03 January 2019: UPSC Exam PIB Summary & Analysis

Read the daily PIB update and stay up-to-date on current affairs for the UPSC exam

Setting up of Space Technology Park and Museums

Context:

The ISRO (Department of Space) has planned to set up Space Galleries in various parts of the country.

About:

• The Space Galleries are expected to disseminate the knowledge about space science and technology amongst the citizens of our country.
• The Gallery will consist of interactive methods/ models describing the principles of Space science and technology.
• Space Galleries are planned to be established at Birla Science Centre at Hyderabad, Nehru Science Centre at Mumbai and National Science Centre at Pragati Maidan in New Delhi.
• ISRO has taken initiatives to establish space gallery in all the national museums/science centres (under Ministry of Culture) across the country in a phased manner.
• ISRO is also planning to establish Knowledge centres, mobile exhibitions, competitions amongst students and various talks/ lectures on Space Science/ technology related aspects.

Bhoomi Rashi Portal

Context:

The Ministry of Road Transport & Highways has recently launched the Bhoomi Rashi portal.

Background:

• In the past years, acquisition of land for the purpose of National Highway projects, payment of compensation to the land owners etc were done manually by physical movement of documents in the form of files.
• However, in that procedure some constraints like delay in issuing notification, errors in the land/area details etc. were being faced. In order to overcome these issues, to cut short delays and avoid parking of public funds with the Competent Authority for Land Acquisition (CALA), Ministry has developed a web based Utility –Bhoomi Rashi to fully digitize and automate the entire process of land acquisition.

Advantages:

• With the operation of this Portal, the land acquisition process has been expedited significantly, became error-free and more transparent and the notifications at every stage are being processed on real time basis.
• While the physical processing of the cases usually took considerable time, ranging from weeks to even months, and there were errors whose rectification caused further delays, the processing time using this portal has been reduced to less than two weeks in a majority of cases and even a few days in some cases.

Year End Review of Deen Dayal Antyodaya Yojana – National Rural Livelihoods Mission (Ministry of Rural Development)

Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana- National Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NRLM) seeks to reach out to 8-9 crore rural poor households and organize one woman member from each household into affinity-based women SHGs and federations at village level and at higher levels.

Progress:

• During 2018-19: 588 additional blocks have been covered under “Intensive” implementation strategy of DAY-NRLM bringing the cumulative total to 5054 blocks.
• During the year 2018-19so far, over 73 lakh households have been mobilized into 6.75 lakh SHGs.
• The SHG-Bank Linkage programme has seen tremendous growth year on year under DAY-NRLM. During this financial year, about 17.57 lakh SHGs have accessed credit of Rs. 27911 crore up to October, 2018.

Non-Farm Livelihoods

• Aajeevika Grameen Express Yojana (AGEY) is a programme to provide safe, affordable and community monitored transport services to rural areas. The vehicles are owned and operated by members of Self-Help Group (SHG) networks and operate in regions which are not served by regular transport services. 624 routes are currently served by AGEY across the country.
• Start-up Village Entrepreneurship Programme (SVEP), the sub-scheme under DAY-NRLM develops an eco-system for supporting small businesses in rural areas. The eco-system has components for providing business support services, mentorship, seed capital, training & capacity building on business and technical aspects and marketing support.

Farm Livelihoods

• This year, DAY-NRLM has taken up promotion of organic farming with women SHG members across the country. Under organic farming initiative, a total of 1646 number of organic village clusters have been identified by 28 States/UTs.
• Ensuring Food & Nutritional Security is one of the stated objectives of all farm livelihoods interventions and in order to make sure that this objective is met, agri-nutri gardens at Mahila Kisan household level are being promoted.
• As linking small and marginal producers with the market is a critical gap, value chain development through the promotion of producer collectives is a critical component of the implementation strategy under Farm Livelihoods. In the year 2018-19, three Mahila Milk Producer Companies (MMPCs) have been operationalized in Madhya Pradesh and Bihar.

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