17.11.22 Daily [Uttarakhand] UKPSC Current Affairs

The Haridwar district authorities are planning to install the States first gas powered crematorium at the burning Ghat in Khadkhadi. This will reduce the dependence on wood for cremation and the smoke to a great extent. The Haridwar district magistrate Vinay Shankar Pandey has sought a report from officials concerned in this regard during a meeting he chaired on the subject.

The Haridwar municipal commissioner Dayanand Saraswati said that payment of electricity bills is a major problem in the operation of the electric crematorium.He further said that the electric crematorium has to be started 24 hours before the cremation of a body and consumes considerable electricity. Officials present in the meeting opined that a gas-based crematorium would be better than other procedures from the aspects of pollution and fuel consumption.

It is pertinent to mention here that Khadkhadi is the most used cremation Ghat along the Ganga in Haridwar where bodies from various parts of the State are brought for cremation. Considerable quantities of wood are used for the funeral pyres. The of Haridwar is also working on a plan to provide logs made from cow dung for cremation.

The Finance Ministry has finalised the framework to issue sovereign green in line with global standards, according to sources. The government intends to mobilise Rs 16,000 crore from the issuance of green bonds during the second half of the current financial year. It is a part of the borrowing programme for the second half of this fiscal.

These rupee-denominated papers will have long tenure to suit the requirement of green Infrastructure projects.

The government is planning a total borrowing of Rs 5.92 lakh crore during the October-March period of the current fiscal.

The government had in the Budget for 2022-23 projected a gross market borrowing of Rs 14.31 lakh crore.

The Transport4All Challenge is an initiative of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Government of India, that aims at enhancing the mobility experience of citizens. The Challenge focuses on digital innovation and invites cities, citizens, and innovators to join hands to develop contextual digital solutions to improve formal as well as informal public transport to better serve the mobility needs of all citizens.

Three Stages of the Challenge

The Transport4All through Digital Innovation Challenge comprises three stages:

Stage I PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION: Cities, with the support of NGOs, identify key recurring problems that citizens and public transport operators face

Stage II SOLUTION GENERATION: Startups develop prototypes of solutions to improve public transport with inputs from cities and NGOs

Stage III PILOT TESTING: Cities engage Startups for large-scale pilots and refine the solutions based on citizen feedback.

MoHUA launched the Urban Outcomes Framework 2022 in April, 2022 as an initiative to undertake a transparent and comprehensive assessment of cities based on cross-city outcomes across major sectors. The Framework also includes the third round of Ease of Living Index. The Ease of Living Index, as a 360-degree assessment, aims to evaluate cities across India based on the Quality Of Life, Economic Ability, and Sustainability.

Recently theUnited Nations(UN)has decided to set up asatellite-basedmonitoring systemMARS: Methane Alert and Response Systemfor trackingmethane emissionsand alerting governments and corporations to respond.