#PriceStabilization Fund

#PriceStabilization Fund

The Department of Agriculture & Cooperation has approved the Price Stabilisation Fund (#PSF) as a Central Sector Scheme, with a corpus of Rs.500 crores, to support market interventions for price control of perishable agri-horticultural commodities during 2014-15, 2015-16 and 2016-17. PSF will be used to advance interest free loan to State Governments/Union Territories and Central agencies to support their working capital and other expenses on procurement and distribution interventions for such commodities. Initially the fund is proposed to be used for onion and potato only.

The Price Stabilization Fund will be managed centrally by a Price Stabilization Fund Management Committee (#PSFMC) which will approve all proposals from State Governments and Central Agencies. The PSF will be maintained in a Central Corpus Fund account to be opened by Small Farmers Agri-Business Consortium (SFAC), which will act as Fund Manager. Funds from this Central Corpus will be released in two streams, one to the State Governments/UTs as a one time advance to each State/UT based on its first proposal and the other to the Central Agencies. The Central Corpus Fund has already been established by SFAC in 2014-15. 

The one time advance to the States/UTs based on their first proposal along with matching funds from the State/UT will form a revolving fund, which can then be used for all future market interventions to control prices of onions and potatoes based on approvals by State level Committee set up explicitly for this purpose. In case of North Eastern States, the State level corpus will comprise of 75% funds from Centre and 25% from the State. While the advance is returnable, the Central Government will share 50% of losses (75% in case of NE states), if any, at the time of settlement of the advance on 31st March, 2017. The Central Government likewise also intends to share the profits, if any, in the same ratio. The States could also request Central Agencies to undertake such operations on their behalf to be supported out of the State corpus. Additionally, the Centre can also requisition the Central Agencies like SFAC, NAFED, etc. to undertake price control operations for onion and potato.

Procurement of these commodities will be undertaken directly from farmers or farmers’ organizations at farm gate/mandi and made available at a more reasonable price to the consumers. 

A mix of old and new:NITI Aayog

The NITI Aayog will surely continue to both formulate plans and engage with the states

The Planning Commission has been abolished. A new body in its place has been set up - the National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog. Fresh responsibilities, too, have been outlined for the NITI Aayog, indicating what kind of role it could play in the coming months. But more significant and revealing are the details in the Expenditure Budget for 2015-16 that show the government's financial allocations for the NITI Aayog.

First, it would be interesting to take a look at the new set of responsibilities for the NITI Aayog. The overall task of setting national development priorities with the active involvement of states has been entrusted to the new body. It is expected to foster cooperative federalism and prepare credible plans at the village level and aggregate them progressively at higher levels of the government. There is also a hint that the new body would provide support to the government through its advice and research work and even build itself to be a think tank.

All this might appear a little vague. But what could provide some clarity are the two words that have been used by the government in articulating the new responsibilities of the NITI Aayog. And these are: Plan and states. What this means is that whatever else the NITI Aayog may be doing, it surely will continue to both formulate plans and engage with the states. What these plans would be and what the nature of engagement with states would be are issues that the NITI Aayog will have to work out. Similarly, the government will have to decide if it would permit the NITI Aayog to determine the allocation of central resources to states or act as a forum of discussion of Centre-state issues.

It, therefore, appears that the NITI Aayog will not be completely different from what its predecessor was. There are other indications as well that support such an assessment. For instance, even though the Planning Commission has been abolished, the planning ministry continues to remain in existence. You might wonder what the need for a planning ministry would be when the government has bid goodbye to the planning era. And an even more important question: What role would a full-fledged minister for planning play when there is no Planning Commission?

Probably, restructuring institutions are easier than reforming the council of ministers. One possible reason for retaining the planning minister could be to have a person who could be present in Parliament to address questions and issues concerning the NITI Aayog. If that is the only reason for having a planning minister, then why not have the prime minister, who is the chairman of the NITI Aayog, or a minister of state in the Prime Minister's Office to do that job in Parliament? Or has planning not been completely abandoned?

Controversies have also surfaced over the status of the vice-chairman and members of the NITI Aayog. It appears even as its vice-chairman will enjoy the rank of the Cabinet minister, his pay and perquisites will be equivalent only to those offered to a Cabinet secretary. Likewise, its members will enjoy the rank of a minister of state but their salaries will be the same paid to a secretary in the Union government. What does it mean for the NITI Aayog vice-chairman's status as a permanent invitee to the Cabinet meetings? Remember that the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission was an invitee to all such Cabinet meetings.

Equally interesting is the financial outlay for the NITI Aayog's secretariat for this year, estimated at Rs 52 lakh, compared to Rs 42 lakh spent on the secretariat of the Planning Commission in 2014-15 and Rs 25 lakh in 2013-14. The overall expenditure on the NITI Aayog for this year would be around Rs 88 crore, compared to Rs 93 crore in 2014-15 and Rs 78 crore in 2013-14. So, what is going on about institutional reform? And where are the financial savings that the creation of a leaner body like the NITI Aayog was to have generated?

The government has of course saved some money by doing away with the Independent Evaluation Office that was set up in 2011-12 to assess the effectiveness of the government's flagship development programmes. Have the flagship programmes too been wound up? Not really, even though the funding pattern for some of them has changed and the states have been asked to cough up more on financing some of them. So, who will evaluate these programmes?

In short, whatever role the government may want the NITI Aayog to play, it should articulate it more clearly. Equally important, there is an urgent need for some reforms of the council of ministers and the rules of business framed by the government for the NITI Aayog.

#PrimeMinister Narendra Modi today launched #MUDRA or Micro Units Development Re-finance Agency in New Delhi.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi today launched MUDRA or Micro Units Development Re-finance Agency in New Delhi.

‪#‎MUDRA‬ aims to provide credit of up to ten lakh rupees to small entrepreneurs. Mr Modi said self-employment will be the biggest target group of MUDRA.

The Prime Minister said banks have been asked to restructure loans of farmers hit by unseasonal rains.

He said the eligibility of farmers for getting compensation for crop damage due to natural calamity has been lowered from 50 per cent of crop area to 33 per cent. Mr Modi said the quantum of compensation to affected farmers has been increased by 50 per cent.The Prime Minister expressed concern over the problems faced by farmers due to the abnormal weather in the past year. “Helping farmers in this time of distress is our responsibility, and therefore, the government has sent teams of Central Ministers to affected areas to assess the extent of the damage,” Mr. Modi said, according to an official release.

He also gave the assurance that the Centre, State governments, banks and insurance companies would do their utmost to provide relief to the farmers.

Mr. Modi said banks had been asked to restructure loans of farmers hit by unseasonal rain and insurance companies had been advised to pro-actively settle claims.

MUDRA bank launched

He also launched the MUDRA bank with a corpus of Rs. 20,000 crore and credit guarantee of Rs. 3,000 crore.

The bank will be responsible for refinancing micro-finance institutions in the business of lending to small entities.

While big industrial houses provide jobs to only 1.25 crore people, small entrepreneurs have given employment to nearly 12 crore people, Mr. Modi said. The postal network would be used for increasing access to the formal financial system.

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the MUDRA Bank was a step in the right direction for “funding the unfunded.” He had proposed the MUDRA Bank in his budget speech in February.

MUDRA will be set up through a statutory enactment. It will be responsible for developing and refinancing all micro-finance institutions (MFIs) which are in the business of lending to micro and small business entities engaged in manufacturing, trading and service activities.

Bank’s role

It will also partner with State and regional-level coordinators to provide finance to last-mile financiers of small and micro business enterprises. Its proposed role includes laying down policy guidelines for micro enterprise financing business, registration, accreditation and rating of MFI entities.

The agency will also lay down responsible financing practices to ward off over-indebtedness and ensure proper client protection principles and methods of recovery, according to an official release.

These measures are targeted towards mainstreaming young, educated or skilled workers and entrepreneurs, including women entrepreneurs, the release said.

“A vast part of the non-corporate sector operates as unregistered enterprises and formal or institutional architecture has not been able to reach out to meet its financial requirements. Providing access to institutional finance to such micro, small business units, enterprises will not only help in improving the quality of life of these entrepreneurs, but also turn them into strong instruments of GDP growth and employment generation,” the release said.

Human Resource and Skill Requirement Reports launched

Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Shri Rajiv Pratap Rudy here today launched the Human Resource and Skill Requirement reports across 24 sectors in India which will serve as the baseline for all skill development initiatives being planned across the country. 

According to the findings of the reports, the incremental human resource requirement across these 24 sectors is nearly 109.73* million whereby the top 10 sectors account for about 80 percent of requirements.

Speaking on the occasion, Shri Rudy said that in line with Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi’s vision of making India the skill capital of the world; this is yet another endeavour from his ministry. He said, as the old adage goes, what cannot be measured, cannot be corrected. The idea behind the Skill Gap Studies is to understand which sectors are likely to face the biggest gaps. He said, it is imperative for us to plan the skilling of future workforce of India on the basis of these reports.

The Minister said, these reports will be used for the implementation of the recently announced Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY); for State Skill Missions, and for various other skill initiatives being planned across the country.

Shri Rudy said, according to the implementation schedule for the National Skills Qualifications Framework (NSQF) (a competency based framework that organises all qualifications according to a series of levels of knowledge, skills and aptitude), after 27th December, 2016 government funding would not be available for any training, educational programme, course which is not NSQF-compliant. He said, all government funded training and educational institutions shall define eligibility criteria for admission to various course in terms of NSQF levels. Shri Rudy said, the recruitment rules of the government of India and PSUs of the Central Government shall be amended to define eligibility criteria for all positions in terms of NSQF levels. The State Governments and their PSUs shall also be encouraged to amend their recruitment rules on above lines. He said, after 27th December, 2018 it shall be mandatory for all training/educational programmes/courses to be NSQF compliant. All training and educational institutions shall define eligibility criteria for admission to various courses in terms of NSQF levels.

Secretary, Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Shri Sunil Arora said, there is a changing paradigm in skill training towards demand-driven training to ensure employability and placement of the youth. While the reports give an insight on the quantitative side of human resource requirement in each of the sectors, the research has also led to useful qualitative findings in terms of highlighting key job roles in the sector, existing skill gaps in the sectors, key interventions required to map supply and demand, etc. He said, these will help the Ministry to create a strategy to bind together the islands of excellence that we already have in the country.



In his comments, MD and CEO of NSDC Shri Dilip Chenoy said, more than 1000 industry experts, 19 Sector Skill Councils, 110 training institutions and 1500+ trainees have been engaged for the studies.

The reports were commissioned by National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) and authored by consulting firm KPMG. The objective of these skill gap reports was to understand the sectorial and geographical spread of skill requirements that exist. The figures have been estimated on the basis of extensive stakeholder engagement including small, medium and large enterprises in every sector as well as Sector Skill Councils (SSCs), training providers in the skills space and academia. The skill gap studies provide a granular data on the skill gaps for two time periods- 2013-17 and 2017-22.

Monitoring one of the largest full immunization programmes of the world :About Mission #Indradhanush

About Mission Indradhanush

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare,Government of India has launched Mission Indradhanush on 25 December, 2014 as a special nationwide initiative to vaccinate all unvaccinated and partially vaccinated children under the Universal Immunization Programme by 2020.             The Mission focuses on interventions to expand full immunization coverage in India from 65% in 2013 to at least 90% children in the next five years. The programme provides immunization against seven life-threatening diseases (diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, polio, tuberculosis, measles and hepatitis B) in the entire country. In addition, vaccination against Haemophilus influenza type B and Japanese Encephalitis is provided in select districts/states.

This will be done through special catch-up campaigns to rapidly increase full immunization coverage of children by 5% and more annually.

            Under Mission Indradhanush, the Health Ministry has identified 201 high focus districts across the country that have the highest number of partially vaccinated and unvaccinated children. Nearly 50% of all unvaccinated or partially vaccinated children are in these 201 districts. Of the 201 districts, 82 districts are concentrated in the four states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan and nearly 25% of the unvaccinated or partially vaccinated children of India are in these 82 districts of these four states. These districts will be targeted for intensive efforts to improve the routine immunization coverage in the country.   The ultimate goal is to protect all children and pregnant women against vaccine preventable diseases in India

AREAS UNDER FOCUS

            Mission Indradhanush will target 201 high priority districts in the first phase and 297 districts for the second phase in the year 2015. The implementation of the first phase of the Mission in 201 high focus districts will commence from 7^th April 2015, World Health Day

Within the districts, the Mission will focus on the 400,000 high risk settlements identified by the polio eradication programme. These are the pockets with low coverage due to geographic, demographic, ethnic and other operational challenges. Evidence has shown that most of the unvaccinated and partially vaccinated children are concentrated in these areas.             The following areas will be targeted through special immunization campaigns: ·      High risk areas identified by the polio eradication programme. These include populations living in areas such as: o    Urban slums with migration o    Nomads o    Brick kilns o    Construction sites o    Other migrants (fisherman villages, riverine areas with shifting populations etc.) and o    Underserved and hard to reach populations (forested and tribal populations etc.)

·      Areas with low routine immunization (RI) coverage (pockets with Measles/vaccine preventable disease (VPD) outbreaks).

·       Areas with vacant sub-centers: No ANM posted for more than three months.

·      Areas with missed Routine Immunisation (RI) sessions: ANMs on long leave and similar reasons

·      Small villages, hamlets, dhanis or purbas clubbed with another village for RI sessions and not having independent RI sessions.STRATEGY FOR MISSION INDRADHANUSH

            Mission Indradhanush will be a national immunization drive to strengthen the key functional areas of immunization for ensuring high coverage throughout the country with special attention to districts with low immunizationcoverage.

            The broad strategy, based on evidence and best practices, will include four basic elements-

1.    Meticulous planning of campaigns/sessions at all levels: Ensure revision of microplans in all blocks and urban areas in each district to ensure availability of sufficient vaccinators and all vaccines during routine immunization sessions. Develop special plans to reach the unreached children in more than 400,000 high risk settlements such as urban slums, construction sites, brick kilns, nomadic sites and hard-to-reach areas.

2.    Effective communication and social mobilization efforts: Generate awareness and demand for immunization services through need-based communication strategies and social mobilization activities to enhance participation of the community in the routine immunization programme through mass media, mid media, interpersonal communication (IPC), school and youth networks and corporates.

3.    Intensive training of the health officials and frontline workers: Build the capacity of health officials and workers in routine immunization activities for quality immunization services.

4.    Establish accountability framework through task forces: Enhance involvement and accountability/ownership of the district administrative and health machinery by strengthening the district task forces for immunization in all districts of India and ensuring the use of concurrent session monitoring data to plug the gaps in implementation on a real time basis.

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare will establish collaboration with other Ministries, ongoing programmes and international partners to promote a coordinated and synergistic approach to improve routine immunization coverage in the country.

 National Level Monitoring

            A control room has been established at ITSU for coordinating with State Nodal Officers and National Level Monitors regarding daily reporting of the progress of Mission Indradhanush activities. The control room will also collect, compile and analyze their filled assessment checklists data. The details of contact persons from ITSU control room has been shared with states and will be shared with national level monitors also.

For the monitoring of Mission Indradhanush, national level monitors have also been assigned one for each district, placing 201 monitors for 201 districts. These monitors have been pooled from various partner agencies viz, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, National Health System Resource Center, National Institute of Health and Family Welfare, CORE, UNDP, ITSU, DELOITTE, BMGF, JSI, IPE Global, Rotary, UNICEF, WHO-NPSP.

            They will reach the assigned districts one day prior to the start of the activity and will check the preparedness of the district for Mission Indradhanush. During their visit to the district, monitors will also meet district level officials and will give them feedback about their observations on daily basis. After monitoring at district headquarter, they will also visit blocks of the same district on subsequent days for monitoring the preparedness at block level. During their visit, they are also expected to visit session sites and monitor sessions on standard session site monitoring format to assess the quality of implementation of activities. The national level monitors will stay in the assigned district for at-least 4 days and will visit minimum 3-4 blocks of the districts during the whole monitoring period. The national level monitors will be using two checklists i.e. District Assessment Checklist and Block / Urban area Assessment Checklist and a monitoring tool for session site.

            The data entry excel sheet tool based on the filled checklists will be submitted by monitors to Immunization Technical Support Unit (ITSU) by email on daily basis, and will be compiled by ITSU for feedback. The hard copies of all the formats will be submitted to ITSU immediately after monitor returns from the assigned district. The session site monitoring formats filled by the national level monitors will be handed over to local WHO-NPSP office in the district itself.

Simpler sops to help hit $900-bn export target

Multiple incentive schemes brought under two umbrellas as policy gets more in sync with WTO norms; greater focus on e-commerce; benefits to cover SEZsThe government on Wednesday unveiled a forward-looking and contemporary Foreign Trade Policy (FTP) for 2015-2020, seeking to strengthen merchandise and services exports with a targeted value of $900 billion by 2020.

In a drastic change of stance in keeping with global trading norms under the World Trade Organization (WTO), the new FTP sought to consolidate all previous export incentive schemes under two: Merchandise Exports From India Scheme (MEIS) and Services Exports From India Scheme (SEIS).

“The current WTO rules as well as those under negotiations envisage the eventual phasing out of export subsidies,” Nirmala Sitharaman, minister of state (independent charge) for commerce and industry, said while releasing the FTP. “Export-promotion measures have to move towards a more fundamental systemic measure rather than incentivising and depending on subsidies alone. There is, therefore, a need to ensure that our exports and services are internationally competitive. We must focus on quality and standards and produce zero-defect products. Brand India must be synonymous with reliability and quality,” she said.

The MEIS will be targeted for export of specified goods to specified markets and SEIS is meant for export of notified services in place of a plethora of schemes earlier.

The MEIS has replaced five existing schemes: Focus Products Scheme, Market-linked Focus Products Scheme, Focus Market Scheme, Agriculture Infrastrucutre Incentive Scrips and Vishesh Krishi Grameen Udyog Yojana (VKGUY).

On the other hand, SEIS has replaced the existing Served From India Scheme (SFIS). The rates of rewards under MEIS will now range from 2 per cent to 5 per cent, from the 2-7 per cent range earlier. On the other hand, under SEIS these will be from 3 per cent to 5 per cent, from the 5-10 per cent range earlier, according to commerce secretary Rajeev Kher.

In a big relief for exporters, all scrips issued under MEIS and SEIS and the goods imported against these scrips will be fully transferable. This means that scrips issued under export from India schemes can now be used for payment of customs duty for import of goods, payment of excise duty on domestic procurement of inputs or goods, and payment of service tax.

The minister said, “We must now aim higher. India must assume a position of leadership in the international trade discourse.”

“Our biggest challenge is to address constraints not so much externally but internally such as infrastructure bottlenecks, high transaction costs, complex procedures and constraints in manufacturing. This policy is a framework for increasing export of goods and services as well as generation of employment in keeping with the vision of Make in India."

In an effort to push the domestic content requirement, measures have been adopted to encourage procurement of capital goods from indigenous manufacturers under the EPCG scheme by reducing specific export obligation to 75 per cent of the normal export obligation.

"The Agreement on Subsidies and the Countervailing Measures of the WTO envisages the eventual phasing out of export subsidies. In the case of India, some sectors may be affected and require rationalisation of support over a period of time. The phasing out and eventual elimination of agricultural subsidies is also one of the key elements of the Doha Development Agenda," underscored the FTP statement.

As far as the coverage of the 3 per cent interest subvention scheme is concerned, which was a long-pending demand of exporters, the government has said it is in the process of identifying the sectors to which the same will be given during the current financial year, for which the Budget has allocated Rs 1,625 crore.

"The Budget has allocated Rs 1,625 crore. It will be given to specific sectors at a rate of 3 per cent. We are yet to identify the sectors," commerce secretary Rajeev Kher told reporters.

The FTP also introduced a concept of import appraisal mechanism which will be done on a quarterly basis by the commerce department. In a view to boost exports from Special Economic Zones (SEZs) the government also expanded the benefits under MEIS and SEIS to the units located inside the tax-free zones. "It is now proposed to extend the Chapter 3 incentives (MEIS & SEIS) to units located in SEZs also," said director general of foreign trade (DGFT) Pravir Kumar.

On the issue of imposition of MAT and DDT, Sitharaman said the proposal to remove those was still lying with the finance ministry. Breaking away from tradition, the Modi-led government did away with annual revisions of the policy. The FTP from now on will have a mid-term review after two and a half years, except for exigencies. In an attempt to achieve greater policy coherence and mainstreaming of all export incentive schemes, the commerce department will now direct state governments to prepare their own export strategies based on the new FTP.

---

SIGNIFICANT ANNOUNCEMENTS

• Merchandise Export from India Scheme (MEIS) and Service Exports from India Scheme (SEIS) launched. MEIS & SEIS incentives to be available to SEZs, too
• FTP to be aligned to Make in India, Digital India and Skills India initiatives
• Duty credit scrips to be freely transferable and usable for payment of custom duty, excise duty and service tax
• Trade facilitation and ease of doing business by way of online filing of documents and emphasis on paperless trade

WHAT THE GOVT IS LOOKING AT

• Employment creation in both manufacturing and services
• Zero-defect products with a focus on quality and standards
• A stable agriculture trade policy
• A focus on higher value-addition and technology infusion
• Investment in agriculture overseas to produce raw material for Indian industry
• Lower tariffs on inputs and raw materials
• Development of trade infrastructure and provision of production and export incentive documents

analysis

On Wednesday, the Union ministry of commerce released the new Foreign Trade Policy, or FTP, with the objective of boosting India's exports in the coming five years. Much was expected from it, because the government's stated intention to turn India into a manufacturing powerhouse cannot happen unless exports take off. And yet the numbers for exports since the government took office have not been encouraging. Clearly, a major push was needed.

Judged from that viewpoint, the new policy has announced several significant steps. The commerce ministry is to be congratulated for having worked to try and streamline several onerous procedures. For example, the introduction of two schemes (Merchandise Exports from India Scheme and Service Exports from India Scheme) to replace many other existing schemes will go a long way in making export promotion policy simpler and easier to navigate. The introduction of a simplified import duty exemption certificate for all exports under the two schemes is expected to further streamline the foreign trade policy regime, making incentives more transparent and non-discretionary. Now, the certificates, the value of which would be determined at two to five per cent of export earnings, can be freely traded, making it simpler for exporters without past performance acquire them for duty-free imports. Another similar simplification that is likely to be widely welcomed is the reduction in the specific export obligation under the Export Promotion Capital Goods, or EPCG, scheme. In this scheme, exporters are allowed to import capital goods without duty, subject to their fulfilling an export obligation equivalent to 90 per cent of the total value of imports over a period of five years. Such export obligation has now been reduced to 75 per cent. Export obligations were hard to monitor; and compliance wasn't easy, either. The dilution suggests the government has recognised that. Another positive sign is that the revenue secretary was present for the unveiling of the foreign trade policy. This suggests that the government's claim that all proposals with fiscal implications have already been approved by the revenue department should be believed. This comes as a big relief: many schemes in the past have fallen prey to internal differences between Udyog Bhavan and North Block.

But, in the end, India needs to evolve beyond tax breaks for manufacturers. The only way to ensure that India becomes an export powerhouse is to slot it into global supply chains. This doesn't require tax breaks; it requires freer trade and a realistic exchange-rate policy - and, of course, better infrastructure. The government at least recognises the need for infrastructure; its push to improve road, rail and ports is worthy of approval. But export competitiveness also needs to have a rupee that is not overvalued by 24 per cent, when judged according to the real effective exchange rate. The government needs a bigger-picture take on what holds back Indian exports - it cannot rely only on tweaking the availability of export credits, and simplifying and rationalising export promotion schemes. These schemes have not failed just because they are complex. They have failed because Indian exports are not competitive. To force competitiveness on Indian companies, freer trade is a must - which means the free-trade agreement with the European Union, for example, should not be on the back-burner. And a more realistic exchange-rate policy that reflects the rupee's strength is essential. Until those constraints are tackled, it is debatable if the policy, whatever its many positive features, will be able to achieve its goal of promoting exports.

#PradhanMantri #KaushalVikas Yojana--- A New Direction Towards Empowerment of Youth

Skill and knowledge are the two driving forces of economic growth and social development for any country. Countries with higher level of skills fare better to cope with the challenges of emerging economies in the present day world.

            In any country, youth is primarily the focus for any program for skill development. Our country is better placed in this regard. We have a vast majority of population in the productive age group. This provides a great opportunity to India. It also poses a great challenge. Benefits will flow to our economy only if our  population, particularly the youth, is healthy, educated and properly skilled.

            India with its an unrivalled youth demographic, is definitely poised for a big boost in terms of socio-economic development.  We have 605 million people below the age of 25. They can act as agents of change, by being empowered with various employable skills which will enable them to make impact not only on their livesbut also on the lives of other individuals.

The recently approved Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY), is a flagship scheme for imparting skill training to youth, focussing on improved curricula, better pedagogy and  trained instructors. The training includes soft skills, personal grooming, behavioural change et al.

           The scheme is being implemented by the newly created Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship through the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC). It will cover 24 lakh youths. The Skill training would be based on the National Skill Qualification Framework (NSQF) and industry led standards. Under the scheme, a monetary reward is given to trainees on assessment and certification by third party assessment bodies. The average monetary reward is around Rs.8,000 per trainee.

            The skill training will be on the basis of demand assessed by the recently conducted skill gap studies by the NSDC for the period 2013-17. The central and state governments, industry and business houses will  be consulted for assessment of further demands. For this, a demand aggregator platform is also being launched. The target for skill development  will also take into account the  demands from various other flagship programs launched in recent times such as Make in India, Digital India, National Solar Mission and Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.

            The PMKVY, will primarily focus on the first time entrants to the labour market and target mainly drop outs from Class 10 and Class 12. The scheme will be implemented through NSDC training partners. At present, NSDC has 187 training partners in around 2,300 centres. In addition, central  and state government affiliated training providers are also to be roped in for imparting training under the scheme. All training providers will have to undergo a due diligence process, for being eligible under the scheme. Sector Skill Councils and the stategovernments are also to monitor skill training program under PMKVY.

            Under the scheme, a Skill Development Management System (SDMS), will be put in place to verify and record details of all training centres, quality of training and courses. Biometric system and video recording of the training process will also be ensured wherever possible. Trainees will also be required to give feedback which willbe the key element for the evaluation of the effectiveness of the PMKVY scheme. A robust grievance redressal system will also be made operational to address grievances. Further,an online citizen portal will be put in place to disseminate information about the program.

            Out of the total outlay of Rs.1120 crore, on skill training of 14 lakh youth, special emphasis is being given to recognition of prior learning. An amount of Rs.220 crore is being provided for this purpose. Rs.67 crore has been earmarked for awareness generation and youth mobilisation. Mobilisation of youth is to be done through Skill Melas at the local level with the help of state governments, municipal bodies, pachayati raj institutions and community based organisations. Another Rs.67 crore has been provided, under the scheme on mentorship support and placement facilitation. An allocation of Rs.150 crores has been made for training of the youth from the North-East region.

            Skill and entrepreneurship development is one of the high priority areas of the present Government. The newly formed Ministry of Skill and Entrepreneurship Development, is to play a critical role in fulfilling the objectives of the ‘Make in India’ campaign, a major initiative to turn India into a major manufacturing hub. The Ministry is to play a pivotal role in creating a skilled workforce to meet the demands of growing economy in different sectors including the manufacturing sector.

            A new National Policy for Skill and Entrepreneurship Development has also emerged to cover the entire gamut of initiatives in this direction. The Policy is to lay a roadmap for boosting growth creating quality  manpower. It has set a target for skilling 500 million persons by the year 2022.

            The efforts in this direction, is being carried on a mission mode. The National Skill Development Mission, an umbrella body, has three institutions under it. The National Council on Skill Development-under the chairmanship of Prime Minister, is to give policy direction and review skill development efforts. The National Skill Development Coordination Board, under the chairmanship of Vice Chairman NITI Aayog is to enumerate strategies to implement the decisions of PM’s council. The National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), a non-profit company, is to meet the skill training requirements of the labour market including the unorganisedsector.                                                                                                                                  

            India has marked its presence as one of the fastest growing economies of the world. It is expected to rank amongst the world’s top three growth economies and amongst the top three manufacturing destinations by 2020. With the help of favourable demographic factors and sustained availability of quality workforce, our country is poised to make its imprint on global economy.

            The newly announced scheme, PMKVY, with its thrust on skill development to build human capital for future markets is sure to reap benefits for our economy. The new Policy and a Mission mode approach to deliver results will usher in a new era in the development of human resources and industry.

#ForeignTradePolicy 2015-2020 Unveiled

#ForeignTrade Policy 2015-2020 Unveiled

Two New Schemes – “Merchandise Exports From India Scheme” And “Services Exports From India Scheme” Introduced

  

The much awaited #ForeignTradePolicy 2015-20 was unveiled today by Minister of Commerce & Industry Mrs. Nirmala Sitharaman, at Vigyan Bhawan. The new five year Foreign Trade Policy, 2015-20 provides a framework for increasing exports of goods and services as well as generation of employment and increasing value addition in the country, in keeping with the “Make in India” vision of Prime Minister.  The focus of the new policy is to support both the manufacturing and services sectors, with a special emphasis on improving the ‘ease of doing business’.

   During her address Mrs. Sitharaman stated that there were various forces shaping India and its equation with the rest of the world.  She urged the Government and industry to work in tandem to deal with the challenges posed.

   The release of Foreign Trade Policy was also accompanied by a FTP Statement explaining the vision, goals and objectives underpinning India's Foreign Trade Policy, laying down a road map for India’s global trade engagement in the coming years.  The FTP Statement describes the market and product strategy and measures required for trade promotion, infrastructure development and overall enhancement of the trade eco system. It seeks to enable India to respond to the challenges of the external environment, keeping in step with a rapidly evolving international trading architecture and make trade a major contributor to the country’s economic growth and development.  She promised to have regular interactions with all stakeholders, including State Governments to achieve the national objectives.FTP2015-20. introduces two new schemes, namely “Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS)” for export of specified goods to specified markets and “Services Exports from India Scheme (SEIS)” for increasing exports of notified services, in place of a plethora of schemes earlier, with different conditions for eligibility and usage.  There would be no conditionality attached to any scrips issued under these schemes.  Duty credit scrips issued under MEIS and SEIS and the goods imported against these scrips are fully transferable. For grant of rewards under MEIS, the countries have been categorized into 3 Groups, whereas the rates of rewards under MEIS range from 2% to 5%. Under SEIS the selected Services would be rewarded at the rates of 3% and 5%.

Measures have been adopted to nudge procurement of capital goods from indigenous manufacturers under the EPCG scheme by reducing specific export obligation to 75% of the normal export obligation. This will promote the domestic capital goods manufacturing industry.  Such flexibilities will help exporters to develop their productive capacities for both local and global consumption.  Measures have been taken to give a boost to exports of defense and hi-tech items.  At the same time e-Commerce exports of handloom products, books/periodicals, leather footwear, toys and customized fashion garments through courier or foreign post office would also be able to get benefit of MEIS (for values upto 25,000 INR).  These measures would not only capitalize on India's strength in these areas and increase exports but also provide employment.

   Commerce Minister stated that although exports from SEZs had seen phenomenal growth, significantly higher than the overall export growth of the country, in recent times they had been facing several challenges.  In order to give a boost to exports from SEZs, government has now decided to extend benefits of both the reward schemes (MEIS and SEIS) to units located in SEZs.  It is hoped that this measure will give a new impetus to development and growth of SEZs in the country. 

   Trade facilitation and enhancing the ease of doing business are the other major focus areas in this new FTP. One of the major objective of new FTP  is  to move towards paperless working in 24x7 environment.  Recently, the government has reduced the number of mandatory documents required for exports and imports to three, which is comparable with international benchmarks.  Now, a facility has been created to upload documents in exporter/importer profile and the exporters will not be required to submit documents repeatedly.  Attention has also been paid to simplify various ‘Aayat Niryat’ Forms, Manufacturers, who are also status holders, will now be enabled to self certify their manufactured goods in phases, as originating from India with a view to qualifying for preferential treatment under various forms of bilateral and regional trade agreements.  This “Approved Exporter System” will help these manufacturer exporters considerably in getting fast access to international markets.

   A number of steps have been taken for encouraging manufacturing and exports under 100% EOU/EHTP/STPI/BTP Schemes.  The steps include a fast track clearance facility for these units, permitting them to share infrastructure facilities, permitting inter unit transfer of goods and services, permitting them to set up warehouses near the port of export and to use duty free equipment for training purposes.

   Considering the strategic significance of small and medium scale enterprise in the manufacturing sector and in employment generation, ‘MSME clusters’ 108 have been identified for focused interventions to boost exports. Accordingly, ‘Niryat Bandhu Scheme’ has been galvanized and repositioned to achieve the objectives of ‘Skill India’.  Outreach activities will be organized in a structured way at these clusters with the help of EPCs and other willing “Industry Partners” and “Knowledge Partners”. 

PM Narendra Modi launches #PRAGATI platform for redressal of grievances

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 25 March 2015 launched Pro-Active Governance and Timely Implementation (PRAGATI) platform. PRAGATI is a multi-purpose and multi-modal platform aimed at addressing grievances of common man. It also aims at simultaneously monitoring and reviewing important Union government programmes and projects as well as projects flagged by State Governments. It is an innovative project in e-governance and good governance and accountability with real-time presence and information exchange among the key stakeholders.

 Key features of PRAGATI 

Designed in-house by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) team with the help of National Informatics Center (NIC). Uniquely bundles three latest technologies including Digital data management, geo-spatial technology and video-conferencing. Three-tier system that brings PMO, Union Government Secretaries, and Chief Secretaries of the States at one stage. Thus, offers a unique combination in the direction of cooperative federalism. Prime Minister can directly discuss the issues with the concerned Central and State officials with full information and latest visuals of the ground level situation. The system will work on strengthen and re-engineer the data bases of Centralized Public Grievance Redress And Monitoring System (CPGRAMS) along with Project Monitoring Group (PMG) and the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation. On a monthly basis, Prime Minister will interact with bureaucrats i.e. on fourth Wednesday of every month at 3.30 PM- called as PRAGATI Day.

NITI Aayog plays safe on poverty

Taking note of some hard lessons learnt by its predecessor, the National Institution for Transforming India (#NITI) Aayog would not estimate either #poverty lines or the number of the poor in the country.

The erstwhile #Planning Commission, replaced by the Aayog, had got into a big controversy on these issues, with its calculations on the basis of the National Consumption Expenditure Surveys.

A task force under Aayog Vice-Chairman Arvind Panagariyaon poverty alleviation is to not define or compute poverty as an aggregate measure but will look at social indicators to assess the impact of social schemes on the poor.

“We won’t determine or decide what is the poverty line as was done by the Rangarajan panel or others before that. The task force would not like to fall into the Rs 33-27 debate, as earlier,” a key source said.

He noted states were already undertaking a Socio Economic Caste Census. “What we need to know is whether the programmes launched by the new government are having tangible impact, in terms of tangible outcomes. For this, we need to look at indicators,” the source said.

The number of poor as calculated by the socio-caste census would give a rough idea of the poverty line in each state.

It has been decided to include households without shelter, destitutes/living on alms, manual scavengers, primitive tribal groups and legally released bonded labourers in the Below Poverty Line list. These households will have the highest priority for inclusion in the list. Other households will be identified as poor from the angle of deprivation they are subject to.

C Rangarajan, chairman of the former prime minister's economic advisory council, and who headed a panel to come out with a methodology to define poverty and estimate the number of poor after the Planning Commission courted controversy, said: "I think for implementation of programmes, different determinants can be calculated and programmes can, thus, be monitored."

However, if one wants to measure the change in poverty, one needs the poverty line, he said. This could be the official one or one used by different agencies or academicians, depending on the approach.

One can use the World Bank's poverty line of $1 a day or $1.25 a day, he said but cautioned that these are not based on any specific study of a country.

Saumitra Chaudhuri, former member of the Planning Commission, said the NITI Aayog ideally should not do poverty computation. The whole idea should be on how to make the lives of the poor better through short-term and long-term measures.

"If you have an absolute measurement of poverty, say, anyone spending less than $1 dollar a day is poor, you need not change it after every five years. If anyone wants to focus socio-economic policies towards elimination of poverty, they should target the absolute number and not get caught in the debate of who is poor and who is not," he said.

The Rangarajan panel had found 29.5% of India's population was poor in 2011-12 against 21.9% estimated under the previous methodology which had drawn sharp criticism from various quarters. In absolute terms, 363 million people were below the poverty line that year, higher by about 93 million over the 269.8 million estimated earlier.

However, the poverty rate - the number of poor as a proportion of the population - came down swifter in the estimates of the Rangarajan panel than calculated earlier on the Suresh Tendulkar methodology.

A greater number of people were classified under poverty in 2011-12 as the Rangarajan committee raised the poverty line compared to that fixed earlier. The Rangarajan panel had said anyone spending up to Rs 47 a day in urban areas and Rs 32 in villages would be considered poor as of 2011-12. The Tendulkar methodology had pegged these levels at Rs 33 in urban areas and Rs 27 in villages. By either method, poverty was reduced during 2009-10 to 2011-12 (the first three years of the second UPA government).

For 2009-10, the Tendulkar methodology had pegged the poverty line at Rs 22 in villages and Rs 29 in urban areas. These were raised to Rs 27 and Rs 40, respectively, by the Rangarajan committee.

All these numbers had stirred controversies, with political parties and social activists poking fun at the Planning Commission over these numbers.