News:
In a bid to provide affordable houses and boost the agricultural produce in the economy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Union Cabinet and CCEA on Wednesday took key decisions on the ‘Housing For All’ project and Minimum Support Prices (MSP) for farmers. The government increased the MSP of pulses by Rs 200 per quintal and also approved an interest subsidy on housing loans for tenure up to 15 years under EWS/LIG categories.
The five big decisions made in this regard as follows:
Housing For All:
- The Cabinet gave its approval for launch of Housing for All by 2022″ with salient features such as; subsidy for beneficiary-led individual house construction, promotion of affordable housing for weaker section through credit linked subsidy, affordable housing in partnership with Public & Private sectors and rehabilitation of slum dwellers.
- Under the Credit Linked Interest Subsidy component, interest subsidy of 6.5% on housing loans availed up to tenure of 15 years will be provided to EWS/LIG categories, wherein the subsidy pay-out on NPV basis would be about Rs 2.3 lakh per house for both the categories.
Hike in MSP for kharif crops:
- CCEA increased the minimum support price (MSP) of paddy by Rs 50 to Rs 1,410 per quintal for this year.
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For the huge deficit of pulses, the Cabinet made an exception and decided to give a bonus of Rs 200/- per quintal for pulses.
Boost for social initiatives:
- The Cabinet also wants to step up India’s solar power capacity target under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM) by five times, reaching 1,00,000 MW by 2022.
- The target will principally comprise of 40 GW Rooftop and 60 GW through large and medium scale grid connected solar power projects. The total investment in setting up 100 GW will be around Rs 6,00,000 crore.
National Dairy Plan Phase:
- CCEA gave nod for inclusion of Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh in the list of states to be covered under the National Dairy Plan- I (NDP-I). It also extended the implementation period upto 2018-19 in order to achieve key outputs of National Dairy Plan- I.
Indian Standards Bill 2015:
- The proposed provisions in the new Bureau of Indian Standards Bill, 2015 will empower the Central Government and the Bureau of Indian Standards to promote a culture of quality of products and services through mandatory/voluntary compliance with Indian standards through the process of ‘product certification’ and ‘Certificate of Conformity’ with a broad objective of consumer’s welfare. It is also expected to improve enforcement of Indian standards
Source: ET