Ebola Virus Fact Sheet

·         Ebola Virus Disease (formerly known as Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever) is a Severe, often fatal illness, with a death of up to 90%. The illness affects humans and non-human primates (monkeys, gorillas and chimpanzees).

·         Genus Ebola Virus is 1 of 3 members of the Filoviridae family (filovirus), along with genus Marburgvirus and genus Cuevavirus. Genus Ebola Virus comprises 5 distinct species:

                        1. Bundibugyoebolavirus (BDBV)

                        2. Zaire ebolavirus (EBOV)

                        3. Reston ebolavirus (RESTV)

                        4. Sudan ebolavirus (SUDV)

                        5. Tai Forest ebolavirus (TAFV)

·         As on 18th May 2014, the Ministry of Health (MOH) of Guinea has reported a cumulative total of 253 clinical cases of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD), including 176 deaths.

·         Latest figures on number of cases/deaths and countries affected can be obtained from WHO website  http://www.afro.who.int/en/clusters-a-programmes/dpc/epidemic-a-pandemic-alert-and-response/outbreak-news/4140-ebola-virus-disease-west-africa-situation-as-of-18-may-2014.html

Transmission

·       Ebola is introduced into the human population through close contact with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected animals, chimpanzee, gorilla, fruit bats, monkeys, forest antelopes and porcupines.

·       Human-to human transmission, with infection resulting from direct contact (through broken skin or mucous membranes) with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected people, and indirect contact with environments contaminated with such fluids, Health-care workers have frequently been infected while treating patients with suspected or confirmed EVD.

·       The virus can be transmitted through semen of affected person upto 7 weeks after recovery from illness.

·       Health-care workers have frequently been infected while treating patients with suspected or confirmed EVD. This has occurred through close contact with patients when infection control precautions are not strictly practiced.

·       People are infectious as long as their blood and secretions contain the virus. Ebola virus was isolated from semen 61 days after onset of illness in a man who was infected in a laboratory.

Signs and symptoms

·       EVD is a severe acute viral illness often characterized by the sudden onset of

o  fever,

o  intense weakness,

o  muscle pain,

o  headache,

o  sore throat.

o  vomiting,

o  diarrhoea,

o  rash,

o  impaired kidney and liver function, and

o  In some cases, both internal and external bleeding.

·         Laboratory findings include low white blood cell and platelet counts and elevated liver enzymes.

·         Incubation period: 2 to 21 days.

Case Definition EBVD

Suspected (clinical) case:

·       Any person ill or deceased who has or had fever with acute clinical symptoms and signs of hemorrhage, such as bleeding of the gums, nose-bleeds, conjunctival injection, red spots on the body, bloody stools and/or melena (black liquid stools), or vomiting blood(haematemesis) with the history of travel to the affected area. Documented prior contact with an EBVD case is not required.

Probable case (with or without bleeding):

·       Any person (living or dead) having had contact with a clinical case of EHF and with a history of acute fever.

OR

·       Any person (living or dead) with a history of acute fever and three or more of the following Symptoms: headache/ vomiting/nausea/ loss of appetite/ diarrhea/ intense fatigue/ abdominal pain/ general muscular or articular pain/ difficulty in swallowing/ difficulty in breathing/hiccoughs

OR

Any unexplained death.

·       The distinction between a suspected case and a probable case in practice relativelyunimportant as far as outbreak control is concerned.

Contact:

·       A person without any symptoms having had physical contact with a case or the body fluids of a case within the last three weeks. The notion of physical contact

may be proven or highly suspected such as having shared the same room/bed, cared for patient, touched body fluids, or closely participated in a burial (e.g. physical contact with the corpse).

Confirmed Case:

·       A suspected or probable case with laboratory confirmation (positive IgM antibody, positive PCR or Viral isolation).

Diagnosis

·       Other diseases that should be ruled out before a diagnosis of EVD can be made include: malaria, typhoid fever, shigellosis, cholera, leptospirosis, plague, rickettsiosis, relapsing fever, meningitis, hepatitis and other viral haemorrhagic fevers.

·       Ebola virus infections can be diagnosed definitively in a laboratory through several types of tests:

Ø  antibody-capture enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA)

Ø  antigen detection tests

Ø  serum neutralization test

Ø  reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assay

Ø  electron microscopy

Ø  Virus isolation by cell culture.

·       Samples from patients are an extreme biohazard risk; testing should be conducted under maximum biological containment conditions.

Prevention and control

Risk of infection with Ebola virus and how to avoid it

·       Casual contacts in public places with people that do not appear to be sick do not transmit Ebola. One cannot contract Ebola virus by handling money, groceries or swimming in a pool. Mosquitoes do not transmit the Ebola virus.

·       Ebola virus is easily killed by soap, bleach, sunlight, or drying. Ebola virus survives only a short time on surfaces that have dried in the sun.

Reducing the risk of Ebola infection in people

·         In the absence of effective treatment and a human vaccine, raising awareness of the risk factors for Ebola infection and the protective measures individuals can take is the only way to reduce human infection and death.

·         Reducing the risk of wildlife-to-human transmission from contact with infected fruit bats or monkeys/apes and the consumption of their raw meat. Animals should be handled with gloves and other appropriate protective clothing. Animal products (blood and meat) should be thoroughly cooked before consumption.

·         Reducing the risk of human-to-human transmission in the community arising from direct or close contact with infected patients, particularly with their body fluids. Close physical contact with Ebola patients should be avoided. Gloves and appropriate personal protective equipment should be worn when taking care of ill patients at home and should be disposed after use as per biosafety guidelines. Regular hand washing is required after visiting patients in hospital, as well as after taking care of patients at home.

·         Dead patients to be handled for cremation/burial under biosafety precautions.

Controlling infection in health-care settings

·         Human-to-human transmission of the Ebola virus is primarily associated with direct or indirect contact with blood and body fluids. Transmission to health-care workers has been reported when appropriate infection control measures have not been observed.

·         It is not always possible to identify patients with EBV early because initial symptoms may be non-specific. For this reason, it is important that health-care workers apply standard precautions consistently with all patients – regardless of their diagnosis – in all work practices at all times. These include basic hand hygiene, respiratory hygiene, use of personal protective equipment (according to the risk of splashes or other contact with infected materials), safe injection practices and safe handling after death of infected patient.

·         Health-care workers caring for patients with suspected or confirmed Ebola virus should apply, in addition to standard precautions, other infection control measures to avoid any exposure to the patient’s blood and body fluids and direct unprotected contact with the possibly contaminated environment. When in close contact (within 1 metre) of patients with EBV, health-care workers should wear face protection (a face shield or a medical mask and goggles), a clean, non-sterile long-sleeved gown, and gloves (sterile gloves for some procedures).

·         Laboratory workers are also at risk. Samples taken from suspected human and animal Ebola cases for diagnosis should be handled by trained staff and processed in suitably equipped laboratories.

SEBI relaxations to boost infrastructure

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) set the stage for launch of Real Estate and Infrastructure Investment Trusts, commonly referred to as REITs and InvIT. In the final regulations, the market regulator has made some major changes to what it had proposed earlier. These include:

Allowing foreign institutional investor (FII) participation and reducing the minimum asset size for a REIT. Those in the sector said these two new instruments had the potential of attracting nearly Rs 1 lakh crore to the cash-starved real estate and infrastructure sector.

SEBI Chairman U K Sinha said that would help in the progress of the real estate and infrastructure sectors.

While the draft guidelines did not give clarity on foreign investments in these trusts, the final norms have permitted foreign entities to invest in REITs. 

These investments, however, will be subject to certain guidelines, which will be issued by the Reserve Bank of India.

The minimum asset size of REITs, fixed at Rs 1,000 crore in the draft guidelines, has been reduced to Rs 500 crore. 

Norms related to sponsors of REITs also liberalised. It has increased the number of sponsors to three (from one), provided an individual owns at least five per cent of the fund.

Investment of up to 20 per cent is allowed under construction assets, shares, debts of real estate companies, mortgage-backed securities, against 10 per cent proposed in under-construction assets.

The regulator has, however, decided against reducing the requirement for the mandatory continuous holding by sponsors to ensure alignment of their interest with the trust's.

The minimum initial offer size would be Rs 250 crore, with a minimum public float of 25 per cent. The sponsors would need to have mandatory holding of 25 per cent in REIT units for three years and continuous holding of 15 per cent thereafter. Multiple sponsors would be allowed to own the mandatory holding together.

The minimum net worth of the manager would be increased to Rs 10 crore from the Rs 5 crore proposed in draft guidelines. For InvITs, too, trustees would need to be independent and not associates of sponsors or managers.

For InvITs proposing to invest in public-private partnership (PPP) projects, where the sponsor needs to hold a certain minimum proportion in the special purpose vehicle under a regulatory requirement or a concession agreement, the sponsor holding norms have been relaxed.

The minimum net worth requirement of an InvIT sponsor has been set at Rs 100 crore, against Rs 10 crore proposed in draft guidelines. The net worth for investment manager has been raised from Rs 5 crore to Rs 10 crore.

The requirement of at least two assets for publicly offered InvITs has been done away with. But industry's demand to allow such trusts to invest in holding companies of the SPVs has been rejected.

Among other exemptions, any capital gains tax on units of InvITs would be levied only at the time of ultimate disposal of the units of the sponsor under the new norms. However, the sponsor would not be entitled to the concessional securities transaction tax-based capital gains tax regime at the time of ultimate disposal of the units of the business trust.

In another benefit, any dividend would be tax exempt in the hands of the business trust and the dividend component of the income distributed by the business trust would also be exempt in the hands of the unit holder. But the portfolio SPVs distributing dividend to business trusts will be subject to dividend distribution tax.

New Judicial appointments commission bill introduced

The Union Government has introduced national Judicial appoints commission bill, in Lok Sabha. The NDA government has withdrawn the previous government’s bill which was introduced through 120th amendment bill. Now the 121st amendment bill was introduced. This bill is aimed insertion of new articles 124A, 124B and 124C

The Constitutional Amendment Bill……….

• Scraps the Collegium System and establishes a six-member body for appointment of judges
• It is proposed that the Chief Justice of India will head the commission
• The judiciary will be represented by two senior judges of the Supreme Court
• Two eminent personalities and the Law Minister will be the other members of the proposed body

The other important points are…………

• It provides for the establishment of a six-member Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC) to make recommendations to the President on appointment and transfer of judges to the higher judiciary.
• ouraging collaborations between the judiciary and executive, the members constituting JAC will comprise of the Chief Justice of India, two other senior most judges of the Supreme Court, the Union Minister for Law and Justice, and two eminent persons to be nominated by the Prime Minister, the CJI and the Leader of Opposition of the Lok Sabha. Law Commission of India Chairman and former Delhi High Court Chief Justice AP Shah has recommended the strength of the body be raised to seven.
• sic function of the JAC would include making recommendations for appointments of the CJI, SC judges, Chief Justice and other High Court judges, and even the transfer of HC judges.
• would empower the Parliament to pass a law providing for the composition, functions and procedures of the JAC.
• e entire process under the JAC will be aimed at ensuring transparency. It has been suggested that the entire record of the process, starting from the nominations received up to the final recommendation made to the President, must be publicly disclosed.
• e JAC will work in a stipulated time frame. It provides time periods within which vacancies will be filled up. Even the government has time limit of upto 2 months to intimate the Commission of the vacancy.

The Standing Committee report to Rajya Sabha in December 2013 noted that, "Because of its inherent deficiencies in the collegium, as many as approximately 275 posts of judges in various High Courts are lying vacant, which has direct bearing upon justice delivery system and thereby affecting the 13 institutional credibility of judiciary.

Other suggestions to the JAC urge to provide it constitutional validation, thus making it a permanent body and not an ad hoc set up. It is also recommended that its decision be binding on the President and in case the President rejects any name, it should be open to judicial review.

Jaitley, Karan Singh, Sharad Yadav felicitated with Outstanding Parliamentarian Awards

President Pranab Mukherjee on 12 August 2014 conferred the Outstanding Parliamentarian Awards on Arun Jaitley, Dr Karan Singh and Sharad Yadav. The awards were given for their invaluable contribution in discharge of their parliamentary duties. The awards were given at Balyogi Auditorium in Parliament Library, New Delhi. 

• BJP leader Arun Jaitley received the award for the year 2010
• Congress Veteran Karan Singh received the award for the year 2011
• JD(U) leader Sharad Yadav received the award for the year for 2012

President while conferring the awards asked all Parliamentarians to uphold the prestige and dignity of Parliament, as it’s a responsibility of every Parliamentarian. 

About Outstanding Parliamentarian Award
The Outstanding Parliamentarian Award was instituted in 1992 by Shivraj Patil who was then the Speaker of Lok Sabha from 1991-96. The award is given by the Indian Parliamentary Group to an outstanding sitting Member of the Indian Parliament for overall contribution in Indian Parliament. 

Previous important Parliamentarians to be awarded include
• Indrajit Gupta was honoured with the Outstanding Parliamentarian Award in 1992
• Atal Bihari Vajpayee was honoured with the award in 1994
• Pranab Mukherjee r was honoured with the award in 1997
• Lal Krishna Advani was honoured with the award in 1999
• Manmohan Singh was honoured with the award in 2002 
• Sushma Swaraj was honoured with the award in 2004
• P Chidambaram was honored with the award in 2005
• Murli Manohar Joshi was honoured with the award in 2009

Former RBI Governor Bimal Jalan to head the Expenditure Management Commission

The Union Government decided to appoint former RBI governor Bimal Jalan as the head of the Expenditure Management Commission on 12 August 2014. He would be tasked to suggest ways for managing public finances by reducing food, fertiliser and oil subsidies to include fiscal deficit. 

Expenditure Management Commission
Union Finance minister Arun Jaitley had announced the setting up of an Expenditure Management Commission in the Union Budget 2014-15 in July 2014. The purpose of setting up the commission is to cut-off the spending and review government expenditure to get maximum output.

The Commission will submit its interim report before the Budget of 2015-16 and its final report before the Budget of 2016-17.

Subsidies on Food, petroleum and fertilisers
In revised estimates for 2013-14, the subsidy bill on food, petroleum and fertilisers was 245451.50 crore rupees. For 2014-15, the subsidy bill is estimated to be 251397.25 crore rupees. 

The increase in subsidy bill for 2014-15 is due to the increased allocation for fertiliser sector. The government estimated total fertiliser subsidy bill of 72970.30 crore rupees than the amount of 67970 crore rupees that was proposed in the interim budget.

The government allocated the total amount of 115000 crore rupees which includes a provision of 88500 crore rupees for the implementation of National Food Security Act.

Previous Expenditure Reforms Commission
During the year 1999-2000, Atal Bihari Vajpayee government initiated Expenditure Reforms Commission (ERC) headed by former finance secretary K P Geethakrishnan. This commission recommended for reducing the central government machinery and winding up of some government departments. Certain recommendations of the commission were implemented during the reign of finance minister Yashwant Sinha. 

In 2002, UPA government appointed Vijay Kelkar Committee, former finance secretary, for fiscal consolidation plan which included reduction in subsidies. His panel suggested increasing diesel and cooking gas prices gradually. His recommendations are followed today.

Review of Policy of SEZs

The SEZ Act, through an amendment brought about by the Parliament, envisages that the Central Government shall have no authority to relax any law relating to the welfare of the labour in the SEZs. All Labour laws are applicable in Special Economic Zones. The rights of the workers/labour are therefore protected under the SEZ Act. Ongoing review and reform, as necessary, of Government policy and procedure is inherent to Public Policy. The Government, on the basis of inputs/suggestions received from stakeholders on the policy and operational framework of the SEZ Scheme, periodically reviews the policy and operational framework of SEZs and takes necessary measures so as to facilitate speedy and effective implementation of SEZs. The Government has notified SEZ Rule (amendment) 2013 vide GSR 540E dated 12.8.2013 to reduced land requirement criteria and other reform measure to boost SEZ policy framework. 

National Nutrition Mission (NNM)

An expenditure of Rs. 123.00 crore was made under the National Nutrition Mission in the year 2013-14 against an expenditure of Rs. 55.69 crore in the year 2012-13. The National Nutrition Mission has following two components:- 

I. Multi-sectoral Nutrition programme to address Maternal and Child Under-Nutrition in 200 high-burden districts, which aims at prevention and reduction in child under-nutrition (underweight prevalence in children under 3 years of age) and reduction in levels of anaemia among young children, adolescent girls and women has been launched in January 2014. The concerned States /UTs have been advised to set up State Nutrition Council / Districts Nutrition Cells and prepare nutrition action plans for approval of the Government and the plans/progress from the States is awaited. States with high burden districts include MP, Maharashtra, Gujarat, UP, Rajasthan, Bihar among others. 

II. Information, Education and Communication (IEC) campaign against malnutrition: To create awareness about nutrition challenges and promote home-level feeding practices a Nationwide Information, Education and Communication campaign against malnutrition has been launched during 2012-13. 

The component of the National Nutrition Mission, which aims to reduce the incidence of anaemia among young children, adolescent girls and women is the Multi-Sectoral Nutrition Programme, is yet to be implemented. 

Rangarajan Report on Poverty

The Expert Group under the Chairmanship of Dr. C. Rangarajan to Review the Methodology for Measurement of Poverty in the country constituted by the Planning Commission in June 2012 has submitted its report on 30^th June 2014. In a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha today, the Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Planning, Statistics and Programme Implementation and Defence Shri Rao Inderjit Singh has said that as per the report, poverty line is estimated as Monthly Per Capita Expenditure of Rs. 1407 in urban areas and Rs. 972 in rural areas. The highlights of the report are:

i.The Expert Group (Tendulkar) had used the all-India urban poverty line basket as the reference to derive state-level rural and urban poverty. This was a departure from the earlier practice of using two separate poverty line baskets for rural and urban areas. The Expert Group (Rangarajan) reverts to the practice of having separate all-India rural and urban poverty basket lines and deriving state-level rural and urban estimates from these.

ii.The Expert Group (Tendulkar) had decided not to anchor the poverty line to the then available official calorie norms used in all poverty estimations since 1979 as it found a poor correlation between food consumed and nutrition outcomes. However , on a review of  subsequent research,  the Expert Group (Rangarajan) took a considered view that  deriving the food component of the Poverty Line Basket  by reference to the  simultaneous satisfaction of all three nutrient -norms would be appropriate when seen in conjunction with the emphasis on a full range of policies and programmes for child-nutrition support and on  public provisioning of a range of public goods and services aimed at the amelioration of  the disease-environment facing the population.

iii. Estimates of consumption expenditure seen in the National Accounts Statistics and as inferred from the sample surveys of the National Sample Survey Organisation show a large and growing variance. The Expert Group (Rangarajan) prefers NSSO’s estimates and decides not to use the NAS estimates. This is in line with the approach taken by Expert Group (Lakdawala) and Expert Group (Tendulkar).

iv. The capture of spatial and temporal variation in prices in estimating the State-level and rural-urban poverty levels (given all-India rural and urban estimates) has undergone substantial refinement since 1979. The Expert Group (Rangarajan) agrees with the methodology adopted by the Expert Group (Tendulkar) in this regard. This overcomes the limitations of using fixed base-year weights by using a combination of unit values derived from successive NSSO’s Consumer Expenditure Surveys and price-relatives derived from the Consumer Price Indices.

v. Public expenditure on social services has increased substantially in recent years. These expenses are not captured, by design, in the NSSO’s Consumer Expenditure Surveys and the poverty line derived from these is thus lower than the services actually consumed.

vi. The Expert Group (Rangarajan) is of the considered view that the deployment of criteria other than consumption expenditure in the measurement of poverty raises several issues regarding measurement and aggregation and that these render such exercises impractical. However, the Expert Group (Rangarajan) has considered an alternate view in estimating the poverty line by reference to the ability of households to save.

2. The Methodology recommended by the Expert Group (Rangarajan) for estimation of poverty is as follows:

i. The poverty line should be based on certain normative levels of adequate nourishment, clothing, house rent, conveyance and education, and a behaviorally determined level of other non-food expenses.

ii. The Expert Group (Rangarajan) computed the average requirements of calories, proteins and fats based on ICMR norms differentiated by age, gender and activity for all-India rural and urban regions to derive the normative levels of nourishment. Accordingly, the energy requirement works out to 2,155 kcal per person per day in rural areas and 2,090 kcal per person per day in urban areas.  For reasons elaborated in the text , the Expert  Group ( Rangarajan)  views the Calorie norm not as a single number but as an average in a band of     +/- 10 per cent of these values and  with intakes even at  the lower end still being  adequate enough to not adversely affect health and work.

iii.The protein and fat requirements have been estimated on the same lines as for energy. These requirements are 48 gms and 28 gms per capita per day, respectively, in rural areas; and 50 gms and 26 gms per capita per day in urban areas.

iv.A food basket that simultaneously meets all the normative requirements of the three nutrients defines the food component of the poverty line basket proposed by the Expert Group (Rangarajan). These nutrient norms are met for persons located in the sixth fractile (25-30%) in rural areas and for those in the fourth fractile (15-20%) in urban areas in 2011-12.

The average monthly per capita consumption expenditure on food in these fractile classes is Rs.554 in rural areas and Rs.656 in urban areas (NSS 68^th Round).

v.The median fractile (45-50%) values of clothing expenses, rent, conveyance and education expenses are treated as the normative requirements of the basic non-food expenses of clothing, housing, mobility and education of a poverty line basket. This works out to Rs.141 per capita per month in rural areas and Rs.407 in urban areas. The observed expenses of all other non-food expenses of the fractile classes that meet the nutrition requirements are considered as part of the poverty line basket. This works out to Rs.277 per capita per month in rural areas and Rs.344 in urban areas.

vi. The new poverty line thus work out to monthly per capita consumption expenditure of Rs.972 in rural areas and Rs.1,407 in urban areas in 2011-12. For a family of five, this translates into a monthly consumption expenditure of Rs.4,860 in rural areas and Rs.7,035 in urban areas.

vii.Estimations of the poverty line made for the Expert Group (Rangarajan) based on an independent large survey of households by CMIE and using a different methodology wherein a household is considered poor if it is unable to save, yields results that are remarkably close to those derived using the NSSO data. This provides additional evidence in support of the poverty line derived by the Expert Group (Rangarajan).

viii.             Compared to the poverty lines based on the methodology of the Expert Group (Tendulkar), the poverty lines estimated by the Expert Group (Rangarajan) are 19% and 41% higher in rural and urban areas, respectively. The Expert Group (Rangarajan) uses the Modified Mixed Recall Period consumption expenditure data of the NSSO as these are considered to be more precise compared to the MRP, which was used by the Expert Group (Tendulkar) and the URP, which was used by earlier estimations. 67% of the increase in the rural poverty line and 28% of the increase in the urban poverty line is because of the shift from MRP to MMRP.

ix.The national rural and urban poverty lines computed as above were used to derive the state-wise poverty lines by using the implicit price derived from the quantity and value of consumption observed in the NSSO’s 68^th Round of Consumer Expenditure Survey (2011-12) to estimate state relative to all-India Fisher price indices. Using these and the state-specific distribution of persons by expenditure groups (NSS), state-specific ratios of rural and urban poverty were estimated. State-level poverty ratio was estimated as weighted average of the rural and urban poverty ratios and the national poverty ratio was computed again as the population-weighted average of state-wise poverty ratios.

x.The Expert Group (Rangarajan) therefore estimates that the 30.9% of the rural population and 26.4% of the urban population was below the poverty line in 2011-12. The all-India ratio was 29.5%. In rural India, 260.5 million individuals were below poverty and in urban India 102.5 million were under poverty. Totally, 363 million were below poverty in 2011-12.

xi.The poverty ratio has declined from 39.6% in 2009-10 to 30.9% in 2011-12 in rural India and from 35.1% to 26.4% in urban India. The decline was thus a uniform 8.7 percentage points over the two years. The all-India poverty ratio fell from 38.2% to 29.5%. Totally, 91.6 million individuals were lifted out of poverty during this period.

xii.The Expert Group (Rangarajan) recommends the updation of the poverty line in the future using the Fisher Index. The weighting diagram for this effort can be drawn from the NSSO’s Consumer Expenditure Survey. For the Food –group, the Expert Group (Rangarajan) recommends that the current practice of relying on the unit values derivable from the NSSO Consumer Expenditure Surveys should continue till such time a new CPI of CSO with a weighting diagram based on the 2011-12 pattern of consumption becomes available. In respect of non-food- items, the price indices available in the exiting CSO Consumer Price Indices can be used in the construction of   requisite Fisher indices. Once the new series of Consumer Price Index numbers (with 2011-12 as the base year) become available, it may be used if the extent of change in the structure of consumption at that point in time relative to the 2011-12 structure of consumption is not very different.

Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission

The targets fixed under Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM) during the 12th Five Year Plan period and the achievements made so far are as given below. This was stated by Sh. Piyush Goyal, Minister of state for Power, Coal & New and Renewable Energy (Independent Charge) in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha.

Application Segment	Targets under 12thPlan Period	Achievement during 12th Plan Period
Grid solar power (large plants, roof top & distribution grid plants)	10,000 MW	1816.51 MW
Off-grid solar applications	1000 MW	119 MW
Solar Thermal Collectors(SWHs, solar cooking/ cooling, Industrial process heat applications etc.)	6.18  million                   sq. meters	2.47 million sq. meters

            The Minister further stated that the following steps being taken by the Government to achieve the remaining targets are:-

(i) Provision of Renewable Purchase Obligation (RPO) for solar power in the National Tariff Policy.

(ii)        Grant of subsidy on off-grid applications and Generation Based Incentive (GBI), facility for bundled power & Viability Gap Funding (VGF) for Grid connected Solar Power Projects through various interventions announced from time to time.

(iii)       Setting up Ultra Mega Solar Power Projects & Solar Parks, 1MW Solar Parks on the banks of canals and Solar power driven agricultural pump sets for energizing one lakh pumps.

(iv)       Concessional Import duty/Excise duty exemption for setting up of solar power plants, accelerated depreciation and tax holiday.

National Company Law Tribunal

The process of formation of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) and the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) has been kept in abeyance on account of a legal challenge in the Supreme Court to certain provisions of the Companies Act, 2013 relating to the constitution and composition of these bodies. The detailed procedure for transfer of pending cases will be finalized by the NCLT after it is established. 

Schemes and Programmes for the Benefit of Small and Marginal Farmers

Government restructured the ongoing scheme and following centrally sponsored Mission/Schemes are under implementation from 1.4.2014:

(i)              National Food Security Mission (NFSM)

(ii)           National Horticulture Mission

(iii)         National Mission on Oilseeds & Oil Palm

(iv)         National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA) including Micro Irrigation

(v)           National Mission on Agricultural Extension & Technology

(vi)         Integrated Scheme for Farmers Income Security

(vii)       Integrated Scheme on Agri. Census & Statistics

(viii)     Integrated Scheme on Agriculture Marketing

(ix)        Integrated Scheme on Agriculture Cooperation

(x)          Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana

All these Missions/Schemes are primarily for development of small and marginal farmers. 

Government has fixed a target of Rs.8,00,000 crore  for agricultural credit for the year 2014-15.

             Agricultural credit is made available to farmers at an effective rate of 4%.  This involves interest subvention of 3% for timely repayment on the concessional interest rate of 7% applicable for agriculture  sector.   Further,  extension  of 3%  interest  subvention scheme is also available to small and marginal farmers having Kisan Credit Cards for a further period of six months.

Small and marginal farmers are encouraged to organize themselves into registered Self-help Groups, Cooperatives, Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) etc. to derive benefit of economies of scale in farming operations.  Such groups are provided credit for agricultural activities as joint liability groups. 

            Agriculture sector registered an average growth rate of 4.1% during the 11^th Plan period as compared to 2.5% and 2.4% during 9^th & 10^th Plan respectively. A target of 4% growth in Agriculture has been envisaged during 12^th Plan period. During the year 2013-14, agriculture sector registered a growth rate of 4.7%.

 Keeping in view the marketing problems of farmers, the existing Policy for Marketing of Agricultural Produce provides for direct marketing by farmers for getting remunerative price for their produce.  State Governments have also been advised to amend their Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) Act on the lines of Model APMC Act 2003 for eliminating the middlemen and facilitating farmers to sell their agricultural produce directly to bulk-buyers, processors, exporters, bulk-retailers, etc. at remunerative price. 

                The price support policy for farmers, under the regime of Minimum Support Price (MSP) is recommended by Commission for Agricultural Costs & Prices (CACP) seeks to achieve the objective of assuring fair and remunerative prices to the farmers, annually. 

             Government has introduced various initiatives for the development of agriculture and allied sectors.   The focus of Government is primarily to increase farm income, creation of non-farm income opportunities, improvement in productivity of rainfed agriculture, increasing coverage of farming areas under protective irrigation and establishing appropriate backward and forward linkages.

Soil assessment based crop planning is being introduced.  National Adaptation Fund is being set up to take care of vagaries of climate change and to develop climate resilient agriculture. Government has decided to provide institutional finance to joint farming groups of “Bhoomi Heen                      Kisan” through NABARD. Marketing reforms, development of scientific warehousing infrastructure including cold storages and cold-chains in the country, development of  indigenous cattle breeds and promoting inland fisheries and other non-farm activities to supplement the income of farmers are some of the steps being taken by the Government.

Saving Agriculture from Drought

Cumulative rainfall till 05.08.2014 was 405.3 mm which is 19% less than normal or Long Period Average (LPA) of 499.3 mm. As per information provided by IMD, out of 620 districts for which rainfall data is available, 251 (40%) have so far received normal/excess rainfall. 

State Governments are empowered to initiate appropriate relief measures in the wake drought from funds readily available under State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF). Additional financial assistance, over and above SDRF, is provided from National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF) as per established procedure and extant norms, upon receipt of detailed drought relief memorandum from the State Government. For current year (2014-15), Government of India has not received any drought relief memorandum from any State, so far. 

Government has taken several measures to address any situation arising due to deficiency in monsoon rainfall. 

Central Research Institute of Dryland Agriculture (CRIDA), in collaboration with State Agricultural Universities has prepared contingency plans for 551 districts for implementing location specific interventions to sustain agriculture production in the eventuality of weak monsoon/deficient rainfall. 

States have been advised to ensure availability of short duration and drought tolerant varieties of seeds so as to be in a position to supply them to farmers in case such a need arises and to keep aside 10% of funds available under Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY) and other schemes for undertaking appropriate interventions to mitigate any situation arising out of Deficient rainfall. 

States have also been requested to construct water harvesting structures, restore irrigation infrastructure by desilting canals; energizing tubewells, replacing/repairing faulty pumps and arranging power to meet irrigation needs. 

Decisions have also been taken for introduction of diesel subsidy scheme, enhancement of seed subsidy, waiver of import duty on oil cakes to increase availability of feed ingredients, implementation of fodder development scheme and introducing interventions on perennial horticulture crops to cope with any eventual drought and rainfall deficit situation in the country. 

Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for rural drinking water in the wake of natural calamities, deliberating preparedness, response and relief at State, District, Block and Panchayat/village levels have been prepared and shared with States. Standard format for monitoring the activities undertaken by the States for drought mitigation has also been devised and States have been requested to provide requisite information on a fortnightly basis. 

Government has already released 15% of funds earmarked for operation and maintenance (O&M) under National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP) to States for utilizing during natural calamity such as drought for repair/maintenance of damaged water supply systems.