Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 09 January 2017
:: National ::
The government has invoked Section 7 of the Aadhaar:
Workers in rural areas enrolled under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), which mandates 100 days of work for a household a year, must have Aadhaar.
Those who have registered themselves under the scheme will be required to give proof of possession of Aadhaar or undergo the enrolment process till March 31. However, ration card, driving licence, voter identity card, Kisan passbook with photo, job card issued under the MGNREGS and a certificate issued by a gazetted officer or a tehsildar will be admissible as proof of identity for the people to get the benefits till they get Aadhaar.
Those who have applied for Aadhaar can produce their enrolment slip or a copy of the application for getting the 12-digit unique identification number.
Orders are being issued to make enrolment of Aadhaar mandatory for the States such as Jammu and Kashmir and a few others. Adequate steps will also be taken to ensure that people face no problem in getting the Aadhaar number.
The government has invoked Section 7 of the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016.
The Section mandates that when the government gives subsidy, benefit or service from the Consolidated Fund of India (CFI), an individual can be asked to undergo authentication or furnish proof of possession of Aadhaar.
The expenditure for the MGNREGS is met from the CFI.
The move to make Aadhaar mandatory for the MGNREGS will prevent leakages of subsidies and ensure that the beneficiaries get their due, according to another official who is part of the wing looking after the implementation of the Aadhaar-linked Direct Benefit Transfer scheme.
The DBT scheme, aimed at checking leakages of welfare funds, was launched on January 1, 2013 to cover 24 schemes of eight Ministries. Under the DBT, all cash benefits are transferred to the beneficiary’s bank account.
The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation has also made it mandatory for 50 lakh pensioners and four crore subscribers to provide either the Aadhaar number or proof that they have applied for it.
The expenditure for the MGNREGS is met from the Consolidated Fund of India. A sum of Rs. 38,500 crore has been allocated for the MGNREGS in the current fiscal.
Mini grids can spur economic activity
Mini grids can spur economic activity in rural areas and accelerate the process of expanding mobile phone network across the country due to their large capacities and the ability to connect to the national grid, according to Smart Power India.
A mini grid, as defined by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, is an off-grid power system with a generation capacity of between 10 KW and 500 KW.
There are a number of other solutions of smaller capacities that rural areas can use such as a solar lantern, a solar home solution, or even a community solution like a micro grid.
But a mini grid is the only alternativethat provides the kind of electricity that can be used for business activities
One of the deficiencies of the other off-grid power solution models is that while these solutions are good in moving households away from kerosene and providing them with reliable and clean energy, they do not provide the energy required to fuel enterprise or commercial activity.
A mini grid is a larger system that converts direct current (DC) to alternating current (AC) and it provides safety as per REC and CEA standards.
The power generated from a mini grid can be seamlessly transferred to the national grid since it is already going through a a charge controller which manages the flow of energy and an inverter which converts the electricity from DC to AC.
It also has a storage facility to meet night demand as well.Apart from commercial enterprises, rural banks or schools, a large part of the demand for mini grids came from telecom service providers for powering mobile towers.
There is a national mandate to green 50–60 per cent of the telecom towers and also the cost of using diesel is very high and it (the risk) includes diesel theft and all the other nefarious activities that go along with it not to mention the pollution.