric vehicles in the country by 2020
• Emphasizes importance of government incentives and coordination between industry and academia
• Target of 400,000 passenger battery electric cars (BEVs) by 2020 ~ avoiding 120 million barrels of oil and 4 million tons of CO₂
• Lowering of vehicular emissions by 1.3 percent by 2020
• Total investment required – INR 20,000 – 23,000 cr (approx 3 billion USD)

FAME India Scheme

• FAME India scheme is implemented to promote manufacturing of electric and hybrid vehicle technology and to ensure sustainable growth of the same.
• Department of Heavy Industry implemented FAME-India Scheme Phase 1. Under Phase-I of FAME India Scheme, about 2.78 lakh electric/ hybrid vehicles (xEVs) have been supported
• The Phase-II of the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid &) Electric Vehicles (FAME-India) Scheme proposes to give a push to electric vehicles (EVs) in public transport and seeks to encourage adoption of EVs by way of market creation and demand aggregation. The scheme envisages the holistic growth of EV industry, including providing for charging infrastructure, research and development of EV technologies and push towards greater indigenization.

4 . Border Area Development Programme

About BADP

• The Department of Border Management, Ministry of Home Affairs has been implementing the Border Area Development Programme (BADP) through the State Governments as part of a comprehensive approach to Border Management.
• The programme aims to meet the special development needs of the people living in remote and inaccessible areas situated near the international border and to saturate the border areas with the essential infrastructure through convergence of Central/State/BADP/Local schemes and participatory approach.
• BADP was initiated in the border areas of the western region during that Seventh Five Year Plan period for ensuring balanced development of border areas through development of infrastructure and promotion of a sense of security among the border population. 
• The State covered are Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Punjab, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and West Bengal

5 . M – Kisan Portal

About M-Kisan Portal

• M-Kisan SMS Portal for farmers enables all Central and State government organizations in agriculture and allied sectors to give information/services/advisories to farmers by SMS in their language, preference of agricultural practices and location.
• These messages are specific to farmers’ specific needs & relevance at a particular point of time and generate heavy inflow of calls in the Kisan Call Centres where people call up to get supplementary information
• USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data), IVRS (Interactive Voice Response System) and Pull SMS are value added services which have enabled farmers and other stakeholders not only to receive broadcast messages but also to get web based services on their mobile without having internet. Semi-literate and illiterate farmers have also been targeted to be reached through voice messages.

Objectives of the Portal

• To make SMS and other mobile based services as a tool of 2 way agricultural extension in which not only information/advisory services are provided to farmers as per his/her need in a broadcast mode (in keeping with selection of crop / agricultural practice, requirements and location) but they can also raise specific queries through Pull SMS or USSD.
• Making use of huge spread of mobile telephony in the rural areas to cover every farm household in the country to overcome the major impediment in bringing level playing field for small and marginal farmers. Presently, there are about 38 crore mobile telephones in rural areas as against nearly 9 crore farm households.
• Centralized system wherein different modes of information flow are channelized and spread to the farmers in their own language.
• Integrated Portal to ensure proper storage in previous advisories/messages and also effective monitoring at various levels.
• Integration of database of farmers from the State Governments, Universities, KVKs web based registration, Kisan Call Centres etc.
• Since effective internet penetration in the rural areas is about 5% only, text messaging in the language of the farmer transcends the barriers of digital divide.
• Provision of web based services through SMS or USSD is thus the fulcrum of the whole Project.
• Integration with other farmer-centric services such as Kisan Call Centres, Common Service Centres, Web Portals for extracting relevant information and also for feeding data from remote locations where Internet is not available or is unreliable.

6 . Classical Languages

Context : A proposal for granting Classical status to Marathi Language was received from Marathi Language Department, Government of Maharashtra. The said proposal was placed before the Committee of Linguistic Experts for its consideration.

Current Classical Languages in India

• Tamil (in 2004)
• Sanskrit (in 2005)
• Kannada (in 2008)
• Telugu (in 2008)
• Malayalam (in 2013)
• Odia (in 2014)

Criteria for Classical Languages in India

• High antiquity of its early texts/recorded history over a period of 1500-2000 years
• A body of ancient literature/texts, which is considered a valuable heritage by generations of speakers;
• The literary tradition be original and not borrowed from another speech community;
• The classical language and literature being distinct from modern, there may also be a discontinuity between the classical language and its later forms or its offshoots.

Benefits of Classical Language Status

• Two major annual international awards for scholars of eminence in the concerned language.
• A ‘Centre of Excellence for Studies in Classical Languages’ can be set up.
• The University Grants Commission can be requested to create, to start with at least in Central Universities, a certain number of professional chairs for classical languages, for scholars of eminence in the concerned language.