Fittr raises US$ 2 million in pre-series A funding from Surge

Fittr, a Pune-based online fitness startup, has raised US$ 2 million in pre-series A funding from Surge, Sequoia Capital India’s rapid scale-up programme for early-stage startups in India and Southeast Asia.

The startup was founded in January 2016 by Mr Jitendra Chouksey. It is an online fitness community that have over 850,000 members. The company was bootstrapped and has been profitable since inception, achieving a cumulative revenue of US$ 13 million, the company said in a statement.

“...Our vision is to become the leading global social platform and marketplace for fitness coaching, and the confidence shown by Surge in this vision is a shot in the arm for Fittr," said founder Mr Jitendra Chouksey.

Fittr offers free access to diet and training tools, over 5,000 healthy recipes, live fitness sessions with experts, Q&A with coaches, and connects users to a community of fitness experts and enthusiasts. Personalized nutrition and exercise plans to reach their health and fitness goals are offered on a subscription basis. These customised plans are provided by one of Fittr’s 200 certified coaches. Consultation call with the coach, as well as weekly check-ups on their progress is available via the app in the subscription scheme.

Till now, the start-up claims to have transformed over 100,000 people and 30 per cent of their user base is global, spread across the US, UK, Australia, UAE and Canada. The central philosophy underlying Fittr is to encourage the end-user to transform and inspire others to get fit, said co-founder Mr Sonal Singh.

During Lockdown EPFO Settles about 13 Lakh Claims Including 7.40 Lakh COVID-19 Claims Under PMGKY Package

Keeping up the momentum speedier EPF disbursal during Lockdown, Employees' Provident Fund Organization (EPFO), under Union Ministry of Labour & Employment, has settled a total of 12.91 lakh claims, including 7.40 lakhs COVID-19 claims under Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY) package. This involves disbursal of a total amount of Rs 4684.52 crore (US$ 664.57 million) which includes Rs 2,367.65 crore (US$ 335.88 million) COVID claims under PMGKY package.

It is heartening to note that the exempted PF trusts have also risen to the occasion amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. As on 27.04.2020, Rs 875.52 crore (US$ 124.20 million) have been disbursed to 79,743 PF Members as advance  for COVID-19 by the exempted PF Trusts under this Scheme, with 222 private sector establishments disbursing Rs 338.23 crore (US$ 47.98 million) to 54641 beneficiaries, 76 public sector establishments disbursing Rs 524.75 crore (US$ 74.44 million) to 24178 beneficiaries and 23 cooperative sector establishments disbursing Rs 12.54 crore (US$ 1.78 million) to 924 claimants.

M/s Tata Consultancy Services Mumbai, M/s HCL Technologies Ltd. Gurugramand M/s HDFC Bank Powai, Mumbai are the top three exempted establishments in private sector, both in terms of “number of claims settled and “amount disbursed”. In public sector, M/s ONGC Dehradun, M/s Neyveli Lignite Corporation Neyveli and M/s BHEL Trichyare the top 3 exempted           establishments to have settled maximum number of COVID-19 advance claims; whereas, M/s Neyveli Lignite Corporation Neyveli, M/s ONGC Dehradun and M/s Vishakhapatnam Steel Plant Vishakhapatnam are top three establishments in terms of amount disbursed to EPF members.

The provision for a special withdrawal from the EPF Scheme to fight Covid-19 pandemic is part of the PMGKY scheme announced by the government and an urgent notification on the matter was made to introduce a para 68 L (3) of the EPF Scheme on 28th March, 2020. Under this   provision non-refundable withdrawal to the extent of the basic wages and dearness allowances for three months or up to 75 per cent of the amount standing to member's credit in the EPF account, whichever is less, is provided.

Despite only one-third staff being able to work due to lockdown, EPFO is committed to serve its members during this difficult situation and EPFO offices are functional to help them during these testing times.

Record fertilizer sales during lockdown period

Amid National level covid -19 lockdown, Department of Fertilizers, Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers has had a record sale of Fertilizers to farmer community.

During 1 - 22 April 2020, POS sale of fertilizers to farmers was 10.63 lakh MT which is 32 percent higher than the last year sale of 8.02 lakh MT during the same period.

During 1-22 April 2020, dealers purchased 15.77 lakh MT fertilizers which is 46 percent higher than last year sale of 10.79 lakh MT during the same period.

Despite lot of movement restrictions due to National level COVID-19 lockdown, with the concerted efforts of Department of Fertilizers, Railways, States and Ports, production and supply of fertilizers in the country is going on without hindrance.     

This is in line with the commitment made by the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers to ensure availability of fertilizers to farmers for the upcoming Kharif season.         

Union Minister of Chemicals and Fertilizers, Shri D V Sadananda Gowda has said, there is no problem of Fertilizers. State Government have Sufficient stock of the Fertilizers. He said we are in touch with State Agriculture Ministers. Shri Gowda said his Ministry is committed to ensure availability of fertilizers to the farmer community before sowing time.         

On 17th April, 41 Fertilizer Rakes moved from plants & ports. This is the highest movement of fertilizers during lockdown period in a day.  One Rake carries 3000 MT of load at a time.  production in fertilizer companies is going on in full capacity.

Government of India, under Essential Commodities Act has allowed operation of Fertilizers plants in the country so that agriculture sector may not feel the heat of lockdown.

As loading and unloading of fertilizers are in full swing at fertilizer plants, railway stations and ports, no compromise is made with precautions to avoid COVID-19. Masks and all other preventive equipments are provided to labours and all other working staff.

India signs US$ 1.5 billion loan with ADB to support India's COVID-19 immediate response

The Government of India and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) today signed a $1.5 billion loan that will support the government’s response to the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, focusing on immediate priorities such as disease containment and prevention, as well as social protection for the poor and economically vulnerable sections of the society, especially women and disadvantaged groups.

The signatories to the loan agreement for the ADB’s COVID-19 Active Response and Expenditure Support Programme (CARES Programme) were ShriSameer Kumar Khare, Additional Secretary (Fund Bank and ADB), in the Department of Economic Affairs in Ministry of Finance, and Kenichi Yokoyama, Country Director, ADB, in India.

Earlier, the ADB’s Board of Directors approved the loan to provide budget support to the government to counter and mitigate the adverse health and socio-economic impact of the pandemic.

“We thank ADB’s timely assistance for the government’s immediate response measures to the coronavirus pandemic to implement (i) COVID-19 containment plan to rapidly ramp up test-track-treatment capacity, and (ii) social protection for the poor, vulnerable, women, and disadvantaged groups to protect more than 800 million people over the next three months,” said Shri Khare. “ADB’s financial and technical support will contribute to the sound implementation of the government’s far reaching emergency response programs launched in March 2020.”

“ADB is glad to support India’s bold measures to contain the COVID- 19 pandemic outbreak while protecting the most vulnerable people affected by movement restrictions, by fast-tracking and delivering the largest ever loan to India. We will continue to engage with the government to strengthen the implementation framework and capacities including monitoring and evaluation systems of its health services and social protection programmes so that the benefits reach to the poor, women, and other disadvantaged people,” said Mr Yokoyama.

Earlier, during the telephone call with Smt Nirmala Sitharaman, Minister of Finance & Corporate Affairs and ADB Governor on 9thApril 2020, ADB President Mr Masatsugu Asakawa conveyed ADB’s commitment to support India’s emergency needs for the health sector while alleviating the economic impact of the pandemic, as well as short- to medium-term measures to restore the dynamic economic growth of the country by exploring all available financing options.       The CARES Programme is provided as the first support to meet the immediate requirements of the government. 

Building on the CARES Programme, ADB is also in dialogue with the government for further possible support for stimulating the economy, support strong growth recovery, and to build resilience to future shocks. This includes the support for the affected industries and entrepreneurs particularly micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) by facilitating their access to finance through credit guarantee schemes, MSME integration into global and national value chains through enterprise development centers, and a credit enhancement facility for infrastructure projects. Strengthening of public service delivery will be another important agenda, including the extension of comprehensive primary health services in urban areas, and of secondary and tertiary health care systems through PPP modalities.

India has taken several decisive measures to contain the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, including a US$ 2 billion health sector spending programme to expand hospital facilities, ramp up test-track-treatment capacity and launched a US$ 23 billion pro-poor package to provide direct cash transfer, provide basic consumption goods and free cooking gas cylinders to the poor, particularly to women, old and socially disadvantaged groups. It has also extended insurance coverage to frontline health workers engaged in COVID-19 response. The Central bank, Reserve Bank of India, has slashed policy rates, eased asset quality norms, provided loan moratoriums, taken measures to support exporters and allowed states to borrow more to meet their financing requirements. It has also pumped in massive liquidity to support banks, non-banking financial companies, mutual funds as well as taken measures to push the flow of funds to the MSMEs and the corporate sector.

ADB is committed to achieving a prosperous, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable Asia and the Pacific, while sustaining its efforts to eradicate extreme poverty. Established in 1966, it is owned by 68 members—49 from the region.

BEML bags Rs 398 crore order from Coal India

BEML Limited, Bengaluru-based ‘Schedule A’ company under the Ministry of Defence, has bagged order from Coal India Ltd for supply of seven 150-T and eight 205E-T Dump Trucks under trial-cum-sale along with 8-year spare parts contract.

Coal India subsidiaries viz SECL’s Gevra Project and NCL’s Amlohri & Nigahi Projects, respectively will be responsible for deploying these dumpers. The order is worth about Rs 398 crore (US$ 56.46 million).

Dump Trucks are indigenously designed and developed by BEML and are being manufactured at its Mysuru complex. These products are expected to address the growing demand for higher capacity equipment in the mining industry and will improve its production substantially.

All these trucks have eco-friendly emissions certificate engines with electronic fuel management system to deliver maximum power. Its wide body design-higher value metric capacity and low body weight ensures high stability and productivity. A state-of-the-art AC drive system have been engineered to provide exceptional road performance with reduced maintenance.

Contactless shopping and delivery startup Wagonfly raises $500,000

BEML Limited, Bengaluru-based ‘Schedule A’ company under the Ministry of Defence, has bagged order from Coal India Ltd for supply of seven 150-T and eight 205E-T Dump Trucks under trial-cum-sale along with 8-year spare parts contract.

Coal India subsidiaries viz SECL’s Gevra Project and NCL’s Amlohri & Nigahi Projects, respectively will be responsible for deploying these dumpers. The order is worth about Rs 398 crore (US$ 56.46 million).

Dump Trucks are indigenously designed and developed by BEML and are being manufactured at its Mysuru complex. These products are expected to address the growing demand for higher capacity equipment in the mining industry and will improve its production substantially.

All these trucks have eco-friendly emissions certificate engines with electronic fuel management system to deliver maximum power. Its wide body design-higher value metric capacity and low body weight ensures high stability and productivity. A state-of-the-art AC drive system have been engineered to provide exceptional road performance with reduced maintenance.

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.