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Press Information Bureau

31.05.2018

Civil

Government of India and World Bank signs $500 Million Additional Financing for Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana Rural Roads Project

MANU/PIBU/0898/2018

The Government of India and the World Bank today signed a $500 million loan agreement to provide additional financing for the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) Rural Roads Project, implemented by Ministry of Rural Development, Govt. of India, which will build 7,000 km of climate resilient roads, out of which 3,500 km will be constructed using green technologies.

The World Bank has supported PMGSY since its inception in 2004. So far it has invested over $1.8 billion in loans and credits mostly in the economically weaker and hill states across North India - Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Meghalaya, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, and Uttar Pradesh. It has built and improved about 35,000 km of rural roads and benefited about eight million people with access to all-weather roads.

The Loan agreement for the Project was signed by Shri Sameer Kumar Khare, Joint Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, on behalf of the Government of India and Mr. Junaid Ahmad, Country Director, World Bank India, on behalf of the World Bank in the presence of Ms. Alka Upadhyaya, Joint Secretary (RC), Ministry of Rural Development.

"The PMGSY over the years has brought about a paradigm shift in the way rural roads are mapped, designed, monitored and built, involving communities especially women," said Shri Khare. "The additional finance will bring a new shift in construction technology using green and low carbon designs and climate resilient construction techniques. Now more rural communities will have access to better economic opportunities and social services.", Shri Khare added .

Adequate maintenance of the existing 4.6 million km of road network is emerging as a major challenge. Many parts of the existing road network are either vulnerable to or have already suffered damage from climate induced events such as floods, high rainfall, sudden cloud bursts and land-slides.

"To support the rural economy and communities and households that depend on rural livelihoods, it will be critical to ensure that infrastructure is built and maintained to withstand climatic changes," said Mr. Junaid Ahmad, World Bank Country Director in India. "This project will demonstrate how climate resilient construction can be integrated in the strategy and planning of rural roads," he added.

The PMGSY and the Bank's involvement under this additional financing, will emphasize on managing the rural road network through green and climate-resilient construction using green, low-carbon designs and new technologies - far beyond merely funding civil works. This will be done through the following measures:

Climate vulnerability assessment during the design process to identify the critical locations affected by floods, water-logging, submergence, cloud bursts, storms, landslides, poor drainage, excessive erosion, high rainfall, and high temperatures.

Special treatment for flood-affected areas through adequate waterways and submersible roads to allow easy passage of water, use of concrete block pavements, and improved drainage;

Use of environmentally optimized road designs and new technologies which uses local and marginal materials and industrial by-products such as sand, local soils, fly ash, brick kiln wastes, and other similar materials in place of crushed rocks;

Innovative bridges and culverts through use of pre-fabricated/pre-cast units for roads and bridges having better ability to withstand earthquakes and water forces such as continuous beams, bearing free construction, and river training works;

Use of hill cutting material in hill roads ensuring its productive use and resolving its disposal problem, use of bio-engineering measures, improved drainage and other treatments for landslide prone areas and providing adequate slope protection.

The Additional Financing will also fill the gender gap by creating employment opportunities for women in construction and maintenance. The earlier project had piloted community-based maintenance contracts through women self-help groups (SHGs) for routine maintenance of 200 km of PMGSY roads in Uttarakhand, Meghalaya and Himachal Pradesh. SHG-run maintenance contracts will now be extended to about 500 km roads over 5 states.

"All components of the project will have substantial climate co-benefits and help road agencies in India to substantially minimize GHG emissions. Improving road conditions alone will result on an average in direct savings of 2.68 million tons annually in GHG emissions and minimize the annual losses of about $9 billion in the road asset value and an equal amount by way of high vehicle operating costs," said Shri Ashok Kumar, Senior Highway Engineer and World Bank's Task Team Leader for the project. The $500 million loan, from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), has a 3-year grace period, and a maturity of 10 years.

Tags : Roads Project Financing World Bank

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Press Information Bureau

31.05.2018

Civil

Government of India makes systematic progress towards cash transfers of food subsidy, Shri Ram Vilas Paswan launches handbook to guide States in implementation of cash transfers of food subsidy

MANU/PIBU/0894/2018

Shri Ram Vilas Paswan, the Union Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution launched the 'Handbook for Implementation of Cash Transfer of Food Subsidy' in New Delhi today. The handbook has been jointly developed by Department of Food and Public Distribution (DoFPD) and World Food Programme (WFP).

The handbook is a step by step guide for implementation of cash transfer of food subsidy scheme and is based on India's rules, regulations and experience in cash transfers of food subsidy, and WFP's global experience in cash based transfer. Shri C. R Chaudhary, the Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Secretary DoFPD, Shri Ravikant and Dr. Hameed Nuru, Country Director WFP, were also present during the launch.

Shri Ram Vilas Paswan complemented the efforts of the DoFPD and WFP for preparation of the handbook. Shri Paswan hoped that it will serve as a guide to all states/union territories that are implementing or planning to implement cash transfers for food subsidy, as it details out the prerequisites, processes, and roles and responsibilities of all stakeholder involved in the cash transfer process. Union Minister said that the implementation of cash transfer of food subsidy scheme is one of the important initiatives of this government for ensuring targeted delivery of benefits. He further added this handbook will help in easy understanding of the overall systems and the entire process flow, which would contribute greatly towards the easy adoption and success of cash transfers of food subsidy in India.

Shri Paswan also highlighted the reform measures implemented by his government to check leakages and diversions of foodgrains in the "in-kind" distribution of food grains, through end-to-end computerisations of PDS operations. In this regards he especially highlighted installation of ePoS devices at fair price shops for biometric authentication of beneficiaries and electronic capturing of transactions.

At the launch, Dr. Hameed Nuru, Country Director WFP said, "It is indeed in-line with the vision and aspirations of the nation, that WFP is supporting the Government of India. WFP has been working with the government at national and state level in the implementation of the NFSA, and is proud to be a partner of the government in its efforts towards food security and achieving of SDG 2 goals."

Currently, Cash Transfer of Food Subsidy is being implemented in union territories of Chandigarh, Puducherry and urban areas of Dadra & Nagar Haveli while some more states have shown interest in implementation.

Tags : Cash transfers Food subsidy Progress

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Press Information Bureau

30.05.2018

Civil

Ministry of Railways Launches New User Interface of its Next Generation e-Ticketing System

MANU/PIBU/0888/2018

In line with Union Minister of Railways Shri Piyush Goyal's vision to ensure better user experience by recommending best Information Technology industry practices, Railway's Online Travel Portal - www.irctc.co.in has now launched beta version of its new User Interface. The new link has more user friendly features for easier navigation.

The 'Digital India' initiative has paved way for government organizations to harness power of technology and in making lives easier for citizens of India. By creating Next Generation e-Ticketing (NGeT) system the new online ticket booking system of Railways provides easy and fast way of booking rail tickets by automating the journey planning and purchase of tickets.

E-ticketing today constitutes about two third of total reserved tickets on Indian Railways.

Salient features of the New User Interface:

With the launch of new interface of e-Ticketing Website, user can now enquire / search trains and check availability of seats without login also, thereby saving precious time of the users. User can now change font size throughout the website for comfortable viewing experience.

The new look and feel will have enhanced class-wise, train-wise, destination-wise, departure/arrival time wise and quota-wise filters for facilitating customer while planning their journeys. Single screen information about the train including the train no, train name, originating and destination station and distances between them, arrival and departure time and journey time has now been arranged.

In addition, more features such as new filters on 'My Transactions' where user can also view their booked tickets based on Journey Date, Booking Date, Upcoming Journey and completed journey.

To enhance customer's booking experience, interesting features like 'Waitlist prediction', etc have been introduced. Using this feature, user can get the probability of a Waitlisted or RAC ticket getting confirmed. This technique uses algorithm based on historical booking trends of the particular train. This feature will add new value to the online e-ticket booking system of the railways. New attractive colour scheme for different trains with facility to modify the journey details on the journey planner page itself will bring further ease of booking to the users.

The new look and feel is providing the facility for the user to find out the availability up to the entire Advance Reservation Period i.e. 120 days at present, except few trains. In the new system, user can perform multiple activities through booked history with improved interface for cancellation of tickets, printing of tickets, request for additional SMS, selecting alternative train by exercising the option of 'Vikalp' and change of boarding point if required. Technological advancements in the development of New User Interface also facilitate seamless navigation in mobiles, desktops, laptops and tablets.

Users have been invited to initially, switch to the beta version of the website and get the first hand experience of its look, feel and usage for a period of 15 days during which Railways will take suggestions from them for further changes and improvement of the site. After this the beta version of the new interface will replace the old interface of IRCTC e-ticketing portal enabling a smooth transition of the users to the new interface.

Tags : New User Interface Launch E-Ticketing System

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Press Information Bureau

30.05.2018

Civil

Notice issued by Mahanadi Water Disputes Tribunal

MANU/PIBU/0891/2018

Mahanadi Water Disputes Tribunal has issued notice under Rule 4 of the Inter-State River Water Disputes Rules, 1959 to the State Governments of Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra to nominate their representatives for adjudication of Mahanadi River Water Disputes latest by August 06, 2018. The notice also mentioned that if no nominations were received by the due date, the case may be decided in the absence of any representation of State Government.

Earlier on the request of Government of Odisha made under Section 3 of Inter-State River Water Disputes (ISRWD) Act, 1956, the Central Government constituted Mahanadi Water Dispute Tribunal on 12th March, 2018. The Central Government made reference for taking up adjudication to the Tribunal under Section 4 of the ISRWD Act, 1956 on 17th April, 2018.

Tags : Water Dispute Notice Issuance

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Telecom Regulatory Authority of India

29.05.2018

Media and Communication

Notification of draft Telecom Commercial Communication Customer Preference Regulation, 2018

MANU/TRAI/0063/2018

1. Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) today notified draft Telecom Commercial Communication Customer Preference Regulation, 2018, that is proposed to curb the problem of Unsolicited Commercial Communication (UCC). It has been made available on TRAI website at http://trai.gov.in/release-publication/regulation.

2. Unsolicited commercial communication, or spam, is a major nuisance to telecom subscribers. To curb the menace, TRAI established a "Do Not Disturb" registry under regulations made in 2010.

3. Twenty-three crore subscribers have registered themselves on the DND Registry since then. But the problem was not fully contained because unscrupulous elements started obtaining customers' consent, often surreptitiously, or resorted to use of unregistered telemarketers that call or message from a ten-digit number. In more recent times, the incidence of fraud calls has also been on the rise.

4. To overcome these problems, TRAI initiated public consultation by releasing a consultation paper on the subject on 14/09/2017. After considering the written submissions and the inputs received during the Open House Discussion held on 15/12/2017, TRAI has now formulated regulations which leverage technology and offer a more agile process to deal with the dynamic nature of this problem.

5. The problem is addressed in the new regulations by requiring that consent be explicitly recorded by a third party and be activated only after subscribers' confirmation. Furthermore, the subscriber is given the option to revoke his or her consent, if it's abused or is no longer relevant.

6. The business entities are also given the facility to assert their identity through the header directly registered in their name, better control over when and who uses it, and presentation of their brand name during voice calls.

7. Numerous tweaks and new features have been introduced in these regulations, which may appear minor, but which allow subscribers, businesses, telcos and telemarketers to work together to do their work or obtain the results they are looking for, without causing spam to annoy the hapless subscriber.

8. The important new features of this regulation are:

a) Adoption of Distributed Ledger Technology (or blockchain) as the Reg Tech to enforce regulatory compliance while allowing innovation in the market.

Blockchain has proven useful where the objective is to cryptographically secure information and make it available only on need to know basis. Yet none may deny their actions or tamper with records, once recorded on the distributed ledger, which uniformly enforces compliance.

It appears to be the first instance anywhere in the world to use this technology at such a scale in the telecom sector.

b) Co-regulation where Telecom Service Providers/ Access Providers establish and arrange framework, which is legally backed by regulation.

Since the telcos can be expected to guard the interests of their subscribers, TRAI has opted for co-regulation to develop the solutions that can better serve the needs of all stakeholders. This would, of course, be allowed only within the framework prescribed in the regulations.

c) Enabling compliance through innovation in technology solution that are demonstrated in a regulatory sandbox.

Since the Authority has opted for a technology driven solution and allowed continual development, it's been decided to permit a regulatory sandbox where these solutions can be demonstrated to everyone, including the regulator, before they are deployed.

d) Provision of better control over all entities in the ecosystem and in the flow of commercial communications.

e) Detection of unregistered telemarketers through collaboration and in a more intelligent manner.

9. The draft regulation issued today shall be open for comments up to the 11th of June, 2018.

10. In case of any clarifications Shri Asit Kadayan, Advisor (QOS), TRAI may be contacted at mail id: advqos@trai.gov.in or at Telephone Number +91-23230404,

Tags : Notification Draft Regulation

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Press Information Bureau

29.05.2018

Electricity

PRAAPTI App and Web portal launched by Minister of State (I/C) for Power, Shri R.K. Singh for bringing transparency in electricity payments to Generators

MANU/PIBU/0887/2018

A Web portal and an App namely PRAAPTI (Payment Ratification And Analysis in Power procurement for bringing Transparency in Invoicing of generators), www.praapti.in, has been officially launched today by Hon'ble Minister of State (I/C) for Power in the presence of Secretary, Shri A.K. Bhalla and other senior officials of Ministry of Power, Chairman & Managing Director, PFC, CMDs of other Power Sector PSUs and various officials of Power Sector.

PRAAPTI App and web portal has been developed to bring transparency in power purchase transactions between Generators and Discoms.

The App and Web Portal will capture the Invoicing and payment data for various long term PPAs from the Generators. This will help the stakeholders in getting month-wise and legacy data on outstanding amounts of Discoms against power purchase.

The app will also allow users to know the details related to the payments made by the Discoms to the power generation company and when they were made. PRAAPTI will also enable the consumers to evaluate financial performance of their Discoms in terms of payments being made to the generation companies. The Portal would also help DISCOMs and GENCOs to reconcile their outstanding payments.

The portal would facilitate relative assessment of various State DISCOMs on "Ease of making payments" to various Generation Companies, and will also help make transactions in the power Sector more transparent.

Tags : PRAAPTI App Web portal Launch

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Press Information Bureau

29.05.2018

Civil

India signs Loan Agreement with the World Bank for USD 21.7 Million for Strengthening the Public Financial Management in Rajasthan Project

MANU/PIBU/0886/2018

An Agreement for IBRD Credit of USD 21.7 Million from World Bank for the Strengthening of Public Financial Management in Rajasthan Project was signed here today in New Delhi by Shri Sameer Kumar Khare, Joint Secretary (FB and ADB), Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance on behalf of the Government of India and Mr. Hisham Abdo, Acting Country Director, World Bank (India) on behalf of the World Bank. The Implementing Entity Agreement was signed by the Secretary, Finance (Budget) on behalf of the Government of Rajasthan, and the Acting Country Director (India) on behalf of the World Bank.

The Project size is approximately USD 31 million, of which USD 21.7 million will be financed by the World Bank, and the remaining amount will be funded-out of the State Budget. The Project duration is 5 years.

The Project objective is to contribute to improved Budget execution, enhanced accountability and greater efficiency in Revenue Administration in Rajasthan. The Project involves Strengthening of the Public Financial Management Framework; Strengthening of Expenditure and Revenue Systems; and Project Management and Capacity Building among others.

Tags : Loan Agreement Signing of Rajasthan Project

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