New Delhi : The government will digitally connect all rural post offices by March 2017, Parliament was informed today.
“Government is digitally connecting all 1,29,323 gramin dak sewak post offices in rural areas across the country by March 2017,” Communications and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.
The government has approved the Department of Posts’ IT Modernisation Project with a total outlay of Rs 4,909 crore aiming modernisation, digitisation and networking of around 1,55,000 post offices.
The Minister said the Rural Information and Communication Technology (RICT) project is in its implementation phase and goal of this project is to digitise all the 1,29,323 rural post offices through a handheld computing device, connecting them with the help of SIM card based network and ensuring proper power supply backup with the help of solar energy.
Prasad said the core banking service (CBS) is being implemented in all 25,297 departmental post offices of the country.
“Once RICT is deployed in gramin dak sewak post offices in rural areas, they will be connected to CBS also. Hence, all the post offices in the country will work on common core banking platform,” Prasad added.
The Minister further said Department of Posts is also setting up ATMs with the CBS for the convenience of post office customers and by March 2016, 1,000 ATMs are planned to be installed.
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NEW DELHI: World’s largest e-retailer Amazon is India’s most trusted online shopping brand followed by homegrown Snapdeal and Flipkart, a survey said.
Other firms to figure in the top 10 trusted online shopping brands are Ebay, Myntra, Yepme, Jabong, Naaptol, Shopclues and Askmebazaar.
The survey was conducted among 2,500 respondents, aged 21-50, across 16 cities and its findings have been compiled in The Brand Trust Report, India Study 2016.
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Legendary actor Manoj Kumar will be bestowed with the prestigious Dadasaheb Phalke Award this year. The Bollywood veteran has a legacy of iconic films like Woh Kaun Thi, Hariyali Aur Raasta, Patthar Ke Sanam, Purab Aur Paschim, Kranti andRoti Kapda Aur Makaan. The Dadasaheb Phalke is India’s highest recognition in cinema and consists of a golden lotus, a cash prize of Rs 10 lakhs and a shawl. The 78-year-old actor will become the 47th recipient of the great award, and will be honoured for his outstanding contribution to Indian cinema. He had already received the Padma Shri by the Government of India in 1992.
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Out of Rs 500 crore allocated to Ministry of Youth Affairs, Rs 120 crore have been earmarked for the National Service Scheme (NSS), which is aimed at developing student’s personality through community service.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitely had allocated a total of Rs 1400 crore as plan outlay, while Rs 192 crore was set aside for non-plan for a total figure of Rs 1592 crore for Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports. Last year the total allocation was Rs 1541.13 crore.
The plan outlay has been increased to approximately Rs 10.82 crore as compared to the previous year, while the Non- Plan outlay has been hiked by Rs 40.15 crore.
The allocation for the scheme for the Benefit of North Eastern Area, has been revised to Rs 144.98 crore this year as compared to Rs 150.23 crore last year.
The Sports Authority, entrusted with the task of organising national camps, has been granted a total of Rs 381.30 crore this year, which is a hike of Rs 11.91 crore.
However, assistance to sports institutions has been kept at Rs 545.90 crore. Under youth affairs, the National Service Scheme has been allocated Rs 215.70 crore.
Rs 12 crore has been allocated for anti-doping activities, which is the same as last year.
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Noted water conservationist Rajendra Singh, also known as ‘Waterman of India’, today announced his maiden intervention to rejuvenate polluted rivers in the urban areas of the country.
Singh will launch the campaign from the Dahisar river in northwest Mumbai with a 5 km ‘river march’ on Sunday. He said more such marches have been planned in other cities in India.
The 14-km long Dahisar river, which passes through densely-populated pockets of Borivali and Dahisar in northwestern suburbs, has been badly impacted over the years due to different kinds of pollution.
Some of the biggest pollutants of the river are the untreated discharge from an illegal ‘dhobi ghat’, many cowsheds, a crematorium and unplanned slum areas through which the river passes, experts say.
Singh, who is credited with reviving rivers in his home state of Rajasthan and was conferred the Stockholm Water Prize for his work in 2015, said the aim of this campaign is to rejuvenate urban rivers by taking appropriate actions.
“It’s important that all living beings should lead a stress-free life and have access to clean water in its natural form. River rejuvenation work is, therefore, the biggest challenge before all of us and specially for urban citizens,” Singh told PTI here today.
The winner of 2001 Ramon Magsaysay Award for community leadership rued that almost all the rivers in the country are “biologically dead” because of the activities which happen in their catchment areas and that they are now affecting all living beings, mostly the people living near it.
This two-year campaign is aimed at restoring the river to what it should be through this campaign, he said.
Deputy Director of the Maharashtra Nature Park Society, Avinash Kubal, explains that as the Dahisar river exits the protected area of Sanjay Gandhi National Park, it faces the wrath of the washers, who discharge detergents and other chemicals into the river.
Not just that, close to two dozen cowsheds, home to over 2,000 livestock, release dung and other waste into the river and then it passes through the area, where sanitation and waste water disposal systems are not working effectively, further compounding the problem.
The situation is very grave and posing health hazards for
the people living nearby, Kubal said.
“Generally, even the river, which gets polluted, will get purified naturally by the impact and actions of elements like biota in the riverbed. But in case of almost all the rivers in our cities this is not happening and as a result the river once polluted always remains polluted,” he said.
Volunteers have worked for over last two years, collecting data on what ails the river system and have found that there is unbearable stench in many quarters because of the lethal gases getting released from the polluted waters.
Also, majority of the stretches of the Dahisar river are a breeding ground of mosquitoes, resulting in health-related worries.
There are as many as 19 educational institutions in the vicinity of the river and students suffer the bad stench when they are at their classes, Kubal said.
A meeting of 18 different stakeholder groups was held here under the chairmanship of Singh on January 29 to discuss the way ahead. Solutions like setting up an affluent treatment plant for the dhobi ghat area, biogas plants near cowsheds and correcting the sewage systems for shanties were also decided. All these can be done at a very minimal cost.
Students from over 10 different colleges, including Somaiya College, MD College, have come together and are working for different aspects of sustainable river rejuvenation for Dahisar river, Kubal said.
He said the government and the people are working together on the project and help will also be taken from corporates, which have evinced interest in supporting the scheme under their CSR initiatives.
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New Delhi: Assembly elections in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Assam and union territory of Puducherry, with a lot of stakes for Congress and BJP in at least two of them each, will be held between April 4 and May 16, spread over 43 days.
It will be a single-day polling in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry on May 16 while it will be in six phases in West Bengal and two in Assam.
Counting of votes in all the states will be held on May 19, Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi announced today unveiling the poll schedule.
Congress is in power in Assam and Kerala while the BJP fancies itself as being a top contender in Assam in alliance with AGP and some small outfits. The BJP is seeking to emerge as a major player in West Bengal, where there are possibilities of Congress and Left joining hands directly or indirectly to take on Trinamool Congress.
Like in 2011, West Bengal will have polls spread over six phases. The first phase to be held in Left wing extremism affected areas will have two polling dates–April 4 and April 11. The other phases will be held on April 17, 21, 25, 30 and May 5. Assam will go to polls in two phases on April 4 and 11.
Zaidi said two dates in the first phase of polling in West Bengal have been decided keeping in mind the sensitive nature of the area and the availability of security personnel as they would also be deployed in Assam which is also considered sensitive.He maintained that West Bengal will have polls in “overall” six phases.
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“Government has not consumed everything. We have not hidden anything. To have a balanced fiscal strategy, we have invested the money saved in farm sector, infrastructure sector and the health sector,” he said and asked if it was a “crime” to spend the money thus saved for the benefit of the people in a welfare state.
He also said that Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in his budget speech has also said that the fall in international crude oil prices has helped the Indian economy. Pradhan said while the government passed on 49 per cent of the benefits of the fall in global crude prices to consumers, it has given 41 per cent of fall in diesel prices to them.
“We have saved some money. This commodity is very volatile …We have to have a balanced fiscal strategy. Our Prime Minister has made it clear…we have saved some money and reinvested in other social sectors,” he said. The Minister, however, came under attack from the Opposition which accused his government of not passing on the benefits of falling crude prices to the consumers and instead keeping it by raising excise duties on both petrol and diesel.
Sitaram Yechury (CPI-M) said the benefits of the fall in the global crude prices has not been on passed to the people. While tax on petrol has been raised from Rs 9 to Rs 21, that on diesel from Rs 3 to over Rs 17.
“Instead of passing the benefits, you are collecting more excise. Why has it not been passed by the government and why it has been appropriated by government? The difference that has to be passed on to the consumer is consumed by the government who have collected extra money to the tune of Rs 54,000 crore and that is why your fiscal management happened,” he said accusing the Minister of evading a categorical reply.
Pradhan, however, said, the government has “not consumed everything” but invested in the social sector. Digvijay Singh (Cong) also accused the Centre of keeping the money with itself and said “this is injustice with the people” as government has thrice raised the excise duty even as the crude in Indian basket has reduced by 60 per cent. Tapan Kumar Sen (CPI-M) charged the Minister with not giving a “correct” answer.
New Delhi: A bill that seeks to revise the list of Scheduled Castes in some States and remove area-specific restrictions for certain communities was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday.
Social Justice Minister Thawar Chand Gehlot introduced The Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order (Amendment) Bill, 2016 in the Lower House, amid noisy protests by members of different parties over a host of issues.
“The State governments of Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Odisha and West Bengal have proposed certain modifications in the list of Scheduled Castes by way of inclusion of certain communities, modification and removal of area restriction in respect of certain communities and exclusion of certain communities in the case of Odisha,” the bill says.
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