All that was discussed in the House through the day
Less wheat has been produced this year than the official estimate for 2021-22, Union Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Narendra Tomar told the Lok Sabha August 2, 2022.
The revision in the numbers is due to the impact of a heatwave in March 2022 in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, etc, he said.
The third advance estimate showed that 106.42 million tonnes of wheat were produced this year compared with 111.32 million tonnes calculated by the second advance estimate released in February 2022, the minister said.
The third advance estimate is still higher than the average production of the last five years, 2016-17 to 2020-21, at 103.88 million tonnes, Tomar said.
There is no food grains crisis in the country, Tomar told the Lok Sabha. In fact, foodgrain production has increased from 285.01 million tonnes in 2017-18 to 314.51 million tonnes in 2021-22, he said.
The production has sent an all-time record, the minister claimed, attributing it to concerted efforts of the central and state governments and farmers.
A panel of experts has been constituted to look into the recent safety-related incidents of electric vehicles, Union Minister of State for Heavy Industries Krishan Gurjar told the Lok Sabha.
The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways informed that the committee consists of independent experts from the government agency Defence Research and Development Organisation, Indian Institute of Science (IISC), Bengaluru and Naval Science and Technological Laboratory (NSTL), Visakhapatnam.
Over 14,000 dengue cases have been reported in the country through June 2022, Bharati Pawar, Union minister of state for Health and Family Welfare, told the Rajya Sabha.
Last year 13,580 cases were recorded in the same period, compared with 14,077 cases.
A total of 10 states have sanctioned projects under the Green Energy Corridor scheme, RK Singh, Minister Of New and Renewable Energy And Power, told Rajya Sabha.
Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh have taken up projects under the Intra-State Transmission System, Phases-I and II, Singh said.
The central government has commissioned 123.11 gigawatt of solar power capacity, Singh told Rajya Sabha. The government had a target to set up 100 GW of solar capacity by 2022.
Recent evidence shows that around 10-20 per cent of people who contracted COVID-19 experienced a variety of mid- and long-term effects, Pawar told the Rajya Sabha. Global estimates by the World Health Organization earlier showed that most people fully recover.
The condition of suffering from long-term effects is also called long-COVID. The minister said the disease is known to affect many organ systems in the body, with respiratory, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, renal and neurological complications.
There have been seven confirmed cases of monkeypox and one death due to the disease through August 1, 2022, Mansukh Mandaviya, minister Of Health And Family Welfare, told Rajya Sabha.
Kerala has four confirmed cases and three are from Delhi. The first monkeypox case was reported July 14, 2022 by an international traveller, Mandaviya said.
The Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare is implementing a central sector scheme for mechanising farm activities to manage crop residue in NCR states, Tomar informed the Lok Sabha.
The scheme was implemented in Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi from 2018-19. Farmers are given an assistance of 50 per cent of the cost of identified crop residue management machinery.
Cooperative societies of farmers, Farmers Producers Organization (FPOs), registered farmers societies and panchayats for the establishment of custom hiring centres get assistance of 80 per cent of machinery cost, the minister said.
Funds totalling Rs 2,440.07 crore have been released to these states from 2018-19 to 2021-22. More than 207,000 crop residue management machines have been supplied to the CHCs and individual farmers of these four States, Tomar added.
A total of 304 high-yielding varieties of pulses have been notified for commercial cultivation in the country from 2014 till now, Tomar told the Lok Sabha.
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