Banking, health & education vital to make citizens self-reliant: CM
Chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision for self-reliant India can be achieved only when the last person in society has access to banking, health and education facilities provided by the authorities. The citizen of the nation will become self-reliant only after receiving these facilities, he said. The chief minister said this after flagging off ten motorcycles presented by Utkarsh Small Finance Bank to Champawat police under its financial inclusion and CSR activities. He also virtually inaugurated the bank’s Champawat branch on the occasion and presented cheques to various self help groups for joint livelihood loan.
The chief minister stressed on the need for all to adopt Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya’s principle of Antyodaya. He said that the efforts being made related to financial resources in the State are encouraging. There are many people in the society who are also working at the fundamental level, he said. Dhami said, “It should be our collective effort to take the society forward. The government is centered on the public and working for development of the State. It is due to PM Modi’s thinking, leadership and style of working that the nation is today moving forward as a strong economy. The economy of even the most developed nations staggered during the Covid-19 pandemic but under PM Modi’s leadership our nation not only faced the pandemic strongly but also developed two vaccines and provided two to three doses free of cost for the citizens.”
The CM said that the State government is laying special focus on employment and entrepreneurship. He asked the senior bank officials to lay special focus on Svanidhi Yojana and make Uttarakhand a model for it. Stating that this effort should not remain a mere formality, he exhorted that work should be undertaken on a mission mode in order to achieve the targets. He said that the attempts by financial institutions, especially banks to focus on rural and semi urban areas in the State have been encouraging. The CM further said that the State government has been leading in undertaking public-centric initiatives for development of Uttarakhand.
INTERNATIONAL
2022 Forest Declaration Assessment
Recent publication of the 2022 Forest Declaration Assessment revealed that the global deforestation rate only slightly decreased in 2021, by 6.3%, compared to the 2018–20 baseline.
The Forest Declaration Assessment releases yearly updates on the status of the world’s forests.
By 2030, 350 million hectares of degraded landscapes and forestlands are to be restored, according to the New York Declaration on Forests (NYDF), a political declaration that was adopted in 2014.
Over the last two decades, the amount of trees on earth has increased by 130.9 million hectares.
In just 13 countries, there was a concentration of 75% of the global gain.
Russia (28.4%), Canada, the United States, Brazil, and China saw the biggest improvements.
NATIONAL
Odisha’s common credit portal
SAFAL (Simplified Application for Agricultural Loans) is India’s first online agricultural credit facilitation portal. This common credit portal eases access to over 300 term loan products provided for farmers and agri-entrepreneurs. These term loan products will be provided by more than 40 partner banks.
The portal acts as a one-stop solution for farmers and agri-entrepreneurs to access loans offered by public and private sector banks, regional rural banks, state cooperative banks and small finance banks.
Ministry of Education releases report on Performance Grading Index for States/UTs for the year 2020-21
The Department of School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Education today released the Performance Grading Index (PGI) for States/UTs for 2020-21, a unique index for evidence based comprehensive analysis of school education system across State/UTs.
The Indian Education System is one of the largest in the world with about 14.9 lakh schools, 95 lakh teachers, and nearly 26.5 crore students from varied socio-economic backgrounds. DoSE&L devised PGI for States/UTs to provide insights and data driven mechanism on the performance and achievements of on the success of school education across all States/UTs. The prime objective of PGI is to promote evidence-based policy making and highlight course correction to ensure quality education for all. So far, DoSE&L has released PGI report for the year 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20. The present report is for the year 2020-21.
The PGI structure comprises of 1000 points across 70 indicators grouped into 2 categories viz., Outcomes, Governance Management (GM). These categories are further divided into 5 domains, viz., Learning Outcomes (LO), Access (A), Infrastructure& Facilities (IF), Equity (E) & Governance Process (GP).
2021 PMAY-U Awards
The PMAY-U Award for Implementation and Innovation was instituted under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Urban, by the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs in 2019.
The PMAY-U was launched in 2015 to address the housing shortage in India’s urban areas.
There are 3 broad categories of these awards:
State Awards, Municipal Corporations, Municipal Councils and Nagar Panchayats Awards
