Governance Community

Dehradun, Uttarakhand: Dehradun District Magistrate R Rajesh Kumar took stock of various bus service related arrangements while riding in a Smart City Limited bus from ISBT to Tehsil Chowk. During the ride, he interacted with the public and received suggestions from them to improve the bus service and related arrangements. He instructed for an online ticket payment system using QR code and to make the announcement system more effective. Kumar instructed the officers of Smart City Limited to arrange better first aid and masks so that people without masks could use them. He instructed to ensure adherence to COVID protocols in the bus. He said that various public service schemes by the government should be communicated on screens on smart city buses. He also directed to reserve some seats for women, specially-abled and senior citizens in the bus. The District Magistrate sought suggestions from the passengers to make the bus services better. He was suggested to start bus services in other routes in the district. He also saw the traffic signals installed by the Smart City at ISBT and Smart CCTV cameras installed for traffic control/security, which are being controlled from the Smart City Control Room located at IT Park. He asked to make the electric buses run by Smart City double-decker and prepare an action plan to provide more smooth traffic to the commuters. In view of the heavy vehicular traffic at ISBT, he asked to strengthen the traffic signals further so that the pedestrians are not inconvenienced in any way. Source: The article has been published by ANI.

Railways issued tenders last month for the construction of rail arcades to engagetravellers. In a recent developmental initiative the Indian Railways has envisioned a plan to build small city centre hubs at railway stations in major cities. These hubs will contain shopping plazas and food courts for the entertainment of the travellers. The first two smart city centres are proposed to be built in Bangalore and Chandigarh. The state-run Indian Railways Station Development Corporation Ltd (IRSDC) issued tenders last month to develop the small city centre that will let residents of the two cities and travellers “to engage, use the facilities and spend quality time”. According to the tender, potential bidders will not be allowed to sell beef, pork or alcohol at these centres.The proposed arcade zone for KSR Bengaluru railway station will be spread across 15,550 square feet while Chandigarh railway station’s arcade will be half this size, 7,500 sq ft. “The space is to be developed as an experience zone with presence of brands,” said the tender document issued by IRSDC, the dedicated company set up by the government to upgrade railway stations. The construction and setting of the Rail Arcades is a part of a larger plan to monetize the national carrier’s land parcels and railway stations in a bid to shore up its falling revenue. The IRSDC is also working to transform railway station areas into a ‘Railopolis’, a mini smart city hub with mixed- use development. Source: The story has been published from Hindustan Times with a few edits by the ArdorComm NewsNetwork team.

Unison of the whole parties backing the government was seen in the parliament, for government’s efforts to evacuate the Indians who are stranded in Afghanistan, and also for ensuring the safety of those who are waiting to get back to their homeland soon. This was witnessed at a meeting convened to brief them on the ongoing issue of the Indians stranded in Afghanistan. As the situation seems fluidafter the Taliban has taken over Afghanistan and yet the roles of Afghan leaders and groups aren’t clear. India has opted for the “wait and watch’ position until the new dispensation of leadership takes place in Afghanistan. The foreign minister S Jaishankar stated the meeting of floor leaders of all political parties with an opening remark in the parliament on the Afghan situation. He stated that ap[propriate steps are being taken to bring back Indians as well as those interested in coming to India, and the road ahead. Following which foreign secretary Harsh V Shringla gave a detailed presentation on the matter. Source: theeconomictimes.com

Prayagraj: Due to the rise in cases of power theft in the city, the government has decided to revamp the power distribution lines. The electricity department has decided to lay the Low-tension (LT) line which is responsible for supplying electricity to every house, underground in the city.  The power department has already performed a survey to find the areas where the cases of power theft are at an all-time high. They will lay the LT line first in the areas will high number of power theft cases. In the revamped scheme by the central government, the installation of aerial bunch conductors will take place to curb the theft of electricity even in villages with less than thousand residents. Superintendent engineer Ashutosh Srivastav is currently the nodal officer responsible for revamping power distribution in the city. According to chief engineer Vinod Kumar (Prayagraj Division) of Purvanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam Limited, a proposal will be drafted by the state power department and will be sent to the Center through the state government. According to TOI, “All the attempts are being made to minimize the loss of poweer—12% in urban and 15% in rural areas—so that the consumers get uninterrupted power supply. For this, the entire set up, from the substation to wires, transformers etc., would be revamped so that there is a minimum flaw in the power line and the work would be completed within 2025”, said the chief engineer. The power department may also start the installation of smart meters in urban homes of the city. Source: Times of India

From the date of the launch of Sovereign Gold Bond (SGB) in 2015, the government has collected Rs 31,290 crore. This was informed in the parliament on Monday by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. The main objective of the gold bonds was to create an alternative financial asset and also an investment substitute for purchasing or holding physical gold.  In this respect, Nirmala Sitharaman said, ‘It was the response of the public in respect of the SGB scheme which resulted in a collection of Rs, 31,290 crores in 2015-16”. These bonds have been issued on payments in Indian Rupees and dominated on grams. Issued on the behalf of the government of India by the Reserve bank of India and have a sovereign guarantee. Currently the limit for the investment of 4 Kg per fiscal year, for individuals and 20 kg per fiscal year for Hindu Undivided Families, trusts, and similar entities. The ceiling for this will be counted based on the financial year and it will include SGB purchases during the trading in the secondary market, as the finance minister stated. With that, the ceiling on investment will not include the holding as collateral by the banks and financial institutions.  Source: economictimes.com

According to its electoral promise, to appoint aspirants belonging from all castes as temple priests, the DMK government on Saturday appointed 24 trained ‘archakas’, belonging to various communities as priests in the shrine. The appointment orders were handed over by chief minister M K Stalin, the orders were of the Hindu religious charitable Endowments Department for 75 personals making appointments to 208 positions in various segments. The appointments also include 24 aspirants who completed their training in the state-run center for becominga priest in Hindu temples with 34 others as well, who had completed their training in ‘pathshala’ as ‘archaka’.  Also, these 208 appointments include “Bhattacharyas, “Odhuvars” Poojaris, and technical and office assistant. They were all recruited after due process, said the government.  In this recruitment we can see, Bhttacharyas who are Vaishanaite priests, Odhuvars who are trained in Tamil Devotionalhymns composed by Shaivite saints which also include Appar and Manikavasagar in praise lord of shiva. Source: theeconomictimes.com

Starting in October 20, 2021, India will host it’s first-ever ‘Internet Governance Forum’, an Internet Governance policy discussion platform, which aims to bring together representatives from various platforms to discuss internet policy issues. Announcing the launch of the forum in a press conference, Anil Kumar Jain, the CEO, National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI) and the Chairman of Coordination Committee, India Internet Governance Forum 2021 (IIGF) said the forum will be planned for three days in October this year. The coordination committee of India Internet Governance 2021 features Anil Kumar Jain as Chairman, TV Ramchandran as Vice-Chairman, Jaijeet Bhattacharya as Vice Chairman, Dr Rajat Moona as Vice-Chairman and approximately 12 members representing Government, Civil Society, Industries, Trust, Associations etc. Scheduled between, October 20 – 22 this year, the theme of the forum is ‘Inclusive Internet for Digital India’. With more than 10,000 expected participants, the 3-day event will conduct over 25 workshops in domains such as Digital Economy, Digital Governance, Trust, Security, Stability, Sustainability, among others. With this announcement, the Indian chapter of the United Nations-based forum namely the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) has begun. The Indian Internet Governance Forum will work towards bringing various stakeholders together from different groups, considering all at par to discuss public policy issues related to the Internet. The prime objective of the forum is to generate discussions about policy formation related to the Internet. Further, the forum will also become a starting point for identifying something that retards or halts the free movement and progress of Internet policies and trying to resolve this one by one.  “India is the second-largest broadband subscription country in the world and also has the highest data consumption per user per month. Therefore, the aspirations of the Indians should be reflected in International policy formation and stakeholder discussion,” the Chairman of Coordination Committee Anil Kumar Jain informed during the announcement of the forum. As per the IIGF website, as a region with enormous internet economy potential (800 million Internet users and over 1.2 billion mobile users), India comes with the most diverse internet-related stakeholders and issues (e.g. cybersecurity, net neutrality, online rights, youth, and digital innovation). In a global setting, following such a need to include, consider, and invite these stakeholders’ perspectives, the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) initiated the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in 2006 and has since been holding the Forum annually. Further, starting August 2021, multiple Pre-IIGF engagement events will be conducted at several colleges and universities, as a precursor to the IIGF 2021. The idea behind this is to engage the youth and students for their participation in the October event and prepare the next generation to be part of policy formation. Source: PBNS

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said it was unfortunate that people had to wait decades for basics like hospitals, roads and electricity, as he launched the second phase of the Ujjwala cooking gas scheme in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh. “We are entering 75th year of independence and when we see the progress made in the past seven and a half decades, we realise that certain conditions and situation could have been changed decades ago,” Modi said after launching Ujjwala 2.0 (Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana) and distributing LPG connections at a programme at Mahoba in Uttar Pradesh’s Bundelkhand region via video conferencing. Union minister for petroleum and natural gas Hardeep Singh Puri and state chief minister Yogi Adityanath attended the programme with the latter making a token distribution of LPG connections on the occasion. The prime minister, who interacted with Ujjwala scheme’s five beneficiaries including one from Gorakhpur, used the occasion to highlight his government’s work on providing basic needs to the society. “Will our energy waste in fulfilling basic needs? How can a family or a society progress and realise big dreams if it has to struggle for basic needs?” he asked. “Our sisters and daughters will be able to contribute to the nation building only if their problems of kitchen and home are taken care of. We have worked on mission mode to resolve such issues,” the PM added. Modi referred to the upcoming Raksha Bandhan festival to connect with women, saying he was delighted to get blessings of his sisters well in advance. Keeping up with his recent messages on sports in the wake of the recently concluded Tokyo Olympics, the prime minister used the occasion to connect with the people of Bundelkhand, saying Ujjwala 2.0 was being launched from the land of brave, Mahoba, adding that the region is home to legendary hockey player Major Dhyanchand after whom the highest award for sportspersons has been recently named and it will inspire millions of the youth. He said by their exemplary performance at the Tokyo Olympics, the country’s sportspersons have given an indication about the future of sports. Giving statistical details about achievements of his government, he said under the first phase of Ujjwala scheme LPG connections have been given to 80 million women from the poor and deprived sections of society. The prime minister said India was close to achieving 100% gas connection coverage, adding that the number of gas connections distributed in the past seven years was higher than the total connections in the country till 2014. “We saw how much this helped during the Covid-19 pandemic. When there was no movement and businesses were closed, crores of poor families were given free gas cylinders for many months,” he said. “In the last six years, more than 11,000 new LPG distribution centers have opened across the country. Uttar Pradesh alone had less than 2,000 distribution centers in 2014. In UP now, there are 4,000 such centers giving employment to thousands of youths,” he added. Elaborating on the scheme, Modi said in Ujjwala 2.0 a self-declaration of address will work to get a LPG connection in other states as well. He said efforts were also being made to supply piped natural gas while expeditious work was being done to give PNG connections in UP and northeastern states at the earliest. The PM said a target to give PNG connections to 2.1 million households in over 50 districts of Uttar Pradesh has been set in the first phase. He added that efforts were also being made to boost use of CNG in transportation. Stating that the World Biofuel Day on Tuesday was a reminder about the targets on clean energy front, he mentioned plans to promote “gobar dhan” – tapping cow dung for energy. Modi said India was close to achieving the target of 10% blending of ethanol in petrol and would aim for 20% blending in coming years. He added that vehicles will use 100% ethanol in future. The prime minister said farmers from Uttar Pradesh will be benefitted the most with the option of making ethanol from sugarcane. He said ethanol worth ₹7 lakh crore was bought from producers last year. He said a number of units linked to ethanol and biofuel have come up in the state and plants were being set up in 70 districts to make compressed biogas. He also announced that three big complexes were coming up to make biogas from ‘parali’ including two at Badaun and Gorakhpur in UP and another at Bhatinda in Punjab. Meanwhile, CM Adityanath said 15 million families in the state availed the benefit of the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana in its first phase. “Six years ago, the prime minister launched the first phase of Ujjwala Yojana from Ballia district in eastern UP. In the first phase of Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY), 1.5 crore (15 million) families in Uttar Pradesh availed the benefit of the scheme,” he said. Rajendra Chaudhary, spokesperson for the Samajwadi Party, said, “Mahoba has been chosen as the venue to launch the scheme in view of 2022 assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh. Prime Minister Narendra Modi should not indulge in politics of betrayal. Ujjawala has not helped the poor due to high cost of cylinder.” Source: ArdorComm News Network has published the story with an edited headline with the rest of the news belonging to The Hindustan Times and PTI.

The Gujarat government is putting a lot of effort into working on faceless technology. The aim of creating this user passage through faceless technology in administrative works is to curb corruption. On the celebration of five years completion of the Rupani Government, this announcement was made by the chief minister. Rupani mentioned, ‘Gujrat is on the verge of expanding its internet services to the rural areas of the state under the BharatNet Project. Earlier ‘Seva-Setu’ programs were conducted at the taluka level to help citizens get benefits from various government schemes. Now the same program has been shifted online as ‘e-Seva-Setu’  offering services through technology. Rupani highlighted his vision of curbing and decreasing corruption to the maximum possible extent. For this purpose, the state government is all set to move towards the usage of technology for creating a faceless system.  In this regard, the Gujarat government recently made no-agriculture land pertaining services online. With this other services like e-tenders release for mines and minerals has also helped in reducing corruption.  Source: theeconomictimes.com