ANDHRA PRADESH

Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy flagged off 516 e-autos under the Clean Andhra Pradesh (CLAP) initiative from here on Thursday. The e-autos, worth Rs 22.18 crore, would be deployed in 36 municipalities for garbage collection in an eco-friendly

manner.

The government aims to make all cities of AP as “Bin-free, Litter-free and Garbage-free.” Some 80 to 100 Women are being given the opportunity to become drivers of e-autos under this initiative.

Municipal administration and urban development minister Adipulapu Suresh said the CM

started the e-auto plan to reduce the financial burden on small municipalities. “He is undertaking many programmes as part of the decentralisation of administration and development,” the minister said.

Suresh said 516 e-autos have been distributed in the first phase, and more in the second phase. Some 120 lakh waste baskets in blue, green and red colours have been distributed to 40 lakh families in 123 municipalities for the collection of wet, dry and hazardous waste.

He said that 2,525 petrol, diesel and CNG garbage tippers are being used for garbage collection in municipalities.

Waste-to-Energy projects have been started in Guntur and Visakhapatnam and another plant with a capacity of 400 metric tonnes per day would be set up.

“The government has set up 71 integrated solid Waste Management projects, 29 waste to compost and 4 bio-mixing projects for wet waste management. Some 206 STPs have been set up at a cost of Rs 1,445 crore in 66 small municipalities having a Population of less than one lakh.

Two key bifurcation promises will become a reality soon as the Union Government is believed to have given its nod for the

establishment of two national universities inAndhra Pradesh Petroleum university in Kakinada and Tribal university in Araku. The two universities, among others, were among the promises made to the state during its bifurcation and were also part of the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014.

While the Petroleum university was supposed to be part of the proposed Petro Corridor at Kakinada in East Godavari district, the location of the Tribal university was left to the . Accordingly, the government decided to have the varsity in Paderu. The government has also acquired

land for both the universities. The Petroleum university is proposed to come up at Vakalapudi village in Kakinadau rural mandal.

The standard of government school Education is improving in the state, and the recent SSC results have shown a remarkable improvement, said Speaker Tammineni Sitaram while inaugurating Rs 1.60 crore worth of additional buildings for KGBV School in Lolugu village under his Home constituency Amadalavalasa on Monday. The new facility would be used for intermediate classes.

Focusing on the importance of girl child education, Sitaram said additional attention was being given to KGBV schools in the state. With the introduction of English medium in most

of the schools, many students were opting for government schools.

He said it was a good indication that the students of government schools and junior colleges obtained top ranks in SSC and intermediate examinations. He said that with a tie-up with the corporate educational agency, the students would improve further in examinations.

Theliteracy rateof the state is considerably lower than thenational Literacy rate, as per the 2021-22socio-economic surveyresults. The states literacy rate currently stands at 67.35 per cent, while the national rate is 72.98 per cent.

The state, however, is ahead in terms of per capita income to some extent when compared to the national position. APs per capita income has grown from 1,68,480 in 2019-20 to 1,70,215 in 2020-21, as per

the survey, which also shows some positive signs in GSDP Growth which is projected at at 1.58 per cent against the national growth of 3.8 per cent.

The survey also shows Agriculture-notes-for-state-psc-exams”>Agriculture, and peoples Empowerment sectors as its focus areas, in which the partys agenda, Navarathnalu, is a guiding force.

Besides Nadu-Nedu, the chief

minister listed the welfare measures of the government under various schemes that can promote literacy rate and quality Education in the state.

The survey also shows that AP, despite the Covid-19 pandemic, has been improving in all the 17 Sustainable Development goals (SDGs) set by the United Nations for the state to be achieved by 2030. In the 2019 ranks given by the NITI Aayog, the state ranked first in two goals, ranked second in four goals and ranked third in one goal.

Giving highest priority to the welfare schemes, Andhra Pradesh finance ministerBuggana Rejendranathpresented the annual budget for 2023-24 with an outlay of Rs 2,79,279 crore. He spared Rs 54,228 crore for different welfare schemes to be implemented in the coming fiscal.
Entire Rs 54,228 crore will be disbursed to the eligible poor through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT). The state has so far transferred Rs 1.97 lakh crore to the poor through welfare schemes in the last four years at an Average of Rs 49,000 crore per year.

The finance minister put the

at Rs 2,28,540 crore while the Capital Expenditure is Rs 31,061 crore. He said that Revenue Deficit is Rs 22,316 crore. The Fiscal Deficit is Rs 54,587 crore which is just 3.7 per cent of the projected GSDP of the state. Finance minister said that the Growth rate in AP is the highest in the country with 11.43 per cent.
While Health-sector”>Health sector got Rs 15,882 crore, school Education got Rs 29,690.71 crore. Similarly, Agriculture-notes-for-state-psc-exams”>Agriculture sector was granted Rs 11,589 crore. YSR pension scheme got Rs 21,434 crore.

The Andhra Pradesh Electricity Regulatory Commission (APERC) has asked the power distribution companies (DISCOMs) to conduct a thorough study and come up with a good financing model for promoting the use of energy-efficient appliances by domestic consumers, with a focus on the widely adopted on-bill financing system.

During a review meeting here on Sunday, APERC Chairman C.V. Nagarjuna Reddy said Energy Efficiency activities would help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and save on electricity bills. Every possible effort should be made to achieve these goals, he said.

Shalu Agarwal, senior programme lead at the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), one of Asias leading not-for-profit policy research institutions, said that the APERC deserved all praise for encouraging the consumers to use energy-efficient appliances.

The CEEW is keen

on partnering with the DISCOMs in Andhra Pradesh for implementing the demand-side management projects, she said.

Union Minister of State for Earth Sciences Dr.Jitendra Singhgave out some alarming facts about coastal erosion based on a study byNational Centre for Coastal Research(NCCR) by revealing that as much as 294.89 kms or 28.7% of the coastline inAndhra Pradeshis under varying degrees of erosion.
Districts that have seen the highest erosion of the coastline are East Godavari (89.25 kms), Krishna (57.55 kms), Nellore (53.32 kms), Visakhapatnam (25.81 kms) and Srikakulam (25.12 kms).

Asked about

the factors causing coastal erosion in AP, Minister Jitendra Singh replied that the natural factors (tropical , monsoon floods, sea level rise, extreme events and others) and anthropogenic factors (like Ports or 0harbours, damning of rivers) are responsible for coastal erosion.

Andhra Pradeshoccupies the second place in the country in terms of per capita digital payment transactions. As per the official data available till January 31, per capita transactions in Andhra Pradesh stands at 17.6, trailing only Chandigarh (38.4). The all India Average is some 3.85. In fact, Andhra Pradesh has been leading the states in the digital payment arena for the last several years in a row.

The digital payment landscape in India has undergone a transformation in the last several years, particularly after demonetisation. From 3,134 crore transactions in 2018-19, the volume of digital payment transactions has more than doubled to 6,754 crore this fiscal (as of February 6).

A cursory look into the volumes of new-age digital payment modes reveals that these have registered a substantial Growth. These modes include Bharat interface for -unified payments interface (BHIM-UPI), immediate payment service (IMPS), prepaid payment instruments, etc.

At the same time, existing payment modes such as debit cards, credit cards, national electronic funds transfer(NEFT), and real-time gross settlement (RTGS) have also grown at a fast pace.

According to data of theUnion ministry of electronics and information technology, BHIM-UPI has emerged as the preferred payment mode. It has achieved a record 461.71 crore digital payment transactions with a value of 8.31 lakh crore in January 2022. It has more than doubled in just a

year from 229 crore transactions in February 2021 to 461 crore in January 2022.