Consultative Committee for Ministries of Mines and Coal Holds Meeting in Indore, Madhya Pradesh

Nov 10, 2022 | Business


A meeting of the Consultative Committee for Ministry of Mines and Coal was held today in Indore, Madhya Pradesh. The meeting was chaired by Shri Pralhad Joshi, Union  Minister of Mines, Coal and Parliamentary Affairs and was attended by Members of Parliament; Shri Vivek Bharadwaj, Secretary ,Mines,  Shri Amrit Lal Meena, Secretary ,Coal and  other Senior officers.



Consultative Committee for Ministry of Mines and Coal has been constituted by Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs to provide a forum for informal discussion between the Members of the Parliament and the Union Minister on the policies and the working of the Ministries.


Agenda of the meeting for the Ministry of the Mines was Mining Reforms and their Impacts and Action Plan for auction of 500 mineral blocks by 2023-24. After the introductory remarks by Shri Vivek Bharadwaj, Secretary, Ministry of Mines, a brief presentation on the subject was made by Dr. Veena Kumar Dermal, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Mines.


She highlighted that since the landmark reforms made in 2015 to introduce auction as the method of allocation of mineral resources in the country, 214 mineral blocks have been auctioned. It was also informed that Number of blocks auctioned per year has increased three times since 2021 amendment. As compared to auction of 108 blocks in six years from 2015 to 2021, 106 blocks have been auctioned in one and half years since April, 2021.


The auctioned blocks which have been operationalized have resulted in increase in revenues of the States such as Odisha, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Although, number of working auctioned mines is miniscule (36) in comparison to working non-auctioned mines (405), the premium collection from auctioned mines is surpassing the royalty collection from all the working mines. For 2021-22, total auction premium from the auctioned mines was Rs. 21,148.04 Crores in three States (Odisha, Karnataka & AP) as compared to Rs.21,267.64 Crores from royalty of all the working mines. The same trend could be seen for the current financial year also. 


The amendment in the Act also removed restrictions on transfer of mineral concessions which has enabled transfer of mining leases in nine cases. This has enabled transfer of mining leases in case of disinvestment of PSUs for example, Nilachal Ispat Ltd. was disinvested Rs.12,100 Crore and it is also facilitating merger and acquisitions in the sector.


National Mineral Exploration Trust (NMET) has been established to provide necessary financial support to mineral exploration in the country. Till July, 2022, Rs. 1,809.42 cr. has been approved for various projects and Rs. 477.16 cr. has been spent from NMET fund in various exploration activities. In the year 2021-22 alone, record amount of Rs.751.43 cr. was approved and Rs. 124.71 cr. was spent in exploration of mineral resources.


It was also briefed to the Members of the Committee that till September, 2022, Rs. 70,107 cr. has been collected in District Mineral Foundations (DMFs) and 2,52,995 projects worth Rs. 63,534 cr. has been sanctioned for various activities for welfare of persons and areas affected by mining related operations.


 Members of the Parliament appreciated the efforts made by the Ministry of Mines in reforming the sector. They also gave valuable suggestions regarding the guidelines related to DMFs for effective utilization of funds for mining affected areas and the inhabitants. The Minister of Mines assured the members that all the suggestions would be deliberated for further necessary action.


****




AKN/RKP






(Release ID: 1874782)
Visitor Counter : 278













Consultative Committee of Ministry of Civil Aviation discusses ‘DIGI YATRA’ project

Jul 18, 2022 | Business




Giving the background of ‘DIGI YATRA’, the Union Minister of Civil Aviation Shri Jyotiraditya M. Scindia said that it is a project conceived to achieve contactless, seamless processing of passengers at Airports, based on Facial Recognition Technology (FRT). The project basically envisages that any traveller may pass through various check points at the airport through a paperless and contactless processing, using facial features to establish the identity which would be linked to the boarding pass. He said that the privacy issues have been taken care of in the system. It provides for decentralized mobile wallet-based identity management platform which is cost effective and addresses privacy/data protection issues in implementation of Digi Yatra. After approval of the revised Digi Yatra guidelines, an AIC (Aeronautical Information Circular) has been published by DGCA on 18.04.2022.


Digi Yatra Foundation (DYF) has been set up as a joint venture (JV) company in  2019 under Section 8 of the Companies Act, 2013 whose shareholders are AAI (26% shares) and BIAL, DIAL, GHIAL, MIAL and CIAL. These 5 shareholders equally hold the remaining 74% of the shares. The Foundation was formed, with the objective of creating the Digi Yatra Central Ecosystem (DYCE). Digi Yatra Foundation will be a pan-India entity and the custodian of the Passenger ID validation process. It will also develop consensus amongst the Aviation Stakeholders in India. It would also define the criteria for compliance and guidelines for the local airport systems. The JV will conduct regular audits, of the various compliances and guidelines (including guidelines on security, image quality, data privacy) defined by the Digi Yatra guidelines for the local Airport Biometric Boarding Systems (BBS).


In first phase, Digi Yatra is proposed to be rolled out at two Airports namely Varanasi and Bengaluru in August 2022 and at five Airports namely Pune, Vijayawada, Kolkata, Delhi and Hyderabad by March next year. AAI will identify their airports where Digi Yatra would be implemented in   phased manner.




YB/DS


*****




(Release ID: 1842408)
Visitor Counter : 896











Meeting of the Consultative Committee of Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs held

Dec 22, 2021 | Business


The meeting of the Consultative Committee of Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs was held today in the Parliament House Annexe, New Delhi.  The Agenda item of the meeting was “Smart Cities Mission”. Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs, Shri HardeepPuri chaired the meeting.


Briefing about the Smart Cities Mission, Shri Puri said that the main objective of the Mission, launched on 25th June, 2021, is to promote cities that provide core infrastructure, clean and sustainable environment and give a decent quality of life to their citizens through the application of ‘Smart Solutions”.  The Mission aims to drive economic growth and improve the quality of life through comprehensive work on social, economic, physical and institutional pillars of the city.  100 cities have been selected to be developed as smart cities through a two-stage National competition.


Smart Cities Mission is a centrally sponsoredscheme under which the Central Government will provide financial support to the extent of ₹48000 crores over 5 years i.e. on anaverage ₹100 crores per city per year and an equal amount of matching basis is to be provided by the State/ULB.  Emphasis has been given on the participation of private sector through public private partnerships.  Aggregating at national level, these proposals contained more than 5000 projects worth over ₹2,00,000 crores.  Mission has a two-pronged strategy consisting of Pan-city and Area-Based development project. Implementation at the city level is being done by Special Purpose Vehicle(SPV) created for the purpose.  There is no template or universally accepted definition of the Smart City.  Therefore conceptualization of Smart City depends on the level of development,willingness to change and reform resources and aspirations of the city  residents. 


The overall progress of the Mission as on 12 November, 2021 shows great momentum in execution.  Over 6452 projects worth ₹184,998 crores have been tendered.  Of this, work orders have been issued for close to 5809 projects worth ₹156571 crores of which 3131 projects worth around ₹53,175


crore have been completed. Since the launch of the Mission, a total of ₹. 27,234 crores have been released by the Government of India to 100 cities under the Mission. The progress of the Mission inthese cities is done on a regular basis by State level High Powered Steering Committee.


The Mission has launched several initiatives that will not only ensure integrated development across variousaspects of urban development but also help lay long-term foundationfor good quality urbanization in the country.  Some of the initiatives are:


  1. Ease of the Living Index

  2. Municipal Performance Index

  3. City GDP Framework

  4. Climate Smart Cities Assessment Framework

  5. Data Maturity  Assessment Framework

  6. ICCC Maturity Assessment Framework

  7. Data City Strategy

  8. India Urban Observatory

  9. India Urban Data Exchange

  10. Smart Cities Open Data Initiative

  11. National Urban Innovation Stack

  12. National Urban Digital Mission

  13. ICT standards

  14. India Cycles4Change (IC4C) Challenge

  15. Streets4people Challenge

  16. Nurturing Neighbourhoods Challenge

  17. Transport 4 all (T4All) Challenge

  18. EatSmart Cities  Challenge

  19. City Investments to Innovate, Integrate and Sustain (CITIIS) Challenge

  20. Climate Centre for Cities

  21. Climate Smart Cities Alliance

  22. India Smart Cities Fellowship Program

  23. The urban Learning Internship Program


The Minister also informed that smart cities have played important role in managing the crises during Covid-19. With Integrated Command and Control Centres being usedas Covid-19 War Room, they have helped in the area of information, communication, management and preparedness.


Hon’ble MPs made many valuable suggestions during the meeting.




*******


YB/SS




(Release ID: 1784009)
Visitor Counter : 228













2-day comprehensive consultative sessions held with subject-matter experts to discuss and finalize the schedules and the sampling methodology for the five All-India Surveys

Mar 3, 2021 | Business

A series of back to back meetings were held on 28.02.2021 and 01.03.2021 at Kolkata under the Chairmanship of the Chairman of the Expert GroupProf. SP Mukherjee and Director General, Labour Bureau Shri DPS Negito finalize the schedules and sampling methodology for the five All India Surveys relating to Domestic Workers, Migrant Workers, Employment Generated by the Professionals, the Employment Generated in Transport Sector and the All India Quarterly Establishment based Employment Survey.

Detailed discussions and in-depth deliberations were held to finalize and freeze the schedules for all the five All-India Surveys. Prof. S P Mukherjee, the Chairman of the Expert Group, in close consultation with the subject matter experts and senior officers from the IES and ISS discussed and finalized the schedules for all the Five All-India Surveys to be canvassed.

Power point presentations explaining sampling design and schedules for each of the five surveys were made by the officers of Labour Bureau and the subject matter experts. The schedules to be canvassed were deconstructed block-wise for each of the five All India surveys in detail. The same were finalized and frozen.

The Sampling Methodology for each of the five All-India Surveys was discussed in great detail. The officers-in-charge of the surveys made detailed presentations deconstructing the proposed sampling designs. The Chairman of the Expert Group, Prof. SP Mukherjee went into the depth of analyzing the proposed sampling methodology for each of the five surveys before finalizing the same.

The back-to-back meetings were a part of the 2-day comprehensive consultative sessions with subject-matter experts to discuss and finalize the schedules and the sampling methodology for the five All-India Surveys.

Shri D. P. S. Negi deeply appreciated the efforts put in by the subject-matter experts as well as the officers of Labour Bureau in designing the schedules and working out the sampling methodology. He stated that the data collected through these five bespoke All-India surveys will provide important inputs for evidence based policy making. Besides, it would help to fill the data gaps that existed until now as far as migrant and domestic workers are concerned.