BIHAR

Chief ministerNitish Kumar inaugurated the two-day Medanta Conclave-2023 on ‘Recent Advances in Medical Sciences’.

Medanta group chairman and eminent cardiac surgeon, Dr Naresh Trehan, while addressing the gathering on the occasion, appreciated the development in the field of Health in Bihar and said that health facilities in Patna was like those in other metro cities.

During the conclave, doctors from different parts of the country talked on the extra corporal treatment in the critical area, role of youth in evolution of medical allopathy, chronic kidney disease, retrograded internal surgery, organ donation and heart transplantation, and damage control in trauma among other issues.

Currently Bihar has total power allocation of 6560MW from NTPCs Plants, in which NTPCs eastern region-1 units are contributing 5245MW.
A total of eight projects located in Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal under NTPC eastern region-I have an installed power generation capacity of 10,510MW, while 3720MW capacity is under construction.
NTPC eastern region-1 spokespersonVishwanath Chandansaid Bihar has total power allocation of 6560MW from NTPCs plants in which eastern region-1 units are contributing and ensuring continuous power supply of 5,245MW.

Bihar is left with around 8 lakh doses of Covid-19 vaccine as it prepares to vaccinate the target group of 1.80 crore Population of 45 years and above.

The states immediate concern remains availability of Vaccines as well as sufficient number of data entry operators as it plans to ramp up its vaccination session sites from existing 1,700 to 2,500 in the next few days to meet the vaccination requirement of the 45 years and above age group.

Given the shortage, the state is rotating vaccines from underperforming cold chain points to districts where vaccine utilisation was more, adding to issues.

The Health department plans to use its existing health sub-centres as session sites. Of the 10,800 health sub-centres, there are only around 3,000 facilities housed in three-room accommodation, which is the minimum requirement for a vaccination session site.

In an effort to promote the states entrepreneurial ecosystem, the state industries department has organised aninvestors meet Bihar Connect 23 for Biharstartups.

Startups from various industries are able to gain exposure and establish connections with investors under one roof, thanks to the industries department andBiharConnect 23. Events like this inspire the youth to start their own enterprises and contribute to the development of Society and the state, said Sadhana Jha, director of a Robotics startup.

The IMD and IIT-Patna signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on Saturday for research in areas related to weather and extreme event monitoring, forecasting, development of various meteorological sensors and devices for meteorological applications and technology commercialization through local startup companies and entrepreneurs.

Mohapatra encouraged local entrepreneurs and startups to enter into the commercial production of meteorological and environmental monitoring sensors, which has a large market not just in India but all over Southeast Asia.

Health ministerMangal Pandeysaid that the department had been developing a strategy to prioritise family planning even during the Covid-19 pandemic.Mission Parivar Vikaswould run throughout the state till January 29 to educate the people about family planning, he added.
Sources claimed that a couple contact campaign would be held from January 10 to 16, and family planning Services offered from January 17 to 29 as part of the mission.

Mission ParivarVikas Abhiyanwill be conducted in all medical colleges, hospitals, and public health institutions. Interested and eligible couples will also be encouraged to adopt temporary and permanent family planning measures during the campaign.

It is a project that has touched the lives of some 44,000 households, spread across 240 villages. To put it simply, these people now have something they never had before electricity.

Nothing can capture the project better than this data point: In January 2018, India had 63 microgrids, or networks that generated and distributed electricity in a particular area, with generation capacity of 1.9 MW. A year down the line, this number has increased by at least 373 microgrids and 12.8 MW of capacity, not counting the 11,961 standalone systems.

Bihar has built the countrys largest microgrids, standalone systems cluster. The country could draw useful lessons from it. The experience of companies like Mera Gao Power and Husk Power in providing microgrid and standalone solutions to UN-electrified villages has not been good, mainly because of collection issues and interference from local powers.

Mining department minister Janak Ram said the would invite open tender for the authorised sand ghats after completion of the district survey report (DSR) in the wake of the Supreme Courts directive recently.

The mining department had started the process of auction of authorised sand ghats in eight districts from October 1, but it was stopped on the order of the NGT, causing huge loss to the state exchequer. The state government then moved The Supreme Court against the NGTs order.

The NGT had directed the state government to undertake further exercise for preparation of a fresh DSR for Banka. This led to stalling the process of auction of the sand ghats in other districts as well.

In a significant step towards bringing rural areas on the real-timeAir Qualitymonitoring map of India, theIndian Institute of Technology(IIT) Kanpur in association with partners is spearheading a project to deploy 1,362 air qualitymonitoring sensorsat block levels in Uttar Pradesh andBihar.
Similar models will later be replicated in rural areas of other states. The rural districts of India have, so far, not managed to be part of the national discourse on air quality as no baseline data is, currently, available from rural areas.

The project aims to deploy low-cost sensors, the first of its kind in rural India. Various pilots for deployment of air quality sensors have already been done in various urban areas but there is little or no understanding of air quality in rural areas in India.