Best of PIB: 08 Feb 2017

Gujarat on becomes the first State for establishing Cashless System for distribution of food grains

• The State government has installed AadhaarEnabled Payment System (AEPS) in 17250
• The target date is 31^stMarch, 2017
• The advantages are
  • This will help in establishing the identity of beneficiaries
  • Help in stopping the leakages of grains at shop level
  • Eradicate corruption in the Public Distribution System
• Gujarat government has tied up with Common Service Centres (SPV set up by Ministry of Electronics and IT) by offering 30 services through FPSs (Fair Price Shops). As aresult of this, the consumer now
  • The consumer can get his rail, air and bus ticket booked at FPSs
  • The customer can also pay his mobile bill
  • Farmer can deposit crop insurance premium, LIC premium etc
  • Farmer can get Soil Health Card and registration for the centrally sponsored schemes

Steps For Making Indian Railways a Profit Earning Entity

• The ministry is taking measures for enhancing earnings on the one hand and controlling avoidable revenue expenditure on the other
• Revenue enhancing measures include
  • Targeting progressively higher traffic throughput
  • Effective marketing strategies to capture more and more traffic
  • Creation of additional capacity and optimum utilization of the existing rail infrastructure
  • Enhancement in productivity and efficiency
  • Improvement of passenger interface
  • Periodic rationalization of fare and freight rates
  • Focus on increasing the share of non-fare revenue sources in Railways’ earnings
• Expenditure control measures include
  • Strict economy and austerity measures
  • Improved man-power planning
  • Better asset utilization, inventory management and optimizing fuel consumption etc.
• Green Corridors in Railways
  • The Government has commissioned the following three sections as Green train corridors free from human waste discharge from trains
    • Rameswaram-Manamadurai
    • Okha – Kanalus
    • Porbandar –Wansjaliya
  • The following will be included soon
    • Jammu Tawi – Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Katra

Initiatives taken for MSMES in the backdrop of Demonetization

• The coverage of the loans covered under the Credit Guarantee Scheme for MSEs implemented by Credit Guarantee Fund Trust for Micro and Small Enterprises (CGTMSE) has been increased from Rs. 1 crore to Rs. 2 crore
• The Credit Guarantee scheme has also been extended for loans given to MSMEs by NBFCs

NITI Aayog’s incentive schemes on Digital Payments promotion

• NITI Aayog on 25^th December 2016, has launched two schemes – Lucky Grahak Yojana and Digi-dhan Vyapar Yojana (DVY) to promote digital transactions and these will be open till 14^th April 2017.
• The schemes are aimed at incentivising both the consumers and merchants to promote digital payments
• Schemes have total outlay of Rs. 340 crore of which – Rs. 300 crores would be spent on consumers and merchants while the remaining Rs. 40 crore on awareness and publicity. Total winners under the scheme are expected to be over 18.75 lakh.
• Customers and merchants using RuPay Card, BHIM / UPI (Bharat Interface for Money / Unified Payments Interface), USSD based *99# service and Aadhaar Enabled Payment Service (AePS) are eligible for wining daily and weekly lucky draw prizes
• NPCI is also working with the government to organise Digi Dhan Melas at 110 locations till April 14, 2017 (to demonstrate the above mentioned products and to promote digital payment) So far 45 Digi Dhan Melas have been organised