Entrepreneurship Education to get a big boost
- The Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (SDE) and Wadhwani Operating Foundation (WOF) have signed two Agreements on jointly developing and implementing Entrepreneurship and Skill Development initiatives in the country
- The Pradhan Mantri YUVA Scheme will be the first joint effort in this regard
About Pradhan Mantri YUVA Scheme- Was launched by the Ministry in November, 2016
- It aims at providing on line Entrepreneurship Education to about 15 lakh students across the country through 3050 Project Institutes consisting of Institutions of Higher Learning; Schools; ITIs and Entrepreneurship Development Centres, both Government and Private
- The on-line Entrepreneurship Modules will be duly supplemented by the class room based experiential learning activities and practical’s which will be facilitated by specially trained faculty of the educational institutions
- The Ministry would also provide financial assistance to these institutions for different activities under the Scheme
- The total scheme outlay is Rs 450 Cr and the duration of the scheme is five-year
- Scheme is expected to witness setting up of more than 23,000 enterprises thus resulting into creation of more than 2.30 lakh direct and indirect jobs in the country
- The Scheme also envisages delivery of specially developed Social Entrepreneurship Modules to interested students in Institutions of Higher Learning
The Government simplifies maintenance of registers under
various Labour Laws
- The Government has simplified the maintenance of Labour registers (registers are related to details of employees, their salaries, loans/recoveries, attendance etc) of about 5.85 crore establishments in agriculture and non- agriculture sectors
- The agricultural and non-agricultural establishments are forced to maintain registers under various Central Labour Acts
- The new methodology, all previous registers envisaged under various Acts / Rules have been omitted and replaced with only 5 common Registers
- There was a need to maintain 56 registers which had 933 fields, which will be reduced to 5 registers with 144 fields
- The Ministry of Labour & Employment has also simultaneously undertaken to develop a software for these 5 common Registers
The Labour Laws under which these registers are maintained include- The Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1996
- The Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970
- The Equal Remuneration Act, 1976
- The Inter-State Migrant Workmen (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1979
- The Mines Act, 1952
- The Minimum Wages Act, 1948
- The Payment of Wages Act, 1936
- The Sales Promotion Employees (Conditions of Service) Act, 1976
- The Working Journalists and Other Newspaper Employees (Conditions of Service) Act, 1955
Sikkim becomes 22nd State to join UDAY
About UDAY
- It is optional for states
- State government to take up 75% of the debt of the discoms (50% in first year and 25% in the second year)
- The state government can issue bonds in the market
- Future losses to be taken in a graded manner
- Banks to stop issuing advances for discoms to finance their losses
Targets - AT&C losses must be brought down to 15% by 2018-19
- The gap between average cost and tariff must be bridged
Benefits to states - Receive additional benefits from the central government
- Additional/priority funding through certain schemes
- Supply of additional coal at specified prices
- Procurement of low cost power
Comments