New union government formed after elections to the 17th Lok Sabha A total of 542 Members of Parliament were elected to the Lok Sabha. The BJP won a total of 303 seats and has formed the union government with its allies.
GDP estimated to grow at 6.8% in 2018-19; growth of 5.8% in Q4 GDP growth (at constant prices) in the January to March quarter was lower than the 6.6% growth in the previous quarter of 2018-19. Growth in all sectors, except services and mining, decreased from Q3 of 2018-19.
Draft National Education Policy 2019 released The draft Policy highlights key challenges in the education sector and establishes a policy framework for action. The policy initiatives address learning outcomes in education, examination reforms, and teacher development.
Scheme for providing minimum assured pension to traders approved The scheme is contribution-based and intends to provide a minimum pension of Rs 3,000 per month to all shopkeepers, retail traders and self-employed persons after attaining the age of 60 years.
Annual Report of the Periodic Labour Force Survey released Key findings based on survey in 2017-18 include: (i) Labour Force Participation Rate (% of people in the population working or looking for work) in age group 15-59 years is 53%, and (ii) unemployment rate is 6.1%.
Cabinet approves PM Kisan Pension Yojana for small and marginal farmers Under the scheme, farmers will be provided with a minimum fixed pension of Rs 3,000 per month on attaining the age of 60 years. The amount of contribution made by the farmer will be matched by the central government.
Ambit of PM-KISAN scheme extended to include all farmer families Earlier, farmer families with total cultivable landholding of up to two hectares were eligible for income support under the scheme. This has been extended to all farmer families irrespective of the size of their landholdings.
RBI publishes vision document on Payment and Settlement Systems in India Vision 2021 concentrates on (a) exceptional customer experience; and (b) enabling an eco-system which will result in this customer experience through the four goal-posts of Competition, Cost, Convenience and Confidence.
Ministry of Defence introduces scheme for self-certification of defence products The objective of the scheme is to encourage vendors to assume direct responsibility to sustain and improve the quality of products they supply.
Government notified guidelines for sale of biodiesel for blending with diesel Guidelines include restricting sale of biodiesel for transportation purpose to indigenously produced biodiesel, a registration system, separate boards in English/Hindi and vernacular language at retail outlets among others.
GDP estimated to grow at 6.8% in 2018-19; growth of 5.8% in Q4 Provisional estimates suggest that the annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth for 2018-19 is 6.8%, at constant prices.[3] This is estimated to be lower than the 7.2% growth in 2017-18. GDP grew at 5.8% in the fourth quarter of 2018-19, over the corresponding period a year ago.3 This was lower than the 6.6% growth in the third quarter of 2018-19. The quarterly trend of GDP growth over the last two financial years is shown in Figure 1.
Sources: Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation; PRS. GDP growth across economic sectors is measured in terms of Gross Value Added (GVA). The growth in all sectors, except services and mining, has decelerated from the third quarter of 2018-19. Electricity is expected to decrease from a growth of 8.3% in the third quarter of 2018-19 to 4.3% in the fourth quarter of 2018-19.
Industrial production grew by 0.5% in the fourth quarter of 2018-19 The Index of Industrial Production (IIP) grew by 0.5% in the fourth quarter (Jan-Mar) of 2018-19, as compared to the same period in 2017-18.[4] Mining saw the highest increase of 2.2% in this quarter, followed by an increase of 1.5% in electricity and 0.1% in manufacturing . Over the past year, from April 2018 to March 2019, IIP had an overall growth of 3.6% over 2017-18.
Draft National Education Policy 2019 released The Committee for Draft National Education Policy (Chair: Dr. K. Kasturirangan) submitted its report on May 31, 2019.[5] The Committee was constituted under the Ministry of Human Resource Development in June 2017. The report proposes an Education Policy, which seeks to address the challenges of: (i) access, (ii) equity, (iii) quality, (iv) affordability, and (v) accountability faced by the current education system. Key observations and recommendations of the Committee include:
The Right to Education (RTE) Act, 2009: Currently, the RTE Act provides for free and compulsory education to all children of the age of six to fourteen years. The Committee recommended extending the RTE Act to include early childhood education and secondary school education. This extends the coverage of the Act to all children between the ages of three to eighteen years.
In addition, the Committee recommended that the recent amendments to the RTE Act on continuous and comprehensive evaluation and the no detention policy must be reviewed. The Policy states that there should be no detention of children till class eight. Instead, schools must ensure that children are achieving age-appropriate learning levels.
School exam reforms: To track students’ progress throughout their school experience, the Committee proposed State Census Examinations in classes three, five and eight. Further, to reduce the stress levels of students, the Committee recommended restructuring the board examinations to test only core concepts, skills and higher order capacities. This would be achieved by replacing in-class final examinations with board examinations, and allowing students to take the board examination across a range of subjects at the end of each semester.
Higher education: The Policy recommended restructuring of higher education institutions into three types: (i) research universities focusing equally on research and teaching; (ii) teaching universities focusing primarily on teaching but conducting significant research as well; and (iii) colleges focusing only on teaching in undergraduate education.
In addition, the Committee proposed setting up of the National Higher Education Regulatory Authority. This authority would replace the existing individual regulators in higher education, including professional education. It would ensure that all higher educational institutes have administrative, academic and financial autonomy.
Pension scheme for traders and shop keepers approved The Ministry of Labour and Employment approved a voluntary minimum pension scheme for traders and shopkeepers.[6] Key features of the scheme include:
Minimum assured pension: Each beneficiary under the scheme shall receive a minimum assured pension of Rs 3,000 per month after reaching the age of 60 years. The central government will match the contribution made by the beneficiary.
Eligibility: The Scheme will apply to shopkeepers, self-employed persons, and retail traders with a GST turnover of less than Rs. 1.5 crore, between the ages of 18 and 40 years. In order to enroll, the subscriber must have a bank account and Aadhaar number. Interested persons can enroll themselves through any Common Service Centre in the country. A Common Service Centre is an access point for delivery of essential public utility services, social welfare schemes, healthcare, financial or education services.
The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation released the first Annual Report of the Periodic Labour Force Survey.[7] The Report provides annual estimates relating to various aspects of employment and unemployment at the national and state level. The report is based on data collected from 1,02,113 households between July 2017 and June 2018. Key results of the Survey include:
Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR): The LFPR for age 15-59 years was 53%. Of this, the LFPR for males was 80.2% and for females was 25.3%. The LFPR is the percentage of people in the population working or looking for work. Worker Population Ratio (WPR): The WPR for age 15-59 years was 49.5%. Of this, the WPR for males was 74.9% and for females was 23.8%. WPR is the percentage of persons employed in the population.
Sources of employment: As per the report, on an all-India level, 52.2% of people had their major source of income from self-employment. Further, 24.9% had their major source of income from casual labour, and 22.8% from regular wage/salary.
Unemployment Rate: The all-India total unemployment rate was 6.1%. The unemployment rate was 6.2% for males, while it was 5.7% in case of females.
Unemployment rate among urban workforce was 7.8%, while the unemployment rate for the rural workforce was 5.3%. In urban areas, unemployment rate for males was higher at 7.1%, compared to rural areas (5.8%). The unemployment rate for women was also higher in urban areas at 10.8%, compared to rural areas (3.8%).
Cabinet approves PM Kisan Pension Yojana for small and marginal farmers The Union Cabinet approved the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Pension Yojana for small and marginal farmers.[8],[9] The scheme will provide farmers with a minimum fixed pension of Rs 3,000 per month on attaining the age of 60 years. It is a voluntary contribution-based scheme where the amount contributed by the farmer will be matched by the central government. Farmers between the age of 18 to 40 years will be eligible to start making contributions under the scheme.
After the beneficiary’s death (after the age of 60 years), their spouse will be entitled to receive 50% of the pension receivable as family pension, provided the spouse is not already a beneficiary under the scheme. If the beneficiary dies before the age of 60 years (while making contribution), the spouse will have the option of continuing the scheme by making regular contributions.
Under the scheme, farmers can choose an option where the monthly contributions will be directly deducted from the income support given under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) scheme. Alternatively, farmers can make their monthly contributions by registering through the Common Service Centres set up by the government in rural areas for providing e-governance services.
The scheme will be funded by the central government, and is estimated to cost Rs 10,774 crore over a three-year period.
Ambit of PM-KISAN scheme extended to include all farmer families The Union Cabinet approved extension of the PM-KISAN scheme to all farmer families irrespective of the size of their landholdings.[10] Earlier, only small and marginal landholder farmer families, i.e. families with total cultivable landholding of up to two hectares, were eligible for the income support of Rs 6,000 per year under the scheme.[11] However, certain exclusion criteria under the scheme will continue to apply. Certain farmer families of higher economic status are not eligible under the scheme, including those which are: (i) institutional land holders, (ii) families with one or more members as government employees, and (iii) families with one or more members as income tax payers.[12]
The revised scheme is expected to cover around two crore more farmers, increasing the coverage to around 14.5 crore beneficiaries. With this increase in coverage, expenditure on the scheme is estimated to increase from Rs 75,000 crore to Rs 87,218 crore in 2019-20.
The Union Cabinet approved a programme for controlling certain diseases among livestock in the country.[13] These diseases include foot and mouth disease, and brucellosis. The programme aims to control these diseases in the next five years and subsequently eradicate them.
Foot and mouth disease is an infectious disease that causes fever, blisters inside the mouth and on the feet leading to lameness, and excessive salivation, among other things. The disease could reduce milk output in cows and buffaloes by up to 100% for a period of four to six months.
Brucellosis causes early abortions and infertility in animals, and could reduce milk output by 30% during the entire life cycle of the animal. The infection could also get transmitted to humans.
To control foot and mouth disease, vaccination would be provided to: (i) 30 crore bovines (cows, bulls and buffaloes), (ii) 20 crore sheep and goats, and (iii) one crore pigs at an interval of six months. Further, primary vaccination would be provided to bovine calves. To control brucellosis, 3.6 crore female calves would be provided 100% vaccination coverage.
The programme will be completely funded by the central government. An outlay of Rs 13,343 crore has been approved for the same.
Second advance estimates of production of major crops for 2018-19 released The Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare released the second advance estimates of production of major foodgrains and commercial crops for the year 2018-19.[14] Table 3 gives a comparison of the second advance estimates of production for 2018-19 with the fourth advance estimates of production for 2017-18 (the latest available production data for 2017-18). Following are some of the highlights:
Foodgrain production in 2018-19 is estimated to decrease by 1.2% as compared to the fourth advance estimates for 2017-18. The decrease is due to a 9.4% decline in the production of coarse cereals. The production of cereals and pulses is estimated to decrease by 0.8% and 4.8%, respectively. Rice production in 2018-19 is estimated to increase by 2.4% as compared to the fourth advance estimates for 2017-18. Wheat production is estimated to decrease by 0.6%.
The production of oilseeds is estimated to increase by 0.6% as compared to 2017-18. While groundnut production is estimated to decrease by 23.9%, the production of soyabean is estimated to increase by 24.5%. Production of cotton is estimated to fall by 13.8%, while production of sugarcane is estimated to increase by 1% to 380.8 million tonnes in 2018-19.