Government schemes

CURRENT AFFAIRS Oct 2020

Cash back scheme for borrowers

Issue
Lakhs of borrowers, irrespective of whether they availed of moratorium or
not during lockdown, stand to get some cash back from the government.

Background
The cash-back is the difference between the compound interest and simple
interest which are applicable to certain categories of borrowers, including
housing, credit card and MSMEs, for the period March 1, 2020 and August
31, 2020.

Details
 A borrower with a Rs 50 lakh home loan outstanding, for example,
will get a benefit of around Rs 12,425 in the form of savings on accounts of
compound interest for a six months period, assuming the rate of interest at
8 per cent.
 At this rate, six months simple interest cost comes roughly to Rs 2
lakh, and along with the compound interest it becomes Rs 2,12,425 — with
the government paying the difference of Rs 12,425.
 The ex gratia payment under this scheme will be admissible
irrespective of whether the borrower had fully availed or partially availed or
not available of the moratorium on repayment. It is for those loan accounts
which are standard and not non-performing assets (NPAs) as on February
29.
 The compound interest waiver is for most of the loans — housing,
MSME, education, consumer durable, credit card dues, automobile,
consumption and personal loans to professionals.
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 The waiver will be provided by all private and state-owned banks,

cooperative banks, regional rural banks, housing finance companies and
non-banking financial institutions.
 The rate of interest used to calculate the ex gratia amount will be
based on the contracted rate specified for most loans.

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Government schemes
CURRENT AFFAIRS Oct 2020

Working of fertiliser subsidy

Issue
The Centre is working on a plan to restrict the number of fertiliser bags that
individual farmers can buy during any cropping season.
Background
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.

Details
 The MRP of neem-coated urea is fixed by the government at Rs 5,922.22 per
tonne, whereas its average cost-plus price payable to domestic manufacturers
and importers comes to around Rs 17,000 and Rs 23,000 per tonne,
respectively.
 The difference, which varies according to plant-wise production cost and
import price, is footed by the Centre as subsidy.
 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”.
 The per-tonne subsidy is currently Rs 10,231 for di-ammonium phosphate
(DAP), Rs 6,070 for muriate of potash (MOP) and Rs 8,380 for the popular
‘10:26:26’ complex fertiliser, with their corresponding average MRPs at Rs
24,000, Rs 17,500 and Rs 23,500 per tonne, respectively.
 The subsidy goes to fertiliser companies, although its ultimate beneficiary is
the farmer who pays MRPs less than the market-determined rates.

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 Anybody buying subsidised fertilisers is required to furnish his/her

Aadhaar unique identity or Kisan Credit Card number.
 The quantities of the individual fertilisers purchased, along with the
buyer’s name and biometric authentication, have to be captured on the PoS
device.
 Only upon the sale getting registered on the e-Urvarak platform can a
company claim subsidy, with these being processed on a weekly basis and
payments remitted electronically to its bank account.
 Being super-subsidised, urea is always prone to diversion for non-
agricultural use — as a binder by plywood/particle board makers, cheap
protein source by animal feed manufacturers or adulterant by milk vendors
— apart from being smuggled to Nepal and Bangladesh.
 The scope for leakage was more in the earlier system, right from the
point of dispatch till the retailer end. With DBT, pilferage happens only at
the retailer level, as there is no subsidy payment till sales are made
through POS machines and subject to the buyers’ biometric authentication.
 At present, the Centre is following a “no denial” policy. Anybody, non-
farmers included, can purchase any quantity of fertilisers through the PoS
machines. That obviously allows for bulk buying by unintended
beneficiaries, who are not genuine or deserving farmers.
 One plan under discussion is to cap the total number of subsidised
fertiliser bags that any person can buy during an entire kharif or Rabi
cropping season. This, it is expected, would end even retail-level diversion
and purchases by large buyers masquerading as farmers.
 The time has come to seriously consider paying farmers a flat per-acre
cash subsidy that they can use to purchase any fertiliser. The amount could
vary, depending on the number of crops grown and whether the land is
irrigated or not.

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Government schemes
CURRENT AFFAIRS Oct 2020

Andhra Pradesh sets up separate bodies for each

backward class

Issue
The Andhra Pradesh government has set up separate corporations for 56
major castes under the Backward Classes category.

Background
During Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy’s padayatra before the elections, he
received several complaints from people belonging to several backward
castes that benefits and schemes of the government were not reaching them
properly.

Details
 The government will set up separate corporations for BC castes which have
a population of more than 30,000 so that each corporation can micro manage
a particular caste’s people and their needs.
 These corporations will receive funding from the government which will be
used to deliver government’s schemes and benefits to the beneficiaries.
 This is the first time that separate corporations have been set up for various
sub-castes under Backward Classes.
 Earlier, a BC Welfare Corporation catered to the needs of all the 139 sub-
castes listed under the Backward Classes. There were separate caste-based
cooperative federations.
 The setting up of the corporations fulfils the poll promise as well as
empowers backward classes leaders by appointing one chairperson and 12
directors to each corporation.

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 The chairperson and 12 directors would each represent the 13 districts in

the state whose job is to identify the eligible beneficiaries of a particular sub-
caste under a corporation and ensure that the welfare is directed at them.
 According to recent government surveys, about 49.55 per cent of the
population comes under Backward Classes in Andhra. There are 139 sub-
castes covering a range of communities which are divided into A, B, C, D and
E categories.

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Government schemes
CURRENT AFFAIRS Oct 2020

Haryana’s flexi-examination system

Issue
Considering that the disruption in studies may continue for an uncertain
period, Haryana State Higher Education Council has come out with a “flexi-
examination system”.

Background
The disruption in the education system in the country due to the Covid-19
pandemic has necessitated several education reforms to be put on fast track.
One important dimension of the education system is examinations.

Details
 To begin with, at least seven out of the 17 government-aided universities of
Haryana have agreed to introduce the system that will impact thousands of
students of post-graduation courses.
 Gradually, the system will be adopted by all the 17 universities in post-
graduation courses, followed by professional courses.
 If the results are encouraging, then the flexi-examination system will also be
introduced to the graduation courses.
 As the name suggests, the examination schedule shall be flexible for the
students. There are two dimensions to this system.
 One, it provides a second chance to weaker students to clear their exams
more easily.
 As of now, those students who are not able to pass their regular
examination in the first attempt, have to wait for six months or a year to sit for
re-examination, depending on the regulations in force in their universities.

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 If the student is in the final year, he/she has to wait for a full year for the
re-examination. As a result, his/her further studies as well as employment
opportunities get impacted.
 With the flexi-examination system, a student who gets a compartment or
wants to re-appear in one, two, or more papers can ask the university for a
suitable time when he/she is ready for the re-examination.
 The university will give the student an opportunity at a mutually convenient
time and date to take the re-examination.
 Under the flexi-examination system, universities shall keep a
comprehensive question bank ready. When a student wants to sit for an
examination, either physically or in online mode, a randomised question
paper will be generated.
 The first aim is to cover the post-graduation courses, then the professional
courses like engineering, medical and others and, depending upon the
success of the project, this system will also be gradually implemented in
graduation courses.

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Government schemes
CURRENT AFFAIRS Oct 2020

SVAMITVA

Issue
On October 11, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the distribution of
property cards under the SVAMITVA scheme through video conferencing.

Background
The government aims to provide such property cards to each household in
the next three to four years in every village across the country.

Details
 The acronym SVAMITVA stands for Survey of Villages and Mapping with
Improvised Technology in Village Areas.
 It is a Central Sector Scheme aimed at “providing ‘record of rights’ to
village household owners possessing houses in inhabited rural areas in
villages and issuance of property cards to the property owners.”
 The plan is to survey all rural properties using drones and prepare GIS
based maps for each village.
 During the current financial year, the scheme is being implemented as a
pilot project in about 1 lakh villages across 8 states – Maharashtra,
Karnataka, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab
and Rajasthan.
 The framework for implementation of SVAMITVA scheme, finalized by the
Ministry of Panchayati Raj, provides a multi-stage process of generating a
property card, which starts with signing of a memorandum of understanding
between Survey of India (SoI) and respective state governments.

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 The SoI is responsible for preparing the National Topographic database on

all scales, using technology for topographical mapping at various scales
including the use of airborne photography drones, satellite imageries, and
Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAV) or drone platforms.
 Once the MOU is done, a Continuously Operating Reference System
(CORS) is established. It is a network of reference stations that provide a
virtual base station that allows access to long-range high-accuracy Network
RTK (Real-Time Kinematic) corrections.
 The next step is the identification of villages to be surveyed during the
pilot phase, and make people aware of the process of mapping properties.

Benefits
 It will enable rural households to use their property as a financial asset for
taking loans and other financial benefits.
 It will help in determination of property tax, which would accrue to the
Gram Panchayats directly in states where they are empowered to collect such
taxes.
 The cards will help increase liquidity of land parcels in the market and
increase the financial credit availability to the village.
 The scheme will also pave the way for creation of accurate land records for
rural planning. All the property records and maps will be available at Gram
Panchayat,which will help in taxation of villages, construction permits,
elimination of encroachments, etc.
 The property maps will be made using the GIS technique and the same can
also be used for better-quality Gram Panchayat Development Plan (GPDP).

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