PUNJAB

Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) has developed and recommended a high-yielding PMH-13 variety of maize during this kharif season for cultivation in Punjab. The new variety can be grown under climatic conditions of the agrarian state.

The Average yield of the hybrid maize variety was 24 quintals per acre and it took on an average 97 days to mature.

It bears long conico-cylindrical ears with Light orange flint grains. It is moderately resistant to maydis leaf blight, charcoal rot (post flowering stalk rot) and maize stem borer.

Ahead of paddy season, power demand surpasses 9,400 MW in Punjab

With the rise in mercury, states power demand crossed 9,400 MW today. In the past one week, an increase of 2,300 MW has been witnessed in demand.

Despite no office supply load on May 13 (Saturday), the power demand touched 9,418 MW. The power demand would likely touch 15,500 MW in July during the peak paddy season.

Punjab chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Sunday wrote to Union minister for consumer affairs, food and public distribution Piyush Goyal seeking release ofrural development fund(RDF) at 3% of the minimum support price (MSP) amounting to Rs 54.64 per quintal for 2020-21 kharif Marketing season instead of 1% according to the revised provisional cost sheet issued by the ministry.

The chief minister termed the unilateral reduction in rate of RDF as violative of the federal structure as well as the statutory provisions as per Section 5 of Punjab Rural Development Act, 1987. The had on March 17 submitted details of RDF receipt and expenditure during 2018-19 to 2020-21 as per information sought by the department of food and public distribution (DFPD). The 2020-21 kharif marketing season started from October 1, 2020, and would end on September 30.

As the Punjab government has been attacking the central government for withholding its 2% RDF amounting to Rs 800 crore, the Centre had apprised Lok Sabha on March 16 that the RDF has been withheld because the state government was using it for the purposes not fully in line with the revised principles on February 24 last year.

The accounts department of Haryana Shehri Vikas Pradhikaran (HSVP) opened and operated a secret bank account to siphon to the private builders and their associates in Punjabs Zirakpur andDera Bassi.

It came to Light on Wednesday when the HSVPs chief controller of finance wrote to Panchkula Police for investigation and registration of a case. The secret bank account is linked to Panchkulas estate office and the fraudulent transactions are worth more than Rs 100 crore, while the internal audit team has, so far, got to the details of transactions worth Rs 72 crore.

ThePunjaband Haryana has made it clear that exclusion of married daughters in the Punjab governments policy for compassionate appointments is patently discriminatory.

The HC was of the view that once a daughter is always a daughter while a son might change on account of the fact that he is married and has to look after his wife, who could have serious differences with her in-laws.

Therefore, in such cases, a son would get a right of consideration even if married and not being on good terms with his parents, whereas a married daughter having a good relationship with the deceased government employee and being in a position to look after the remaining spouse would be excluded.

HaryanaandPunjabhave been slow in making in the first half of 2022-23, with Haryana spending 15% of its budget estimates for the financial year and Punjab just 17.3% of its budget estimates.

Haryana had spent 40% on capital expenditure in the first half of the last financial year, while Punjab spent 23.4% andHimachal Pradesh28.2% . The study conducted by SBI’s research team has found that Uttarakhand (19.7%), Rajasthan (24%) and Telangana (26.5%) are also in the same category.

The study has also found that Himachal Pradesh spent 38% of the budget estimates on Capital Formation in the first half of this financial year.

Among the 19 states selected, Kerala spent the highest amount of 43.4% of its budget estimates on the capital expenditure in the first half, followed by poll-bound Gujarat (39.8%),Madhya Pradesh(39.1%), Himachal Pradesh (38.4%) andTamil Nadu(38.3%).

The stubble burning season has come to an end with the cumulative “fire counts” inPunjabandHaryanarecorded by Nasa satellites in September to November being the highest in five years.

As per data from Nasa’s VIIRS 375m satellite, 86,606 fire counts were detected in the two states from September 1 to November 29, a 7.3% increase over the same period last year.
The data also reveals a sharp increase in burning in Haryana as compared with the 2020 season. The number of fire counts in Punjab this year was 76,680, as opposed to 75,193 last year, and 9,926 in Haryana, up from 5,506 in 2020.

Meanwhile, an analysis done by System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting And Research (SAFAR), the forecasting body under the Union ministry of earth sciences, shows that the share of stubble burning to Delhi’s PM2.5 in the second week of November (November 9-13) was 30%. The contribution of local sources was 52% and external sources (emissions within 200-km range of Delhi) was 18% was during the same period. However, as the impact of stubble burning became negligible to just 4% in the last week of November (November 23-27), the share of local sources of pollution in Delhi’s PM2.5 rose to 78%, while external sources remained constant at 18%, the analysis noted.