Daily Prelims Notes 27 October 2020
- October 27, 2020
- Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
- Category: DPN
Table Of Contents
- DIPAM
- Fertilizer subsidy
- CERC
- BIRDS OF GOD
- COMPOSITION TAXPAYER
- SAGARMALA
- INCOIS
- OPEC
- LOKUR COMMITTEE
1. DIPAM
Subject: Economy
Context: DIPAM to monetise assets worth over ₹100 crore.
Concept:
- The Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) under the Ministry of Finance has been made the nodal department for the strategic stake sale in the Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs).
- DIPAM and NITI Aayog will jointly identify PSUs for strategic disinvestment.
Mandate of the Department:
- All matters relating to the management of Central Government investments in equity including disinvestment of equity in Central Public Sector Undertakings.
- All matters relating to the sale of Central Government equity through offer for sale or private placement or any other mode in the erstwhile Central Public Sector Undertakings.
Subject: Economy
Context: A bountiful monsoon has brought a new challenge for the Finance Ministry, with the subsidy bill for fertilisers this year expected to be much higher.
Concept:
- Farmers buy fertilisers at MRPs (maximum retail price) below their normal supply-and-demand-based market rates or what it costs to produce/import them.•
- The difference between the retail price and production cost/domestic price is given as subsidy to manufacturers.
Present regime of fertilizer subsidy – Partial DBT (Since April 2018)
- The subsidy goes to fertiliser companies, although its ultimate beneficiary is the farmer who pays MRPs less than the market-determined rates.
- Manufacturers of fertilizers(urea) receive 100% of subsidy after fertiliser is delivered to the farmer, and the latter’s identity viz. Aadhaar is captured on the point of sale (PoS) machine at the dealer’s shop.
- Therefore, the subsidy continues to be routed through manufacturers even though the sale of fertilizer is being verified using Aadhar ecosystem
- The manufacturers sell urea at the maximum retail price (MRP) controlled by the Centre, which is kept at a low level. They also get subsidy reimbursement on unit-specific basis under the new pricing scheme (NPS)
- The MRPs of non-urea fertilisers are decontrolled or fixed by the companies. The Centre, however, pays a flat per-tonne subsidy on these nutrients to ensure they are priced at “reasonable levels (based on Nutrient based Subsidy scheme) .
- At present, the Centre is following a “no denial” policy. Anybody, non-farmers included, can purchase any quantity of fertilisers through the PoS machines. It leads to bulk purchase of urea that is used for non agri purposes.
- Hence, government is considering to put a cap on the maximum amount of fertilisers anybody can buy during kharif /rabi seasons.
3. CERC
Subject: National Organisation
Context: The Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC), which has been non-operational for nearly two months now, will continue to remain so for at least four more weeks.
Concept:
Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC).
- CERC is a regulator of the power sector in India.
- It intends to promote competition, efficiency and economy in bulk power markets, improve the quality of supply, promote investments and advise the government on the removal of institutional barriers to bridge the demand supply gap.
- It is a statutory body functioning with quasi-judicial status under the Electricity Act 2003.
4. BIRDS OF GOD
Subject: Environment
Context: ‘Birds of God’ project is a true success because of the involvement of the community. There has never been such a quick turnaround to a conservation project in India, where one year a species was being hunted and in the next, it stopped.
To celebrate the conservation story, the Nagaland government held an Amur Falcon Conservation Week and Festival earlier this month.
Concept:
Amur Falcons:
- Amur falcons, the world’s longest travelling raptors start travelling with the onset of winters.
- The raptors breed in southeastern Siberia and northern China, and migrate in millions across India and then over the Indian Ocean to southern Africa before returning to Mongolia and Siberia. Their 22,000-kilometre migratory route is one of the longest amongst all avian species.
- They get their name from the Amur River that forms the border between Russia and China.
- Doyang Lake in Nagaland is better known as a stopover for the Amur falcons during their annual migration from their breeding grounds to warmer South Africa. Thus, Nagaland is also known as the “Falcon Capital of the World,”.
- The birds are the least concern under the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, but the species is protected under the Indian Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, and the Convention on Migratory Species, to which India is a signatory (which means it is mandatory to protect the birds).
Subject: Economy
Context: Over 3.5 lakh composition taxpayers under GST will now have the facility of filing NIL return by just sending a SMS.
Concept:
Composition Scheme
- Taxpayers under the composition scheme of the GST will now have more relaxed rules with an increased turnover limit for the applicability, inclusion of service providers and reduced tax rates.
- This scheme is also applicable to the real estate sector with respect to under-construction, ready and affordable homes.
- The composition scheme is an alternative method of tax levy under GST designed to simplify compliance and reduce compliance costs for small taxpayers.
- The main feature of this scheme is that the business or person who has opted to pay tax under this scheme can pay tax at a flat %age of turnovers every quarter, instead of paying tax at a normal rate every month.
Eligibility
- The composition scheme is applicable to manufacturers or traders whose taxable business turnover is up to ₹1.5 crore (₹75 lakh in case of North-Eastern States).
- A service provider can opt for the scheme if his taxable turnover is up to ₹50 lakh.
- Businesses with inter-State supplies, manufacturers of ice cream, pan masala and tobacco, and e-commerce players cannot opt for the composition scheme.
Importance
- The composition scheme effectively acknowledges the importance of the MSME sector, by granting relief to it on GST filings, procedures and tax rates.
6. SAGARMALA
Subject: Economy
Context: Sagarmala development company Ltd will step in to help deploy some of the 24 roll-on, roll-offas well as Ropax owned by Inland Waterways Authority of India.
Concept:
Sagarmala:
- The Sagarmala project seeks to develop a string of ports around India’s coast.
- The objective of this initiative is to promote “Port-led development” along India’s 7500 km long coastline.
- It aims to develop access to new development regions with intermodal solutions and promotion of the optimum modal split, enhanced connectivity with main economic centres and beyond through expansion of rail, inland water, coastal and road services.
- The Union Ministry of Shipping has been appointed as the nodal ministry for this initiative.
- To implement this, State governments would set up State Sagarmala committees, headed by the chief minister or the minister in charge of ports.
Sagarmala Development Company (SDC)
- SDC will be under the administrative control of the Union Ministry of Shipping.
- It will provide equity support to the project Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) and funding support to the residual projects under the Sagarmala Programme.
- Implementation of the identified projects will be taken up mainly through private or PPP mode. It will also provide equity support for the project Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs).
- SDC will mainly identify port-led development projects and assist the project SPVs in project development and structuring activities, bidding out projects for private sector participation.
- SDC will raise long term capital as per project requirements by leveraging resources provided by Union Government and also from multi-lateral and bilateral funding agencies.
Inland Waterways Authority of India
- Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) is the statutory authority constituted under IWAI Act-1985 by parliament of India. It came into existence o for development and regulation of inland waterways for shipping and navigation.
- It primarily undertakes projects for development and maintenance of IWT infrastructure on national waterways through grants received from the Ministry of Shipping.
- It is headquartered at Noida with regional offices at Patna (Bihar), Kolkata (West Bengal), Guwahati (Assam) and Kochi (Kerala) and sub-offices at other places throughout India.
7. INCOIS
Subject: National Organization
Context: India is much safer against tsunami threat than it was in 2004, because of the state-of-the-art tsunami early warning system established at Indian National Centre for Ocean Information System (INCOIS) according to INCOIS director.
Concept:
- INCOIS (an autonomous body under the Ministry of Earth sciences) is also providing tsunami advisories to Indian Ocean region (25 countries) as a Tsunami Service Provider as the responsibility assigned by UNESCO-IOC.
- The Indian Tsunami Early Warning Centre (ITEWC), INCOIS is the nodal agency to provide tsunami advisories to India. It is coordinating with the Disaster Management Officials (DMOs) for implementation of Tsunami Ready programme in India.
- It conducts IOWave Tsunami mock exercises biannually in coordination with ICG/IOTWMS and also conducts mock exercises at national level in alternative years in coordination with MHA and NDMA and State Disaster Management Agencies (SDMA) to strengthen the readiness to handle the emergency situations with stakeholders.
Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC):
- IOC-UNESCO was established in 1960 as a body with functional autonomy within UNESCO and is the only competent organization for marine science within the UN system.
- The purpose of the Commission is to promote international cooperation and to coordinate programmes in research, services and capacity-building, in order to learn more about the nature and resources of the ocean and coastal areas.
- To apply that knowledge for the improvement of management, sustainable development, the protection of the marine environment, and the decision-making processes of its Member States.
- The IOC is recognized through the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) as the competent international organization in the fields of Marine Scientific Research and Transfer of Marine Technology.
8. OPEC
Subject: International Organization
Context: The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is hoping that lockdowns and curfews in some countries in the event of a second or third wave of COVID-19 infections will not dent global energy demand as much as in the second quarter of this year.
Concept:
- The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was founded in Baghdad in 1960 and headquartered in Vienna.
- OPEC has 14 member countries including the Islamic Republic of Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela as its founder members.
- Currently, the Organization has a total of 13 Member Countries. Qatar is the last country to terminate its membership.
- In its biannual meetings, oil ministers agree on production quotas for each member. They can control production since most of the member countries have state-run oil firms.
- OPEC’s stated objective is to co-ordinate and unify petroleum policies among member countries and ensure stable prices for petroleum producers.
- Most OPEC countries rely heavily on revenue from oil sales. High oil prices can hurt demand and low prices can affect the budget. Hence the organization tries to balance oil prices from getting too low or too high.
OPEC +:
- OPEC+ refers to the group of 24 crude producers comprising OPEC members and non-OPEC members including Russia.
- The OPEC members’ bloc is led by Saudi Arabia while Russia is the biggest producer amongst the non-OPEC members.
- OPEC controls 35% of global oil supplies and 82% of proven reserves. These figures increase to 55% and 90% respectively with the addition of non-members to form the OPEC+ group. This enables the OPEC+ group to have substantial control of oil prices around the world economy.
Subject : Polity
Context : The Supreme Court on Monday decided to keep in abeyance its previous order appointing former Supreme Court judge Justice Madan B. Lokur to a one-man committee to monitor/prevent stubble-burning in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab.
Concept :
- The committee will be helped by student volunteer forces deployed from the National Cadet Corps, the National Service Scheme and the Bharat Scouts and Guides, will protect Delhi-NCR (National Capital Region) from pollution caused by stubble-burning in the neighbouring Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh this winter.
- Student forces will patrol highways and fields in the three States and ensure that no fires are started in the fields.
- The Chief Secretaries of the three States will provide facilities to the committee and provide the student volunteers with adequate transportation to aid their vigil.
- Existing mobile teams and nodal officers of the States will report to the committee. The Supreme Court’s own Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority (EPCA) would consult with the committee on issues related to stubble-burning.