PIB Summary- 30th October, 2021 | PIB (Press Information Bureau) Summary - UPSC PDF Download

National Mission For Clean Ganga

Why in News?

Recently, 38th Executive Committee meeting of the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) was held.

About National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG)

• National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) was registered as a society on under the Societies Registration Act 1860.
• The government had set up the Clean Ganga Fund in 2014 – Using the funded money to finance NMCG (National Mission for Clean Ganga 2011), cleaning the river, setting up Waste Treatment Plants, Conservation of river biodiversity and related R&D projects.
• NMCG is the implementation wing of National Council for Rejuvenation, Protection and Management of River Ganga (referred as National Ganga Council NGC).

The NMCG now has the status of an Authority and its key focus would be maintaining required ecological flows in the Ganga, abate pollution through planning, financing and execution of programmes including that of –

• Augmentation of Sewerage Infrastructure
• Catchment Area Treatment
• Protection of Floodplains
• Creating Public Awareness

Objectives :

• The mission incorporates rehabilitating and boosting the existing STPs and instant short-term steps to curb pollution at exit points on the riverfront in order to check the inflow of sewage.
• To maintain the continuity of the water flow without changing the natural season variations.
• To restore and maintain the surface flow and groundwater.
• To regenerate and maintain the natural vegetation of the area.
• To conserve and regenerate the aquatic biodiversity as well as the riparian biodiversity of the river Ganga basin.
• To allow participation of the public in the process of protection, rejuvenation and management of the river.

Need for Ganga Rejuvenation

• The Ganga Basin provides over one-third of India’s surface water, includes the country’s largest irrigated area, and is key to India’s water and food security.
• Over 40 percent of India’s GDP is generated in the densely populated Basin.
• But the Ganga river is today is facing pressures from human and economic activity that impact its water quality and flows.
• Over 80 per cent of the pollution load in the Ganga comes from untreated domestic wastewater from towns and cities along the river and its tributaries.

Jal Jeevan Mission

Why in News?

National Jal Jeevan Mission team visits Karnataka.

• State plans to provide tap water connections to 25.17 lakh households in 2021-22

About Jal Jeevan Mission:

• Jal Jeevan Mission, a central government initiative under the Ministry of Jal Shakti, aims to ensure access of piped water for every household in India.
• National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP) was restructured and subsumed into Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) – to provide Functional Household Tap Water (FHTC) to every rural household with service level at the rate of 55 lpcd i.e., Har Ghar Nal Se Jal (HGNSJ) by 2024.

Implications 

• Supply of water to all households is a basic necessity
• Reduction in water borne diseases which was due to due to consumption of substandard water

Challenges

• Critical situation of Decrease in ground water table.
• Water demand and supply is a miss match
• Contamination of local ground level sources of water like, ponds lakes and wells.
• Sustaining the provision of water to all households is a challenge, not just starting it.

Universal Immunization Programme

Why in News?

Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare launched the nationwide expansion of Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine (PCV) under the Universal Immunization Programme (UIP) as a part of Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav.

About Universal Immunization Programme:

• The Immunization Programme in India was introduced in 1978 as ‘Expanded Programme of Immunization (EPI) by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
• In 1985, the Programme was modified as ‘Universal Immunization Programme (UIP)’.
• UIP prevents mortality and morbidity in children and pregnant women against 12 vaccine-preventable diseases. But in the past, it was seen that the increase in immunization coverage had slowed down and it increased at the rate of 1% per year between 2009 and 2013.
• To accelerate the coverage, Mission Indradhanush was envisaged and implemented since 2015 to rapidly increase the full immunization coverage to 90%.

Objectives of the Universal Immunization Programme

• Rapidly increasing immunization coverage,
• Improving the quality of services,
• Establishing a reliable cold chain system to the health facility level,
• Introducing a district-wise system for monitoring of performance, and
• Achieving self-sufficiency in vaccine production.

About Mission Indradhanush (MI)

• Mission Indradhanush (MI) was launched in December 2014 and aims at increasing the full immunization coverage to children to 90%.
• It targets to immunize all children below two years of age either unvaccinated, or are partially vaccinated as well as all pregnant women.
• It includes seven vaccine preventable diseases namely Diphtheria, Pertussis, Tetanus, Childhood Tuberculosis, Polio, Hepatitis B and Measles.
• In addition to this vaccine for Japanese Encephalitis, Haemophilus influenza type B, inactivated polio vaccine, Rotavirus and Rubella are also being provided in selected states.

Intensified Mission Indradhanush (IMI) 2.0

• To boost the routine immunization coverage in the country, Government of India has introduced Intensified Mission Indradhanush 2.0 to ensure reaching the unreached with all available vaccines and accelerate the coverage of children and pregnant women in the identified districts and blocks from December 2019-March 2020.
• The IMI 2.0 aims to achieve targets of full immunization coverage in 272 districts in 27 States and at block level (652 blocks) in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar among hard-to-reach and tribal populations.
• With the launch of Intensified Mission Indradhanush 2.0, India has the opportunity to achieve further reductions in deaths among children under five years of age and achieve the Sustainable Development Goal of ending preventable child deaths by 2030.

Intensified Mission Indradhanush (IMI) 3.0 Scheme

• Intensified Mission Indradhanush (IMI) 3.0 Scheme aims to each the unreached population with all the available vaccines under Universal Immunisation Programme (UIP) and thereby accelerate the full immunization and complete immunization coverage of children and pregnant women.
• It will have two rounds this year which will be conducted in 250 pre-identified districts/urban areas across 29 States/UTs.
• Beneficiaries from migration areas and remote areas would be targeted as they may have missed their vaccine doses during the pandemic.

Pneumococcal conjugate vaccine(PCV):

• It is a pneumococcal and a conjugate vaccine used to protect infants, young children and adults against disease caused by the bacterium Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumococcus).
  (i) Conjugate: It is a type of vaccine that joins a protein to an antigen in order to improve the protection the vaccine provides.
• It contains purified capsular polysaccharide of pneumococcal serotypes conjugated to a carrier protein to improve antibody response.
• The unique feature of the PCV is its composition which is specially tailored to the prevailing serotype prevalence of S Pneumoniae in India and other regions of the world.