Governance

The Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, has approved the proposal of Department of Heavy Industry for implementation of the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) Scheme ‘National Programme on Advanced Chemistry Cell (ACC) Battery Storage’ for achieving manufacturing capacity of Fifty (50) Giga Watt Hour (GWh) of ACC and 5 GWh of “Niche” ACC with an outlay of Rs.18,100 crore.

According to India Ratings and Research (Ind-Ra), the solar production-linked insurance (PLI) scheme will support 8-13% of photovoltaic energy plant requirements until 2029-30 and will help grow 20 gigawatts (GW) of energy in the next five years.

The agarbatti sector traditionally provided large scale employment to the local workforce, which however dwindled due to various factors including the ingress of cheap imports of round sticks and raw batti. A comprehensive study was carried out by NBM in 2019 following which policy measures taken by the Government of moving raw batti imports from free to restricted category in Aug 2019 and increasing import duty on round stick uniformly to 25% in June 2020 came as a boost to the domestic units.

For the First Time, Farmers of Punjab have started receiving payments directly into their bank accounts against sale of their Wheat crop. About Rs 22,215.93 crore has already been transferred directly into Punjab farmers’ account.

While briefing the media, Shri Pandey informed that the distribution of food grains is going as per schedule for the month of May, 2021. He said as on 10thMay 2021, 15.55 LMT of food grains have been lifted from FCI depots by the 34 States/UTs for the month of May 2021 and over 1 Lakh MT has been distributed to over 2 Crore beneficiaries by 12 states/UTs. he said that almost all States/UTs have indicated action plan to complete the distribution of PMGKAY-III Foodgrains, for the months of May and Jun 2021, by the end of June 2021.

The Secretary, Department of Food & Public Distribution Shri Shudhanshu Pandey today briefed the media persons about PMGKAY-3 and One Nation One Ration Card scheme through a virtual press conference. Speaking about the “Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana” (PM-GKAY III), the Secretary said that the department started implementation of “Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana” (PM-GKAY III) for two months period i.e. May and June 2021 in same pattern as earlier by providing an additional quota of free-of-cost foodgrains (Rice/Wheat) at a scale of 5 Kg per person per month, over and above their regular monthly NFSA entitlements to about 80 Crore beneficiaries covered under both categories of NFSA, namely Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) and Priority Householders (PHH). The Government of India will bear all expenditure of over Rs 26,000 Crore on account of food subsidy and Central assistance to states/UTs on account of intrastate transportation etc.