UTTAR PRADESH

With schools closed yet again due to thesecond wave of Covid-19, theUttar Pradesh governmenthas instructed all the basic shiksha adhikaris to provide funds and grains to the beneficiaries.

Themidday meal initiative, which aims at increasing the student enrolment and attendance in schools, will be used to help the poor – as it was done in the previous year. The parents of over 1.5 crore students studying in UP government schools will now be given grains and food allowance for the period the schools remain shut.

This is to bring to your notice that even though the schools have been closed due toCovid-19, thefunds and grains of the midday mealshave to be distributed among the beneficiaries.

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur improved its rankings in the recently-announced QS World University Rankings by Subject 2023. The institute has jumped 37 places to secure the 85th position globally and 5th in India in engineering & technology category.

The institute has been ranked among the top 100 universities in the world for Computer Science & Information Systems (ranked 96, up by 13 places) and Electrical & Electronic Engineering (ranked 87, up by 21 places).

IIT-K has secured notable positions in other fields also including Mechanical, Aeronautical and Manufacturing Engineering (ranked 121) and mathematics (ranked 122). In the Natural Sciences it got 248 rank globally and 5th in India.

The QS World University Rankings by Subject is a prestigious global ranking system that evaluates universities based on their academic reputation, research impact, and employer reputation in specific subjects. The ranking is widely recognized as a benchmark for excellence in higher Education.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has asked officials to follow the ‘5E’ formula of Education, enforcement, engineering, emergency care and Environment to curb road accidents.

He also termed as “worrying” the fact that while COVID-19 claimed 23,600 lives over three years in UP, road accidents led to the loss of 21,200 lives in just one year 2022.

The will be carrying out a month-long campaign on road safety from January 5 to February 4. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said the responsibility for road safety was not just limited to one department and community effort was needed to prevent accidents.

Other than poor road engineering, over speeding, overloading, not using safety equipment and driving in inebriated state were the major causes of road accidents.

Most cases take place in large cities like Kanpur Nagar, Agra, Prayagraj, Aligarh, Bulandshahr and Mathura.

The chief minister said that efforts should be made to focus on national highways and expressways linked with these cities. He said a task force should be set up to check overloading.

On December 28, 2021, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Kanpur to inaugurate the completed section of the Kanpur Metro Rail Project.

Highlights:

The “Bina-Panki multi-product pipeline project” will also be inaugurated by the Prime Minister. Later, he will speak at IIT-54th Kanpur’s convocation ceremony.

On February 28, 2019, the central government approved the Kanpur Metro Project, which has a budget of more than Rs 11,000 crores and a five-year timeline.

A 650 million loan from the European Bank (EIB) has also been proposed for this project.

The Bina-Panki project, which spans 356 kilometers, has a capacity of 3.45 million metric tonnes per year.

The project stretches from Madhya Pradesh’s Bina refinery to Kanpur’s Panki. It was constructed at a cost of over Rs 1,500 crore. The refinery will aid in the region’s access to petroleum products.

In his ongoing attempt to ensure EMPLOYMENT to the youth of Uttar Pradesh in industrial units being set up in different sectors in the state, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath announced conditional subsidies for the investors.

The government has divided the into four categories, keeping in view the increase in industrial activities in UP, and has told the investors that they would get subsidies on various items if they provided employment to the youth as per their merits and the industry standards.

The Yogi government has recently brought a new Industrial Investment and Employment Promotion Policy 2022 to provide new opportunities for investment and employment in the state. Under the new policy, the industry has been divided into four categories namely, large, mega, super mega and ultra mega, to increase investment in the state.

Under this, a large industry will have to give employment to at least 300 youths of UP every year whereas mega industry will have to provide job opportunities to at least 600 youths every year. Similarly, super mega and ultra mega industries will have to provide employment to at least 1,500 youths each every year.

The chief minister said that if an industry provided employment to 75 per cent Women in its staff in addition to meeting the minimum requirement of providing jobs, it would get a booster subsidy under different heads according to different categories of the industry.

Under the scheme, mega, super mega, and ultra mega industries will get booster subsidies of 2 per cent and 4 per cent each on provision of employment to 75 per cent women along with ensuring minimum employment as well as more than double and three times of the minimum employment, respectively.

After implementing the new policy, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath instructed the higher officials to give the benefit of subsidy to the investors in due time so that industries could be set up on a large scale in the state at the earliest.

To ensure overall development of Ayodhya, about Rs 30,000 crore is going to be infused for various projects. While theYogi Adityanathgovernment will pool in 60% of the funds the remaining will be provided by agencies under the central government.

The maximum amount is going to be spent on improving the road connectivity and boosting , saidVishal Singh, vice chairman of Ayodhya development authority and municipal commissioner. By 2024, Ayodhya is set to get on the global map as Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Corridor is expected to get ready by then along with the local airport.

The NHAI has also accepted majority of the proposals forwarded by the State Government pertaining to widening of the existing national highways and building new roads.An amount of Rs 6,657 crore is being utilized for widening of theChaurasi Kosiparikrama marg. Similarly, Rs 5,924 crore is going to be used for Ayodhya bypass road.

Uttar Pradesh has distributed around 98.53 lakh MT of free food grains under PMGKAY and 23.39 lakh MT of free ration has been distributed separately by the government, which is over and above the ration being distributed under PMGKAY. The total distribution amounts to around 1.22 crore MT.

In order to help the migrant workers, poor and underprivileged sections of Society to tide over hardships caused by the pandemic, the has been providing free 5 kg food grains to over 15 crore beneficiaries of the state. Under the scheme, each beneficiary receives 3 kg wheat and 2 kg rice. As per the Central government directives, the distribution was carried out entirely through PoS devices with biometric Aadhaar and dealer authentication in a transparent manner.

During 2020, of the total allocation of 58.02 lakh MT food grains under PMGKAY-2020 (April-November 2020), approximately 56.21 lakh MT food grains (i.e. around 96.87 per cent) were distributed in the state. In 2021 (PMGKAY-III), out of a total allocation of around 14.71 lakh MT food grains (May -June 2021) approximately 14,13,984.816 MT (i.e. around 96.07 per cent) food grains have been distributed by the state government.

While during PMGKAY-IV so far, against the allocation of 29,43,719.040 MT of grains around 28,18,527.091 MT has been given which is around 95.75 per cent. The distribution will continue till November.

Along with PMGKAY, the UP government is also distributing free ration and giving double relief to the people. The distribution by the state continued from April to June in 2020, while in 2021, the state government made the distribution for the months of June, July, and August. Uttar Pradesh has more than 1,30,07,969 beneficiaries under the Antyodaya Anna Yojana and over 13,41,77, 983 under priority household cardholders. The state has over 80,000 fair-price shops.

The distribution for October under PMGKAY commenced on October 19 and till October 26 , more than 2.88 crore ration cards received 6,76,398.649 MT of ration which comes around 80.04 per cent of the total ration cards and 82.38 per cent of total allotment

In a first, online verification of birth and death certificates is being carried out in the state to help beneficiaries avail the benefits of government schemes, reportsIsha Jain. The initiative taken by director,Census Operations(DCO),Uttar Pradesh, Sheetal Verma is aimed at ensuring prompt service delivery to beneficiaries through IT-enabled facilities for automated verification of birth and death certificates with minimum human interference.

The swift execution became possible with the first-of-its-kind online verification of birth and death certificates being carried out in the state to help beneficiaries avail the benefits of government schemes.