Ministry of Finance has granted additional borrowing permission to two more States, Uttar Pradesh & Andhra Pradesh for successfully undertaking reforms in the Public Distribution System (PDS) and Ease of Doing Business. This will make an additional amount of Rs. 7,106 crore available to these States.
Uttar
Pradesh has become the 6th State to complete the
reform process in PDS to implement One Nation One Ration Card System. This has
made the State eligible to raise an amount of Rs. 4,851 crore through Open Market
Borrowings (OMBs). This amount will help the State in mobilizing additional
financial resources required to fight COVID-19.
One
Nation One Ration Card System ensures availability of ration to beneficiaries
under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) and other welfare schemes,
especially to the migrant workers and their families, at any Fair Price Shop
(FPS) across the country. It also enables better targeting of beneficiaries,
elimination of bogus/ duplicate/ineligible card holders. Thus, One Nation One
Ration Card enhances welfare and reduces leakage.
To ensure
seamless inter-state portability of a ration card, Aadhar seeding of all ration
cards as well as biometric authentication of beneficiaries through automation
of all Fair Price Shops (FPSs) with installation of electronic point of sale
(e-PoS) devices are essential. Department of Food and Public Distribution is
the nodal Ministry to assess reform claims of the States and recommend release
of additional borrowing limit of 0.25 percent of GSDP.
The
Department of Food and Public Distribution has confirmed that the States of
Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Goa, Karnataka and Tripura have
successfully carried out aforesaid reforms in PDS and implemented One Nation
One Ration Card System
Andhra
Pradesh has became the 1st State
in the country to successfully undertake “Ease of Doing Business” reforms and has thus become eligible
to raise an additional amount of Rs. 2,525 crore through Open Market
Borrowings. Earlier Andhra Pradesh had also completed PDS reforms to enable One
Nation One Ration Card System.
Ease of
Doing Business is an important indicator of an investment friendly business
climate in the country. Improvement in the ease of doing business will enable
faster future growth of the state economy. Therefore, in order to incentivize
implementation of district level and licensing reforms for ease of doing
business, an additional borrowing facility of 0.25 per cent of GSDP has been
allowed to States on the recommendation of the Department for Promotion of
Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT). The reform envisages undertaking all of
the following actions by the State Governments:
- The
State will complete the first assessment of ‘District Level Business
Reform Action Plan’ as intimated by DPIIT.
- The
State will eliminate the requirements of renewal of certificates/
approvals/ licences obtained by businesses for various activities from the
authorities at the State level as per list circulated by DPIIT. Collection
of reasonable fees with automatic non-discretionary deemed renewal will
also be permissible as reform if done in a transparent online,
non-discretionary & automatic manner.
- The
State will implement computerized central random inspection system under
the Acts as per list circulated by DPIIT wherein allocation of inspectors
is done centrally, the same inspector is not assigned to the same unit in
subsequent years, prior inspection notice is provided to the business
owner, and inspection report is uploaded within 48 hours of inspection.
In view
of the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic, the Central Government had in May, 2020
allowed additional borrowing limit of up to 2 percent of Gross State Domestic
Product (GSDP) to the States for the year 2020-21. This made an amount up to
Rs. 4,27,302 crore available to the States. One percent of this is subject
to implementation of following four specific State level reforms, where
weightage of each reform is 0.25 percent of GSDP: -
- Implementation
of One Nation One Ration Card System;
- Ease
of doing business reform;
- Urban
Local body/ utility reforms; and
- Power
Sector reforms
Courtesy: pib.gov.in
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