PM-SVANidhi Scheme, Railway Digital Supply Chain with Government e-Market (GeM), Scientific and Technological Cooperation- India-European Union Agreement
1. PM-SVANidhi Scheme- end-to-end digital transactions by the street vendors
- Government of India has launched PM SVANidhi Scheme to facilitate collateral free working capital loan upto Rs.10,000/- of one-year tenure, to approximately, 50 lakh street vendors, to resume their businesses.
- Incentives in the form of interest subsidy (@ 7% per annum) and cash back (upto Rs.1,200/- per annum) are being provided to promote good repayment behaviour and digital transactions respectively.
- The interest subsidy effectively works out to 30 % of the entire interest burden for a loan of Rs. 10,000 @ 24 % annual interest.
- Therefore, in effect the vendor does not pay any interest, rather gets a subsidy on the loan amount if he repays in time and uses digital transactions for all receipts and payments.
- The scheme entails enhanced next tranche of loan on early or timely repayment.
- Loan processing has begun since July 02, 2020 through an IT platform “PM SVANidhi” with Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI), which is the implementing agency for the scheme administration.
- It was informed over 2.6 lakh applications have been received, over 64,000 have been sanctioned and over 5,500 have been disbursed.
- The satisfaction on use of end-to-end IT solution through a web-portal and mobile App for administration of the Scheme to ensure transparency, accountability and speed.
- While noting that the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs is working on a complete IT solution including mobile application for seamless implementation of the scheme, Prime Minister said that the scheme design should incentive use of end-to-end digital transactions by the street vendors.
- This should cover the entire gamut of their business – from procurement of raw material to collection of sale proceeds.
- Appropriate incentives and trainings should be conducted for this purpose.
- Use of digital payments would also help build a credit profile for the street vendor helping them in future financial needs.
- The scheme should not be just seen from the perspective for extending loans to street vendors.
- It should also be seen as a part of an outreach to the street vendors for their holistic development and economic upliftment.
- One step in this direction would be by capturing their entire socio-economic details to facilitate necessary policy interventions.
- Such data could also be used by different Ministries of Government of India to benefit them under various Schemes for which they are eligible, on priority.
- These include housing under PMAY-U, cooking gas under Ujjawala, electricity under Saubhagya, health under Ayushman Bharat, skilling under DAY-NULM, Bank account under Jan Dhan etc.
2. Railway Digital Supply Chain with Government e-Market (GeM)
- Minister of Railways and Commerce & Industry Shri Piyush Goyal reviewed the steps to promote Make in India products in procurement process of Indian Railways as well as Government of India.
- During the meeting, Shri Piyush Goyal urged to take measures to generate confidence in industry of corruption free and transparent procurement environment on Indian Railways.
- To promote Make in India products in procurement process, it was emphasised to increase the participation of local vendors in procurement process.
- It was also decided to that local content clause in the procurement should be such that we may get more bids from local vendors/suppliers.
- This would also give a boost to mission Atma Nirbhar Bharat.
- Active support of DPIIT was sought to make suitable policy revisions, if required, to facilitate the efforts of Indian Railways in this direction.
- A need for devising strategies for further increasing the participation of Indian service providers and component manufacturers was felt.
- Government e-Marketplace (GeM) is a highly innovative idea in public procurement, across the globe.
- The need to do Railway goods and services procurements of approximately Rs Seventy thousand crores on GeM platform to open up the market to industry even at remote places and specially MSMEs.
- Indian Railways, one of the largest procurement agencies of the Government of India, is integrating its procurement systems with GeM to use GeM’s full potential.
- The department shared the timelines for integration of Indian Railway e-Procurement system with GeM. Railway emphasised the need to have a seamless integration of the two systems eliminating need for any manual interface.
- Strength of both the systems i.e. Railways IREPS and GeM should be productively leveraged to generate synergy to take the Railways procurement to GeM’s full potential.
- The need for engagement of industry for developing more indigenous vendors to participate in the growth journey of the Indian Railways was emphasised in the deliberations.
- It is decided that Railways would work more towards having a user-friendly single step vendor web based interface for all its activities.
- The website should, transparently, provide every interested vendor a clear idea of how to do business with Indian Railways.
- The website should have all relevant information to generate confidence of corruption free and transparent environment on Indian Railways.
3. Scientific and Technological Cooperation- India-European Union Agreement
- India and European Union have renewed its Agreement on Scientific and Technological Cooperation for the next five years (2020-2025).
- This has been done by exchange of Note Verbale between two sides.
- The Agreement was initially signed in on 23 November 2001 and renewed two times in past in 2007 and 2015.
- This will expand the cooperation in scientific and technological research strengthen the conduct of cooperative activities in areas of common interest and application of the results of such cooperation to their economic and social benefit.
- Cooperative activities may take the forms of reciprocal participation of Indian research and European research entities in research, technological development, and demonstration projects under each other programme.
- India & the European Union agreed to renew the Agreement on Scientific cooperation for the next five years, 2020-2025, at the 15th India-EU Summit.
- India and European Union have strong research and innovation cooperation under the framework of said “Agreement” and it has grown steadily over the years.
- In the last 5 years, the level of co-investment on India-EU Research Technology Development Projects for addressing societal challenges such as affordable healthcare, water, energy, food & nutrition has been stepped up resulted in several technologies, patents development, their gainful utilization, joint research publications, sharing of research facility and, exchange of scientists and students from both sides.
- The cooperation has been focused on water, green transport, e-mobility, clean energy, circular economy, bio-economy, health, and ICT.
- Additional areas, such as climate change, sustainable urban development, manufacturing, advanced materials, nanotechnologies and biotechnology, food processing, and ocean research may also be considered in future endeavours.
- The EU and India are at the forefront of human development and innovation.
- For India, addressing the basic needs of its people, including through frugal innovation, and excelling in high-tech markets are twin objectives.
- Both areas offer mutually beneficial opportunities for EU-India cooperation. Increased exchanges between students, researchers, and professionals would benefit both sides.
- India and the EU share a mutual interest in reciprocal mobility of talent.
- The mobility of researchers and innovators would be promoted in both directions.
- The EU-India cooperation should also foster innovation by promoting networking between EU and Indian innovators, start-ups, incubators, and accelerators, by setting up joint platforms, both offline and virtual, and engaging in coaching, training and staff exchanges.
- Highly qualified workers could be integrated into Indian and EU-led innovation systems industries and help maintain technology-based leadership and sharing of best practices, internationalisations of SMEs, and contributing in the global value chain.
