PIB Summary- 9th February, 2021 | PIB (Press Information Bureau) Summary - UPSC PDF Download

India – Afghanistan

Context: Signing ceremony of MoU for the construction of the Lalandar “Shatoot” Dam in Afghanistan.

Details

• The project is a part of the New Development Partnership between India and Afghanistan.
• The Lalander [Shatoot] Dam would meet the safe drinking water needs of Kabul city, provide irrigation water to nearby areas, rehabilitate the existing irrigation and drainage network, aid in flood protection and management efforts in the area, and also provide electricity to the region.
• This is the second major dam being built by India in Afghanistan, after the India – Afghanistan Friendship Dam [Salma Dam], which was inaugurated in June 2016.
• As a part of the development cooperation with Afghanistan, India has completed more than 400 projects covering all 34 provinces of Afghanistan.

National Innovations in Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA)

Context: Impact of climate change on Indian agriculture was studied under NICRA.

What is NICRA?

• The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) has initiated a network project NICRA during 2011 to address the impact of climate change on Indian agriculture.
• The project aims to enhance the resilience of Indian agriculture to climate change and climate vulnerability through strategic research and technology demonstration.
• The research on adaptation and mitigation covers crops, livestock, fisheries and natural resource management.
• The project consists of four components viz. Strategic Research, Technology Demonstration, Capacity Building and Sponsored/Competitive Grants.
• NICRA was launched with an outlay of Rs. 350 crores with the following objectives:
  • To enhance the resilience of Indian agriculture covering crops, livestock and fisheries to climatic variability and climate change through development and application of improved production and risk management technologies
  • To demonstrate site specific technology packages on farmers’ fields for adapting to current climate risks
  • To enhance the capacity building of scientists and other stakeholders in climate resilient agricultural research and its application

National Monsoon Mission

Context: Union Minister gave information about the National Monsoon Mission in the Rajya Sabha.

About National Monsoon Mission

National Monsoon Mission is recently in the news after the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) released a report on ‘Estimating the economic benefits of Investment in Monsoon Mission and High-Performance Computing Facilities.’

Objectives of Monsoon Mission of India

• Improvement of monsoon forecast skills with the help of partnerships between academic and research and development organizations nationally and internationally. 
• Improvement of prediction skill of:
  • Seasonal and Extended range predictions and
  • Short and Medium range (up to two weeks) prediction. 

Need for National Monsoon Mission

• Need for improved weather advisories – In India, 82 percent of rural poor live in rain-fed areas and rain-fed agriculture is a significant contributor to agricultural production. 
• Indian Summer Monsoon Rainfall (ISMR) amounts to more than 80 percent of the annual rainfall in the country playing a pivotal role in food production. Hence, a mission like NMM was needed to improve assimilation and forecasting systems to predict monsoon.

Evaluation of National Monsoon Mission – NCAER Report
It was launched in 2012 with an aim to develop state-of-the-art monsoon prediction systems for short, medium and long-range forecasts.
As per the NCAER report, National Monsoon Mission will benefit 1.07 crores below poverty line (BPL) agricultural households and 523 lakh BPL fisherfolk households in the country. The other important details are:

• The monsoon mission of India will give 50 times more benefit on the investment made under it and on the high-performance Computing programs over a period of 5 years (till 2025.)
•  A more accurate weather forecast led to a structural change in the production level of food grains in the last 4-5 years. 
• In the irrigated districts, the production level of food grains increased in the post-monsoon-mission period.
• Rain-fed districts witnessed the increase in the production level of food grains in both pre-monsoon mission and post-monsoon mission with a significant increase in the latter. 

Impact of National Monsoon Mission on Farmers
The total annual economic benefits to agricultural households, farmers and livestock owners taken together, has been calculated at Rs. 13,331 crore and the incremental benefits over the next five years are estimated to be about Rs. 48,056 crore.
The report by NCAER mentions the following  impact of weather advisories on farmers:

1. Change in the agricultural practises: With the usage of weather advisories, 98 per cent of the farmers made changes to at least one of the nine critical practises and 34 per cent farmers made changes to all nine critical practises:

• Changed variety/breed
• Arranged for storage of harvest
• Early/delayed harvesting
• Changed crop
• Early/delayed sowing
• Changed schedule of ploughing/land preparation
• Changed pesticide application schedule
• Changed fertilizer application schedule
• Changed scheduled irrigation

2. Increase in income: 94 per cent of farmers who took to modifications in farm practises in the account of weather forecasts saw a decline in income losses and an increase in income. 

3. Income directly proportional to the modifications in agricultural practices: The NCAER report mentions that farmers who adopted farm practises based on weather forecasts and modified the nine critical practises continuously, saw an increase in their average annual income.

4. Drastic increase in the use of weather advisories: 59 per cent farmers are reported to make use of weather forecasts twice a week.

5. Information on calamities: 55 percent of farmers received information on calamities almost every time whereas 36 percent received correct information occasionally.

Impact of National Monsoon Mission on Livestock Owners

Livestock owners undertake three practises:

• Modification of shed/shelter
• Vaccination against seasonal disease
• Fodder management

Also, Note

• The NCAER report mentions that 76 percent of livestock owners use weather advisories and modify their practises mentioned above.
• Almost 96 percent of livestock owners were benefited using the weather advisories for the improvement of vaccination practises against seasonal diseases. 

Impact of National Monsoon Mission on Fishermen

• Substantial reduction in the operational cost is a result of using Ocean State Forecast (OSF) – 82 percent fishermen are reported to have used weather forecasts before venturing into the sea for fishing. 
• Empty trips avoided –  9606 empty trips have been avoided and Rs. 18.25 crores saved due to OSF advisories.
• Generation of additional fish catch – Fishermen benefitted from Potential Fishing Zone advisories (PFZ).
• 97 percent of those fishermen who were surveyed by the NCAER is reported to receive timely information on floods and cyclones, which helped them minimize their losses. (For information on cyclones, check the linked article.)

Achievements of National Monsoon Mission

• Seasonal prediction model is developed for monsoon at a very high resolution of 38 kms.
• Extended range prediction systems are developed for dry/wet spells, heat/cold waves etc.
• Very high resolution ensemble prediction system is developed at 12 kms in the short and medium range (up to 8 to 10 days) useful for extreme weather prediction.
• The mission used high performance computing (HPC) capability from 1 Petaflops to 10 Petaflops. Two HPC facilities are established at MoES institutes:
  • Pratyush (4 Petaflops) at IITM
  • Mihir (2.8 Petaflops) at NCMRWF, Noida
• “Unified Model” that is inspired by the UK Met Office has been developed for high resolution short range and medium range forecasts. 
• Global Ocean Data Assimilation System (GODAS) observations used to develop data assimilation systems.

One Nation One Ration Card System Reform

Context: Rajasthan becomes the 12th State to complete One Nation One Ration Card system reform.

Details

• Rajasthan has become the 12th State in the country to successfully undertake “One Nation One Ration Card system” reform stipulated by the Department of Expenditure, Ministry of Finance.
• Thus, the State has become eligible to mobilise additional financial resources of Rs. 2,731 crore through Open Market Borrowings.
• Rajasthan has now joined 11 other states namely, Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Tripura and Uttar Pradesh, that have completed this reform.

Background

• One Nation One Ration Card System is an important citizen centric reform.
• Its implementation ensures availability of ration to beneficiaries under National Food Security Act (NFSA) and other welfare schemes, especially the migrant workers and their families, at any Fair Price Shop (FPS) across the country.
• The reform especially empowers the migratory population, mostly labourers, daily wagers, urban poor like rag pickers, street dwellers, temporary workers in organised and unorganised sectors, domestic workers, etc. who frequently change their place of dwelling to be self-reliant in food security.
• The reform also enables the States in better targeting of beneficiaries, elimination of bogus/duplicate/ineligible card holders resulting in enhanced welfare and reduced leakage.
• Further, to ensure seamless inter-state portability of a ration card, Aadhar seeding of all ration cards as well as biometric authentication of beneficiaries through automation of all Fair Price Shops (FPSs) with installation of electronic point of sale (e-PoS) devices are essential.
• To meet the challenges posed by the pandemic, GOI had enhanced the borrowing limit of the states by 2 percent of their GSDP.
• Half of this special dispensation was linked to undertaking citizen-centric reforms by the states.
• The four citizen-centric areas for reforms identified were:
  • Implementation of One Nation One Ration Card System(done by 12 states)
  • Ease of doing business reform (done by 12 states)
  • Urban Local body/utility reforms (done by 5 states)
  • Power sector reforms (done by 2 states)

Janani Suraksha Yojana

Context: Increase in institutional deliveries under Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY).

Details

• Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY) is a safe motherhood intervention under the National Rural Health Mission (NHM).
• It is being implemented with the objective of reducing maternal and infant mortality by promoting institutional delivery among pregnant women.
• Janani Suraksha Yojana was launched in April 2005 by modifying the National Maternity Benefit Scheme (NMBS).
• JSY is a centrally sponsored scheme, which integrates cash assistance with delivery and post-delivery care.
• The objective of the scheme is to reduce maternal and infant mortality by promoting institutional delivery among pregnant women.
• The scheme focuses on poor pregnant woman with a special dispensation for states that have low institutional delivery rates.
• The scheme also provides performance based incentives to women health volunteers known as ASHA (Accredited Social Health Activist) for promoting institutional delivery among pregnant women.

Border Area Development Programme (BADP)

Context: In 2020, two evaluation studies were done on the BADP by the Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA) and by the NITI Aayog.

Border Area Development Programme – Overview

• The BADP was launched in the year 1986-87 for balanced development of border areas of States bordering Pakistan, namely, Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Gujarat and Rajasthan and subsequently it was extended to all the land borders.
• In the year 1993-1994 the Border Area Development Programme (BADP) was introduced as a Centrally Sponsored Scheme. 
• Initially, the BADP programme was implemented in the western border states with an emphasis on the development of infrastructure to facilitate deployment of the Border Security Force. 
• Later, the ambit of the programme was widened to include other socio-economic aspects such as education, health, agriculture and other allied sectors.
• At the central level, Department of Border Area Management, Ministry of Home Affairs looks after the disbursement of funds and overall monitoring and implementation of the BADP scheme. 
• Planning and implementation of BADP programme are done on a participatory and decentralized basis involving the Panchayati Raj Institutions, Autonomous Councils and Other Local Bodies & Councils.
• At the District Level, a committee headed by the District Magistrate is responsible for monitoring the implementation of works under the Border Area Development Programme.
• Funds are provided to the states as a non-lapsable special central assistance for the execution of projects relating to infrastructure, livelihood, education, health, agriculture and allied sectors.
• BADP covers 362 border blocks, which are located along the international border and come under 111 border districts in 17 States and two UTs.
• The States covered are  Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura,  Skkim, West Bengal, Bihar, UP, Uttaranchal,  Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan, and Gujarat.

Objectives of BADP Scheme

• The main objective Border Area Development Programme is the development of infrastructure and promotion of a sense of security among the border population. 
• To meet the developmental needs of the people living in the remote and inaccessible areas situated near the international border with focus on people living within 50 kilometers of the International Border.
• The BADP schemes include the construction of primary health centres, schools, supply of drinking water, community centres, connectivity, and drainage to enable sustainable living in border areas.
• Skill development training to farmers for the use of modern and scientific techniques in agriculture, organic farming is also part of the BADP.
• It now covers schemes or activities relating to Swachhta Abhiyan, skill development programmes, promotion of sports activities in border areas, promotion of rural tourism, border tourism, protection of heritage sites, and construction of helipads in remote and inaccessible hilly areas, which do not have road connectivity.

Border Area Development Programme – Aim 
The aim of BADP scheme is to saturate the border areas with the entire essential infrastructure through convergence of all Central, BADP, State and Local schemes by following a participatory approach.

Significance of Border Area Development Programme

• BADP has contributed towards creating a conducive environment for undertaking normal economic activities in border areas and has the potential for bringing about an improvement in the quality of life of the people in border areas.
• The programme played a crucial role in areas with cross-border infiltration and insurgency threats such as in Jammu and Kashmir and North-Eastern Regions.
• The creation of infrastructure would help to integrate these areas with the hinterland and to create a positive perception of care by the country and encourage people to stay on in the border areas leading to safe and secure borders.
• It has brought socio-economic development in the border areas and has brought confidence and belongingness among the border population.

BADP Key Facts – Recent Announcements 

• The Border Area Development Programme (BADP) has been allocated INR 784 crores in the 2020-21 fiscal and the money is distributed to the border States and Union Territories (UTs) depending on various criteria such as the length of the international border and population.
• Construction of roads, bridges, culverts, primary schools, health infrastructure, playfields, irrigation works, mini-stadiums, indoor courts for basketball, badminton and table tennis can be undertaken within 10 km of the border from the BADP funds.
• The  10% of the total allocated funds will be additionally allocated to the States and UTs adjoining Indo-China border for taking up works/projects in various districts.
• For the comprehensive and all-round development of border villages, the government has decided to develop 61 model villages under the Border Area Development Programme.
• Each model village will provide all basic facilities like primary health centre, primary education, community centre, connectivity, drainage, drinking water, etc. to enable sustainable living in border areas.
• BADP Online Management System for better planning, monitoring, and implementation of various projects under BADP is launched which will bring in transparency in the sanction process and improve quality of planning and implementation.