19-20.09.21

After a gap of five years, the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) has earned a profit of Rs 1446 crore for the years 2020-21, against the loss of Rs 1,158 crores in the previous fiscal years (2019-20).

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The information was shared by Pspcl chairman-cum-managing director A Venu Prasad after the Board of all directors approved the PSPCLs annual accounts for the year 2020-21 in its meeting, which was also attended by Additional Chief Secretary (Power) Anurag Aggarwal, Principal Secretary (Finance) KAP Sinha.

At the same time, Prasad hoped that on financial side and improvements in operations side have their ultimate impact during tariff fixation and PSPCL would keep on serving the electricity consumers with more passion in future and keep on providing quality power supply in the State.

Sharing details, PSPCL CMD said that the main reasons of profit mainly include reduction in finance cost of Rs 1,306 crore due to UDAY scheme, increase in carrying cost of Rs 577 crore for delayed payment of subsidy, increase in grant by Rs 570 crore on account of loss funding of previous years and increase in delayed payment surcharge of Rs 156 crore from consumers.

Punjab Government has provided subsidy of Rs 6,057 crores towards its commitment of free power to Agriculture-notes-for-state-psc-exams”>Agriculture sector, Rs 1,990 crores towards keeping the per unit energy rate to Rs five for Industrial Sector, and Rs 1,610 crores towards full bill waiver (400 units for a bill of two months) of eligible SC, BC and BPL families, he added.

The Himachal Pradesh Government has urged the Centre to reduce the GST rate from 18 to 5 per cent by adding a specific entry related to ropeways and other unconventional modes of transportation in the category of services covered under 5 per cent GST.

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In a letter to Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur apprised her that Himachal had taken a decision to use the concept of ropeways for transportation of passengers and goods throughout the state.

Thakur said the government had created Ropeways and Rapid Transportation System Development Corporation (RTDC) as a single nodal agency for the construction of ropeways and other mass rapid transportation systems. Therefore, the ropeways would not act merely as the tourist attraction but also help in providing sustainable means of transport in rural areas.

More than 6,000 beneficiaries have so far availed the benefit of One Nation One Ration Card (ONORC) scheme since its implementation in Uttarakhand. The secretary of food and civil supplies, B S Manral told The Pioneer that 1,303 migrants from other states have taken the benefit of the scheme while a total of 835 natives of the states who have changed the districts within the state have availed the scheme. He said that the process of digitization and Aadhaar seeding of 99.87 per cent ration cards under the National Food Security scheme has been completed. There are 14.03 Lakh such cards with 61 lakh units in the state. Manral added that under the State Food security scheme the state has 9.65 lakh ration cards. There are more than 23 lakh total ration cards in Uttarakhand.

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The one nation one ration card scheme strives to enable national portability of ration card. The scheme is being implemented under National Act (NFSA). Under the scheme all the ration card holders can avail the benefit from Fair Price Shops (FPS) anywhere in the country. For availing this benefit the beneficiaries need to make a call on toll free number 14,445 and inform the place they have shifted to. The service would then tell the nearest FPS to which the beneficiary can take the ration. The FPS concerned would then do a simple authentication based on bio-metric system and Aadhaar and provide the ration to the displaced card holder. The One Nation One Ration Card scheme was initially started in four states in August 2019 and it is now implemented in the entire country.

The public distribution system in Uttar Pradesh has undergone complete transformation as in the last six months 1,61,256 new ration cards have been made by the state government under the National Food Security Act (NFSA), taking the total number of ration card holders in the state to 3,60,12,758.

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Besides, the has facilitated linking of almost 100 per cent (99.79 per cent) of the ration cards with Aadhaar card to bring transparency into the Public Distribution System, which is a milestone in itself.

This year, the UP government provided free ration to 15 crore people in July and August amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The monthly ration includes three kilograms of wheat and two kilograms of rice to each card holder.

According to the officials of the Food department, providing ration to the poor and needy is one of the priorities of the Yogi government.

Jharkhand reported as many as 10 deaths due to medical negligence in the year 2020, the fifth highest among States and Union Territories in India, the latest Crime in India report released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) has revealed.

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The first wave of Covid-19 pandemic hit the tribal State in March 2020, leading to a crisis of beds in hospitals and drugs used for treating Covid patients. While the medical in the State was gradually enhanced to face the Covid crisis, many patients had to suffer during the initial phase of the pandemic, sources from hospitals said.

As per NCRB records, Uttar Pradesh reported the highest number of deaths due to medical negligence in 2020, followed by Rajasthan, Telangana and Madhya Pradesh. At least 29 people died due to medical negligence in BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh, while 23 died in Rajasthan, 16 in Telangana and 11 in Madhya Pradesh during this period.

As per records with the state Health department, about 1000 Jharkhand residents died of Covid-19 in year 2020. The toll was at least three times higher during the second wave of the pandemic in year 2021.

While NCRB has not defined medical negligence in context of its annual report, most legal websites define medical negligence as misconduct by a medical practitioner or doctor by not providing enough care resulting in breach of their duties.

Bihar was at the top in ATM fraud, property dispute and attacks on police categories in the Crime in India-2020 report released by theNational Crime Records Bureau(NCRB).

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Bihar also held a top position in rioting and communal/religious riots with 9,422 and 117 cases, respectively. As many as 1,286 riots related to agrarian, 234 dispute and 42 student-related riots were recorded last year.

The state witnessed 2,619 cases of crimes against Women and stood second after Uttar Pradesh (UP) with 3,077 cases in this category.

There was, however, a slight decline of 4.3% in criminal cases in the state under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) or under the Special and Local Laws (SLL) in 2020, when 2,57,512 crimes were registered against 2,69,109 in 2019. However, the murder cases saw an increase of 0.4% with 3,150 incidents reported in 2020 against 3,138 in 2019. Bihar was second after UP in murder cases.

The Chhattisgarh governments online digital integrated pension system Aabhaar- Aapki Sevaon Ka won a national award in the category e-Governance Initiative for Government Service Delivery.

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The objective was to provide a single-window system to clear the pension cases without any physical presence of pensioner. All the necessary documents (except service book) are submitted online and digitally signed by concerned authorities.

All the documents are also sent to the bank online by the treasuries for payment of pension to the banks.

The pensioner can login on the portal to seek status of the pension details and even lodge complaints online. There is facility to download the digital copy of the identity card issued to the pensioners.

The farmers of Madhya Pradesh will be able to sell their produce from home, for this, initiative has been taken by the Mandi Board. Earlier, due to the closure of the mandis of Madhya Pradesh during the corona crisis, the Madhya Pradesh Government had given permission to the traders to buy agricultural produce from the farmers’ homes.

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In order to maintain this system continuously, the Managing Director, MP State https://exam.pscnotes.com/agricultural-Marketing“>Agricultural Marketing Board, Bhopal issued a circular on September 15 regarding re-purchase and sale of agricultural produce outside the market yard through the deal sheet Android Mobile App.

Instructions have been given to the market secretaries. It is to be mentioned here that in the Madhya Pradesh Krishi Upaj Mandi Act 1972, there is a provision to purchase agricultural produce of farmers through deal sheets. In this arrangement, traders will be able to buy agricultural produce outside the market on the basis of the Consent of the farmer.

In Madhya Pradesh, mainly wheat and paddy are procured through primary credit Cooperative Societies at minimum support price for the produce of the farmers.

Apart from this, traders buy agricultural produce by bidding in the mandi premises. In this regard, keeping in view the inconvenience caused to the farmers by the Mandi Board, a deal sheet.

Following the complete process by the Managing Director Vikas Narwal, instructions were given to all the mandi staff to take action with full devotion and dedication in relation to the sale and purchase of agricultural produce of the farmers through the Sauda Patrak Android Mobile App.

In 2020, with theCovidpandemic hitting and subsequentlockdown, criminal cases inGujaratdoubled to 3.81 lakh cases under the Indian Penal Code (IPC), in comparison with the year 2019 where 1.39 lakh cases were reported.

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According to theNational Crime Records Bureau(NCRB) figures, Gujarat has the highest charge sheeting rate at 97.1% in the year 2020 which is the highest among states and Union Territories across the country.

Apart from this, the number of murder cases was 982 in 2020, a slight decline from 993 cases in 2019. The number of attempted murder cases increased from 910 in 2019 to 933 in 2033, pointing to greater conflict among people during the Covid year, said a Police officer.
In road-related cases, hit-and-run offences increased from 966 in 2019 to 1,022 in 2020. Police attributed this to theCovid-19pandemic as vehicular movement was restricted for most of the time, which increased incidents of speeding and simultaneous rushing against deadlines. In crimes against Women, stalking and voyeurism offences increased according to the NCRB data.

State universities have miserably failed to utilise funds meant for research leading to a fewer number of research publications.

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The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report 2020 released recently says thatRajasthan Universityin Jaipur and Jai Narain Vyas University inJodhpurhave utilised an Average of 50% funds in research projects from 2014-2019.

The report says that Rajasthan University has been allocated grant of Rs 184.05 crore by different funding agencies for carrying out 87 research works.

The same report also pointed out that in RU a total of 806 research papers were published in the surveyed year with an average of 3.44 papers by every teacher. In JNVU, 417, research papers were published which are almost half to the RU. It has been observed that the scale of research works is lesser as compared to premier universities of other states.