Assam’s Kokrajhar gets Centre’s award for e-gov initiativeAssam’s Kokrajhar district received a national award for successfully implementing an e-governance project for an effective service delivery system, officials said. The initiative ‘Infrastructure Snapshot Kokrajhar’ won the award for e-Governance for 2021-2022 under the category ‘Excellence in District Level Initiative in e-Governance’.

The award was given by the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG) under the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions of the Government of India.

The ‘ Snapshot Kokrajhar’ app was conceptualised by the Deputy Commissioner Varnali Deka as a 24×7 configurable mobile-based application for effective monitoring of all government schemes and public institutions with both offline and online status update facility.

Odisha gets Rs 524-cr GST compensation

The Central Government released an amount of Rs 524 crore to Odisha towards balance GST compensation for the period from April to June. In fact, the Union Government has released Rs 17,000 crore to States and Union Territories (UT)s on November 24. The total amount of compensation released to the States/UTs so far during the year 2022-23 is Rs 1,15,662 crore.

This is despite the fact that total Cess collection till October, 2022 is only Rs 72,147 crore and the balance of Rs 43,515 crore is being released by the Centre from its own Resources.With this release, the Centre has released, in advance, the entire amount of Cess estimated to be collected this year till March-end available for payment of compensation to the States.

Tamil Nadu: App to help cops track criminals better now

Now Police can monitor criminals and rowdies by clicking on an exclusive mobile application,TracKD. The app was launched by Nadupolice DGP CSylendra Babuat the police headquarters in Mylapore.

The primary objective of the application is to digitalize the age-old system of HISTORY-sheeter checks by jurisdictional officers thus ensuring real-time monitoring of the level of checks done monthly.

It also gives various details to supervisory officers at their fingertips, like the number of rowdies in jail, and how many are underCrPCsecurity sections, alerts regarding the expiry of Bonds, cases pending, the trial against rowdies, filtering/Classification of accused based on the type of offences involved and gang-related rowdies.

Govt launches contest to boost innovations in Kerala

For promoting youngentrepreneursand new concepts of as part of observing the ongoing financial year as the ‘Year of Entrepreneurship’, the government has launched a contest seeking ideas on new avenues of entrepreneurship.

The industries and commerce department has come up with the contest ‘Dreamvestor’ for prospective business aspirants in the state. The initiative’s aim is to provide a platform for the innovators in the state to present their ideas before an eminent panel and to explore the possibility of turning their innovative concepts into a business venture.

The ideas selected in the contest will be given necessary handholding support such as access to incubation space in government-owned business incubation centres, mentoring support to overcome challenges, access to seed capital assistance, etc.

Karnataka govt plans uniform fee for all public Universities

Cracking the whip on public universities for increasingfeesarbitrarily, the department of higher Education has proposed to bring in a uniform fee structure for courses across varsities and regulate other fees like exam fees and sport fees. An expert committee has been formed to recommend steps in this regard, reportsSruthy Susan Ullas.

The proposal will be applicable to all affiliating and unitary universities that come under the ambit ofKarnataka State UniversitiesAct 2000. There are 25 public universiti-es in the state. The panel will also look at a uniform timeframe for holding exams, evaluation and announcement of results.

18 crore tonnes of waste need to go to meet 2026 deadline

Cities and towns have a mammoth task of completing the remediation of around 18.2 crore tonnes of legacy municipal waste in the next four years to get rid of old dumpyards. The data put up on public domain by housing and urban affairs ministry on Monday indicates that so far around 4.3 crore tonnes of such waste out of the total 24.7 crore tonnes has been remediated by government agencies.
MaharashtraandTelanganahave remediated around 2.9 crore tonnes of the legacy waste, which accounts for nearly 67% of such waste treated so far across urban areas.

Officials said the data on legacy waste was provided by the urban entities of state governments when the Centre rolled out the Swachh Bharat Mission 2.0 in October 2021, in which a major component was to get rid of the legacy waste by 2026.

Andhra Pradesh: Energy efficiency awards slated for December

TheAndhra Pradesh State Energy Conservation Mission(APSECM) has decided to present state energy conservation Awards to industries, organisations, and establishments, which have made significant contributions to its energy conservation and efficiency efforts.

The awards will be given during the national energy conservation week celebrations that will be conducted from December 14 to 20.

The competition would be conducted among different categories of consumers in industries, buildings, and Institutions sectors. Thermal power Plants, textiles, and Micro, Small and Medium enterprises will compete under category, panchayats under institution category, andAPSRTCbus stands, bus depots, hospitals and office buildings (both government and private) with a load of 50 kw and above under building category.

New dump policy soon to restart mining: Subhash Phhal Dessai

Social welfare ministerSubhash Phal Dessaisaid that the state would come up with a new dump handling policy to start legal mining. Phal Dessai said that even if 20 million tonnes of iron Ore are exported,miningactivities can run for two years.

Phal Dessai said that the may abolish or give relaxation to truck owners regarding some taxes.
Truck owners are demanding relief on three taxes, including road tax. Phal Dessai said that 75% of the trucks were involved in mining and the remaining in other activities.

The social welfare minister said that the iron ore found in Goa is low grade iron ore, and that they welcome the Union governments decision to reduce export duty on this ore to zero.

Mumbai’s CSMVS museum wins highest UNESCO award for heritage conservation in its centenary year

In a singular honour for the heritage conservation movement of Mumbai, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (formerly Prince of Wales Museum) in Kala Ghoda has won the highest Award of Excellence at the UNESCO Asia Pacific Awards for Cultural Heritage Conservation 2022 announced in Bangkok.

CSMVS tops the list of 13 projects from six countries –Afghanistan, China, India, Iran, Nepal and Thailand — which received awards. The jury reviewed 50 entries from 11 countries in the Asia-Pacific region.

Four awards went to India. The Stepwells of Golconda in Hyderabad won the Award of Distinction, while Domakonda Fort in , and Mumbai’s own Byculla RAILWAY Station received the Award of Merit.