Cabinet nod to distribute fortified rice under central schemes

In a move aimed at reducing malnutrition in the country, the Union cabinet on Friday approved a scheme to distribute fortified rice under various government programmes, Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur said at a media briefing.

“This will provide nutrition to every poor person of the country to overcome malnutrition and lack of essential nutrients in women, children and lactating mothers,” Thakur said.

According to an official statement later, the Food Corporation of India (FCI) and state agencies have procured 88.65 metric tonnes of fortified rice for supply and distribution. The entire cost of rice fortification, of about Rs 2,700 crore per annum will be borne by the Centre as part of its food subsidy bill, with the final date of implementation being June 2024.

The scheme was first announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his August 2021 Independence Day speech.

One-time window for non-operational mine 

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) also approved a proposal to provide a one-time window to public sector undertakings (PSUs) to surrender coal mines that are non-operational, without any penalty.

“The CCEA has approved the Ministry of Coal’s proposal for providing a one-time window to the central and state PSUs to surrender non-operational mines without penalty (forfeiture of bank guarantee) and without citing any reason,” a statement from the coal ministry said. 

This may release many coal mines that PSUs are not in a position to develop or are disinterested and could be put for sale according to the present auction policy of the government.

Companies would be given three months to surrender the coal mines from the date of publication of the approved surrender policy. After the cancellation of coal block allocations by the Supreme Court in 2014 to avoid immediate disruption of coal supplies to thermal power plants, the government allotted many cancelled coal mines to PSUs via allotment route. The allocation route was expeditious and it was expected that the coal requirement of state gencos would be met from those blocks.

Till December last year, 45 of 73 coal mines allotted to government companies remained non-operational and the due date of commencement of mining operations in case of 19 coal mines is already over.

Other Cabinet decisions

The Cabinet also approved continuation of the Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) till March 2023. The intended targets that will be achieved by AIM include establishing 10,000 Atal Tinkering Labs (ATLs) as well as 101 Atal Incubation Centers (AICs), and supporting 200 startups via the Atal New India Challenges.

Total budgeted expenditure of Rs 2,000 crore plus shall be incurred in the process of the establishment and supporting the beneficiaries.

The Cabinet cleared signing of a pact between the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) and Mongolia's Financial Regulatory Commission (FRC). Sebi and FRC are co-signatories to the International Organization of Securities Commissions' Multilateral MoU (IOSCO MMoU), but there is no provision for technical assistance under this pact.