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Subject: Governance

Important aspects of Society

  • Equity in education matters

    Fairness and inclusiveness are two important aspects of education system. Growing shift toward digital education in India has implications for these two aspects. The article suggests ways to make the education system fair and inclusive.

    Knowledge economy in India

    • The new National Education Policy (NEP) as well as other factors have lately brightened up education landscape in India..
    • The rise of education technology (ed-tech) incorporating VR, AR, ‘gamification’, 3D immersive learning, etc, is contributing to the knowledge economy’s potential for large market size, calling for requisite policy support.

    Barriers to equity in education

    • The Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) defines two dimensions of equity in education.
    • First is “fairness”, which means ensuring that personal and social circumstances do not prevent students from achieving their academic potential.
    • The second is “inclusion”, which means setting a basic minimum standard for education that is shared by all students regardless of their background.
    • The barriers that make equity difficult to foster in India are varied and complex.

    Loss of learning during Covid pandemic

    • The latest Annual State of Education Report (ASER) reveals that 20% of rural students lacked textbooks.
    • Only one in ten students had access to online classes during the Covid-19 pandemic.
    • The Survey provides a glimpse into the levels of learning loss that students in rural India, particularly in states like Bihar, West Bengal, UP, and Rajasthan, are suffering, resulting in sharp digital divides in education.
    • Unless remedied with urgency, the digital split may disrupt learning, and jeopardise our hard-won gains resulting in large scale school drop-outs, particularly of adolescent girls.

    How to remove barriers to equity?

    • To remove these barriers we need to look at several aspects like monetary resources, academic standards, academic content and support.
    • Apart from inequality in internet access and access to devices, even the quality of connection and related services and subscription fees exacerbate the digital divide.
    • For education to be availed as a social good, access at an affordable cost and reasonable quality is a precondition.
    • The availability of content in vernacular languages is yet another issue.
    • In digital education along with demand-side issues, supply-side issues need fixing, such as training of teachers in ICT, new learning devices and handling the evolved curriculum.
    • Teachers and academic institutions need to ensure that the content they are using is lucid, appropriate, fact-based and relevant.
    • Access to education loans from banks and financial institutions are a great support in the cause of education, particularly higher education.
    • Education is on the Concurrent List. A cooperative and collaborative spirit will thus be critical to realise the goals.
    • The Centre has a task well cut for building consensus on NEP2020.

    Consider the question “Fainess and inclusiveness are two important dimensions of equity that should be pursued by any education system. However, push towards digital educations threatens these two dimensions of the education system in India. Comment” 

    Conclusion

    With strong corporate commitment, states’ support, backed by strong policy push and intent by the Centre, and value addition by other stakeholders, the roadblocks on the path of equity and inclusiveness in education, though daunting, could be addressed.

    Source-

    https://www.financialexpress.com/opinion/equity-in-education-matters/2121998/

  • What is General Consent accorded to the CBI?

    Kerala has decided to withdraw the general consent accorded to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to operate in the state voluntarily.

    Try answering this:

    Q. Why the CBI is called as “a caged parrot speaking in its master’s voice”? Critically comment.

    General Consent

    • Unlike the National Investigation Agency (NIA), which is governed by its own NIA Act and has jurisdiction across the country, the CBI is governed by the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act.
    • This makes consent of a state government mandatory for conducting an investigation in that state.
    • There are two kinds of consent: case-specific and general.
    • Given that the CBI has jurisdiction only over central government departments and employees, it can investigate a case involving state government employees or a violent crime in a given state only after that state government gives its consent.

    When is Consent needed?

    • General consent is normally given to help the CBI seamlessly conduct its investigation into cases of corruption against central government employees in the concerned state. Almost all states have given such consent.
    • Otherwise, the CBI would require consent in every case.
    • For example, if it wanted to investigate a bribery charge against a Western Railway clerk in Mumbai, it would have to apply for consent with the Maharashtra government before registering a case against him.

    What does withdrawal mean?

    • It means the CBI will not be able to register any fresh case involving a central government official or a private person stationed in these two states without getting case-specific consent.
    • Withdrawal of consent simply means that CBI officers will lose all powers of a police officer as soon as they enter the state unless the state government has allowed them.

    Under what provision has general consent been withdrawn?

    • Section 6 of the Act says nothing contained in Section 5 shall be deemed to enable any member of the Delhi Special Police Establishment to exercise powers and jurisdiction in any area in a State, not being a Union Territory or Railway, area, without the consent of the Government of that State.
    • In exercise of the power conferred by Section 6 of the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act, 1946, the government can withdraw the general consent to exercise the powers and jurisdiction.

    Does that mean that the CBI can no longer probe any case in the two states?

    • The CBI would still have the power to investigate old cases registered when general consent existed.
    • Also, cases registered anywhere else in the country, but involving people stationed in Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal would allow CBI’s jurisdiction to extend to these states.
    • There is ambiguity on whether the agency can carry out a search in either of the two states in connection with an old case without the consent of the state government.

    Why such a move by the States?

    • If a state government believes that the ruling party’s ministers or members could be targeted by CBI on orders of the Centre, and that withdrawal of general consent would protect them.
    • This is a debatable political assumption.
    • CBI could still register cases in Delhi which would require some part of the offence being connected with Delhi and still arrest and prosecute ministers or MPs.
    • The only people it will protect are small central government employees.

    Legal Remedies for CBI

    • The CBI can always get a search warrant from a local court in the state and conduct searches.
    • In case the search requires a surprise element, there is CrPC Section 166, which allows a police officer of one jurisdiction to ask an officer of another to carry out searches on his behalf.
    • And if the first officer feels that the searches by the latter may lead to loss of evidence, the section allows the first officer to conduct searches himself after giving notice to the latter.

    Back2Basics: Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)

    • Origins of CBI can be traced back to the Special Police Establishment (SPE) set up in 1941 in order to cases of bribery and corruption in War & Supply Department of India during World War II.
    • The need of a Central Government agency to investigate cases of bribery and corruption was felt even after the end of World War II.
    • So, DSPE (Delhi Special Police Establishment) Act, 1946 was brought that gave legal power of investigating cases to CBI.
    • CBI is not a statutory body as it is not established by an Act of the Parliament.
    • CBI investigates cases related to economic crimes, special crimes, cases of corruption and other high-profile cases.
    • CBI comes under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions.
    • CBI is exempted from Right to Information (RTI) Act similar to the National Investigating Agency (NIA), National Intelligence Grid (Natgrid), etc.

  • Distribution of Fortified Rice under ICDS

    In a bid to combat chronic anaemia and undernutrition, the government is planning to distribute fortified rice through the Integrated Child Development Services and Mid-Day Meal schemes across the country.

    What is Fortified Rice?

    • Rice can be fortified by adding a micronutrient powder to the rice that adheres to the grains or spraying of the surface of ordinary rice grains with a vitamin and mineral mix to form a protective coating.
    • Rice can also be extruded and shaped into partially precooked grain-like structures resembling rice grains, which can then be blended with natural polished rice.
    • Rice kernels can be fortified with several micronutrients, such as iron, folic acid and other B-complex vitamins, vitamin A and zinc.
    • These fortified kernels are then mixed with normal rice in a 1:100 ratio, and distributed for consumption.

    Note: Biofortification is the process by which the nutritional quality of food crops is improved through agronomic practices, conventional plant breeding, or modern biotechnology. It differs from conventional fortification in that Biofortification aims to increase nutrient levels in crops during plant growth rather than through manual means during the processing of the crops.

    What was the earlier initiative?

    • The centrally-sponsored pilot scheme was approved in February 2019 for a three-year period from 2019-20 onwards.
    • However, only five States — Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Chhattisgarh — have started the distribution of fortified rice in their identified pilot districts.

    Need for expansion

    • Currently, there are only 15,000 tonnes of these kernels available per year in the country.
    • To cover PDS, anganwadis and mid-day meals in the 112 aspirational districts, annual supply capacity would need to be increased to about 1.3 lakh tonnes.
    • To cover PDS across the country, 3.5 lakh tonnes of fortified kernels would be needed.

    Regulating fortification

    • FSSAI has formulated a comprehensive regulation on fortification of foods namely ‘Food Safety and Standards (Fortification of Foods) Regulations, 2016’.
    • These regulations set the standards for food fortification and encourage the production, manufacture, distribution, sale and consumption of fortified foods.
    • The regulations also provide for the specific role of FSSAI in promotion for food fortification and to make fortification mandatory.
    • WHO recommends fortification of rice with iron, vitamin A and folic acid as a public health strategy to improve the iron status of population wherever rice is a staple food.

    Back2Basics: Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS)

    • The ICDS aims to provide food, preschool education, primary healthcare, immunization, health check-up and referral services to children under 6 years of age and their mothers.
    • The scheme was launched in 1975, discontinued in 1978 by the government of Morarji Desai, and then relaunched by the Tenth Five Year Plan.
    • The tenth FYP also linked ICDS to Anganwadi centres established mainly in rural areas and staffed with frontline workers.
    • The ICDS provide for anganwadis or day-care centres which deliver a package of six services including:
    1. Immunization
    2. Supplementary nutrition
    3. Health checkup
    4. Referral services
    5. Pre-school education (Non-Formal)
    6. Nutrition and Health information

    Implementation

    • For nutritional purposes, ICDS provides 500 kilocalories (with 12-15 grams of protein) every day to every child below 6 years of age.
    • For adolescent girls, it is up to 500-kilo calories with up to 25 grams of protein every day.
    • The services of Immunisation, Health Check-up and Referral Services delivered through Public Health Infrastructure under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

  • Street Vendors in India

    Recently PM distributed loans to nearly 300,000 street vendors under the PM SVANidhi scheme.

    Q. Discuss how Street-vending accounts for significant non-agricultural urban informal employment in India. Also, discuss how the PM SVANidhi scheme will help street vendors.

    SVANidhi scheme

    • The SVANidhi ensures a working capital loan up to Rs 10,000 for vendors and rewards digital transactions.
    • All street vendors who have been in the business on or before March 24, 2020, are eligible to avail the benefits.
    • For this scheme launched in the wake of the novel coronavirus pandemic, the Centre has earmarked a stimulus package of Rs 5,000 crore for nearly 50 lakh vendors.

    Street vendors in India

    • There are estimated 50-60 lakh street vendors in India, with the largest concentrations in the cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Ahmedabad.
    • Most of them are migrants who typically work for 10–12 hours every day on average. Anyone who doesn’t have a permanent shop is considered a street vendor.
    • According to government estimates, street-vending accounts for 14 per cent of the total (non-agricultural) urban informal employment in the country.
    • The sector is riddled with problems. Licence caps are unrealistic in most cities — Mumbai, for example, has a ceiling of around 15,000 licences as against an estimated 2.5 lakh vendors.
    • This means most vendors hawk their goods illegally, which makes them vulnerable to exploitation and extortion by local police and municipal authorities.

     

    Identifying street vendors

    • The Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014 was enacted to regulate street vendors in public areas and protect their rights.
    • The Act defines a “street vendor” as a person engaged in vending of articles
 of everyday use or offering services to the general public, in
any public place or private area, from a temporary built-up structure or by moving from place to place”.
    • The Act envisages the formation of Town Vending Committees in various districts to ensure that all street vendors identified by the government are accommodated in the vending zones subject to norms.

  • [pib] National Productivity Council (NPC)

    National Productivity Council (NPC) has been granted accreditation conforming to ISO 17020:2012 by National Accreditation Board for Certification Body (NABCB).

    National Productivity Council (NPC)

    • NPC is a national level organization to promote productivity culture in India.
    • The NPC comes under the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Ministry of Commerce & Industry.
    • Established in 1958, it is an autonomous, multipartite, non-profit organization and has been registered as a Society under the Societies Registration Act XXI of 1860.
    • NPC is a constituent of the Tokyo-based Asian Productivity Organisation (APO), an Inter-Governmental Body, of which the Government of India is a founder member.

    Why ISO status?

    • It has been granted accreditation for undertaking inspection and audit work in the area of Food Safety Audit and Scientific Storage of Agricultural Products.
    • NPC has been conducting inspections/audit for different statutory bodies such as Warehousing Development and Regulatory Authority (WDRA) and FSSAI and is already having high credentials in the area of inspections and audits.

  • Annual State of Education Report (ASER) Wave 1, 2020

    The ASER Wave 1 Survey was recently released since the COVID-19 crisis interrupted this years’ trajectory.

    Practice question for mains:

    Q.Discuss the efficacy of the One-Nation- One-Board System and its limitations.

    About ASER Survey

    • This is an annual survey (published by education non-profit Pratham ) that aims to provide reliable estimates of children’s enrolment and basic learning levels for each district and state in India.
    • ASER has been conducted every year since 2005 in all rural districts of India. It is the largest citizen-led survey in India.
    • It is also the only annual source of information on children’s learning outcomes available in India.

    How is the survey conducted?

    • ASER tools and procedures are designed by ASER Centre, the research and assessment arm of Pratham.
    • The survey itself is coordinated by ASER Centre and facilitated by the Pratham network. It is conducted by close to 30,000 volunteers from partner organisations in each district.
    • All kinds of institutions partner with ASER: colleges, universities, NGOs, youth groups, women’s organisations, self-help groups and others.
    • The ASER model has been adapted for use in several countries around the world: Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Pakistan, Mali and Senegal.

    Assessment parameters

    • Unlike most other large-scale learning assessments, ASER is a household-based rather than school-based survey.
    • This design enables all children to be included – those who have never been to school or have dropped out, as well as those who are in government schools, private schools, religious schools or anywhere else.
    • In each rural district, 30 villages are sampled. In each village, 20 randomly selected households are surveyed.
    • Information on schooling status is collected for all children living in sampled households who are in the age group 3-16.
    • Children in the age group 5-16 are tested in basic reading and basic arithmetic. The same test is administered to all children.
    • The highest level of reading tested corresponds to what is expected in Std 2; in 2012 this test was administered in 16 regional languages.
    • In recent years, this has included household size, parental education, and some information on household assets.

    Key Findings

    1.Enrollments:

    • 5.5% of rural children are not currently enrolled for the 2020school year, up from 4% in 2018.
    • This difference is the sharpest among the youngest children (6 to 10) where 5.3% of rural children had not yet enrolled in school in 2020, in comparison to just 1.8% in 2018.
    • Due to the disruptions caused by the pandemic, families are waiting for the physical opening of schools to enrol their youngest children, with about 10% of six-year-olds not in school.
    • Among 15-16 year-olds, however, enrollment levels are slightly higher than in 2018.
    • The proportion of boys enrolled in government schools has risen from 62.8% in 2018 to 66.4% in 2020, while for girls, that number has gone up from 70% to 73% in the corresponding period.
    • Patterns show a slight shift toward government schools, with private schools seeing a drop in enrolment in all age groups.
    • The Centre has now permitted States to start reopening schools if they can follow Covid-19 safety protocols but the majority of the country’s 25 crore students are still at home.

    2.Availability of Smartphones:

    • Among enrolled children, 61.8% live in families that own at least one smartphone which was merely 36.5% in 2018.
    • About 11% of families bought a new phone after the lockdown, of which 80% were smartphones.
    • WhatsApp is by far the most popular mode of transmitting learning materialsto students, with 75% of students receiving input via this app.

    3.Availability of Learning Material:

    • Overall more than 80% of children said they had textbooks for their current grade.
    • This proportion was higher among students enrolled in government schools (84.1%) than in private ones (72.2%).
    • In Bihar, less than 8% got such materials from their schools, along with 20% in West Bengal, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.
    • More than 80% of rural children in Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Kerala and Gujarat received such input.

    4.Learning Activities:

    • Most children (70.2%) did some form of a learning activity through material shared by tutors or family members themselves, with or without regular input.
    • 11% had access to live online classes, and 21% had videos or recorded classes, with much higher levels in private schools.
    • About 60% studied from their textbooks and 20% watched classes broadcast on TV.

    Suggestions

    • Fluid Situation: When schools reopen, it will be important to continue to monitor who goes back to school as well as to understand whether there is learning lossas compared to previous years.
    • Building on and Strengthening Family Support: Parents’ increasing levels of education can be integrated into planning for learning improvement, as advocated by National Education Policy, 2020. Reaching parents at the right level is essential to understand how they can help their children and older siblings also play an important role.
    • Hybrid Learning: As children do a variety of different activities at home, effective ways of hybrid learning need to be developed which combine traditional teaching-learning with newer ways of “reaching-learning”.
    • Assessment of Digital Modes and Content: In order to improve digital content and delivery for the future, an in-depth assessment of what works, how well it works, who it reaches, and who it excludes is needed.
    • Mediating the Digital Divide: Children from families who had low education and also did not have resources like smartphones had less access to learning opportunities. However, even among such households, there is evidence of effort with family members trying to help and schools trying to reach them. These children will need even more help than others when schools reopen.

    Way Forward

    • Covid-19 has left the nation with deep economic distress and uncertainty over school-reopenings and thrown open new challenges in every sector.
    • The nationally representative sample highlighted the role played by the families where everyone in the family supported children regardless of their education levels.
    • This strength needs to be leveraged by reaching out to more students and reducing the distance between schools and homes.

  • What is ‘Infodemic’ Management?

    Managing the “infodemic” has been a serious challenge during the COVID-19 pandemic, says a Chief Scientist at World Health Organization (WHO).

    Try this question for mains:

    Q.‘Infodemic’ management these days has become a greater challenge than the actual course of pandemic management. Discuss.

    Defining Infodemic

    • Infodemic implies too much information, including false or misleading information, particularly on social media.
    • It has led to confusion, risk-taking and ultimately mistrust towards governments and the public health response.

    WHO framework for infodemics

    • The WHO has a framework for managing the coronavirus infodemic.
    • Infodemiology is now acknowledged by public health organizations and the WHO as an important emerging scientific field and critical area of practice during a pandemic.
    • From the perspective of being the first “infodemiolgist” who originally coined the term almost two decades ago, the author posts four pillars of infodemic management:
    1. Information monitoring (infoveillance)
    2. Building eHealth Literacy and science literacy capacity
    3. Encouraging knowledge refinement and quality improvement processes such as fact-checking and peer-review
    4. Accurate and timely knowledge translation, minimizing distorting factors such as political or commercial influences

  • Reforms police in India need

    The article highlights the challenges facing the police force in India and suggests the measures to deal with them.

    Urgency of the police reforms

    • In a well-ordered democracy, the police are supposed to be a disciplined force trained to uphold the law and enforce the functioning of democracy on constitutional lines.
    • However, police in India suffers from a triad of malaises:
    • 1) The lack of sensitisation of police personnel.
    • 2) Absence of accountability.
    • 3) Politicisation of the police.

    Objectives of the reforms:

    1) Police sensitisation about their role in society

    • The sensitisation module should aim at bringing about attitudinal change in police — especially pertaining to gender and power relations and police behaviour.
    • There has to be promptness of action and decency of behaviour.
    • They need to be trained in body language and strictly advised to refrain from abusive behaviour.
    • It is necessary to increase public confidence in the police by upgrading levels of police service delivery as well as by investigating and acting in cases of police misconduct.

    2) Increasing accountability

    • Public confidence in police decreases when the public perceives that police abuses are not investigated effectively.
    • Enhancing accountability will improve police legitimacy and increase public confidence, which, in turn, will reinforce the integrity of the system.
    • The Police Ombudsman of Northern Ireland, the Danish Independent Police Complaints Authority are some examples of mechanisms for accountability of the police for acts of abuse of power.

    3) De-politicisation of the police

    • Linked to accountability is de-politicisation of the police force.
    • This is a must for the effective functioning of the country’s criminal justice system.
    • The police, as the custodian of maintenance of law and order, must stay away from agenda-driven politics.

    Need to resolve the structural issues

    In order to achieve the above-stated objectives, structural issues within the force must be given priority.

    1) Vacancies and fair representation to women

    • According to a report by Common Cause in 2019, the Indian police force is at only 77 per cent of its sanctioned strength.
    • India has 144 police personnel for one lakh population and, in some states, the figure is less than 100.
    • One in every five posts sanctioned in the Indian Police Service remains vacant.
    • In low and middle-rank posts, the vacancies of 5.28 lakh personnel account for nearly one-fourth of the total sanctioned strength of over 22 lakh.
    • A fully-staffed police force would only increase India’s police-to-population ratio to 185 against the UN recommended ratio of 222.
    • The police-to-people ratio should be improved by at least 50 per cent to meet the challenges faced by the force.
    • Women are grossly underrepresented in our police force at less than 7 per cent of our total police strength.
    • With the increase in the number of gender crimes, it has become a necessity to augment the strength of police by recruiting more and more women police personnel.
    • The situation in Uttar Pradesh is the worst where police are at roughly 50 per cent of sanctioned strength.
    • When the numbers are inadequate, police personnel are stretched, leading to shoddy policing.

    2) Lack of in-service training

    • The existing police personnel are also not adequately trained. Less than 7 per cent police get in-service training.
    • Gujarat scores the lowest, with less than one per cent having received any in-service training.

    3) Implementation of guidelines and recommendations

    • After the National Police Commission in 1977, several committees were set up, including the Gore Committee, Padmanabhaiah Committee and Malimath Committee.
    • These commissions and committees have made far-reaching recommendations.
    • The top police leadership should be selected by apolitical representatives and an impartial body as suggested by Dharma Vira Commission have farsighted implications.
    • It was a strong antidote to opportunistic appointments and transfers.
    • Recommendations of the commission, if implemented, along with the Supreme Court directives of 2006 by Justice Sabharwal, in true letter and spirit, will go a long way in police reform.

    4) Reforms in criminal justice system

    • Reforms in the criminal justice system and separation of law and order from investigation and prosecution are the other areas that need the attention of the authorities.
    • These aspects have been highlighted by many commissions and committees constituted by the Centre.

    Consider the question “What are the challenges facing the police force in the country? Suggest the measures to deal with these challenges.”

    Conclusion

    A new role and new philosophy have to be defined for the police to not only make it a capable and effective body but also one accountable to the law of the land and to the people whom they serve.

  • Ghar Tak Fibre Scheme

    The government’s ambitious ‘Ghar Tak Fibre’ scheme — which aims to connect all the villages with high-speed internet — is off to a slow start in poll-bound Bihar.

    Note the features of FTTH connections. They make a perfect case for a statement based prelims question. Also, try this PYQ:

    Q.Consider the following statements regarding optical fibres:

    1. A layer called the cladding, which has a refractive index more than that of the core, surrounds the core of the optical fibre.
    2. Light is propagated in an optical fibre by refraction and internal reflection.

    Which of the above statements is/are correct?

    (a) 1 only

    (b) 2 only

    (c) Both 1 and 2

    (d) Neither 1 nor 2

    Ghar Tak Fibre scheme

    • The Scheme will be implemented by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.
    • It aims to connect all 45,945 villages of Bihar with high-speed optical fibre internet by 31st March 2021.
    • Under the scheme, Bihar has to provide at least five fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) connections per village and at least one WiFi hotspot per village.

    What is FTTH?

    • Fiber to the home (FTTH), also called fibre to the premises (FTTP), is the installation and use of optical fibre from a central point directly to individual buildings such as residences, apartment buildings and businesses to provide high-speed internet access.
    • FTTH dramatically increases connection speeds available to computer users compared with technologies now used in most places.
    • FTTH promises connection speeds of up to 100 megabits per second (Mbps).

  • Ayushman Sahakar Scheme

    The Agriculture Ministry has rolled out the Ayushman Sahakar Scheme to assist cooperatives in the creation of healthcare infrastructure in the country.

    Can you find the peculiarity of this scheme? Yes. It’s the Agriculture and not the Health Ministry.

    Ayushman Sahakar Scheme

    • The scheme is formulated by the National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC), the apex autonomous development finance institution under the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare.
    • The scheme would give a boost to the provision of healthcare services by cooperatives.
    • It specifically covers establishment, modernization, expansion, repairs, renovation of hospital and healthcare and education infrastructure.

    Why need such a scheme?

    • There is a huge need for medical and nursing education in rural areas. But the problem is a lack of infrastructure.
    • Co-ops find it difficult to access credit for such projects as banks may not give them loans for non-agricultural purposes.

    Financing the scheme

    • NCDC would extend term loans to prospective cooperatives to the tune of Rs 10000 Crore in the coming years.
    • Any Cooperative Society with a suitable provision in its byelaws to undertake healthcare-related activities would be able to access the NCDC fund.
    • NCDC assistance will flow either through the State Governments/ UT Administrations or directly to the eligible cooperatives.
    • Apart from working capital and margin money to meet operational requirements, the scheme will also provide interest subvention of 1% to women majority cooperatives.