GUJARAT

In a bid to conserve rivers, the willobserve Nadi Utsavfrom December 26 to 30, with various programmes being planned on the banks of major rivers of the state. The government will also take up a drive to clean rivers in the last week of the month.

Chief minister Bhupendra Patel will flag off the state-wide river conservation programme at a function to be organised on the banks of the Tapi in Surat on December 26, government spokesperson JituVaghaniinformed on Wednesday. A number of programmes including marathons, aartis and debates will be held on the banks of the Sabarmati, Narmada and Tapi. The government will pay its respects to rivers that are the lifeline of our people, the minister said.

The state government will observe December 25 the birth anniversary of former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee as Governance“>Good Governance Day and a number of functions will be organized through the week in different districts, Vaghani said.

Gujaratgovernment has signed around 20 MoUs worth Rs. 24185.22 crore. This will raise around 36,925 new EMPLOYMENT opportunities. The MoUs were signed in the presence of Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel and Minister of State forIndustries, Jagdish Panchal at Gandhingar.

Patel said that Prime MinisterShri Narendra Modihas laid a strong foundation of Gujarats holistic development with this summit and it has made Gujarat a leading destination for global investments. Gujarat government is following footsteps of ShriNarendra Modito ensure more industrial investment through positive business policies and supportive Environment for Growth.

Industries from chemicals, agrochemicals, technical textiles, pharmacy and agricultural machinery sectors have shown interest in the investment. The investment will be done at Dahej, Bharuch, Dholera, Vadodara, Halol and various other places.

Gujarat chief minister Bhupendra Patel launched the seventh phase of state-wide Seva Setu programme from Manipur in Sanand, Ahmedabad district which will be held in the state till January 5, 2022.

A total of 56 different Services will be made available to the citizens through 2500 Seva Setu programme across the state.

CM also visited various stalls set up under Seva Setu and interacted with the beneficiaries and also requested the beneficiaries to avail various government schemes.

IBM Software Labs, as part of its expansion in Gujarat, is planning to set up a state-of-the-art product engineering, design and software development center. Although the company had announced that it was working to establish the proposed centre in Ahmedabad, it is also exploring possibilities in GIFT City, said sources.

Six decades after its formation, thedry stateofGujaratfaces the challenge to defend its policy of on purchase, possession and consumption ofliquorin the state after the Gujarat High Court on Monday dismissed its preliminary objections to petitions questioning certain provisions of the legislation mainly on the ground of Right to Privacy.

The bench discarded the State Government‘s argument that provisions of the Bombay Prohibition Act were upheld by the Bombay high court and later by The Supreme Court in 1951 and therefore, any question about validity of the present Gujarat Prohibition Act is not maintainable before the high court, but before the apex court only.

The present petitions question prohibition of import, transfer, possession and buying of liquor, ban on a person’s entry in Gujarat in the state of intoxication, prohibition on selling liquor to anyone except permit holder, permit to use or consumer liquor on warships, troopships and in messes and canteen of armed forces.

Comparing the figure with other states, in the same period Odisha increased the budget spending by 55%, Maharashtra 51%, Rajasthan 50% and Madhya Pradesh 47%. Among the major states, only Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal were behind Gujarat. Year-on-year increase was just 1.6% from 2019-20 to 2020-21.

The RS data further revealed that 93% of the funds in 2020-21 went to the rural areas (National Rural Health Mission) and remaining 7% to urban areas (National Urban Health Mission). The year was the most crucial for the health spending due to the pandemic that swept across the region and caused high mortality in several cities including Ahmedabad and Surat.

National Health Policy 2017 categorically instructed the states to increase health expenditure as a Percentage of GDP from existing 1.15% to 2.5%. In case of Gujarat, the figure remained around 0.6% of the GDP.

The State Organ and Tissue Transplant Organization (Sotto) made amendments to Gujarat Deceased Organ and Tissue Transplantation Guidelines (G-Dot) documents, including removing the need to producedomicile papersand the upper age limit to receivecadaver organs.

“The directives 13.1 of G-Dothas been amended to remove the need for a domicile certificate. Directive 13.10 (B) will have a five-point roster where organs 1, 3, and 5 will go to non-government hospitals from a common pool and 2 and 4 to government hospitals. The fee under directive 13.10 (C) for registration of cadaver donation has been waived off.

Exports ofmarine products from Gujarattook a beating in fiscal 2020-21 due to the disruption in export markets, especially China.

The states marine exports declined by 17% to Rs 4,137 crore in 2020-21 from Rs 4,985 crore in the previous financial year, shows data from theSeafoodExporters Association of India (SEAI).

Exports in volume terms dipped by about 20% to 2 lakh tonnes in 2020-21 compared to 2.51 lakh tonnes. Seafood exports from Gujarat have declined due to Covid-19 induced disruptions in export markets, especially China, loss of fishing days on account of the pandemic as well as depleting catches, said Jagdish Fofandi, national president, Seafood Exporters Association of India (SEAI).

The decline in exports to China pulled down overall exports from the state, which is among the top seafood exporters in India.

Seafood exports to China plummeted by 41% to Rs 1,287 crore in 2020-21 from Rs 2,197 crore in 2019-20. Exports in volumes dropped to71,637 tonnes from 1.26 lakh tonnes during the same period. Exports to Southeast Asia and the Middle East also declined. However, the reductions were not as steep as China.

TheCentral Pollution Control Board(CPCB) has not carried out sampling for the comprehensive environmental pollution index (CEPI) since 2019. Industrial entities fromGujaratraised this issue with the Union Environment ministry.

Representatives from the Gujarat Chamber of Commerce and (GCCI) on Tuesday met senior officials in the ministry and raised the issues of CEPI sampling and hazardous Waste Management. GCCI said that the performance of common effluent treatment Plants (CETPs) in the state has improved over the last few year, but CPCB last carried out CEPI sampling in 2018 and after that had declared the Ankleshwar, Vapi, Vadodara,Vatva, Narol, Surat, Rajkot industrial clusters “critically polluted” and Bhavnagar as “severely polluted”. These classifications did not follow the revised CEPI guidelines of 2016.