Shri Piyush Goyal Takes Over Charge of Ministry of New & Renewable Energy

Shri Piyush Goyal today took over as the Minister of State(Independent Charge) of Ministry of New & Renewable Energy. Speaking to media persons while taking the charge of the Ministry of New & Renewable Energy today, Shri Goyal said that his priority would be to expand scope and usage of clean and green energy and to ensure synergy in the power, coal and renewable energy sectors. A holistic vision for ensuring energy security of India would be developed. 

Appreciating the Gujarat model in the development of renewable energy, Shri Goyal said that he would learn from the experiences of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Goa as well any other best practices from anywhere in the world that could be brought to India. Laying down the vision of his Ministry, Shri Goyal said that it would be policy driven and process driven where the focus would be on the outcomes and action. 

Later the Minister held a meeting with the senior officers of the Ministry and familiarised himself with the functioning of the Ministry. 

Facts at a Glance: Daman & Diu (7th Poll Day)

Date of Poll: 30th April 2014 

Sr. No.	Item	Number of Parliamentary Constituencies going on poll- One (PC No. 1 Daman & Diu)
1.	Total Electors	Male     -   55455 Female -   55583 Service -         10 NRI Voters : - 09 …………………………………. Total - 111057
2.	Number &  Types of Parliamentary Constituencies	General :                     01
3.	Total number of Candidates	04
4.	Parliamentary Constituencies having more than 16 candidates	Nil
5.	Parliamentary Constituencies having more than 32 candidates	Nil
6.	Total Number of Female candidates	Nil
7.	No. and Name of the Parliamentary Constituency with maximum No. of Candidates	N/A
8.	No. & Name of the Parliamentary Constituency with minimum number of Candidates	Nil
9.	Party – wise list of candidates :	INC	1
		BJP	1
		BSP	1
		AAP	1
		TOTAL	4
10	Largest Parliamentary constituency Electorate wise	N/A
11	Smallest Parliamentary constituency Electorate wise	N/A
12	Number of General, Expenditure, Police & Awareness Observers deployed	General Observers –               02 Expenditure Observers –        01 Police Observers –                  01
13	No. of Polling Personnel deployed (approx)	Not Available
14	No. of Polling stations	119
15	Number of EVMs to be used in the elections	49

Fact Sheet on Daman & Diu

General Elections 2014 Fact sheet - 28

The 16^th Lok Sabha elections would be held in the lone Parliamentary Constituency of Daman & Diu on April 30, 2014. Polling will be held at 119 polling stations spread across 92 polling station locations. Out of the state’s total of 1,02,260 electors as on  11^th February 2014, 26.48%  are in the age group 18–25, while women constitute 51.71%. The poll expenditure limit per candidate in the state is Rs.54 lakhs.

Healthcare Alliance Recommendations Presented to the President

The President, Shri Pranab Mukherjee was presented Healthcare Alliance recommendations by knowledge partners and industry partners, here today. The four papers presented to the President were on control of NCDs through primary and preventive healthcare; Public Private People Partnership (PPPP); talent fast forward; and upskill, upscale and innovation for universal access.

Speaking at the occasion President said that these innovative initiatives of industry, private sector and global consultancy are supported by luminaries of healthcare sector India and abroad. Several leading bodies have come together for this noble cause of good health for Nation building. The President emphasised that healthy citizens are integral to building healthy economy.

 There is fundamental coordination between nation and health of its citizens. Efficient healthcare delivery system should be of high quality and affordable. Health indices need to improve to achieve MDGs and the WHO mandate. Need of the hour is greater convergence of all stakeholders towards common goal, noted the President.

The President said that the Government had launched National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) for restructuring of health services in rural India and now National Urban Health Mission (NUHM) has been launched with focus on urban poor. It aims to make available essential healthcare to urban poor decreasing out of pocket expenditure. He noted that NCDs are world’s biggest health challenge .They have significant global burden and will pose significant threat to India’s Healthcare programme.

The president highlighted the importance of education, innovation and technology. Education is a powerful driver for health. Healthcare infrastructure and initiatives need to be complemented with education especially of girl child. He further added that innovative models can improve situation in India and provide insight to the developing world.

 He quoted that India is the largest manufacturer and exporter of medicines and provides cost efficiency to world in generic medicines. Information Technology can be a strong enabler in extending reach of healthcare. ICT companies should focus on strengthening healthcare through mobiles. Mobile is now in the hand of millions of Indians, added the President.

Shri Pranab Mukherjee said that healing tradition has flourished in India since Vedic Age. The tradition of Ayurveda has been very popular. Today traditional Indian healthcare respected world over. We may develop new cures for new age problems. India has been recognised for innovation and professional skills. All stakeholders need to make collective efforts to achieve good health for all. The need is to induce in all a passion for healthy living.

The Union Health and Family Welfare Minister, Shri Ghulam Nabi Azad expressed happiness that the stakeholders, enlisted by the Health care alliance, addressed some of the biggest challenges facing healthcare in this conference and have come up with useful recommendations. He said that with careful and measured steps and forging partnerships, the urban-rural paradox can be reversed and issues of inequity addressed.

Shri Azad highlighted that tremendous progress has been made in the last 5 years in all areas, whether it was polio eradication, improving health indicators, building infrastructure, increasing human resources or innovations in health research. As far as Non Communicable Diseases (NCDs) are concerned, Health Ministry launched a National Programme in 2010 focused on early diagnosis, screening, prevention, treatment and control in 100 districts of 21 states.

The Health Minister expressed happiness that considerable progress has been made under the national programme. He said that 5.3 crore persons have been screened for diabetes and 5.00 crore for hypertension; 83 dedicated NCD Clinics and 61 Cardiac Care Units have been established in selected districts ; and there is a provision for Chemotherapy services in the selected districts.

 He highlighted that a unique cost effective device called “Swasthya Slate”, which will help in screening for blood sugar, blood pressure, blood haemoglobin, ECG, heart rate, malaria and pregnancy among other urine and blood tests in the remotest areas has been launched recently by the Government. For awareness creation, a unique initiative called Swasth Bharat was started by Health Ministry under which 12,000 empanelled specialists have appeared in over 30,000 programmes on 59 Regional Doordarshan and AIR Channels across the country.

Shri Azad said that Public Private Partnership (PPP) is an efficient tool for optimal utilization of resources. There are successful examples of PPPs in the health sector which can be built upon further, whether they are in running ambulance services, diagnostic facilities or participation in service delivery under national health programmes. In the area of fostering talent and up-skilling, an appreciable initiative is the setting up of the “Healthcare Sector Skill Council” by the National Skills Development Corporation and CII, to develop standards for allied healthcare and actively participate in the development of curriculum, assessment and certification process.

The Health Minister noted that there has been a revolution in innovations in health research and development. The translational research programme, launched by the Government in 2010, has identified about 75 leads or prototypes to be developed into technologies.

 In just last 4 years, several indigenously developed products like domestic vaccine and reagents for influenza-A H1N1, vaccine for Japanese Encephalitis (JE), detection kit for Thallassemia and Sickle Cell, device for detection of cervical cancer, etc have been launched.

Healthcare Alliance includes five important industry bodies in health namely All India Management Association (AIMA), Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), Indian Medical Association (IMA) and Healthcare Federation of India (NATHEALTH). 

It includes four knowledge partners of global eminence – Bain & Company, KPMG, McKinsey & Company, and PwC. The research and policy think tank Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) is the technical resources group and Apollo Hospitals is the coordinating partner.

Present at the occasion were the Health Ministers of Maldives, Mozambique and Mongolia, officials from WHO, Dr Prathap C Reddy, Chairman, Apollo Hospitals Group, Prof (Dr) Srinath Reddy, President, Public Health Foundation of India, Dr Jayshreeben Mehta, President, Medical Council of India and various other dignitaries. 

Criteria for Conversion into National Highway

The Ministry had received the proposals for declaration of more than 64000 Kms. of State roads as National Highways from various State Governments, against which the Ministry has declared about 10000 Kms. of roads/routes as new National Highways.

Expansion of National Highway network is a continuous process and declaration of new National Highway is taken up from time to time depending upon requirement of connectivity, inter-se priority and availability of funds.

Once an stretch is declared as NH, development is carried as per the NH specification stipulated by Indian Roads Congress. The criteria for declaration/conversion of State Highways (SH) -

The Ministry has devised an eleven points criteria for declaration of National Highways based upon the comments of the Planning Commission, are as under:

1.         Road which run through the length and breadth of the country.

2.         Roads connecting adjacent countries.

3.         Roads connecting the National Capital with State Capital and roads connecting mutually the State Capitals.

4.         Roads connecting major ports, non-major ports, large industrial centers or tourist centers.

5.         Roads meeting very important strategic requirement in hilly and isolated areas.

6.         Arterial roads which enable sizeable reduction in travel distance and achieve substantial economic growth thereby.

7.         Roads which help opening up large tracts of backward area and hilly regions (other than strategically important ones).

8.         National Highways grid of 100 km is achieved.

9.         The road must be upto the standard laid down for State Highways (SHs) – both in its technical requirements as well as the land requirements.  The existing roads (SH, Major District Roads (MDRs) and other roads), which are important in terms of various criterion stipulated herein, will be considered for upgrading to NH standards.  It will, however, be ensured that the roads being upgraded generally satisfy the standards laid down for SH but MDR and other roads required to be upgraded to form grid and connect important/backward areas will also be considered.

10.       The existing Right of Way (ROW) should be the property of the State Government and must be generally free any type of encroachments.

11.       The right of way required for the National Highways (preferably 45m, minimum 30m) must be available for acquiring, free of encroachments and the State Government would complete acquiring formalities within six months.  If additional ROW is required for developing the road to NH standards, the State Governments would complete the acquisition expeditiously after sanctioning of estimates therefor.

This was stated by Dr. Tushar A. Chaudhary, the Minister of State in the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways in reply to a question in Rajya Sabha yesterday.