Kashmiri saffron gets GI tag

Kashmir Valley’s Saffron received the geographical indication (GI) certification from the central Government in a boost to the home-grown spice. This is expected to raise the Saffron prices in the international markets.

Jammu & Kashmir’s Lieutenant Governor (L-G), Mr Girish Chandra Murmu said, “This is the first major step to put Kashmir Saffron on the world map, thanks to the GI tag. The recognition would help Kashmir Saffron to acquire more prominence in the export market and would help the farmers get the best remunerative price”.

The L-G also congratulated Mr Altaf Aijaz Andrabi, director of agriculture, J&K, for his relentless pursuit for the GI tag for the homegrown Kashmiri spice.

He added that this move will aid in restoration of Kashmir’s saffron’s pristine glory which has been a top priority for both the union territory (UT) administration and the Central government.

The saffron industry will be benefited by the inauguration of the state-of-the-art Spice Park at Pampore in south Kashmir in August under the National Saffron Mission (NSM).

Mr Navin K. Choudhary, principal secretary, agriculture production department, J&K, said, “GI certification establishes specific geographical origin and certifies certain unique qualities of the product. GI certification enables those who have the right to use the sign in order to prevent a third party from using the sign. The GI certification would also stop the prevalent adulteration of Kashmir Saffron and the authenticated spice would fetch a much better price”.

He added that Kashmir Saffron is the only one spice in the world grown at an altitude of 1,600 metres, making it a one-of-a-kind variant that is known for its unique characteristics such as natural deep-red colour, aroma, bitter flavor, etc.

Mr Choudhary further said that the sprinkler irrigation system is being installed in saffron fields as per L-G’s instructions and is expected to be completed in the next two months.
 

Average completion time for houses under restructured Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana-Gramin comes down to 114 days; 1.10 crore houses completed which includes houses to 1.46 lakh landless beneficiaries

To achieve the objective of “Housing for all by the year 2022”, Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi launched the restructured rural housing scheme, namely Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana-Gramin (PMAY-G) on 20th November, 2016 with the target of construction of 2.95 crore houses with all basic amenities by the year 2022.

The selection of beneficiaries through a three-stage validation (Socio Economic Caste Census 2011, Gram Sabha, and geo-tagging) has ensured selection of the poorest of the poor under PMAY-G. The department took various measures including IT/DBT to ensure smooth flow of fund to the beneficiaries account, use of new housing designs after studying local region specific typologies, evidence based monitoring through geo-tagged photos taken at all pre-determined stages of construction, transaction based MIS, adequate provision of fund, training of rural masons etc., for timely completion of houses.

All these measures ensured increased pace for construction of houses resulting in completion of 1.10 crore houses which includes houses to 1.46 lakh landless beneficiaries under Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana-Gramin (PMAY-G). The increased pace of work has been reflected in the NIPFP study which indicated 114 days as average completion time for Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana-Gramin (PMAY-G) as compared to 314 days earlier. The Ministry of Rural Development has also completed construction of around 72 lakh houses under Indira Awas Yojana totalling construction of 182 lakh houses since 2014.

PMAY-G also addresses the basic needs of households through convergence with various government programmes. The poor not only get a home but also get up to 90-95 days of work under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). Their homes are also provided electricity connection under the existing Ministry of Power schemes and LPG connection under Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Scheme besides the households’ toilet under Swachh Bharat Mission / MGNREGS and tap connection under Jal Jeeval Mission. Efforts have also been made to provide livelihood development and diversification opportunities to 1.82 crore rural households, under Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Rural Livelihood Mission (DAY-NRLM).

With partnership with the States, the Ministry of Rural Development is confident that with a large number of houses under different stages of completion and increased pace of completion of houses, it would be able to achieve the target of construction of 2.95 crore houses under PMAY-G by March, 2022.
 

Amazon to open 10 new India warehouses; offers insurance

Amazon.com Inc's India unit announced its plan to open 10 new warehouses in the country and begin offering auto insurance, in moves that will help the e-commerce giant widen its reach in a key growth market.

Amazon will now have over 60 warehouses or fulfilment centres across 15 Indian states with an area equivalent to more than 100 football fields, said the company.

It plans to add these new warehouses in 10 Indian cities including Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru, it added.

India has emerged as one of the fastest-growing markets for US-based Amazon, although the company had to face the most regulatory hurdles, and a backlash from traders over accusations of offering discounts.

Amazon also said that its local payments arm, Amazon Pay, has partnered with private firm Acko General Insurance to offer car and motor-bike insurance. This marks India as the first market where Amazon is offering such a financial service.

The insurance service is available on Amazon's app and mobile website.

Customers of Amazon's Prime loyalty programme -- which promises free movies and music streaming as well as faster deliveries for an annual 999 rupees (US$ 13.36), will also get extra benefits and more discounts, Amazon said.

The service will compete with local rivals including SoftBank-backed digital payments firm Paytm and insurance aggregator Policybazaar.
 

Largest Solar Power Plant of Navy Commissioned

Vice Admiral Anil Kumar Chawla, PVSM, AVSM, NM, VSM, ADC Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Southern Naval Command commissioned a 3 MW Solar Power Plant at Indian Naval Academy, Ezhimala on 22 July 2020, via virtual conferencing. This is in line with the Govt of India initiative of ‘National Solar Mission’ to achieve 100GW of solar power by 2022.

The solar plant is the largest in the Indian Navy and has an estimated life of 25 years. All components have been indigenously sourced, including 9180 highly efficient monocrystalline solar panels employing the latest technology. The project has been executed by Kerala State Electronics Development Corporation Ltd (KELTRON).

Despite heavy monsoons and restrictions due to COVID-19, all concerned agencies including Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) continued work on the project adhering to all guidelines/ protocols against COVID-19 and executed the work in a timebound manner.

The Solar Power Plant project will help Naval Station Ezhimala in reducing the carbon footprint and is one of the many initiatives undertaken by INA towards a clean and green environment. Surplus power generated will also feed the KSEB electricity grid.
 

India to set up solar power park in Sri Lanka

India plans to build a solar power park in Sri Lanka as part of a strategy to project its presence in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) amid Chinese attempts to lure nations into its ‘Belt and Road’ initiative.

India’s largest power generation utility NTPC Ltd plans to set up this project in the island nation under the aegis of International Solar Alliance (ISA).

This comes as the presence of Chinese in the Indian Ocean Region has been increasing and is considered as sphere of influence by India. On July 20, 2020, the Indian Navy conducted joint exercises in the Bay of Bengal with the US Navy, which sailed in with an aircraft carrier battle group led by the USS Nimitz.

“We are looking at setting up a solar park in Sri Lanka," said a senior Indian government official.

India has been working on improving the energy infrastructure in Sri Lanka. State-run Ceylon Electricity Board has an installed power generation capacity of around 35.8 gigawatts (GW).

Earlier, Petronet LNG Ltd announced its plans of setting up a liquefied natural gas terminal in Sri Lanka.

It is also exploring laying an overhead electricity link with Sri Lanka as part of efforts to create a new-energy ecosystem in the South Asian neighbourhood. China is already one of the biggest investors in infrastructure projects in Sri Lanka.

This will be NTPC’s second foray after Colombo scrapped a proposal to set up a US$ 500 million coal-fuelled power project in Trincomalee over environmental concerns in 2016.

Though, no official statement was released by NTPC or India’s ministry of new and renewable energy.

With an installed capacity of 62.91 GW, NTPC’s Sri Lanka solar move is one of several such contracts being pursued to help build 10 GW solar capacity in ISA member countries.

Currently, Green energy projects accounts for more than a fifth of India’s installed power generation capacity of 370 GW.
 

Nitin Gadkari launches advisory platform, RestartIndia, to help MSME sector

The Minister for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise (MSMEs) sector, Mr Nitin Gadkari launched www.restartindia.in, a mentoring platform primarily aimed at aiding the sector to restart businesses across the country.

This was developed jointly by Muthoot Fincorp and INKtalks as an open platform for advisory support. It is expected to help the common man by bringing global management information and expertise to the doorstep, said Mr Gadkari.

It is in sync with Atmanirbhar project and is a single platform to get information on various schemes that the Government has initiated and to connect with professionals/experts from various fields, added Mr Gadkari.

According to Muthoot FinCorp release, experts from various fields and industry domains will address the questions and provide information on schemes and initiatives of the government.
It is designed to help the MSME sector, particularly the nano and micro enterprises. It will provide solutions to the problems faced by many women entrepreneurs making a livelihood by setting up very small businesses, following the pandemic crisis.

The website also provides details of various MSME-focused governmental/institutional support and resources on how to run or set up a sustainable business venture.

“The objective is to raise the self-confidence primarily of small businesses by creating an environment for the re-establishment and progress of their businesses”, said Mr Thomas John Muthoot, Chairman and Managing Director of Muthoot Fincorp.

Electric vehicle market likely to be Rs 50,000 crore opportunity in India by 2025: Report

The electric vehicle (EV) market is estimated to be a Rs 50,000 crore (US$ 7.09 billion) opportunity in India by 2025, with two- and three-wheelers expected to drive higher electrification of the vehicles in the medium term in the wake of COVID-19, according to a report by Avendus Capital.

Avendus Capital, which is an investment banking arm of financial services provider Avendus Group, said that the total cost of ownership (TCO) in case of low- and medium-speed electric two-wheelers is already lower than internal combustion engine vehicles.

The report said, "With the present and projected level of EV penetration in the country, EVs in India could represent a Rs 500 billion (US$ 7.09 billion) opportunity by 2025. Two- and three-wheelers will lead the electrification movement in India in the medium term."

It added that the penetration in two-wheeler segment is expected to be at 9 per cent by 2024-25 and with the right macroeconomic environment, it can increase up to 16 per cent while the segment could grow to Rs 12,000 crore (US$ 1.70 billion) by 2024-25.

It is seen that E-rickshaw emerged as a large market in India in a short time frame even though a large part of this market is still unorganised and based on lead-acid batteries, the report stated.

The market is expected to see a shift to lithium-ion battery and by 2024-25, as much as 40 per cent of the e-rickshaw market is expected to be li-ion based.

"Over the past decade, the economics of the technology used in this sector has improved significantly, and today, EVs make economic sense across multiple use cases," said Mr Koushik Bhattacharyya, director and head (industrials) at Avendus Capital, at the launch of the report.

He said that the predictability of transition to EVs is accepted by the world, however, the timeline for mass adoption is still a topic for debate. "But we believe that we are moving quickly towards a mobility regime where EVs become mainstream."

It is expected that the adoption of EVs is accelerated by the current COVID-19, as customers are looking for environment-friendly and cost-effective personal mobility solutions, and also because online commerce is fast becoming the norm, the report said.

"India represents the fourth-largest automobile market in the world and the second-largest two-wheeler market with around 20 million units. It is also a country with massive dependency on oil imports, with a US$ 112 billion oil import bill in FY19," added Mr Bhattacharyya. He added that pollution in many Indian cities has reached alarming levels. "All these factors combined make a strong case for EV adoption in India."

He added that the TCO will become favourable as the battery prices decreases further.

"E-auto makes economic sense on a TCO basis. We expect to see intensive action in this space going forward. We expect around 20 per cent EV penetration in e-auto category by FY25. We expect this segment to be Rs 40 billion (US$ 567.46 million) by FY25," said Mr Ankit Singhal, vice-president (industrials) at Avendus Capital.

It is estimated that the EV adoption in the four-wheeler category will stay limited to commercial or fleet applications. The overall penetration in the electric four-wheeler segment is expected to be about 2 per cent and increase to 5 per cent with the help of right macroeconomic environment, he said.

He added, "We expect this segment to be Rs 100 billion (US$ 1.42 billion) by FY25."

Avendus Capital said it expects factors mainly policy, battery cost, charging infrastructure and supply chain localisation driving the adoption of EVs in various segments in the country over the next decade.

The commercial vehicle side will be led by e-buses with regulatory push expected to drive this category, rather than TCO.

"We expect EV adoption in the bus category to be about 13 per cent by 2024-25 and segment to be Rs 60 billion (US$ 851.18 million) by that time.

"Light commercial vehicles (less than 3.5 tonnes) in the EV category also make TCO sense and we forecast about 4 per cent EV adoption in this segment by FY25, translating into a Rs 15 billion (US$212.80 million) market opportunity," Mr Singhal said.
 

SpiceJet acqui-hires Bengaluru-based airline e-commerce technology company Travenues

SpiceJet, low-cost airline and air cargo operator, acqui-hired the team and technology platform of Bengaluru-based e-commerce technology company Travenues, a wholly owned subsidiary of online travel aggregator ixigo.

Acqui-hiring is a new concept where the company hires the employees rather than gaining the control of its products or services.

The Travenues technology team will join SpiceJet, while SpiceJet will inherit the airline technology and commerce platform built by Travenues that specialises in mobile apps, user experience (UX), engagement, cross-selling, payments, personalisation, among others.

"We are glad to welcome team Travenues to SpiceJet. This acqui-hire will help SpiceJet strengthen its e-commerce platforms as we continue to innovate across multiple technology areas and achieve our vision of being the worldwide leader in aviation technology," said Mr Ashish Vikram, Chief Technology and Innovation Officer, SpiceJet.

"We are proud of the team and the full stack airline commerce suite we have built and we wish the SpiceJet team all the best in taking it to the next level with a talented and motivated team," said Mr Chandramouli Gopalakrishnan, Chief Digital Officer, Travenues.

Travenues was founded last year and is a technology platform business for travel suppliers and offers a travel-tech airline commerce and ancillary sales platform to airlines that allows for extensive customisation and state-of-the-art personalisation.

It aimed to help airlines power their own consumer experiences through this B2B offering and use deep tech integrations to further help airlines with UX around engagement, segmentation, targeting, cross-selling, payments, and customer service.

Last year, Travenues had signed its first technology partnership with SpiceJet for digital transformation of its consumer-facing experiences.

“We are happy that we were able to incubate a startup and build a next generation platform with a motivated tightly-knit team that can truly disrupt airline direct sales and airline commerce. The possibilities this unfolds for SpiceJet are endless!" said Mr Rajnish Kumar, co-founder and CTO, ixigo.

HIL (India) has supplied 20.60 MT of DDT to South Africa for Malaria control program

HIL (India) Limited, a PSU under the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers, has supplied 20.60 Metric tonne of DDT 75 per cent WP to South Africa for their Malaria control program yesterday.

HIL (India) is the sole manufacturer of DDT globally. The company was incorporated in the year 1954 to manufacture and supply DDT to Government of India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare for malaria control programme. In the year 2019-20, the product was supplied to 20 States in the country. The company is also exporting the product to many African countries.

 The Department of Health, South Africa shall be utilising DDT in three province adjoining Mozambique. The region is highly affected with Malaria and it has reported maximum morbidity and mortality due to the disease in recent years.

Malaria continues to be one of the major public health problems globally. In 2018, an estimated 228 million cases of malaria occurred worldwide and most malaria cases and deaths (93 per cent) were reported from African Region. In the South East Asia Region, India accounts for majority of cases and death. Spraying of insecticides inside the human habitants i.e. Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS) has proven to be effective mosquito control tool. World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends DDT as one of the efficient IRS chemicals to curb malaria mosquito menace and it is widely used by Southern African countries like South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia, Mozambique etc. and India.

The Company is further in process of supplying DDT 75 per cent WP to Zimbabwe (128 MT) and Zambia (113 MT) in the current FY2020-21. 

HIL (India) Limited has recently exported 25 MT of Malathion Technical 95 per cent to Iran under Government-to-Government initiative for the Locust Control Programme and exported Agrochemical-fungicide (32 MT) to Latin American region.

Jal Jeevan Mission: States compete among themselves to outperform others; 7 States achieved more than 10 per cent of the target of 2020-21

Launched in August 2019, in 7 months of implementation of Jal Jeevan Mission in 2019-20, around 85 lakh rural households were provided with tap connections. Further, amidst COVID-19 pandemic, since Unlock-1, about 55 lakh tap connections have been provided so far in the year 2020-21. Thus, daily about 1 lakh households are being provided with tap connections.

As of today, 7 States viz. Bihar, Telangana, Maharashtra, Haryana, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, and Mizoram have achieved more than 10 per cent of the target household tap connections they had fixed for themselves. States like Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Odisha, and Manipur have shown good progress during the corresponding period. This shows the commitment of the States to provide the basic services to the people residing in rural areas as envisaged under the flagship programme, Jal Jeevan Mission, as well as the speed and scale with which the States are making efforts to provide tap connections.

Out of 18.93 crore rural households in the country, 4.60 crore (24.30 per cent) households are already provided tap connections. The objective is to cover remaining 14.33 crore households in a time-bound manner while ensuring the functionality of all tap connections. With this goal in mind, States/ UTs are providing tap connections at the rate of more than one lakh connections daily.

In 2020-21, a sum of Rs 23,500 crore (US$ 3.33 billion) has been allocated for the implementation of JJM. Further, 50 per cent of 15th Finance Commission grants to Rural Local Bodies, i.e. Rs 30,375 crore (US$ 4.31 billion) have also been earmarked for water supply and sanitation. 50 per cent of this amount has been released to the States already, which will help in better implementation, management, operation, and maintenance of drinking water supply systems in villages to ensure people get potable water on regular and long-term basis.

The Ministry of Jal Shakti has been implementing Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) in partnership with States with an aim to provide potable water in adequate quantity of prescribed quality on regular and long-term basis through tap connections to every rural household in the country by 2024. All out efforts are being made by the National Mission under Ministry of Jal Shakti to handhold the States/ UTs for the implementation. The progress of the mission is being monitored on day-to-day basis.

Various States/ UTs have committed to achieve the goal of the Mission well before 2024. In 2021, Bihar, Goa, Puducherry and Telangana have planned for complete saturation; similarly in 2022, States/ UTs of Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Ladakh, Meghalaya, Punjab, Sikkim and Uttar Pradesh are planning for 100 per cent coverage. While Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura have planned for full saturation in 2023, States like Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Jharkhand, Kerala, Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand and West Bengal have planned for 2024.

In line with the appeal of the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi to further improve ‘ease of living’ in rural areas by providing facilities like financial inclusion, houses, road, clean fuel, electricity and toilets, the Jal Jeevan Mission is providing drinking water in every rural household, which will certainly improve the lives of rural population especially women and girls and save them from drudgery as well as water-borne diseases.