All that was discussed in the House through the day
Oil marketing companies had installed 418 electric vehicle charging stations and 41 battery swapping stations across India as of July 1, 2021 Rameswar Teli, Union minister of state in the ministry of petroleum and natural gas told the Lok Sabha July 26.
Authorised entities were required to install facilities for marketing at least one new generation alternate fuel including electric vehicle charging points at their proposed retail outlets within three years of operationalisation of the said outlet, Teli said.
This was in accordance with the ministry’s resolution dated November 8, 2019.
Migrant workers
The Union ministry of labour and employment, along with the National Informatics Centre (NIC), was in the process of developing a registration module for creating a comprehensive national database for unorganised workers, Teli told the Lok Sabha.
The database would include all unorganised workers such as construction workers, migrant workers, gig and platform workers, street vendors, domestic workers, agricultural workers and others, Teli said.
Sanitation in schools
Some 1,001,788 of 1,032,569 government schools in India had drinking water facilities, Dharmendra Pradhan, Union minister for education told the Lok Sabha. This was according to the Unified District Information System for Education, 2019-20, he said.
Some 9,63,636 government schools had toilets for boys while 9,88,293 government schools had toilets for girls, he added.
Pollution certificate
The Government of India had proposed to introduce “One Nation, One Pollution Under Control (PUC)" certificate for motor vehicles in the country, Nitin Jairam Gadkari, Union minister for road transport and Hhghways told the Rajya Sabha.
National Ganga Plan
Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Union minister of Jal Shakti denied that there was a consistent underutilisation of funds allocated to the National Ganga Plan (NGP) and Ghat Works under the Namami Gange Programme.
The Government of India had released Rs 4,631 crore under the NGP and Rs 231 crore under Ghat Works from 2015-16 to 2020-21, Shekhawat told the Rajya Sabha. Of this, Rs 4,609 crore and Rs 217 crore had been disbursed to the states / Union territories.
The overall funds released by the Government of India under Namami Gange were to the tune of Rs 10,792 crore. Of this, Rs 10,248 crore had been utilised.
Palaeochannel data
Information on the traces of palaeochannels found in parts of Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh had been generated as part of various studies carried out by the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB), Shekhawat told the Rajya Sabha.
The CGWB was implementing the National Aquifer Mapping and Management programme, which envisaged the mapping of aquifers (water bearing formations), their characterisation and development of aquifer management plans to facilitate sustainable management of ground water resources, he added.
Flood risks
Extreme floods were witnessed in Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Odisha, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan due to excess to large excess rainfall in these states, combined with extremely heavy rainfall in short duration in the last three years, Shekhawat told the Rajya Sabha.
This was in addition to the existing flood-prone states of Assam, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, he added.
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