No Transparency No Funding
The Minister of State (MoS) for Social Justice and Empowerment Vijay Sampla in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha said that the Government is imparting greater transparency and expeditiousness in the sanctioning of funds to Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs). The Minister said several corrective steps have been initiated by his Ministry to check embezzlement of Government funds sanctioned to NGOs. In fact, the Ministry has revamped the process of submitting application and subsequent process has been made online mandatory from the Financial Year 2014-2015.
Sampla informed the Rajya Sabha that funds are only released to the NGO once they get a receipt from various departments including the State Level Grant-in-Aid Committee, Inspection Reports, Utilisation Certificate and Audited Accounts. In fact, the Ministry has also initiated a surprise checking of these NGOs to stop corruption and embezzlement. The Minister also said that the schemes or programmes implemented through NGOs are also monitored by respective State Government and UT administrations.
“The Ministry sponsors evaluation studies from time to time through independent evaluation agencies, inter alia, to check proper utilisation of funds by the implementing agencies under various schemes and programmes, ” the Minister said.
He also informed that in the event of proven misappropriation of fund by an NGO, the Ministry blacklists defaulter.
Clean Ganga Mission
Minister of State (MoS) for Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation Prof Sanwar Lal Jat informed Lok Sabha that the Centre has proposes to free all villages along the banks of the river from open defecation under Namami Gange project.
The Minister was answering the Lok Sabha question on the plans of rejuvenating the Ganga river and freeing it from the pollutants. He also said that during the Union Budget session for 2014-2015, the Government has set up an Integrated Ganga Conservation Mission namely “Namami Gange” with an allocation of Rs 2,037 crore for Ganga Rejuvenation plan. He said, “The plan formulated for Ganga Rejuvenation provides for ‘Short-term’, ‘Medium-term’, and a ‘Long-term’ action plan, while incorporating the projects already sanctioned by National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBP).” The Minister also said that a currently, a World Bank assisted National Ganga River Basin Project (NGRBP) for Rs 7000 crore and a Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) assisted Project at Varanasi for Rs 496.90 crore are under implementation.
National Ganga Monitoring Centre (NGMC) is conceptualised as a Nodal Centre for monitoring the critical aspects of Ganga rejuvenation, such as water and effluent quality at identified suitable locations throughout Ganga, using IT enabled systems, the MoS informed the Lower House on Thursday.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation has also prepared an Action Plan to make some 1649 Gram Panchayats along the banks of river Ganga Open Defecation Free at an estimated cost of approximately Rs 1508.76 crore. Around 118 urban habitations on both banks of river Ganga have been tentatively identified by the Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) for extending suitable coverage of sewerage infrastructure the Lok Sabha was told.
Government to recognise commendable work done by retiring officers
The Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Jitendra Singh in a written reply to Dr. T Subbarami Reddy in Rajya Sabha said that retiring employees who have served the country will be recognised and their achievements will be put up on Department’s website. He also said that a platform for retiring employees has been initiated where a retiring employee can showcase his or her significant achievements during their service period. This has been already uploaded on the website of the concerned department. Singh also said that this step will also create a database of useful suggestions and information provided by the employee. Once this facility is eventually created, retiring employees will be able to submit their outstanding achievements online.
Railways launches NextGeneration E-ticketing System
In order to provide better services to the passengers, the Railway Ministry has upgraded its website for booking of e-tickets, Minister of State (MoS) for Railways Manoj Sinha told Lok Sabha. He also informed that a new state-of-the-art Data Centre has been set up by Indian Railway Catering & Tourism Corporation to serve people better. Further, the e-ticketing system has been upgraded with the launch of the NextGeneration E-ticketing System (NGeT). While replying to the question in Lok Sabha, the Minister also said that under this system, people will be able to book over 7200 tickets in a minute as against the capacity of 2000 tickets per minute of the old system. he said, “In the new system around 1,20,000 concurrent users can login at a time and simultaneously book e-tickets against the earlier capacity of 40,000 concurrent users at a time”.
However, he also told the Lower House that though a few instances of unsuccessful transactions have been reported on issues including non-availability of the choice of berth, network failure at the bank’s end but these cases are being examined and necessary steps have been put up in place.
Monitoring of variability of weather phenomenon
Union Minister of Science and Technology and Ministry of Earth Sciences Harsh Vardhan in a written reply in Rajya Sabha said that the Government is continuously monitoring the variability of the weather phenomena, extremes and development of abnormal weather pattern potentially leading to drought, floods, flash floods, cyclones, rain induced landslides, heat cold wave. He informed that the records of past weather events show that extreme values in respect of heavy rainfall, maximum and minimum temperatures, seasonal rainfall etc remained unsurpassed in many cases.
The Minister said,”Heavy rain events (>10 cm/day) over Central India are found to have increased in the recent decades while weak and moderate events are decreasing. The extreme rain events which are becoming more intense in recent years are localised and could be part of the natural variability of the monsoon system”.
He also informed that the spatial changes in minimum temperature are found to be decreasing in most parts of Western Ghats and increasing in most parts of Himalayan region and certain parts of the Northeastern region and such warming is confined to winter and post-monsoon seasons. No such pattern is discerned in respect of other weather phenomena.
However, he informed that spatial pattern of trend in mean annual temperature anomalies, for the period 1902-2012, suggests significant positive (increasing) trend (0.5 0C) in general with few pockets of 1.0 0C) over most parts of the country except some parts of Rajasthan, Gujarat and Bihar, where significant negative (decreasing) trend was observed. He also told Parliament that no significant long-term trends are reported in the frequencies of large-scale droughts or floods in the summer Monsoon season. Vardhan also said that total frequency of cyclonic storms that form over the Bay of Bengal have remained constant.
Radars to monitor cyclones
Union Minister of Science and Technology and Ministry of Earth Sciences Harsh Vardhan in a written reply in Rajya Sabha said that the Government does not proposes to buy a NASA aircraft for prediction of cyclones or calamities.
“Earth System Science Organisation –India Meteorological Department (ESSO-IMD) has installed Doppler Weather Radars network over the coastal areas of the country to identify zones of strong wind and heavy precipitation associated with cyclone as and when cyclone moves in to the 500 km radial coverage range”, the Minister said. The Minister also said that a full proof 24×7 operational cyclone detection and movement mechanism exists for the assessment of intensity, track and landfall over the coastal areas of the country. Details of such monitoring mechanism include genesis of the possible cyclonic circulation over the open seas is generated by the meso-scale short range (72hrs in advance) prediction models and global scale medium range (120hrs in advance) prediction models along with monitoring sea surface temperature and moisture convergence, satellite monitoring is pursued for detecting cyclogenesis and monitoring further intensity, movement and landfall of cyclones, Rajya Sabha was duly informed.
While answering the question, the Minister said, ” As far as the track and landfall forecasts of the tropical cyclones are concerned, the performance evaluation of the updated forecast systems for the past five years have demonstrated enhanced forecast skill by about 18 per cent”.
Review of financial architecture of MSMEs
Minister of State, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, Giriraj Singh in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha said that the Centre has set up a Committee to examine the financial architecture for the sector, which will also cover the Department of Financial Services (DFS), Ministry of Finance. The Committee and Joint Secretary (Institutional Finance), DFS as Member Secretary. The first meeting of the committee was held on November 11.
The Committee comprises 15 members, the Minister said.
India self-sufficient in Thorium Reserves
India has reserves of thorium in sufficient quantity as compared to other parts of world, the Minister of State (MoS) of Ministry of Personnel, PG & Pensions and in the Prime Minister’s Office Dr. Jitendra Singh told Rajya Sabha.
He said that the Atomic Minerals Directorate for Exploration and Research (AMD), a constituent unit of Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), has so far established 11.93 million tonnes of in situ resources Monazite (Thorium bearing mineral) in the country, which contains about 1.07 million tonnes of thorium.
He also informed that both Uranium and Thorium have got distinctive characteristics governing their utilisation in nuclear reactors. Unlike uranium, thorium alone cannot be directly used as nuclear fuel in a reactor. Utilisation of Thorium with either uranium or plutonium, without going through the second stage of Fast Breeder Reactors, to build sufficient inventory of plutonium first, will be counter-productive by limiting thorium utilisation to a very small fraction of the total available resources in the country. Utilisation of Thorium in the third stage makes it available as a sustainable energy resource for centuries. With this mode of utilisation, Thorium offers not only a sustainable energy resource, but also excellent fuel performance characteristic in a reactor, better than Uranium with respect to lower inventory of long lived nuclear waste.
Singh said,” The three stage Indian nuclear programme was formulated at the inception of the DAE and has as its main stay objective of utilisation of large resources of Thorium in a sustainable manner and it cannot be used for overcoming power crisis in the short-term.”
The Minister of State (MoS) for Social Justice and Empowerment Vijay Sampla in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha said that the Government is imparting greater transparency and expeditiousness in the sanctioning of funds to Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs). The Minister said several corrective steps have been initiated by his Ministry to check embezzlement of Government funds sanctioned to NGOs. In fact, the Ministry has revamped the process of submitting application and subsequent process has been made online mandatory from the Financial Year 2014-2015.
Sampla informed the Rajya Sabha that funds are only released to the NGO once they get a receipt from various departments including the State Level Grant-in-Aid Committee, Inspection Reports, Utilisation Certificate and Audited Accounts. In fact, the Ministry has also initiated a surprise checking of these NGOs to stop corruption and embezzlement. The Minister also said that the schemes or programmes implemented through NGOs are also monitored by respective State Government and UT administrations.
“The Ministry sponsors evaluation studies from time to time through independent evaluation agencies, inter alia, to check proper utilisation of funds by the implementing agencies under various schemes and programmes, ” the Minister said.
He also informed that in the event of proven misappropriation of fund by an NGO, the Ministry blacklists defaulter.
Clean Ganga Mission
Minister of State (MoS) for Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation Prof Sanwar Lal Jat informed Lok Sabha that the Centre has proposes to free all villages along the banks of the river from open defecation under Namami Gange project.
The Minister was answering the Lok Sabha question on the plans of rejuvenating the Ganga river and freeing it from the pollutants. He also said that during the Union Budget session for 2014-2015, the Government has set up an Integrated Ganga Conservation Mission namely “Namami Gange” with an allocation of Rs 2,037 crore for Ganga Rejuvenation plan. He said, “The plan formulated for Ganga Rejuvenation provides for ‘Short-term’, ‘Medium-term’, and a ‘Long-term’ action plan, while incorporating the projects already sanctioned by National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBP).” The Minister also said that a currently, a World Bank assisted National Ganga River Basin Project (NGRBP) for Rs 7000 crore and a Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) assisted Project at Varanasi for Rs 496.90 crore are under implementation.
National Ganga Monitoring Centre (NGMC) is conceptualised as a Nodal Centre for monitoring the critical aspects of Ganga rejuvenation, such as water and effluent quality at identified suitable locations throughout Ganga, using IT enabled systems, the MoS informed the Lower House on Thursday.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation has also prepared an Action Plan to make some 1649 Gram Panchayats along the banks of river Ganga Open Defecation Free at an estimated cost of approximately Rs 1508.76 crore. Around 118 urban habitations on both banks of river Ganga have been tentatively identified by the Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) for extending suitable coverage of sewerage infrastructure the Lok Sabha was told.
Government to recognise commendable work done by retiring officers
The Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Jitendra Singh in a written reply to Dr. T Subbarami Reddy in Rajya Sabha said that retiring employees who have served the country will be recognised and their achievements will be put up on Department’s website. He also said that a platform for retiring employees has been initiated where a retiring employee can showcase his or her significant achievements during their service period. This has been already uploaded on the website of the concerned department. Singh also said that this step will also create a database of useful suggestions and information provided by the employee. Once this facility is eventually created, retiring employees will be able to submit their outstanding achievements online.
Railways launches NextGeneration E-ticketing System
In order to provide better services to the passengers, the Railway Ministry has upgraded its website for booking of e-tickets, Minister of State (MoS) for Railways Manoj Sinha told Lok Sabha. He also informed that a new state-of-the-art Data Centre has been set up by Indian Railway Catering & Tourism Corporation to serve people better. Further, the e-ticketing system has been upgraded with the launch of the NextGeneration E-ticketing System (NGeT). While replying to the question in Lok Sabha, the Minister also said that under this system, people will be able to book over 7200 tickets in a minute as against the capacity of 2000 tickets per minute of the old system. he said, “In the new system around 1,20,000 concurrent users can login at a time and simultaneously book e-tickets against the earlier capacity of 40,000 concurrent users at a time”.
However, he also told the Lower House that though a few instances of unsuccessful transactions have been reported on issues including non-availability of the choice of berth, network failure at the bank’s end but these cases are being examined and necessary steps have been put up in place.
Monitoring of variability of weather phenomenon
Union Minister of Science and Technology and Ministry of Earth Sciences Harsh Vardhan in a written reply in Rajya Sabha said that the Government is continuously monitoring the variability of the weather phenomena, extremes and development of abnormal weather pattern potentially leading to drought, floods, flash floods, cyclones, rain induced landslides, heat cold wave. He informed that the records of past weather events show that extreme values in respect of heavy rainfall, maximum and minimum temperatures, seasonal rainfall etc remained unsurpassed in many cases.
The Minister said,”Heavy rain events (>10 cm/day) over Central India are found to have increased in the recent decades while weak and moderate events are decreasing. The extreme rain events which are becoming more intense in recent years are localised and could be part of the natural variability of the monsoon system”.
He also informed that the spatial changes in minimum temperature are found to be decreasing in most parts of Western Ghats and increasing in most parts of Himalayan region and certain parts of the Northeastern region and such warming is confined to winter and post-monsoon seasons. No such pattern is discerned in respect of other weather phenomena.
However, he informed that spatial pattern of trend in mean annual temperature anomalies, for the period 1902-2012, suggests significant positive (increasing) trend (0.5 0C) in general with few pockets of 1.0 0C) over most parts of the country except some parts of Rajasthan, Gujarat and Bihar, where significant negative (decreasing) trend was observed. He also told Parliament that no significant long-term trends are reported in the frequencies of large-scale droughts or floods in the summer Monsoon season. Vardhan also said that total frequency of cyclonic storms that form over the Bay of Bengal have remained constant.
Radars to monitor cyclones
Union Minister of Science and Technology and Ministry of Earth Sciences Harsh Vardhan in a written reply in Rajya Sabha said that the Government does not proposes to buy a NASA aircraft for prediction of cyclones or calamities.
“Earth System Science Organisation –India Meteorological Department (ESSO-IMD) has installed Doppler Weather Radars network over the coastal areas of the country to identify zones of strong wind and heavy precipitation associated with cyclone as and when cyclone moves in to the 500 km radial coverage range”, the Minister said. The Minister also said that a full proof 24×7 operational cyclone detection and movement mechanism exists for the assessment of intensity, track and landfall over the coastal areas of the country. Details of such monitoring mechanism include genesis of the possible cyclonic circulation over the open seas is generated by the meso-scale short range (72hrs in advance) prediction models and global scale medium range (120hrs in advance) prediction models along with monitoring sea surface temperature and moisture convergence, satellite monitoring is pursued for detecting cyclogenesis and monitoring further intensity, movement and landfall of cyclones, Rajya Sabha was duly informed.
While answering the question, the Minister said, ” As far as the track and landfall forecasts of the tropical cyclones are concerned, the performance evaluation of the updated forecast systems for the past five years have demonstrated enhanced forecast skill by about 18 per cent”.
Review of financial architecture of MSMEs
Minister of State, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, Giriraj Singh in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha said that the Centre has set up a Committee to examine the financial architecture for the sector, which will also cover the Department of Financial Services (DFS), Ministry of Finance. The Committee and Joint Secretary (Institutional Finance), DFS as Member Secretary. The first meeting of the committee was held on November 11.
The Committee comprises 15 members, the Minister said.
India self-sufficient in Thorium Reserves
India has reserves of thorium in sufficient quantity as compared to other parts of world, the Minister of State (MoS) of Ministry of Personnel, PG & Pensions and in the Prime Minister’s Office Dr. Jitendra Singh told Rajya Sabha.
He said that the Atomic Minerals Directorate for Exploration and Research (AMD), a constituent unit of Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), has so far established 11.93 million tonnes of in situ resources Monazite (Thorium bearing mineral) in the country, which contains about 1.07 million tonnes of thorium.
He also informed that both Uranium and Thorium have got distinctive characteristics governing their utilisation in nuclear reactors. Unlike uranium, thorium alone cannot be directly used as nuclear fuel in a reactor. Utilisation of Thorium with either uranium or plutonium, without going through the second stage of Fast Breeder Reactors, to build sufficient inventory of plutonium first, will be counter-productive by limiting thorium utilisation to a very small fraction of the total available resources in the country. Utilisation of Thorium in the third stage makes it available as a sustainable energy resource for centuries. With this mode of utilisation, Thorium offers not only a sustainable energy resource, but also excellent fuel performance characteristic in a reactor, better than Uranium with respect to lower inventory of long lived nuclear waste.
Singh said,” The three stage Indian nuclear programme was formulated at the inception of the DAE and has as its main stay objective of utilisation of large resources of Thorium in a sustainable manner and it cannot be used for overcoming power crisis in the short-term.”
