Inter Ministerial Committee To Prevent Misleading Advertisements

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

MINISTRY OF  INFORMATION AND BROADCASTING

RAJYA SABHA

UNSTARRED QUESTION NO-2078

ANSWERED ON-12.12.2011

(a) whether the Government is mulling an inter-ministerial committee to strengthen the laws and regulations to prevent misleading advertisements;

(b) if so, the details thereof;

(c) the details of complaints received by Government on misleading advertisements;

(d) the present status of the complaints; and

(e) the details of guidelines framed by Government to put checks on misleading advertisements?

ANSWER

THE MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF INFORMATION & BROADCASTING (SHRI C.M. JATUA)

(a) & (b): The Inter-Ministerial Committee set up by the Government to look into cases of violations of Programme and Advertising Codes laid down in the Cable Television Networks(Regulation) Act, 1995 and Rules framed thereunder, has been re-constituted on 11.11.2011 to include Joint Secretary of the Department of Consumer Affairs in view of the provisions of the Advertising Code having a bearing on issues concerning consumers.

(c) to (e): Rule 7 (5) of the said Advertising Code provides that no advertisement shall contain references which are likely to lead the

public to infer that the product advertised or any of its ingredients has some special or miraculous or super-natural property or quality, which is difficult of being proved. The Ministry also issued an Advisory to all the Channels on 13.5.2010 to follow in letter and spirit the provisions of the said Rule 7 (5). Recently, some instances were brought to the notice of the Ministry that some TV channels were showing advertisements of products purportedly having special or miraculous or supernatural properties. The matter was referred to the Advertising Standards Council(ASCI), the private self-regulating body of advertising industry. ASCI informed that the complaints in cases of advertisements, namely, Divyarishi’s Kuber Kunji, Badha Mukti Yantra, Shani Shubh Yantra, Sai Darshan Pendant and Maha Dhan Laxmi Yantra, have been upheld by their Consumer Complaints Council (CCC). Accordingly, the Ministry has advised the Indian Broadcasting Foundation and the News Broadcasters Association that TV channels may be advised by them not to carry these advertisements as also similar advertisements which are not in accordance with Rule 7(5) of the Advertising Code.

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Targets For Wind Power Energy

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

MINISTRY OF  NEW AND RENEWABLE ENERGY

RAJYA SABHA

STARRED QUESTION NO-266

ANSWERED ON-12.12.2011

(a) the details of the targets fixed and achieved for wind power energy during the last five years, State-wise;

(b) whether Government is satisfied with the achievement made till date;

(c) whether Government is considering to raise the wind power capacity during the Twelfth Five Year Plan; and

(d) if so, the details thereof?

ANSWER

(a),(b),(c)&(d): A Statement is laid on the Table of the House.

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Irregularities In Mega Power Projects

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
MINISTRY OF  POWER
RAJYA SABHA
UNSTARRED QUESTION NO-2142
ANSWERED ON-12.12.2011

(a) whether Government has noticed any irregularities in mega power projects;

(b) if so, the details thereof;

(c) the possible loss to the exchequer due to such irregularities; and

(d) the steps/measures taken/being taken by Government against the erring officials?

ANSWER

THE MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF POWER
( SHRI K.C. VENUGOPAL )


(a) : Thermal power projects with capacity of 1000 MW or more (700 MW for projects at J&K and North-Eastern States) and hydel power projects with capacity of 500 MW or more (350 MW for projects at J&K and North-Eastern States) which have been granted mega status certificate in accordance with mega power policy, are mega power projects. No irregularities has been noticed in mega power projects so far.

(b) to (d) : Do not arise in view of reply at (a) above.

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The Appropriation Bill, 2011

The Appropriation (No. 4) Bill, 2011

Mr. Deputy Chairman, Sir, I am thankful to you for giving me this opportunity to speak on this Bill. Though we have definitely most experienced Finance Minister in the world, the present Government has presented three General Budgets but none of the Budgets has tried to give any direction to our economy, not to say about the supplementary

The Government is not able to tame the inflation and the common people of the country are/have been suffering from high inflation and skyrocketing prices.

Out of the additional expenditure proposed, 93 per cent is for non-Plan expenditure whereas a meagre four per cent is for creating durable capital assets; hence, 96 per cent is for revenue expenditure only.

Of the Supplementary Demands of Rs.63,180 crores, only ten per cent, i.e. Rs.6,330 crores, is proposed to be met through increased revenues while the rest 90 per cent will have to be necessarily borrowed. Thereby, it can have two undesirable consequences -- (i) increased in high interest rates, leading to higher inflation and (ii) sucking the liquidity from the market, thereby reducing the funds’ availability for investments. This eventually will lead the private sector to postpone the capital assets’ investments, which will automatically stagnate the Government revenues, and with continuous rise in non-Plan expenditure, the revenue and fiscal deficit will further rise and the country will be caught in the vicious circle of lower growth and rising fiscal deficits and Government debt.

We need to guard ourselves against such uncontrolled growth in public debt so that our country does not face the serious default situation as we have been seeing in the case of Greece, Italy and Spain.
To guard against this, I have two suggestions. If the Government is seeking supplementary grants in December, it means that a twelve months’ budgeted expenditure has been spent within eight months. Why should only the expenditure increase at all times? If the revenue is not growing and growth in some categories of expenditure is inevitable, why shouldn’t the Government plan and reduce expenditure under other heads well in advance, instead of approaching the Parliament for Supplementary Grants at the last minute?

The budgeted expenditure, this year, was over Rs.12 lakh crores. In making budgets for all large projects, it is a general practice that five per cent we normally keep as contingencies. Why not we start following the practice of keeping five cent as contingency for each head? And, thereby, it can be monitored in a better manner for avoiding this kind of last minute approaches.

The other subject is, we all know that agriculture is the backbone of our economy and about 70 per cent of the people are engaged in agricultural activities. But this Government, for some or

other reason, has not been able to do anything for the agriculture sector substantially.

There is no sustainable credit policy for the farmers and the cases of farmers’ suicide are/have been continuing. The main reason for farmers’ suicide is lack of credit, high rate of interest, non- availability of credit in time, and lack of other infrastructural facilities, though the Government has done so many studies for the infrastructure. Of course, State Governments are not in a position to provide any required benefits, financially, to the farmers. Thereby, a national fund is required to be created to address the problems of farmers. ... (Time-bell) ...

Even after 64 years of Independence, it is visible that governments after governments have been taking all actions only keeping in view to attract the voters and we are not able to develop any sustainable, long-term solutions.

Sir, I feel, now the time has definitely come to work with cooperation and coordination, and particularly, we have got an opportunity to learn lessons from the various mistakes already committed by the so-called developed countries and we need not repeat those things. Thank you, Sir.



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Scheme For Setting Up Of Cold Storages

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

MINISTRY OF  AGRICULTURE

RAJYA SABHA

UNSTARRED QUESTION NO-1877

ANSWERED ON-09.12.2011

(a) whether Government has any special scheme for setting up of cold storage/ storages particularly for onion storage, across the country to reduce the post harvest losses;

(b) if so, the details thereof;

(c) the details of funds released for the purpose during last three years;

(d) the details of storage capacity existing prior to the scheme and new storage capacity created after the scheme;

(e) whether Government received any complaints of misuse of funds released for the purpose; and

(f) if so, the details thereof and action taken thereon?

ANSWER

(a) & (b): The Department of Agriculture & Cooperation is implementing two centrally sponsored schemes, namely Horticulture Mission for North Eastern and Himalayan States (HMNEH) since 2001-02 and National Horticulture Mission (NHM) since 2005-06 for holistic development of horticulture. There are various components under above mentioned schemes which includes setting up of cold storages for reducing post harvest losses of horticulture crops. Further, a central sector scheme, National Horticulture Board (NHB) since 1999-2000 is implementing a component for construction/expansion/modernization of cold storages for horticulture produce under its scheme.

Besides, Ministry of Food Processing Industries (MoFPI), Agricultural & Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) and National Cooperative Development Corporation are also implementing schemes for development of cold chain in the country.

Further, cold Storages are not preferred for storage of onion. The storage of onion is done in ventilated storages.

(c): Funds released during last three years under various schemes for development of cold storages is as under:
(Rs. in crore)
S.No. Scheme 2008-09 2009-10 2010-11
1. National Horticulture Mission (NHM) 15.52 101.33 105.78
2. National Horticulture Board (NHB) 40.85 51.42 50.09
3. Horticulture Mission for North Eastern and Himalayan States (HMNEH) for PHM including cold storage 4.05 2.00 13.75
4. Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) for common facility including cold storage 36.50 18.72 26.20
5. Ministry of Food Processing Industries (MoFPI) 8.23 43.50 22.00
6. National Cooperative Development Cooperation (NCDC) 5.80 6.26 5.73
Total 110.95 223.23 223.55

(d): As per report of High Level Expert Committee constituted by this Department, report republished in 1999, the cold storage capacity during 1998 was 103.53 lakh MT. Aditional cold storage capacity created with the intervention of these schemes is 147.99 lakh MT (as on 31.03.2011).

(e) & (f): This Department has not received any complaint for misuse of funds released for the purpose.

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Achievement Of Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

MINISTRY OF  YOUTH AFFAIRS AND SPORTS

RAJYA SABHA

UNSTARRED QUESTION NO-1852

ANSWERED ON-08.12.2011

(a) the amount spent on the scheme Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan(NYKS) upto end of Ninth Plan;

(b) the number of districts targeted to be connected under the scheme and the results achieved upto end of Ninth Plan;

(c) the amount spent during Tenth and Eleventh Plans and whether the targets could be achieved;

(d) whether it is a fact that after Ninth Plan the performance under this scheme is not upto the mark; and

(e) if so, the reasons and details of remedial action planned?

ANSWER

(a) A sum of Rs.206.17 crore was spent on the scheme of Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan (NYKS) upto the end of Ninth Plan.

(b) During the Ninth Plan period it was proposed to open a Kendra of NYKS in 500 districts of the country which was achieved. During the Ninth Plan period various programmes and activities were organized through a trained cadre of Youth Coordinators, National Service Volunteers and Social Workers at grassroots level through out the country. The programmes included Awareness Campaign, Vocational Training Programmes, Youth Club Development Programmes, Work Camps, Sports Promotion Programmes, Workshops & Seminars, Cultural Programmes, Celebration of National/International Days & Weeks, Adventure Promotion Programmes etc. The targets set were achieved.

(c) Under the scheme of NYKS, an amount of Rs.224.36 crore was spent during the Tenth Plan and Rs.488.46 crore has been spent till date during the Eleventh Plan. The funds allocated/released to the Kendras during the Tenth Plan and current Five Year Plan period have been fully utilized for the purpose for which they were granted and the targets met.

(d)&(e): Does not arise. Nehru Yuva Kendras were established in 1972 with the objective of providing rural youth avenues to take part in the process of national development and opportunities for the development of their personality and skills. These Kendras established in the States undertake multifarious activities through a large network of Youth Clubs/Mahila Mandals and volunteers who work at the grassroots level. NYKS is spearheading the youth development related initiatives. NYKS has also taken new initiatives for implementing programmes and activities of various Ministries/Departments especially concerning awareness campaign and advocacy. A paradigm shift has been brought in the functioning and implementation of schemes by NYKS. Towards this end, specific projects have been initiated in respect of Women and Child Development, Youth Exchange Programme for Jammu & Kashmir and North Eastern Region, HIV/AIDS, Drinking Water and Sanitation, Disaster Management and providing Agricultural Extension and Education, Youth Employability Skill (YES) Project for 59 districts of North Eastern States, Skill Upgradation Training Programme (SUTP) for women in 200 Border/Tribal/Backward Districts and Skill Development Training Programme (NCVT) in 100 districts.

A holistic management study of NYKS was entrusted to Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad which submitted their report in February, 2009 had observed that the organization meets its objectives.

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Deployment Of Nuclear Missiles By China

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

MINISTRY OF  EXTERNAL AFFAIRS

RAJYA SABHA

UNSTARRED QUESTION NO-1757

ANSWERED ON-08.12.2011

Will the Minister of EXTERNAL AFFAIRS be pleased to state:

(a) whether it is a fact that China is posing a threat to India’s security by deploying nuclear missiles close to Sino-India border;

(b) if so, the details thereof; and

(c) the steps/measures taken/being taken by Government to build strong logistics on the frontier?

ANSWER

THE MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
(SHRI E. AHAMED)

(a) to (c) Government pays close attention to China’s military modernization programme as well as its infrastructure development projects in the border regions opposite India in the Tibet and Xinjiang Autonomous Regions. Since 1993, the two Governments have maintained peace and tranquility along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the India-China border areas. The two sides have reiterated their commitment to this goal on many occasions. Government is giving careful and special attention to the development of the border areas opposite China, in order to meet our strategic and security requirements and also to facilitate the economic development of these areas. Government keeps a constant watch on all developments having a bearing on India’s security and takes all necessary measures to safeguard it.

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