Government Committees, Schemes & Bills - Current Affairs for January, 2015

The court directed the centre and State governments to carry out a survey and inform about the status of hostels being constructed under the scheme within four months. A social justice bench of Justices Madan B Lokur and U U Lalit also directed that construction of new hostels under the scheme should be expedited and posted the matter for further hearing on 20th July.

The National Livelihood Mission will be implemented in the cities having a population of one lakh and above as per census of 2011. Currently, there are 82 such cities and towns which also include all the 75 district head quarters. The population living below the poverty line in these cities will be the target of the Mission. The NLM programme of the government of India will replace the Swarna Jayanti Urban Programme run by Housing and urban poverty alleviation ministry.

In the initial phase, 12 heritage cities have been identified which will be rejuvenated and developed under Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana (HRIDAY). The 12 cities are: Amritsar, Varanasi, Gaya, Puri, Ajmer, Mathura, Dwarka, Badami, Velankanni, Kanchipuram, Warangal and Amaravati.

Sukanya Samriddhi Account will attract interest rate of 9.1% per annum for the current fiscal year (2014-15). This scheme prescribes opening of a deposit account with post offices in the name of a girl child by her biological parents or legal guardian.

The campaign will be implemented in 100 districts of the country, including 12 of Haryana where the number of girl child is dismally low.

Total 11.5 crore accounts have been opened under the scheme in less than five months. The scheme was launched on 28 August 2014 with a target of 7.5 crore till 26 January 2015.

Central Pulp & Paper Research Institute (CPPRI). It is a national level institute under the administrative control of Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion, Ministry of Industry, and Government of India.