National Research Development Corporation

The National Research Development Corporation (NRDC) is planning to align its growth strategy with certain key opportunities offered by the Government’s flagship programmes, viz. Make in India, Digital India and Swachh Bharat. The ‘Make in India’ programme includes creation of a technology acquisition and development fund, wherein NRDC proposes to scout for technologies to be acquired, demonstrate high risk technologies in PPP mode and extend angel funding for promising technologies. The ‘Digital India’ programme includes making available all Databases and Information electronically. Accordingly, NRDC has proposed to develop an Indian Technology Data Bank. Under the ‘Swachh Bharat’ programme, NRDC proposesadoption of a Gram Panchayat and promote innovative technologies therein for socio-economic transformation.

NRDC has been facing acute shortage of funds to promote transfer, commercialization and utilization of domestic R&D. NRDC undertakes commercial as well as promotional activities. Commercial activities primarily include undertaking consultancy projects and licensing of technologies for which it receives royalty/lump-sum premia from licensees and makes payment to the inventors and institutions who assign the technologies to NRDC for commercialization. NRDC’s income from its commercial activities during 2011-12, 2012-13 and 2013-14 have been Rs. 1073.30 lakh, Rs. 709.86 lakh and Rs. 766.20 lakh, respectively incurring a loss of Rs. 84.54 lakh, Rs. 247.59 lakh and Rs. 170.42 lakh during the same period. Promotional activities primarily include, patent assistance, IPR awareness, technology value addition, techno-commercial support, technology commercialization, giving away innovation awards and promotion of innovations in Rural and North East regions, for which NRDC receives grants from the Government. Government has approved a 12th five year plan outlay of Rs. 37 crore for NRDC, against which only Rs. 13.68 crore has been provided during 2012-2015 and Rs. 1.00 crore in the current F.Y. 2015-16. The Ministry proposes to seek additional support for NRDC at the revised estimates stage and subject to necessary approvals and fund availability position, NRDC will be able to carry out the promotional activities. Simultaneously, NRDC is also being advised to raise its income from the commercial activities to promote domestic R&D growth. 

#AtalMission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation and #SmartCities Mission

Union Cabinet approves Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation and Smart Cities Mission to drive economic growth and foster inclusive urban development

In a determined bid to recast the urban landscape of the country to make urban areas more livable and inclusive besides driving the economic growth, the Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi today approved Central Government spending of about one lakh crore on urban development under two new urban missions over the next five years. The Cabinet has approved the Smart Cities Mission and the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation of 500 cities (AMRUT) with outlays of Rs.48,000 crore and Rs.50,000 crore respectively.

Under the Smart Cities Mission, each selected city would get central assistance of Rs.100 crore per year for five years. Smart City aspirants will be selected through a ‘City Challenge Competition’ intended to link financing with the ability of the cities to perform to achieve the mission objectives. Each state will shortlist a certain number of smart city aspirants as per the norms to be indicated and they will prepare smart city proposals for further evaluation for extending Central support.

This Mission of building 100 smart cities intends to promote adoption of smart solutions for efficient use of available assets, resources and infrastructure with the objective of enhancing the quality of urban life and providing a clean and sustainable environment. Special emphasis will be given to participation of citizens in prioritizing and planning urban interventions. It will be implemented through ‘area based’ approach consisting of retrofitting, redevelopment, pan-city initiatives and development of new cities. Under retrofitting, deficiencies in an identified area will be addressed through necessary interventions as in the case of Local Area Plan for downtown Ahmedabad. Redevelopment enables reconstruction of already built-up area that is not amenable for any interventions, to make it smart, as in the case of Bhendi Bazar of Mumbai and West Kidwai Nagar in New Delhi. Pan-city components could be interventions like Intelligent Transport Solutions that benefits all residents by reducing commuting time.

Under smart cities initiative, focus will be on core infrastructure services like: Adequate and clean Water supply, Sanitation and Solid Waste Management, Efficient Urban Mobility and Public Transportation, Affordable housing for the poor, power supply, robust IT connectivity, Governance, especially e-governance and citizen participation, safety and security of citizens, health and education and sustainable urban environment.

Smart City Action Plans will be implemented by Special Purpose Vehicles(SPV) to be created for each city and state governments will ensure steady stream of resources for SPVs.

The two missions are interlinked. AMRUT adopts a project approach to ensure basic infrastructure services relating to water supply, sewerage, septage management, storm water drains, transport and development of green spaces and parks with special provision for meeting the needs of children. Implementation of this Mission will be linked to promotion of urban reforms such as e-governance, constitution of professional municipal cadre, devolving funds and functions to urban local bodies, review of Building bye-laws, improvement in assessment and collection of municipal taxes, credit rating of urban local bodies, energy and water audit and citizen-centric urban planning.

10 percent of budget allocation will be given to States/UTs as incentive based on achievement of reforms during the previous year. A reform matrix with timelines would be circulated to States in the Guidelines.

This Mission will be implemented in 500 cities and towns each with a population of one lakh and above, some cities situated on stems of main rivers, a few capital cities and important cities located in hilly areas, islands and tourist areas.

Under this Mission, States get the flexibility of designing schemes based on the needs of identified cities and in their execution and monitoring. States will only submit State Annual Action Plans to the Centre for broad concurrence based on which funds will be released. In a significant departure from JNNURM, Central Government will not appraise individual projects.

Central assistance will be to the extent of 50 percent of project cost for cities and towns with a population of up to 10 lakh and one-third of the project cost for those with a population of above 10 lakh. Central assistance will be released in three instalments in the ratio of 20:40:40 based on achievement of milestones indicated in State Annual Action Plans. AMRUT seeks to lay a foundation to enable cities and towns to eventually grow into smart cities.

The Cabinet also today approved Central funding under AMRUT to the projects sanctioned under JNNURM and not completed. JNNURM projects relating to urban development sanctioned during 2005 -2012 and achieved physical progress of 50 percent availing 50 percent of central assistance released and those sanctioned during 2012-2014 will be supported till March, 2017. Accordingly, 102 and 296 projects respectively will get Central support for balance funding to complete these projects.

Central spending approved for the next five years under the two new Missions assumes significance in the backdrop of the approved Plan outlay of Rs.42,900 crore for JNNURM that was implemented over nine years between 2005 and 2014. Out of this, actual Central assistance released was Rs.36,398 crore.

Further to today’s Cabinet approval, a minimum investment of over Rs. 2 lakh crore would flow into urban areas over the next five years (2015-16 – 2019-20) since States and urban local bodies would mobilise matching resources ranging from 50 percent to 66 percent. In addition, substantial private investments would be mobilized by states and urban local bodies through PPP model as required to meet project costs.

The architecture of the Smart Cities Mission and AMRUT is guided by the twin objectives of meeting the challenges of growing urbanization in the country in a sustainable manner as well as ensuring the benefits of urban development to the poor through increased access to urban spaces and enhanced employment opportunities. 

Two-way manned trips to Mars possible with #electricsolarsail

Propellant-less vehicles can mine asteroids for water, making fuel for heavy rockets available in space.

Electric solar wind sail could make two-way manned Mars flights possible by making fuel available in Mars orbit, researchers claim.

In the heart of this scheme is the electric solar wind sail (E-sail) which provides propellant-less transportation within the solar system, thus enabling economical asteroid mining. The E-sail, which was invented in Finland in 2006, utilises long, charged tethers to convert natural solar wind momentum flux into spacecraft thrust.

After finding a suitable water-bearing asteroid, a mining unit using the E-sail can be sent to extract the water from asteroid soil. Water can be split into hydrogen and oxygen and liquefied, and the liquid hydrogen/oxygen (LH2/LOX) mixture can be used as fuel. The E-sail vehicle can ferry the extracted water and fuel to the orbits of Earth or Mars to be used to fill the tanks of manned vehicles travelling between Earth and Mars, researchers said.

According to Pekka Janhunen, a researcher in the Finnish Meteorological Institute, and colleagues the E-sail could provide essentially free logistics in the solar system outside of Earth’s magnetosphere.

Due to the exponential nature of the rocket equation, intermediate fuelling reduces the launch mass dramatically.

During the trip, asteroid-mined water could also be used as radiation shielding of the manned module to reduce the launch mass further.

With cheap propellant available in Mars orbit, there is also the option of fully propulsive landing on Mars which eliminates the need of a massive and expensive heat shield.

The E-sail facilitated Manned Mars Initiative (EMMI), could provide a fundamentally new, economically sustainable way to approach manned Mars flights, researchers said.

The running costs of the EMMI are not expected to much exceed those of maintaining the International Space Station, they said.

Killing a country’s ‪#‎ecology‬

The Environment Minister insists on clearing all hydro projects, even when the government itself earlier agreed that the Himalayas must be avoided for development work.

A battle of epic proportions between the hydroelectric power companies and the people of Uttarakhand has now culminated with the struggle shifting to the office of the Prime Minister of India. It began with the extraordinary and far-sighted 2014 decision of the Supreme Court in the Alaknanda Hydro Power Company case, where the Court said it was concerned with the mushrooming of hydroelectric projects adversely affecting the Alaknanda and Bhagirathi river basins.

The cumulative impact of dams, tunnels, blasting, the construction of power houses, garbage creation, mining and deforestation on the eco system has not yet been studied. The June 2013 tragedy that affected the Char Dham area of Uttarakhand, where thousands of people were killed and there was massive damage to property, forced a rethinking on projects. It was now considered important to make a cumulative assessment of bumper-to-bumper projects, where the rivers of the Himalayas are diverted from their normal course and channelled into tunnels, released at a lower level, then re-channeled into another pipeline, which ultimately leaves the main course of the river without water. The mistake made in the earlier environmental assessments — treating each project as stand-alone without going into the cumulative effect of all of them — was questioned by the Supreme Court. The Court, therefore, ordered the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) to constitute an Expert Committee to study the cumulative effects of such projects on the environment, on the stability of the Himalayas, and their adverse effect on the Himalayan rivers.

Unreliable assessments

The Expert Committee’s report is possibly one of the best ever made on the fragile ecology of the Himalayas. It almost unanimously found that Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) clearances were unreliable, wrongly prepared, made on the basis of false information submitted by the Hydroelectric Projects (HEPs), and that the clearances, in some cases, were motivated. These clearances, therefore, could not be relied upon for the continuation of these projects.

The Committee concluded that EIA reports should be done by an independent agency and not by the project proponent, and said that HEPs had an irreversible negative impact on the environment.

Five of the six projects now being examined afresh are in the para-glacial zone, rendering them extremely hazardous. As the glaciers recede due to construction activity, the land exposed becomes unstable, and an unusual cloudburst could again result in tragedy. The adverse impact on rivers and water quality and on forests, biodiversity and wild life are set out in detail.

The scathing report of the Wildlife Institute of India that pointed to the devastation that would be caused to wildlife in the Himalayas was also relied upon. One chapter deals with the proximity of HEPs to national parks and eco-sensitive areas and the impact on these areas. The report responds to the classic defence of project proponents that they would do compensatory afforestation by concluding that such afforestation was poorly done. The Committee concludes that the negative impacts of HEPs cannot be mitigated. The blasting of rocks, creation of garbage, and the receding of glaciers are a concomitant of all industrial activity in the Himalayas and, if the Himalayas and the Ganga are to be saved, there is no way forward but to scrap such projects.

Government support

To its credit, the Union of India initially supported the Expert Committee Report, pointing out that even prior to this report the B.K. Chaturvedi Inter-Ministerial Group, the Planning Commission, the G.B. Mukherjee Task Force Report, the CAG report, the Neeri report, and the Geological Survey of India (GSI) report had all recommended that hydroelectric projects be severely curtailed as they destroyed the environment. The Union of India pointed out that the Gangotri Valley and the Valley of Flowers were in eco-sensitive zones. It agreed that the seven main Indian rivers ought to be kept pristine, that the Himalayas are weak, the rivers drying up, and, in 2013, as against the state claim of 65 per cent forest cover, the actual cover was only 46 per cent.

The Union said that earlier environmental clearances had to be reviewed and a cumulative environmental impact approach adopted, with sensitive areas in the Himalayas avoided for development work. Referring to the GSI report, the Union of India said the entire Ganga basin was in Seismic Zones IV and V, which carries the highest degree of catastrophe possibility. A reference was also made to the Planning Commission recommendation that the projects be decommissioned.

However, despite the Union of India’s stand, the Minister for Environment and Forests, Prakash Javadekar, does not agree. He has made it his life mission to clear all projects, irrespective of their environmental impact. It is this attitude that has made India a country of toxic rivers, destroyed forests, declining groundwater resources, and the highest degrees of air pollution in the world. After the Union of India took a public stand that fully supported the findings and recommendations of the Expert Committee, Mr. Javadekar has set about clearing all projects. In typical bureaucratic style, a four-member Committee of Experts was appointed to make a report on a report. However, it did not play ball, pointing out that though environmental clearances were granted, the six projects studied would adversely impact aquatic and terrestrial biodiversity and the flow of the river.

They would impact the protected areas of the Nanda Devi National Park and Biosphere Reserve, the Valley of Flowers National Park (World Heritage Site), the Kedarnath Wild Life Sanctuary, and the Alaknanda III, Bhyundar and Dhauli Ganga biodiversity-rich sub-basins, which are the habitat of the rare and endangered Himalayan Brown Bear. The diversion of water through the construction of underground tunnels poses a serious risk to water life. The Committee of Experts unanimously noted that environmental clearances have to be reviewed and the six projects must not be taken up as they have the potential to cause a significant impact on the environment.

The future of the Himalayas and its rivers are at stake. Indeed, the future of India is in the balance. Within the government, well-meaning officials and Ms. Uma Bharti are fighting to clean up the Ganges, while Mr. Javedkar and his friends in industry battle to finish off what little is left of the Himalayas, its rivers and glaciers. The Prime Minister of India has to decide on which side he stands.

Towards an Indian #GST regime

Make no mistake about it. What India is likely to get, if its politicians agree to the idea finally, will be a sui generis version of an Indian goods and services tax (GST) regime. It will be truly an indigenous model and a product of India's fractious politics, containing all the imperfections of a system that the GST's original proponents would shudder at.

The reasons for the GST experts' disenchantment are obvious. Far from creating a barrier-free pan-Indian market for smooth transaction of goods and services across the country, the proposed system may well create new tax hurdles. Instead of improving tax compliance, there could be a strong incentive for tax payers to avoid the higher tax burden to be imposed by the new system. The tax base too may not widen because of the many items that would be excluded from the GST chain. And, most important, instead of enhancing the value of the country's economic activity, the proposed GST system may well be a dampener for achieving higher growth in gross domestic product or GDP.

The success of a GST system is largely dependent on the width of its coverage. All items in the tax chain must ideally be included in the GST system to achieve the best results. That also helps eliminate the incidence of paying tax on taxes, reduces the cascading effect of a tax system and enables producers of goods and services to enjoy the set-off benefits on the taxes they may have paid at various intermediate stages.

However, the proposed GST regime now under consideration of the Indian Parliament is likely to exclude potable alcohol, tobacco and petroleum products. Taken together, they account for a large chunk of the indirect taxes base in the country. Unfortunately, this exclusion is largely triggered by some of the states' myopic desire to preserve their revenue streams. This is often aided and abetted by the federalist streak among many of the Indian states to assert their right and freedom to fix duties on certain products as they please. Worse, such an approach is often inspired by irrational thinking and narrow political calculations based on party affiliations.

Experts also point out that the exclusion of items from the GST chain results in a higher rate of final taxes to be paid under the new system - or the revenue neutral rate. The legislative Bill seeking to to introduce GST does not indicate the revenue neutral rate and delegates that responsibility to the GST Council, which will be a body composed of the finance ministers of the Centre and states. If, recent studies by some expert bodies are an indication, the revenue neutral rate with the proposed exclusion of items could well be around 27 per cent - almost half of which will be the state GST rate and the other half would be the central GST rate.

This is considered too high a revenue neutral rate to ensure an easy buy-in for states and address concerns of a sharp increase in the tax burden. Barring a few Scandinavian countries, the revenue neutral rate for GST is well below the 20 per cent mark in most countries. True, a GST regime with a 27 per cent revenue neutral rate might help improve the country's low tax to GDP ratio, but surely a more prudent and effective way of improving that ratio would be to increase the coverage and the base of direct taxes.

A far more risky idea in the proposed GST regime is the imposition of a one per cent tax on all cross-border sales of goods and services by states, in addition to the GST rate. There is now a demand from two producing states of Gujarat and Maharashtra that the additional tax on inter-state sale of goods and services be raised to two per cent to help them protect their revenues. GST is a tax levied by a state where the goods and services are consumed and hence states that produce them are afraid that they might lose revenue.

If the additional duty is allowed, under political pressure, the spirit of the GST regime would be seriously undermined. Imports would get a fillip as they would not be subjected to the additional tax, whose multiplier effect, every time the goods enter a new state, would be substantial, dealing a blow to the government's 'Make in India' programme.

Add to this the fact that the real estate sector will not be covered under the proposed GST. Thus, all construction activities and the expenditure incurred on them would be outside the GST chain, robbing their suppliers of the benefits of setting off their intermediate tax burden against their final tax liability. Not surprisingly, instead of adding to the country's GDP, the new GST regime with all these imperfections may perpetuate the barriers that split the large Indian market into 29 states and seven union territories. In addition, they may undermine whatever additional growth the proponents of the new taxation system may have envisaged as a net gain for the economy.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi had led her party's walk-out from the Lok Sabha, lodging her protest against the new GST regime. It is not clear what changes she or her party wanted in the GST regime, an idea that was first mooted and even introduced in Parliament by her party when in power. The problem is that the country is in such a political situation, with states flexing their muscles in the name of federalism, that a new idea like the GST regime does not appear feasible in its original form. Whichever be the government at the Centre, it has to accept the fact that the Indian polity is not yet ready for wholesale changes in economic policies that will require major shifts either in the way states collect their taxes or in the way companies do business.

What should Finance Minister Arun Jaitley do? Should he scrap the current proposal for what is clearly an imperfect GST and wait for more consultation and consensus to help formulate a perfect GST? That would not be a pragmatic move. The nation has waited for a GST regime for far too long. It would be wiser to make a beginning even with an imperfect GST, with all its flaws, as long as the government is committed to addressing the concerns that arise over time. It should also ensure that the new structure should be such that necessary changes to address those concerns can be brought about without going through a long-winded process.

Measures to Check Mortality Rate of Children

Under the National Health Mission (NHM), following interventions are being implemented to bring down mortality rate among children in all States:

1. Janani Shishu Suraksha Karyakaram (JSSK): entitles all pregnant women delivering in public health institutions to absolutely free and no expense delivery including Caesarean section. The initiative stipulates free drugs, diagnostics, blood and diet, besides free transport from home to institution, between facilities in case of a referral and drop back home. Similar entitlements have been put in place for all sick infants accessing public health institutions for treatment till one year of age.

2. Facility Based Newborn Care (FBNC) at different levels to reduce child morbidity and mortality: Setting up of facilities for care of sick newborn such as Special New Born Care Units (SNCUs), Newborn Stabilization Units (NBSUs) and Newborn Care Corners (NBCCs) at different levels is a thrust area under NHM.

3. Home Based New Born Care (HBNC): Home based newborn care through ASHAs has been initiated to improve new born practices at the community level and early detection and referral of sick new born babies.

4. India Newborn Action Plan (INAP) has been launched with an aim to reduce neonatal mortality and stillbirths.

5. Newer interventions to reduce newborn mortality- Vitamin K injection at birth, Antenatal corticosteroids for preterm labour, kangaroo mother care and injection gentamicin to young infants in cases of suspected sepsis.

6. Intensified Diarrhoea Control Fortnight was observed in August 2014 focusing on ORS and Zinc distribution for management of diarrhoea and feeding practices.

7. Integrated Action Plan for Pneumonia and Diarrhoea (IAPPD) launched in four states with highest child mortality (UP, MP, Bihar and Rajasthan).

8. Management of Malnutrition: Nutritional Rehabilitation Centres (NRCs) have been established for management of severe acute malnutrition in children.

9. Appropriate Infant and Young Child Feeding practices are being promoted in convergence with Ministry of Woman and Child Development.

10. Village Health and Nutrition Days (VHNDs) are organized for imparting nutritional counselling to mothers and to improve child care practices.

11. Mother and Child Tracking System (MCTS): A name based Mother and Child Tracking System has been put in place which is web based to ensure registration and tracking of all pregnant women and new born babies so that provision of regular and complete services to them can be ensured.

12. Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK) for health screening and early intervention services has been launched to provide comprehensive care to all the children in the age group of 0-18 years in the community. The purpose of these services is to improve the overall quality of life of children through early detection of birth defects, diseases, deficiencies, development delays including disability.

13. Under National Iron Plus Initiative (NIPI), through life cycle approach, age and dose specific IFA supplementation programme is being implemented for the prevention of anaemia among the vulnerable age groups like under-5 children, children of 6 – 10 years of age group, adolescents, pregnant & lactating women and women in reproductive age along with treatment of anaemic children and pregnant mothers at health facilities.

14. Capacity building of health care providers: Various trainings are being conducted under NHM to train doctors, nurses and ANMs for essential newborn care, early diagnosis and case management of common ailments of children. These trainings are on Navjaat Shishu, Suraksha Karyakram (NSSK), Integrated Management of Neonatal and Childhood Illnesses (IMNCI), Facility Based Newborn Care (FBNC), Infant and Young Child Feeding practices (IYCF), etc.

15. Universal Immunization Programme (UIP) covers about 13.5 crore children for vaccination against seven vaccine preventable diseases, through 90 lakh immunization sessions each year. 

Supreme Court sets aside government’s decision to include #Jats in the central list of OBCs for certain states

On March 17, 2015, the Supreme Court set aside the decision of the central government to include Jats in the central list of Other Backward Classes (OBCs) for certain states.37 In February 2014, the National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC), after having examined the issue, had recommended not including Jats in the central list of OBCs. However, on March 4, 2014, the central government included Jats in the central list of OBCs in Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Rajasthan (Bharatpur and Dholpur districts), Uttar Pradesh, and Uttarakhand.
The Court made the following major observations while setting aside the government‟s decision:

  On bypassing the advice of the NCBC: The Court pointed out that: (i) the observations in Indra Sawhney vs. the Union of India, and (ii) the provisions of the National Commission for Backward Classes Act, 1993; indicate that the recommendations of the NCBC are normally binding on the government.38,39 Further, there was no valid reason for the government to bypass the advice of NCBC.
  On the determination of ‘backwardness’: The Court pointed out that backwardness is caused by factors which may be social, cultural, economic, educational, political, etc. While backwardness has been associated with caste in the past, the Court has discouraged the identification of a group as backward only on the basis of caste. The Court stated that new methods must be developed to identify new groups which deserve the protection of the State, such as transgenders, moving away from a „caste-centric‟ definition of backwardness.
 On using outdated reports and lists: The government argued that the OBC lists of states can be a reasonable ground for the inclusion of communities in the central list of OBCs. However, the Court pointed that