“Himachal- Around the Next bend”, ‘Fully Digital’ first construction sector organisation, Sahakar Mitra: Scheme on Internship Programme (SIP)
1. “Himachal- Around the Next bend” under Dekho Apna Desh series
- The Union Tourism Ministry’s “ Dekho Apna Desh” webinar series is the 31st session showcasing “Himachal- Around the next bend” focusing on the beautiful villages, mountains, pristine rivers, culture and heritage.
- Dekho Apna Desh Webinar Series is an effort to showcase India’s rich diversity under Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat programme.
- The session highlighting an interesting Art village Called Gunehar, beautiful amalgamation of nature, streams, forest. Gunehar is located in the Kangra district.
- The idea behind this Art project in Gunehar is to develop conscious effort among the travellers to put focus on the village without affecting the place with too much crowding.
- Gunehar is well connected by road, rail and air.
- The valley has many small villages and Gunehar is the largest panchayat with just 3000 people.
- People are largely Gaddis with a few Bara Bhangalis.
- The settlement started a little 100 years ago.
- Originally people of the village are shepherds but now many of them are farmers, some have shops and some work.
- Villagers are grounded, have sense of dignity and knowledgeable.
- 4 tables project started in the year 2008 with good participation, followed by Art festival in 2013.
- Art shops were developed, inviting the artists to come and work in empty spaces and present their art work which is attended by people from all walks of life.
- The whole event is a joint venture with the artist, visitors and villagers.
- The villagers call it Mela.
- It has become a huge success and final week is organised as art festival with theatre, music, film screening etc.
- Local cultural elements are well represented towards the closing ceremony of the Art festival.
- World Heritage Site Great Himalayan National Park located in the Kullu region.
- Great Himalayan National Park is spread across four valleys-Sainj valley, Jiwa Nal valley, Tirthan Valley and Parvati valley.
- The park protects over 1,000 plant species, including many medicinal herbs, 31 mammal species and 209 bird species, as well as amphibians, reptiles and insects.
- Four of GHNP’s mammal species and three of its bird species are globally threatened, including the musk deer and the western horned tragopan.
The third little known destination in Himachal Pradesh is Kotkhai, a town in Shimla district.
- Kotkhai Palace is 800 years old and the royal family is still residing in the palace.
- Rukhla village – An apple growing village. A three hour hike from Rukhla takes you to the highest point where you can have a mesmerising 360 degree view of Greater Himalayas. The village is well known for its majestic flora and fauna including Black Bear, Barking Deer, Musk Deer, Langur, Leopards and Monal.
- Kiari temple– Kotkhai architecture wood and stone earthquake resistant
- Narayan temple– Rebuild based on original style.
- Naga cult-.Master of the underworld reigns over subterranean water sources linked to fertility. Naag is the son of Bhuri Mata, a powerful Goddess worshipped in Himachal and sacrifice of sheep pleases him. Songs are sung in Pahadi dialect.
- Apple farming
The Dekho Apna Desh Webinars are conducted in association with National e-Governance Division (NeGD) created by the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY).
2. The First construction sector organisation to go ‘Fully Digital’
- As one of the biggest reform, the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) under Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has gone ‘Fully Digital’, with the launch of unique cloud based and Artificial Intelligence powered Big Data Analytics platform – Data Lake and Project Management Software.
- The entire project management work flow of NHAI is transformed from manual to online portal based, wherein the complete project execution operations including ‘workflow with time lines’ and ‘alert mechanism’ have been configured. All project documentation, contractual decisions and approvals are now being done through portal only.
- With advance analytics, the Data Lake software will forecast the delays, likely disputes and will give advance alerts.
- NHAI has a history of having large number of arbitration cases pending with huge amount of claims and counter claims. Majority of the disputes are generic in nature like delay in handing over of encumbrance free site, shifting of utilities, idling charges of plant, machinery, equipment, manpower and delay in decisions etc. These disputes can be minimized as the Data Lake software has provisions to keep track and check on all these constraints and will ensure work is carried out within the deadlines in a transparent manner.
- As all processes are going to be portal-based, decision-making is going to be faster and will eventually diminish chances of litigation in future.
- The complete project documents and correspondences will be stored in Digital format in the cloud-based ‘Data Lake’ linked with GIS tagging and Unique Project ID, so that the project data can be easily retrieved as and when required from any location.
- NHAI’s all contractors/ concessionaires/consultants/Authority Engineers (AE)/ Independent Engineers (IE) and Project Directors (PDs)/ Regional Officers (ROs) have already started using it extensively.
- NHAI’s e-Office module is also integrated in the system so that all correspondences can flow digitally in a secured manner from field units to HQ seamlessly.
- The Data Lake will bring revolutionary changes to NHAI with benefits like No delays, Quick decision making, No question of missing records, Work from anywhere/anytime.
- It will enhance transparency, as all officers and stakeholders, connected with the project can see what is going on real time basis which will amount to concurrent performance audit by the seniors.
3. Sahakar Mitra: Scheme on Internship Programme (SIP) launched
- In keeping with Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi’s clarion call for AtmaNirbhar Bharat(Self Reliant India) emphasizing the importance of local for vocal, Sahakar Mitra: Scheme on Internship Programme (SIP) was launched by Union Minister for Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare Shri Narendra Singh Tomar.
- It is a initiative by National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC).
- Sahakar Mitra: Scheme on Internship Programme (SIP) will provide the young professionals an opportunity of practical exposure and learning from the working of NCDC and cooperatives as a paid intern.
- Sahakar Mitra would also provide an opportunity to professionals from academic institutions to develop leadership and entrepreneurial roles through cooperatives as Farmers Producers Organizations (FPO).
- Under the scheme, professional graduates in disciplines such as Agriculture and allied areas,IT etc. will be eligible for internship.
- Professionals who are pursuing or have completed their MBA degrees in Agri-business, Cooperation, Finance, International Trade, Forestry, Rural Development, Project Management etc. will also be eligible.
- NCDC has earmarked funds for Sahakar Mitra paid internship program under which each intern will get financial support over a 4 months internship period.
- Online application portal for internship application available on NCDC website, was also launched by the Union Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare Minister.
Before this scheme, the government has also launched ‘the Urban Learning Internship Program (TULIP) portal’ to provide internship opportunities to thousands of fresh graduates and engineers of the country under the ‘Smart City’ projects.
About National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC):
- The National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC) was established by an Act of Parliament in 1963 as a statutory Corporation under the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare.
- Planning, promoting and financing programmes for production, processing, marketing, storage, export and import of agricultural produce, food stuffs, certain other notified commodities e.g. fertilisers, insecticides, agricultural machinery, lac, soap, kerosene oil, textile, rubber etc., supply of consumer goods and collection, processing, marketing, storage and export of minor forest produce through cooperatives, besides income generating stream of activities such as poultry, dairy, fishery, sericulture, handloom etc.
- After the amendment of NCDC Act, NCDC will now be able to finance projects in the rural industrial cooperative sectors and for certain notified services in rural areas like water conservation, irrigation and micro irrigation, agri-insurance, agro-credit, rural sanitation, animal health, etc.
- Headquarters: functions through its Head Office at New Delhi and multiple Regional Offices.
