22 September 2018: UPSC Exam PIB Summary & Analysis

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Dakshina Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha

Context

• The President of India, Shri Ram Nath Kovind, inaugurated the centenary celebrations of the Dakshina Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha in New Delhi

What was the objective?

• It was established in the year 1918 by our beloved Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi with the sole aim of propagating Hindi in southern states.
• “Hindi Prachar” was a movement that emerged as part of Freedom Movement and the leaders who led the nation to “FREE INDIA” felt the necessity of making a single Indian Language the National Language, and through that language unify the people and thereby intensify National Integration.

Details

• The Sabha was inaugurated by Annie Besant on June 17, 1918
• The first Hindi class was conducted by Devdas Gandhi, the youngest son of Mahatma Gandhi.
• During its silver jubilee celebrations, Gandhiji stayed for nearly 10 days on the premises of the Sabha.
• Parliament has made the Sabha as an Institution of National Importance in 1964.
• A centenary commemorative postal stamp to mark the 100th foundation day of the Dakshin Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha was released recently
  • The stamp contains a photo of Mahatma Gandhi, the founder president of the Sabha, and a letter written by him.
• It has played a very important role in strengthening the emotional unity of our country.

Offset Policy in Defence

• The Offset Policy was formally announced for the first time in 2005 and has been revised several times.
• It mandates foreign suppliers of equipment’s to spend certain percent of the contract value in India. It was first revised in 2006 and then again in 2011 and in 2016. Sometimes this may take place with technology transfer.
• Offset policy necessarily aims at acquisition and development of the state of the art technologies and create world class defence production industry which should be able to meet both domestic and export requirements of the country.

Details

• The key objectives of the Defence Offset Policy is to leverage the capital acquisitions to develop Indian defence industry by fostering development of internationally competitive enterprises; augmenting capacity for research and development in defence sector and to encourage development of synergistic sector like civil aerospace and internal security.
• The offset can be discharged by many means such as direct purchase of eligible products/services, FDI in joint ventures and investment towards equipment and transfer of technology.
• As per Defence Offset Guidelines, the foreign Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) is free to select any Indian company as its offset partner.
• All successful offset programmes have certain common well defined characteristics, purposeful selection in consonance with well-defined objectives, hard negotiations, detailed planning and close oversight.
• It is being deduced that Offset Policy aims at defence industrial development of country.

Concerns

• Equipment Acquisition in Jeopardy: In their enthusiasm to obtain order, many vendors fail to grasp the full implications of offset liabilities. They tend to take obligation lightly and do not make adequate budgetary provisions.
• Time Delays: Negotiations and deliberations may hinder fast implementation and may cause undue delay
• Offset as Incidental Considerations: Offset will work best when aspirations of both the vendor and buyer country are fulfilled and resulting in a win-win situation for both seller and buyer. An analysis of buyers’ perspective on offsets to gain maximum advantages and vendors’ reluctance to give away too much may lead to the impression that offsets aspirations of buyer and possible approach towards same by vendor are dichotomous.
• Technology received in few countries also show that it was outdated and did not improve competitions of indigenous industry.
• Offsets did not create new markets for local produce.

Recommendations

• Offset should not delay main acquisition nor should it drive acquisition of equipment and technology.
• Wherever feasible, we should resort to direct offsets.
• Technology being obtained through offsets should be both relevant and contemporary.

Ayushman Bharat – Pradhan Mantri Jan AarogyaYojana (AB-PMJAY)

• Under the vision of Ayushman Bharat, Pradhan Mantri Jan AarogyaYojana (AB-PMJAY) shall be implemented so that each and every citizen receives his due share of health care
• This is the “world’s largest government funded healthcare program” targeting more than 50 crore beneficiaries.
• It is a paradigm shift from sectorial, segmented and fragmented approach of service delivery through various national and State schemes to a bigger, more comprehensive and better converged and need based service delivery of secondary and tertiary care.

Background

• 71st Round of National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) has found 9% of rural households and 82% of urban households have no access to healthcare insurance/assurance.
• More than 17% of Indian population spend at least 10% of household budgets for health services.
• Catastrophic healthcare-related expenditure pushes families into debt, with more than 24% households in rural India and 18% population in urban area have met their healthcare expenses through some sort of borrowings.
• PMJAY primarily targets the poor, deprived rural families and identified occupational category of urban workers’ families as per the latest Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC) data for both rural and urban areas as well as the active families under the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY).

Pradhan Mantri Jan ArogyaYojana in alliance with the States:

• The Scheme is principle based rather than rule based, allowing States enough flexibility in terms of packages, procedures, scheme design, entitlements as well as other guidelines while ensuring that key benefits of portability and fraud detection are ensured at a national level.
• States have the option to use an existing Trust/Society or set up a new Trust/Society to implement the Scheme as State Health Agency and will be free to choose the modalities for implementation.
• States can implement the Scheme through an insurance company or directly through the Trust/Society/Implementation Support Agency or a mixed approach.

Pradhan MantriAarogyaMitra (PMAM)

• The scheme is creating a cadre of certified frontline health service professionals called Pradhan Mantri Aarogya Mitras (PMAMs) who will be primary point of facilitation for the beneficiaries to avail treatment at the hospital and thus, act as a support system to streamline health service delivery.
• AarogyaMitras training is being conducted in collaboration with National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) and Ministry of Skill Development to strengthen implementation and operational preparedness.

Benefits under the scheme:

• It will provide a cover of up to Rs. 5 lakhs per family per year, for secondary and tertiary care hospitalization.
• Over 10.74 crore vulnerable entitled families (approximately 50 crore beneficiaries) will be eligible for these benefits.
• PMJAY will provide cashless and paperless access to services for the beneficiary at the point of service.
• PMJAY will help reduce catastrophic expenditure for hospitalizations, which impoverishes people and will help mitigate the financial risk arising out of catastrophic health episodes.
• Entitled families will be able to use the quality health services they need without facing financial hardships.
• When fully implemented, PMJAY will become the world’s largest fully government-financed health protection scheme. It is a visionary step towards advancing the agenda of Universal Health Coverage (UHC).

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