Open Market Sale Scheme (OMSS)
- It refers to selling of food grains by Government / Government agencies at predetermined prices in the open market from time to time.
- It enhance the supply of grains especially during the lean season and thereby to moderate the general open market prices especially in the deficit regions.
- For transparency in operations, the Corporation has switched over to e- auction for sale under Open Market Sale Scheme (Domestic).
- The FCI conducts a weekly auction to conduct this scheme in the open market using the platform of commodity exchange NCDEX (National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange Limited).
- The State Governments/ Union Territory Administrations are also allowed to participate in the e-auction, if they require wheat and rice outside Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS)
- The present form of OMSS comprises 3 schemes as under
(i) Sale of wheat to bulk consumers/private traders through e-auction.
(ii) Sale of wheat to bulk consumers/private traders through e-auction by dedicated movement.
(iii) Sale of Raw Rice Grade ‘A’ to bulk consumers/private traders through e-auction.
- Recently Government has decided that start date of procurement of pulses and oilseeds under the Price Support Scheme (PSS) may be decided by the respective States.
- The procurement shall continue for 90 days from the date of commencement of procurement.
Market Intervention Scheme (MIS)
- Market Intervention Scheme (MIS) is an ad-hoc scheme under which are included horticultural commodities and other agricultural commodities which are perishable in nature.
- Market Intervention Scheme works in a similar fashion to Minimum Support Price based procurement mechanism for food grains.
- MIS covers commodities which are not covered under the minimum price support scheme.
- It aims to intervene the market to protect the growers of their commodities from making distress sale in the event of a bumper crop during the peak arrival period when the prices tend to fall below economic levels and cost of production.
- Government implements M.I.S. for a particular commodity on the request of a State Government concerned.
- Losses suffered are shared on 50:50 basis between Central Government and the State.
Minimum Support Price (MSP)
- Minimum support price (MSP) is one of the instruments of Agricultural Price Policy (APP).
- APP basically means government intervention to influence agricultural productivity and/or farm input prices.
- The kind and degree of intervention (or the policy instruments and their objectives) vary with the stage of agricultural development.
- The basic intent of announcing MSP before the sowing season is to help farmers take sowing decision keeping in mind that if they are not able to get a reasonable price by selling in the market, at least they will be able to get the MSP.
- In that sense, MSP is an assured or guaranteed price (insured price).
Decarbonising India’s power system
- A recent report analysed health impacts stemming from exposure to particulate matter (PM), under various policy pathways to meet Paris Agreement 2015 targets.
- Highlights of recent findings
- The report highlights that as many as 200,000 premature deaths can be avoided in three decades from 2020 to 2050.
- This if India accelerates its efforts to decarbonise the power sector or adopts a ‘Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC)-Plus’ scenario,
- India can markedly improve the livelihoods of its citizens by reducing ambient air pollution.
- In the business-as-usual scenario, almost 500,000 people will die prematurely due to exposure to particulate matter (PM10) particles in 2020; this number would rise to 830,000 premature deaths by 2050.
- The report defined four scenarios that compared socio-economic impacts of different ambition levels in decarbonising India’s power system based on different power generation sources.
- It analysed, through mathematical modelling, the future development of the power sector in India over the next 30 years.
- These scenarios are:
- Business-as-usual scenario (BAU) - Assumes the uptake of more efficient technologies based on past trends, existing policies and targets rolled out by 2016.
- The current renewable energy targets based on this approach are partially achievable.
- NDC scenario - Has been designed to chart out strategies needed to achieve the targets laid out in India’s Nationally Determined Contributions under the Paris Climate Agreement.
- NDCs embody efforts by each country to reduce national emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change.
- NDC-PLUS scenario - Entails adoption of strategies for deeper decarbonisation than the NDC scenario.
- It assumes rapid uptake of efficient technologies across all sectors, accelerated efficiency improvements for both appliances and vehicles and aggressive efforts towards improved energy efficiency across the industrial sector.
- REmap India Scenario - Provides a power-sector decarbonisation pathway for India to contribute towards limiting global temperature rise to well below 2 degrees Celsius by 2100.
India’s Energy Needs Report
- According to recent findings on energy needs Less than 3% of India’s energy needs met by hydro, solar, wind and nuclear sources
- More than 54%* of India’s energy needs were met by coal production in FY19.
- Over 97%* of energy needs were served by fossil fuels: coal, crude oil, oil products and natural gas.
- Energy consumption includes electricity and transport.
- The calculations are done after converting all the energy sources into a solitary unit: a Tonne of Oil Equivalent.
- One tonne of oil equivalent is equal to the energy released by burning one tonne of crude oil (=11.63 megawatt-hours).
APG Enhanced Follow-up List
- APG is a regional affiliate of the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
- The FATF had placed Pakistan in the grey list in June 2018.
- The grey list of APG refers to countries that are “monitored jurisdictions”, while the blacklist refers to countries facing a “call to action” or severe banking strictures, sanctions and difficulties in accessing loans.
- In February this year, the FATF had threatened Pakistan with a potential blacklist in a sternly worded note that said, “All deadlines in the action plan have expired.”
- China, Pakistan’s all-weather ally, has prevented it from being blacklisted by the FATF for the past two years, with support from Turkey and Malaysia.
- Recently Asia-Pacific Group (APG) on Money Laundering said, Pakistan will remain in the enhanced follow-up list.
- This decision makes after taking note of Pakistan’s “meagre progress” in combating money laundering and terror financing.
- It will have to continue to report back to the APG on progress to strengthen its implementation of comprehensive Anti-money Laundering and Terrorist Financing measures.
Leave Travel Concession
- Finance Ministry has announced a slew of measures to spur spending and stimulate economic demand in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
- Consumer spending proposals - It include a LTC cash vouchers scheme and a special festival advance scheme.
- Leave Travel Concession - The LTC Cash Vouchers scheme is mainly targeted to employees in the government and other organised sectors.
- Central government employees, in a block of four years between 2017-18 and 2020-21 would have normally availed of one leave travel concession for any destination of their choice plus one visit to their hometown.
- If they didn’t choose leave travel to one destination of their choice, they would usually go twice to their native village.
- This would mean air or rail fare as per their pay scale is reimbursed to them.
- In addition, they also get ten days of leave encashment, which they pay tax on, the travel fare is tax exempt.
- Conditions are as follows
- Money would be offered to them based on three slabs, as per government rules and procedures, from which they could spend it to buy something of their choice.
- This must be spent on items that have 12% GST or more; for instance, you cannot use it to buy food that has 5% GST slab.
- It can only spend in digital mode and no cash payments are offered.
Special Festival Advance Scheme
- Till the Sixth Pay Commission, there was a festival advance scheme in which the highest level of advance was was ₹4,500 per non-gazetted officers.
- However, there was no such scheme in the Seventh Pay Commission.
- Under this scheme, ₹10,000 will be available to all central government employees, irrespective of their rank, instead of ₹4,500 that was available in the Sixth Pay Commission.
- This will be repaid in ten instalments and will be available upto March 31, 2021.
- A prepaid Rupay card will be given to the availees as an interest-free advance for use in any festival, however cash can’t be withdrawn.
Taro Vegetable
- Taro, or Colocasia esculenta, better known as arbi, it is the fifth most consumed root vegetable in the world.
- This is a vegetable that restaurants rarely serve, but is cooked quite regularly in Indian homes.
- Its uniqueness lies in the fact that all its parts, from root to shoot, are consumed as each has its own distinct taste.
- But It may soon disappear from the earth due to climate change-led droughts.
- Taro is a great source of carbohydrate therefore, it is used in infant weaning diets and low glycemic index foods suitable for diabetics.
- Its tuber has starch molecules which are smaller than those of potato, corn and wheat and can be used in cosmetics and in pharmaceuticals as binders in tablets.
- Interestingly, the starch in taro’s tuber has the capacity to end the world’s plastic menace, it can be used to make plastic that degenerates over time.
Source: Down to Earth, the Hindu, PIB
