Union Minister of Rural Development & Panchayati Raj Shri Narendra Singh Tomar issues guidelines regarding the SVAMITVA scheme, a new initiative of the Ministry of Panchayati Raj

Union Minister of Rural Development & Panchayati Raj Shri Narendra Singh Tomar has said that the government has run several programs to digitally empower panchayats across the country. He was speaking in New Delhi on the occasion of issuing guidelines regarding the SVAMITVA scheme, a new initiative of the Ministry of Panchayati Raj. The Minister said that the aim of this program is to provide rural people with the right to document their residential properties so that they can use their property for economic purposes. The Minister said that this scheme will help in streamlining planning and revenue collection in rural areas and ensuring clarity on property rights. This will also help in resolving property related disputes. The scheme will enable creation of better-quality Gram Panchayat Development Plans (GPDPs), leveraging the maps created under this programme.

SVAMITVA scheme, a collaborative effort of the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, State Panchayati Raj Departments, State Revenue Departments and Survey of India, aims to provide an integrated property validation solution for rural India, engaging the latest Drone Surveying technology, for demarcating the inhabitant (Aabadi) land in rural areas. The program is currently being implemented in six states - Haryana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Under this, mapping of rural housing land can be done using the latest survey methods and drones. In Punjab and Rajasthan, 101 Continuously Operating Reference Stations (CORS) will be set up during this year which will set the stage for undertaking actual survey and mapping of inhabited areas of villages next year.

Shri Narendra Singh Tomar also released a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) regarding e-Gram Swaraj on the occasion. He said that following this procedure, it will be ensured that the funds given to the panchayats are not misused and transparency can be maintained in its use. He said that this process will help in establishing a strong financial system by integrating the Priya Soft and PFMS, the payment portals of the Ministry of Panchayati Raj. The application aims to bring in better transparency and strengthening of the e-Governance in Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) across the country through decentralized planning, progress reporting and work-based accounting. It will also assist in enhancing the credibility of Panchayats which would induce greater devolution of funds to PRIs. Furthermore, e-Gram Swaraj provides a platform for effective monitoring by higher authorities. It will be a single platform for all planning and accounting needs of the Panchayats.

The key focus areas of M/o Panchayati Raj over the last few years has been to track the fund flow of the Central Finance Commission grants and also to ensure timely payments on real-time basis to the service providers in the Panchayats. The Online Payment Module (erstwhile PRIASoft-PFMS Interface (PPI)) is one of its kind whereby Gram Panchayats are carrying out online payments to the vendors and service providers. The main objective of introducing such a module is to have a sound financial management system in the Panchayats leading to their greater credibility and image.

These endeavours are also congruent to that of Digital India Programme which is to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy - “Faceless, Paperless, Cashless”.

Six courses of SWAYAM appear in best 30 online courses of 2019 in the Class Central list

The Class Central (a free online course aka MOOC aggregator from top universities like Stanford, MIT, Harvard, etc.) has released the list of best 30 online courses of 2019 out of which 6 courses are from SWAYAM.

The ‘Study Webs of Active Learning for Young Aspiring Minds' (SWAYAM) an integrated platform for online courses, using information and communication technology (ICT) which covers school (9th to 12th) to Post Graduate Level. Till date, a total of 2867 Courses have been offered through SWAYAM and 568 courses have been uploaded to offer for January 2020 Semester. About 57 lakhs (57,84,770) unique users / registrations have been made on SWAYAM platform and about 1.25 crore (125,04,722) enrollments in various courses of SWAYAM. It also offers online courses for students, teachers and teacher educators. It may be accessed on swayam.gov.in.

Following 6 courses of SWAYAM have been listed in the best 30 online coursed of 2019.

1. Academic Writing: H.N.B Garhwal University (A Central University) Srinagar Garhwal 

2. Digital Marketing: Punjab University Chandigarh.

3. ANIMATIONs:    Banaras Hindu University.

4. Mathematical Economics: Doon University, Dehradun

5. Python for Data Science: Indian Institute of Technology Madras

6. Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE): Avianshilingam Institute for Home Science and Higher Education for Women, Coimbatore

Life insurance companies register 11.4 per cent growth in premium income in FY20

India's life insurance companies witnessed 11.36 per cent growth in their collective premium income at Rs 48.26 lakh crore (US$ 684.64 billion) during the fiscal ended March 2020, as per the data from IRDAI. While in FY19, the 24 life insurance companies' collective premium income stood at Rs 43.33 lakh crore (US$ 614.70 billion).

Although, LIC, the India's largest and the only state-owned insurer, posted a decline in premium income at Rs 8.32 lakh crore (US$ 118.03 billion) during 2019-20, as per the data from the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI).

During 2018-19, LIC's premium collection reached Rs 10.74 lakh crore (US$ 152.36 billion). The company’s market share stood at 82.76 per cent as of March 31, 2020.

The rest of the private sector players observed 22.53 per cent rise in their total premium income at Rs 39.94 lakh crore (US$ 566.61 billion). In FY19, the overall income stood at Rs 32.59 lakh crore (US$ 462.34 billion).

As of March 31, 2020, the combined market share of all private sector life insurers stood at 17.24 per cent.

JioMart starts home delivery in Navi Mumbai, Thane and Kalyan

Reliance Industries (RIL) has started home delivery of essentials in partnership with local kirana stores in Navi Mumbai, Thane and Kalyan. These services are available under JioMart, an e-commerce venture of Reliance Retail, an RIL subsidiary.

Under the deal signed between Facebook, this is the first of the deal to use WhatsApp.

The orders can be placed by 5 pm every day and would be available for pick up from the customer’s nearest JioMart Kirana store within 48 hours, as per a message sent to customers across these locations.

Registration is required first where customer has to provide details such as mobile number, area, locality, society name and customer details.

According to the sources, these are the first locations where the services are being launched and would be extended to other cities in the country in a phased manner.

To order customers can send a “Hi” message to JioMart's WhatsApp number (88500 08000) on their phones, following which the company will send a link to take orders.

Global tech giant Facebook signed a binding agreement to invest Rs 43,574 crore (US$ 6.18 billion) in RIL wholly-owned subsidiary Jio Platforms.

WhatsApp has more than 400 million users in India, while the company is readying to insert payments feature in the messaging and Voice over IP service platform.

Bira91 raises US$ 30 million funding led by Sequoia India, Sofina

B9 Beverages Pvt. Ltd, the maker of Bira 91 brand of craft beer, has raised US$ 30 million in funding led by its existing investors, Sequoia India and Belgium-based investment firm Sofina.

Mumbai-based consumer-focused venture capital fund, Sixth Sense Ventures, Korean private equity fund Neoplux, and certain family offices also participated in the round, the company said in a statement.

These new funds will be used to further expand its India footprint and consolidate its leadership position in the premium beer market in India.

In 2019, the firm commissioned two new breweries, one each in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, and quadrupled its production capacity. The company achieved market share near to 3 per cent of the overall beer market with the launch of Boom, its latest mass market beer brand. The company has presence in over 400 cities, as of fiscal year ended 31 March 2020.

“We continue to grow our business in both existing and new markets. Our market shares in several markets are now higher than 5 per cent of overall beer and more than 20 per cent share of premium beer market," said Mr Ankur Jain, chief executive at the firm.

“Along with Boom, our other new launches of Bira 91 IPA with Pomelo and the Malabar Stout have been well received. 2020 is a key inflection point for the company where we expect to reach double digit market shares in a number of states through the year," he added.

Production capacity of coveralls required by medical personnel treating COVID-19 cases in the country has been ramped up to more than 1 lakh per day; cumulative production till date is approximately one million coverall units

Production capacity of coveralls required by medical personnel treating COVID-19 cases in the country has been ramped up to more than 1 lakh per day. Bengaluru has become a major hub for PPE Coverall production in the country to combat COVID-19 cases. Nearly fifty percent of the Coverall production in the country is from Bengaluru. Since Body Coveralls (PPE) is a specialized protective suit meant for high level of protection to the health professionals, it has stringent technical requirements as prescribed by Ministry of Health & Family Welfare. M/s HLL Lifecare Limited is the designated single-window procurement agency for the hospitals and healthcare organisations under the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India.

Other than Bengaluru, PPE Coveralls are also being manufactured by approved production units in Tirupur, Chennai and Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, Ahmedabad and Vadodara in Gujarat, Phagwara and Ludhiana in Punjab, Kusumnagar and Bhiwandi in Maharashtra, Dungarpur in Rajasthan, Kolkata, Delhi, Noida, Gurugram and few other places. The cumulative production till date is approximately one million Coverall units.

During the last week of January 2020, the technical standard for the Coveralls was prescribed as per WHO class-3 exposure pressure in accordance with ISO 16003 or its equivalent. Such materials were being manufactured by a few international companies, who expressed their inability to supply on account of a complete glut in stocks and ban of exports by the source countries. Only a limited quantity was offered and procured by the procurement organization of the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare.

Ministry of Health & Family Welfare finalised the technical requirement on 2nd March 2020, based on the indigenous availability of materials and the technical requirement for a high level of protection of the healthcare professionals who would deal with the COVID-19 cases, in consultation with medical experts in the field. The specification was published on the official website of HLL Lifecare Ltd on 5th March 2020, inviting manufacturers having adequate capability to participate in the procurement process.

As of now, there are four laboratories in the country which have the Synthetic Blood Penetration Resistance Test facilities as well as necessary approvals for conducting tests and certification for Body Coveralls (PPE) required for COVID-19. These are – South India Textiles Research Association (SITRA), Coimbatore, Defence Research and Development Establishment (DRDE), Gwalior, and two laboratories under Ordnance Factory Board – Heavy Vehicles Factory, Avadi and Small Arms Factory, Kanpur.

For each such test conducted in respect of a fabric and the PPE Coverall garment, for which prototype samples are sent by the respective manufacturers, a Unique Certification Code (UCC-COVID19) is generated. This code has records of the type of fabric, type of garment, its date of testing, testing standard and other relevant particulars. The UCC issued to each passed sample is published on the official website of DRDO, OFB and SITRA for verification by any user of the product. With a view to further streamline the process of testing and to ensure that the quality of the PPE Coveralls is maintained, the testing laboratory will now accept the sample for testing only on submission of an affidavit in the prescribed format by the organization intending to get their PPE Coverall sample tested in the approved laboratories.

The PPE kits are being sent to the States by the Ministry of Health as per requirement. Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Department of Pharmaceuticals, and Ministry of Textiles are continuously working with various industry bodies, stakeholders and manufacturers on 24x7 basis, to streamline the supply chain, remove bottlenecks and maintain a steady supply of all materials required for the healthcare professionals.

Team led by IIT Bombay student develops low-cost mechanical ventilator Ruhdaar

The Government has said that “the COVID-19 infection curve has begun to flatten and that the outbreak is under control”.

According to the Health Ministry, among those getting infected, around 80 per cent will experience only mild illness, around 15 per cent will need oxygen support and the remaining 5 per cent who get critical or severe will need ventilators.

Ventilators are thus an important component of the medical infrastructure required for treating infected patients, providing critical breathing support to those falling critically ill.

Considering this, the government has been adopting a two-pronged approach, augmenting domestic manufacturing capacity as well as scouting across the world for medical supplies. Accordingly, as per the update given to the Group of Ministers meeting held on April 25, 2020, production of ventilators by domestic manufacturers has already started and orders for more than 59,000 units through nine manufacturers have been placed.

In this context, it is heartening that the Indian inventive and creative spirit has been reaping good fruit in this crisis situation. The entire scientific community, including CSIR and its 30-plus labs, institutes such as IITs and many from the private sector and civil society, have come up with various solutions, each of which contributes in some measure to our battle against the pandemic.

A team of engineering students from IIT Bombay, NIT Srinagar and Islamic University of Science & Technology (IUST), Awantipora, Pulwama, Jammu and Kashmir is one such group of creative individuals who have come forward to solve the problem of ventilator requirement. The team has come up with a low-cost ventilator using locally available materials.

Here is how the Ruhdaar ventilator, as the team has named it, took birth. The project head Zulqarnain, a first-year student of Industrial Design Centre, IIT Bombay, had gone to his hometown Kashmir, when the institute closed due to the pandemic. On getting to know the ground situation as the pandemic progressed, he understood that there were only 97 ventilators in the Kashmir Valley. He sensed that the need was more and that the concern about shortage of ventilators had become a big worry for many people.

So, Zulqarnain teamed up with his friends P. S Shoib, Asif Shah and Shakar Nehvi from IUST, Awantipora and Majid Koul from NIT Srinagar. Taking assistance from the Design Innovation Centre (DIC) at IUST, the team has been able to design a low-cost ventilator using locally available materials. While their initial aim was to replicate a tried and tested design, as they began to work on it, they developed their own design of the ventilator.

Zulqarnain says "the prototype costed the team around Rs 10,000 (US$ 141.86) and that the cost will be much lower, when we go for mass production." He said that while high-end ventilators used in hospitals cost in lakhs of rupees, "Ruhdaar provides necessary functionalities which can provide adequate breathing support necessary to save the life of a critically ill COVID-19 patient."

Talking about next steps, Zulqarnain said "the team will now go for medical testing of the prototype. Once it is approved, it will be taken for mass production. The effort is to make it amenable for production by small scale industry. The team will not charge any royalty for the product."

Zulqarnain said that the main problem the team faced was lack of resources. The team tried many designs including a design developed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA. The team came up with their frugal design, considering the resource constraints. The design has been made using advanced software and the team is satisfied with the results, he said.

Asif, who is an alumnus of IUST and CEO of Symcore Technologies, says that "the idea was to design and develop a low-cost alternative to the conventional ventilator. Our team has been able to achieve control of basic parameters such as tidal volume, Breaths per Minute and Inspiratory: Expiratory Ratio and to also monitor pressure continuously during its operation."

Coordinator, DIC, IUST, Dr Shahkar Ahmad Nahvi said that the team of youngsters was driven by a desire to make a beneficial contribution to the society in this hour of need. He said that the ventilator is functional from the engineering perspective but requires clearance and validation by the medical community.

Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, IUST, Dr Majid H. Koul said that the low-cost frugal ventilator was developed using components available at DIC. Facilities at the Centre such as 3-D printing and laser-cutting technologies also were instrumental in the success of the prototype. The Centre is an initiative of the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India.

NTPC Vindhyachal becomes India's largest power plant to achieve 100 per cent Plant Load Factor

NTPC Vindhyachal has become the largest power plant of the country to achieve a plant load factor (PLF) of 100 per cent. This means that the power plant was run at its full capacity of 3760 MW for a certain period.

The average PLF of power plants across the country hovers at around 60 per cent, thus, making this as significant development. Before this, other NTPC power plants, such as the Talcher Thermal plant of 460 MW has also been run at 100 per cent PLF. Although, no plant with an installed capacity close to NTPC Vidhyachal has achieved this till now.

The 100 PLF was achieved on April 13, 2020.

The total installed capacity of the NTPC group is 62110 MW. It has 70 power stations i.e. 24 Coal, 7 combined cycle gas/liquid fuel, 1 Hydro, 13 Renewables along with 25 joint venture power stations.

The second 660 MW unit of India’s first ultra-supercritical power station NTPC Khargone also became commercial during the lockdown period.

Coronavirus India Live Updates: Gujarat case count crosses 2,000-mark; India tally tops 18,000

Latest updates on the coronavirus crisis

• One more person tests positive for COVID-19 in Meghalaya, raising the number of active cases to 11 in the state.
• Delhi govt will conduct COVID-19 test on media persons in the national capital, CM Arvind Kejriwal says.
• Sri Lanka postpones parliamentary poll for nearly 2 months due to COVID-19 outbreak.
• Chinese medics may be injected with newly developed COVID19 vaccine by year-end, Health officials say.
• New York city is forming a new response unit to address anti-Asian harassment amid COVID-19.
• Rajasthan records 52 fresh coronavirus cases, taking the state's virus tally to 1,628
• COVID-19 death toll rises to 590 in the country as the number of cases climb to 18,601, Health Ministry says.
• One more person tests positive for COVID-19 in Meghalaya, raising the number of active cases to 11 in the state.

NHPC wins bid for solar project

An e-reverse auction was completed by NHPC for developing a 2,000-MW Grid Connected Solar photo voltaic project. Around seven bidders took part in the e-reverse auction coming for an aggregate capacity of 3,140 MW.

As per company statement, “Against the total allocated capacity of 2,000 MW, lowest tariff of Rs 2.55 (US$ 0.03) a unit to Rs 2.56 (US$ 0.03) a unit was achieved against the initial quoted tariff of Rs 2.71 (US$ 0.038) a unit to Rs 2.78 (US$ 0.039) a unit. Despite complete lockdown in India due to Covid-19, NHPC successfully completed the e-reverse auction.”