04-05.12.22

NE govts rush to meet new rural housing deadline

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State governments in the region are on their toes to meet the new deadline of March 2024 for providing houses for the rural poor under thePradhan Mantri AwaasYojana-Gramin(PMAY-G).

According to the written reply tabled in theLok Sabha by Union minister of state for rural development, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, while about 85% of the 2.49 crore houses sanctioned by various states and Union territories under PMAY-G scheme have been completed nationally, 50% to 80% of the sanctioned houses remain incomplete in the northeast. The Union ministry of rural development is implementing PMAY-G with effect from April 1, 2016 to provide assistance to construct pucca houses in the country with basic amenities.

While the initial timeline for PMAY-G was 2022, the deadline has now been extended to March 2024. Under PMAY-G, the minimum size of a house is 25 square meter, including a dedicated area for hygienic cooking.

Except for Tripura, which has achieved noticeable progress by completing 79.77% of 2.49 lakh houses sanctioned under the scheme, about half of the task remains incomplete for Meghalaya and Manipur, which achieved 52.68% and 50.66% of the total target as on December 7. In Meghalaya and Manipur, 65,155 and 36,454 houses have been sanctioned.

The hill states of Nagaland andArunachal Pradeshare at the bottom of the tally in NE as they have completed the construction of only 23.42% and 27.28% of the 22,351 and 35,987 sanctioned houses respectively. Mizoram has completed the construction of 33.56% (6,167) of the 18,373 sanctioned houses.

Maternal mortality ratio in Assam highest in country

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Assamhas recorded a marginal improvement inMaternal Mortality Ratio(MMR) but continues to be the worst performer in the country.
According to the Registrar General of Indias (RGI) latest ‘Special Bulletin on Maternal Mortality for the period 2018 to 2020 released on Tuesday, the state has recorded 195 deaths per lakh live births, which is an improvement from the previous figure of 215 in the period 2016 to 2018.

Kerala has the lowest MMR of 19 per lakh live births. The country’s Average MMR declined from 113 in 2016-18 to 97 in 2018-20, according to the special bulletin.

According to the National Family Health Survey-5 (2019-21) published earlier this year, 25% of Women aged 18-29 marry before reaching the legal minimum age of marriage, while the Percentage of women marrying before the legal minimum age is 32% in Assam. The prevalence of anaemia among women is 60% or more in eight Indian states and Assam, along with Tripura, comes under this category.
Though institutional delivery, referring to delivery of children in a health facility, is being promoted to reduce maternal mortality, the northeastern states, including Assam, stood below the national average of 86%. Assam had 84% births in health facilities, against almost 100% births in , Goa, Kerala, Lakshadweep andTamil Nadu.

Natl seminar on psychological research in Sanskar City Clg

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A two-day National Seminar on emerging trends and challenges in educational and psychological research was conducted by the Psychological forum Chhattisgarh atSanskar city collegeof Education, Thakurtola ofRajnandgaon. A total of 95 entries from different states comprisingOrissa, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Manipur, and more came for the National Research, said an official release. A total of 50 papers, 30 in offline mode and 20 in offline mode were read during the seminar.

The book is Co-authored by assistant professor of Psychology of Pandit Ravishankar Shukla University Rolly Tiwari and Basant Kumar Sonbar, head of Psychology department of Kamaladevi Rathi Womens Post Graduate College.

One in 10 bank frauds in Chennai involves insiders: Study

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As per a study, nearly one in every ten bank fraud cases in Chennai involved a banker and nearly 43% of them were brought to Police‘s attention only after one year.

This not only makes investigation difficult but also reduces the chances of recovering the , according to a government-funded study by city criminologists involving 400 fraud cases at banks. Corroborating this, official data states of the 20 cases where money involved was more than 1 cr, city police was able to recover the amount in only one case.

Kerala finance minister KN Balagopal skipped many queries on economy’

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The government has ignored most of the questions raised by the opposition as well as ruling party members in the assembly on the actual position of the state finances.

Not even one third of unstarred questions (written questions and answers) to finance minister K N Balagopal in the recently-concluded seventh session of the assembly has been answered.

Out of the 321 questions asked to the FM, only 105 (32.7%) questions have been answered, shows the data from the assembly. This is in violation of assembly rules and despite the fact that the finance department itself had issued a circular on December 3, two days before the beginning of the assembly session, asking all the officials to ensure that the assembly questions are answered on the same day, without delay.

Residential rents soared in 2022: NoBroker report

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Residential rents in Bengaluru increased on Average by 12% in 2022, significantly higher than that in recent preceding years, according to data on property portal NoBroker. Rentals for properties near offices and in gated communities went up by 25%.NoBrokerco-founderSaurabh Gargtold TOI that the rent increase in recent years had been around 3-5%. The platform uses data from rental agreements made on the portal to assess the increase in rent.

The steep increase in rent is motivating people to buy houses, NoBroker said in its report for 2022. In a survey, 32% of tenants mentioned rent increase as the major factor in buying houses, an increase from 18% in 2021.

On the NoBroker platform, Garg said, most properties in 2022 were rented out within 24 hours, compared to 15-16 days before Covid. Around 35-40% houses in gated communities were rented out within just six hours. The platforms analysis shows that 73% of landlords feel it is easier to rent out their properties now. This is a substantial jump from 41% in 2021.

Telangana sees sharp drop in maternal mortality rate

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has seen a significant reduction in maternal mortality rate (MMR) in recent years. As per the recently released Sample Registration System (SRS) Special Bulletin 2018-20, the maternal mortality rate (MMR) in the state has dropped to 43 points from 56 points in 2017-19 reducing by 13 points.

Telangana stood at the third position in the country with the lowest number of deaths, after Kerala and Maharashtra. MMR is calculated as the number of maternal deaths per 1,00,000 live births.

The national Average MMR stands at 97, almost double of Telangana. MMR was 92 at the time of the formation of the state and has reduced by 53 points since then. The State Government has ascribed the decrease to measures in child and maternal care taken by the government.

State govt eyes capital shift to Vizag after Ugadi

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The proposed shifting of the capital to Visakhapatnam is likely to become a reality afterUgadithis year, if the talk in the YSR Congress is analysed. Several ministers have been talking about the shifting and the chief ministers office has made up its mind to move in April, sources said.

Sources said that chief minister YS JaganMohan Reddyhas decided to move to Visakhapatnam, which was declared as the executive capital. However, he is waiting for the cases pending in The Supreme Court challenging his decision.

Goa Govt to analyse impact of IT, startup policy

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The department of information technology, electronics and communications has moved to identify the number of startups and IT firms operating in the state.

Info Tech Corporation of Goa (ITG) has been asked to appoint an agency that will carry out a study of Goas IT ecosystem and also prepare a research report recommending best practices that can benefit startups and IT companies.

The comprehensive report needs to analyse the effectiveness of the departments policies and schemes, and the impact that Goas startups and IT firms have on the local economy.

9 crore voters on Maharashtra electoral rolls, 10.5 lakh fewer than a year ago

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Maharashtra has 9 crore voters according to the final electoral roll published Thursday, ahead of the spate of civic polls expected in state. It is 10.5 lakh lower than in January 2022, but has shown recovery of 4.4 lakh since November 2022, when the last draft was published.

Officials say the number of voters has reduced over the past year due to multiple factors, including Migration and a major purging of duplicate entries. “We examined 40 lakh duplicate entries, of which 16 lakh were deleted.

Of the total voters, 4.7 crore are men, 4.3 crore Women and 4,735 voters are transgender. Nearly 6.7 lakh are people with disabilities. Mumbai has 96.3 lakh voters, of which 71.8 lakh are in the suburbs and 24.4 lakh in the island city.

In the latest state electoral roll published, the 30-39 year age category has the highest number of voters accounting for 2 crore while the 40-49 category follows close behind with 1.9 crore. However, the 18-19 year age group accounts for the lowest number of voters, with just 6.7 lakh, the data shows.

In the 20-29 year age group, the number of voters were also much below the Population of the cohort, the data showed. While 20-29-year-olds account for 18% of the state’s population, the number of registered voters account for 12.8% of the population. This means 30% of the 20-29 year age group have not registered to vote.