17.03.23

Meghalaya set to get its first electric train

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With the electrification of two key routes,Meghalayais set to get its first-ever electric train, theRailwayssaid in a statement.

The Northeast Frontier Railway has achieved the milestone by commissioning a 22.823 kilometre track single-line stretch of Dudhnai-Mendipathar and 34.59 kilometre track between the Abhayapuri-Pancharatna double-line section on March 15. The Central Organization for Railway Electrification (CORE) has carried out the electrification works in these sections.

Electrification will significantly improve the mobility of trains in northeast India. In addition to the reduction inpollutiondue to the shift from fossil fuel to electricity, the efficiency of the railway system in the region will also improve. This would facilitate seamless traffic and also save the time of the trains moving to and from the northeastern states apart from savings in precious foreign exchange


Assam budget: Rs 5,000 crore to create 2 lakh jobs in Ajanta Neog’s budget of many firsts

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Assam finance ministerAjanta Neogon Thursday tabled the budget for 2023-24 proposing Rs 5,000 crore over the next three years to help two lakh unemployed youths belonging to BPL and low-income families in self-employment and Rs 4,700 crore to fight poverty by providing health insurance, financial support to women, affordable housing and food security.
In many firsts, Neog has proposed a SwacchZila Puruskarof Rs 100 crore to the “Most Outstanding District Initiative”, reservation of seats in MBBS course for Assamese diaspora and a pilot project atTezpurto provide direct tap water supply that can be used for drinking and cooking purposes without any need for further treatment. High on an anticipated record-breaking expenditure of Rs 1.2 lakh crore at the end of 2022-23, Neog said the health insurance cover of Rs 5 lakh each for 57 lakh families is the biggest such scheme in the country.

Underlining that child marriage is one of the prominent reasons for high maternal and infant mortality rates of the state, Neog also proposed a state mission to make the state free of child marriage by 2026-end and allocated Rs 200 crore for the purpose.

Naveen flags off mobile vans, to boost healthcare in remote areas

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Chief ministerNaveen Patnaik flagged off insulated vaccine vans and mobile blood collection vans from his official residence in the city. The vans will roam around different districts to provide quality healthcare facilities to the people.
Flagging off the vehicles,Naveensaid they will enhance the states capacity to serve in remote areas. The health and family welfare department said the insulated vaccine van will play a very important role in transportation of temperature sensitive vaccines from vaccine stores to field-level destinations and immunization points.

It said that 10 such vaccine vans have been procured at a cost of Rs 3.32 crore. The vans will be positioned at state vaccine stores and nine regional vaccine stores in Balasore, Balangir, Berhampur, Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Koraput, Phulbani, Sambalpur and Sundargarh to manage smooth vaccine supply.

In the meantime, the mobile blood collection van will encourage and increase voluntary blood collection in remote areas. Five fully fabricated mobile blood collection vans have been procured at a cost of Rs 2.70 crore.

Soon, TN farmers can avail benefits of all schemes without visiting officials

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Thefarmerswill soon avail the services swiftly as agriculture and farmers welfare department is going digital extensively. A new portal, GRAINS (Grower Online Registration of Agriculture Input System), will soon be introduced, where details of bank account, Aadhaar number of landowners and cultivators, land details and crop cultivation details will be collected and digitised a one stop solution to avail various services.
Presenting the agriculture budget, ministerM R K Panneerselvamsaid that farmers were required to visit several officials and submit many documents in different forms to avail benefits of theschemesof agriculture-related departments. The GRAINS portal will be designed to enable the farmers to easily get benefits of various government scheme, such as crop loan, incentive for paddy and sugarcane, relief assistance under state disaster response fund and benefits from 13 agriculture and allied departments, which will be useful not only to farmers but also to government departments, the minister said.

Following its successful implementation of cashless transactions in 37 agricultural extension centres, the agriculture department is all set to expand the service to 385 block agricultural extension centres in 37 districts next year. The department will also set up e-service centres in 385 agricultural extension centres in coordination withTamil Nadue-governance agency.

Wayanad tribal rehab scheme a big failure, says report

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A report of the tribal rehabilitation development mission (TRDM), after a field verification into the rehabilitation of the extremely vulnerablePaniyaandKattunaykkasections of tribespeople inWayanaddistrict, said that the rehabilitation mission was a total failure and it blatantly violated all the rights of the tribespeople that the law assures them, including forcing them to move out of their traditional dwellings.

The report also points out that several families filed complaints with the Wayanad district collector that they were forcibly made to sign the consent form for rehabilitation. Since no arrangements were made for their livelihood, including farming, cattle rearing or collecting forest produce, many of the rehabilitated ones have gone back to Kurichyad, the field inspection found.

Kodava development board soon: Karnataka CM Basavaraj Bommai

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Chief minister Basavaraj Bommai assured that theKodava development board, which has been a long-pending demand of the community, will be set up soon. He was speaking after inaugurating aKodavahockey family tournament at the General Thimmaiah Stadium inNapoklu.

The CM, who started his speech in Kodava language, said the Kodava culture is unique. “The Kodava family hockey tournament binds families and is one of a kind event in the world,” Bommai said.

Telangana to get new narcotics bureau T-NAB

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Telanganapolice are in the process of startingTelangana-Narcotics Bureau(T-NAB) on the lines ofHyderabad-Narcotics Enforcement Wing(H-NEW) which has been operational for over a year.

T-NAB will have enforcement units across Telangana. Proposals for setting up this statewide unit have been sent to the administration and an official government order is expected to be issued soon.

T-NAB head office will be located in Hyderabad police commissionerate and will have offices infour police commissionerates in Telangana. In some rural districts, special teams will be formed

CM Jagan to release funds for Jagananna Vidya Deevena

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Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy will release funds for the Jagananna Vidya Deevena scheme by pressing a button at a function near the market yard at Thiruvuru. With that one click, he will be transferring Rs 698.68 crore to around 9.86 lakh students towards the October-December 2022 quarter directly into the bank accounts of mothers of students.

Officials said that under the scheme, which is endeavoured to provide higher education to student from poor families, the state government is reimbursing total fee on a quarterly basis to mothers of students pursuing ITI, polytechnic, degree, engineering, medicine and other courses, without any limit on number of eligible children in a family. It also provides for boarding and lodging expenses. As per the break-up, an assistance of Rs 20,000 is extended to students pursuing degree, engineering and medicine Rs 15, 000 for polytechnic students and Rs 10,000 to ITI students in two instalments. The second tranche of Jagananna Vasathi Deevena for this year will be deposited on April 11.

In Goa, boys exit secondary school twice as much as girls

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At 12.1, the dropout rate for boys at Class IX and X level in Goa remained high for yet another year, as per data released by the Union education ministry recently. The dropout rate for boys was more than double that for girls, which was 5.5%, according to the statistics compiled under the unified district information system for education (UDISE) for 2021-22.
Goa’s dropout rate for girls was much better than the national average of 12.3, while the state’s rate for boys was only slightly better than the average of 13 nationally.

Till Class VIII, students benefit from the no-detention policy under the Right to Education Act. However, post that, in Class IX and X, the repetition rate in Goa was 1.9 for boys and 1.2 for girls, which was higher than the national average of 1.1 for both boys and girls.

Maharashtra’s installed power generation maximum in India

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Maharashtrahas the highest share in installed capacity (10.9%) of electricity generation in India, states the latest state economic survey report.

The total installed capacity of electricity generation as on March 31, 2022 in the state was 37,348 MW, of which the share of private sector was 59.9%, that of public sector was 34.8% and of public-private partnership (PPP) (Ratnagiri Gas Power Project Ltd.) was 5.3%.
Share of renewable energy in installed capacity of private sector was 46% and renewable installed capacity increased by 7% in a year, the report shows.