25.09.21

To promote beekeeping in the State, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Thursday launched the Haryana Bee Keeping Policy-2021 and action plan 2021-2030.

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On the occasion, the Chief Minister directed the officers to aim to enhance the production of honey by 10 times by 2030. He also directed officers to motivate the farmers to start bee keeping and get 5000 new farmers to take up the initiative for which the State will provide help.

He said that with the farmers involved in beekeeping, they will be encouraged to sow alternative crops like sunflower and mustard. The sale of honey and its by-products like Royal Jelly, Beewax, Propolis, Bee Pollen and Bee Venom will enhance the income of the farmers many times over, he said.

Khattar also directed the officers to ensure focus on small farmers to help increase their income through beekeeping.

As the new political dispensation in Punjab, under Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi, is set to roll out sops in the run-up to the Assembly polls, the state Finance Department has been asked to explain the bahi khata (accounts) of the past four and a half years.

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It is learnt that the department would also present its report on termination of Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) with three independent power producers, wherein it was suggested that the government could look at the exit clause by continuing to pay capacity charges for three years. This way, the state can then buy cheaper power and in turn save hundreds of crores of rupees given to the power producers as fixed charges, says a report of the Finance Department.

The Financial Department to present report on termination of PPAs with three independent power producers

If govt opts for exit clause by continuing to pay capacity charges for three years, then it can save hundreds of crores of rupees

Also on the drawing board is asset monetisation, where the government can lease out its assets to private entities to raise additional Resources

Himachal Pradesh is set to build an industrial complex to manufacture medical devices, helped by a central government grant of Rs 100 crore.

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Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur said the medical devices park will be developed over 265 hectares in Solans Nalagarh at a cost of around Rs 267 crore and the state will get Rs 100 crore grant for it from the Centre, according to a statement.

The state is expecting an of over Rs 5,000 crore with a turnover of Rs 20,000 crore besides gainful EMPLOYMENT for about 10,000 people, Thakur said.

Uttarakhand to strengthen urban health in State

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With an objective to improve urban Health in the state the Uttarakhand government entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Population Services International (PSI) on Friday. The MoU was signed between, Chief Advisor, Population Services International (PSI) Dr Rakesh Kumar and Mission Director, National Health Mission (NHM) Uttarakhand, Sonika in the presence of Health Minister, Dhan Singh Rawat and Health Secretary, Amit Singh Negi.

Through this PARTNERSHIP, PSI will provide technical assistance on the urban health component under the NHM in the state. Its responsibility will primarily include the support to the in health systems strengthening such as developing health systems strengthening strategy and implementation plan, strengthening quality of data, HMIS and monitoring, identifying gaps in implementation of national programs, piloting innovations, support incapacity building and development of behaviour change communications strategy, documentation of best practices and research and Learning. It will also include public-private participation to develop health financing, service delivery models and support in Logistics and Supply Chain Management in primary healthcare. Another key focus area will be to identify state and city-level convergence issues to address social determinants of health, such as water, sanitation, gender and Nutrition. Talking about the initiative, health minister Rawat said, The urban population of Uttarakhand stands at 37 per cent and with addition of four municipalities, the population will increase to 41 per cent. With the growing population, there needs to be an increased focus on improving healthcare services in the public as well as private sector. This initiative should increase public awareness and aid in enhancing the demand for quality health services in the state.

A recent report on Uttar Pradeshs economy released by State Planning Institute (Economic and Statistics Division) does not paint a rosy picture of the state and claims that the states economy has grown at less than 5 per cent of Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) in the last four-and-a-half years of the Yogi Raj. The survey report does not augur well as Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had earlier set the target of taking Uttar Pradesh to a one-trillion-dollar economy in the next five years. At present, the nominal GDP of the state for the year 2020-21 is Rs 17.05 lakh crore (US$ 240 billion).

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There is no denying the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the states economy as UPs Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) has shrunk by 5.9 per cent in 2020-2021. But the worrying sign is that the states economy grew at less than 5 per cent in the last four-and-half-year tenure of the Yogi Adityanath regime. The revised data released for 2018-19 (revised provisional), 2019-20 (revised quick) and 2020-21 (revised advance) also indicate that the economy of Uttar Pradesh grew at a lesser rate than expected.

The revised estimates of the states income that the State Planning Institute (Economics and Statistics Division) released last week show a systemic decline in the Health of the economy. The GSDP Growth in 2017-18 was 4.9 per cent. However in 2018-19 and 2019-20 fiscals, it remained at about 4.3 per cent only. As per these estimates, the rate of economic growth was less than 5 per cent during 2017-20 and -5.9 per cent in the COVID-19 affected 2020-21.

The advance estimates for 2020-21 (released in March 2021) indicated a contraction of about 6.4 per cent in the GSDP. The UP government can take solace because the national economy too contracted by 7.3 per cent in the 2020-21 fiscal, as per GDP statistics released by National Statistical Office (NSO) of the Union Government on May 31, 2021.

The worrisome fact is that sectors like manufacturing registered negative rates of growth over the last four years and its share in GSDP is also declining and is less than 15 per cent. For a state which is yearning for industrialisation, this is not a good sign. On the contrary, the performance of the Agriculture-notes-for-state-psc-exams”>Agriculture sector has been encouraging as even during the pandemic-affected 2020-21, the sector showed a positive growth of 2.7 per cent. Services, or tertiary, sector has done well except in 2020-21 wherein it shrunk to 7.9 per cent.

The data shows that UPs GSDP (at current prices) is estimated to have reached Rs 15.82 lakh crore in 2018-19, Rs 17.25 lakh crore in 2019-20, and Rs 17.39 lakh crore in 2020-21. The had recently claimed that the GSDP had peaked from Rs 17.91 lakh crore to Rs 19.40 lakh crore (revised estimates) on March 31, 2021.

The above facts should be a sobering reminder to the state government that much needs to be done to put Uttar Pradesh on the fast trajectory of growth. If it really wants to become a one-trillion-dollar economy, the state has to come up with a clear roadmap. The poor GSDP does not enthuse confidence that the state will be able to achieve the target within the stipulated timeline and it would be better that the state government goes back to the drawing board and revises its strategy.

Jharkhand is mulling to set up human milk banks in a bid to provide breast milk to babies born to women who either fail to lactate or do not lactate enough due to various medical conditions or ailments.

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As a part of this project, the first such milk bank is likely to come up in Ranchi, officials involved in the planning of the project said, claiming that the milk banks will function like blood banks and lactating mothers will be able to donate milk as a voluntary act to save lives of babies whose biological mothers fail to lactate.

Women suffering from Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, Hypothyroidism or hypoplastic breasts a condition in which a woman has insufficient glandular Tissues are unlikely to lactate after giving birth to a child, say doctors. Also, women who have undergone breast surgeries or chemotherapy may not be able to lactate.

On the other hand, many healthy and lactating mothers often produce more breast milk than their babys requirement. The surplus milk, which is usually wasted, can be donated to the milk banks, say doctors.

The government has decided to take up the development of the Sonnagar (Bihar) andNew Andal(West Bengal) stretch of Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (EDFC) in the first phase rather than laying the rail corridor up toDankuni.

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Sources in the Dfccil, which is implementing the project, said they have about 95% of land available with them for the 374 km stretch between Sonnagar and New Andal and hence it can be bid out quickly. For the remaining stretch, they have hardly 55% land under their possession.

The private player will be responsible for design, finance (for 75% of project cost), build, operation and maintenance for the contract period and then will transfer the project to the DFCCIL.

National New Education Policy has been implemented in all the universities and colleges in the state. Under this, students can study according to their convenience and interest. After the first and second rounds of the admission process, maximum students have chosen the subject of Yoga. The second favorite subject was organic farming and the third was personality development. All these subjects are governed under vocational curriculum.

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After two rounds of admission process by the Higher Education Department, 86,495 students have chosen subject, 80 thousand 104 chose Organic Farming, Personality development 77,833, information technology 28,201, digital Marketing 22,511 and about 17,879 students have opted tourism subject under vocational course. Apart from this, about 17,514 students have selected the subject of e-accounting and Taxation with GST and about 14,627 students chose medical diagnostics.

As an innovation in the National Education Policy, students have been given the freedom to choose optional subjects. If the student wants, he can choose a subject from any other faculty other than his own faculty. Students can initially choose 27 subjects from Arts Faculty, 20 from Science , Five from Commerce and subjects like NCC, NSS and Physical Education among others.

The main objective of the new education policy is quality education. Internship / Apprenticeship / Field Project and Community Engagement and Service have been made mandatory for the first year students for the all-round development of the students. First year students will also get marks for the work done by them.