UTTARAKHAND

TheCentrehas released a budget of Rs 216 crore for the mid-day meal scheme in Uttarakhands schools and using it, the states Education department plans to extend the benefit to more schools, especially 55 more madrassas. The scheme is already running in several madrassas ofUttarakhand.

In Uttarakhand, nearly 6.7 lakh students from classes 1 to 8 benefit from the midday meal scheme.

Education department officials said that a of the midday meal scheme has also been conducted to get feedback fromvarious stakeholders. They said hearing from the stakeholders will help improve the schemes implementation.

The four-day-long Shri Anna Mahotasava-2023 in Dehradun was inaugurated byUttarakhandchief ministerPushkar SinghDhami on Saturday. During the inaugural session,Dhamiemphasised the aggressive promotion of , highlighting their Climate resilience and nutritional benefits.

The event was attended by Uttarakhand Agriculture-notes-for-state-psc-exams”>Agriculture minister Ganesh Joshi andUttar Pradeshagriculture ministerSP Shahi, who commended Uttarakhand’s efforts in promoting millet farming. Shahi expressed his interest in adopting Uttarakhand’s Marketing model to promote millets in Uttar Pradesh.

“Traditionally, Uttarakhand has been a hub for minor millets. The state has successfully developed an integrated system for the collection, packaging, and sale of millets, providing competitive rates to farmers. I am here with my marketing team to learn the intricacies of this marketing model so that we can adopt it in Uttar Pradesh as well,” said SP Shahi.

Uttarakhand has undertaken various initiatives to boost millet farming, including the inclusion of millet products in various government schemes. According to BVRC Purushottam, the secretary of the agriculture department, who was also present at the event, “Uttarakhand currently produces nearly 2 lakh metric tons of millets annually, and the agriculture department aims to increase production by 10% each year.”

Under the Lakhpati Didi Yojna scheme, the State Government has set a target of helping 1.25 lakh Women become ‘lakhpati’ (millionaires) by 2025 by involving them in direct procurement of raw millets from farmers and supplying them to the government.

The state higher Education department is planning to bring online education on a single platform for colleges. Officials said a project is on the anvil which will help thousands of students enrolled in -run degree colleges and universities across the state access online classes on a single platform. According to state higher education minister Dhan Singh Rawat, the decision has been taken to make sure that the quality of education doesnt get compromised and students are well prepared for their semester exams. He further said that the students should not get complacent and continue with their exam preparation.

In an example of inter-departmental cooperation the Health and Women Empowerment and Child Development (WECD) departments have decided to use the one-stop centres in the State as pre-birthing waiting rooms for the pregnant women.

These centres are being operated by the WECD department and the Health department would develop them as the waiting rooms for pregnant women where they can stay for a few days before child birth. The government of India has accepted the proposal of the health department and would provide the necessary budget for the endeavour. The health secretary R Rajesh Kumar told The Pioneer that the government of India has approved the amended Programme Implementation Plan (PIP) under the National Health Mission (NHM). He said that it is generally seen that the pregnant women visiting the district headquarters from the rural areas for check up and childbirth face problems staying in the cities. Apart from the facility of comfortable stay, the doctors would do regular health check ups of the pregnant women in one stop centre, he said.

In Uttarakhand the WECD department has a one stop centre in every district. The WECD secretary HC Semwal told this correspondent that the department has accepted the proposal of the health department in this regard and the step would be extremely beneficial for the women. The centres would also help in increasing institutional deliveries.

For the upcomingChar Dham yatra– scheduled to commence on April 22 –Uttarakhandpolice will train personnel of their tourist wing in south Indian languages, especially and Telugu. This, they said, is aimed at facilitating “a smooth trip for pilgrims coming from the southern states, helping them overcome the language barrier”.

In the previous Char Dham yatras, it was seen that some pilgrims from the southern states faced problems because they couldn’t understand Hindi or English but only their native south Indian language. To add to their troubles, cops of the tourist Police wing failed to understand their language. To solve this problem to some extent, this time it has been decided to train the tourist police personnel in the basics of Tamil and Telugu.

In the ongoing hearing of the Sukhatal beautification project, the State https://exam.pscnotes.com/Environment-notes-for-state-psc-exams”>Environment-impact-assessment”>Environment Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAA) informed theUttarakhand that it never received an application forSukhatal development, when it’s mandatory for the state to get environmental clearance (EC) fromSEIAAbefore starting any such project.

The court was also informed that Sukhatal is part of a wetland. The HC, which had issued notices to the SEIAA and state wetlands management authority during the last hearing, has again sent a notice to the latter. During the last hearing, the court had ordered to stop all construction on Sukhatal lake bed and the stay is still in effect.

In the report of NFHS-4 released in the year 2015-16, this ratio was 888 girls to 1000 boys. Sonika said that this is an important social improvement and is necessary for all round development of girl child.She added that the Health Services in Uttarakhand have also improved. The Percentage of institutional delivery in Uttarakhand has also increased by 21 percent as compared to previous year. The percentage of the institutional deliveries is now at 83.20.

The Mission Director stated that this increase is due to the improvement and development of the medical facilities provided in the hospitals.

Deployment of female doctors and better delivery facilities are also the reasons for this raise in the percentage, she claimed. The NHM Director, Dr Saroj Nethani stated that the improvement in the statistics of NHFS-5 is the result of an effective action plan. She added that there is also an improvement in the vaccination drive. The vaccination percentage has increased from 57.60 percent to 80.80 percent.

This increase of 40.28 per cent undoubtedly shows the improvement and qualitative change in the vaccination drive. This improvement in statistics of the girl child ratio and other health services are indeed a moment to be proud of for the people of Uttarakhand.

Researchers at Roorkee-based Central Building Research Institute (CBRI) have developed a battery-poweredsmart face maskfor labourers deployed at building construction sites.

The affordable smart face mask will give protection to workers suffering from asthma, lung infections or other pulmonary disease from dust, they said. The researchers said the smart face mask gives pure air for breathing to users as it has multi-layer filters such as electrostatic, HEPA and laser arrangements.