Centre nods for mobility, skilling, Digital India push

New Delhi The Union Cabinet on Wednesday cleared schemes aimed at overhauling urban transport and mobility with a focus on smaller towns, expanding its flagship Digital India initiative, and imparting skill training to artisans and craftspeople in push to augment infrastructure and employment.

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The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs also approved seven Railways projects to increase the existing line capacity, smoothen train operations, reduce congestion, and facilitate ease of travel and transportation.

Union information and broadcasting minister Anurag Thakur said that under the PM-eBus Sewa, 10,000 e-buses will be deployed on a private-public partnership model in 169 cities, and infrastructure will be upgraded in 181 cities under the Green Urban Mobility Initiatives. The total cost of the scheme will be ₹57,613 crore, he added, and around 45,000 jobs will generated.

“Of the total ₹20,000 crore to be given by the government of India, ₹15,930 crore will be given for buses, ₹2,264 crore for infrastructure development and in providing back-end facilities, besides ₹1,506 crore for green urban mobility,” he said.

Union telecom and information technology minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said the Cabinet approved the PM Vishwakarma scheme that will support artisans with a financial outlay of ₹13,000 crore over five years. The approval came a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a scheme to help workers with traditional skills, especially those from the other backward classes, during his Independence Day speech.

“Vishwakarma Yojana is expected to benefit 30 lakh craftsmen families. The ₹13,000 crore scheme will enable craftsmen to get subsidised loans up to ₹2 lakh. The government will promote traditional skills including pottery, blacksmithing, construction, tailoring, and boat-building which have been transferred through the previous generations,” Vaishnaw said.

“There are many such things under this which have high value for our rural and traditional economy and to push such things to new levels, the PM has approved the scheme,” he added.

The minister said that the scheme will have two kinds of skill programmes, and a stipend of ₹500 will be given to beneficiaries, in addition to a sum of ₹15,000 for buying modern tools. “Loans up to ₹1 lakh will be given to the beneficiaries of the Vishwakarma scheme and only 5% interest will be levied on this scheme,’’ said Vaishnaw.

Under the scheme, the government aims to support three million families but would need active cooperation from state governments. Eighteen traditional trades will be covered, including carpenter, boat maker, armourer, blacksmith, hammer and tool kit maker, locksmith, goldsmith, potter, sculptor, among others.

The minister also said that the cabinet cleared the expansion of the flagship Digital India programme with an outlay of ₹14,903 crores. This will result in the re-skilling of 625,000 IT professionals and another 265,000 people will be trained in information security, he added.

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Launched by Modi in 2015, Digital India is a flagship programme of the Union government that aims to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy.

Vaishnaw stressed that cyber security will get special attention under the Digital India extension, including cyber awareness courses for 12 million college students, and development of new tools and integration of 200 sites with the National Cyber Coordination Centre.

He also referred to “Bhashini”, the artificial intelligence-enabled multi-language translation tool that is currently available in 10 language, and said it would be rolled out in all 22 languages soon. Under the extension, nine more supercomputers will be added under National Super Computer Mission, 1,200 startups will be supported in tier 2/3 cities, and three Centres of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence on health, agriculture and sustainable cities will be set up.

The Cabinet also approved seven multi-tracking railway projects totaling 2,339km at a cost of ₹32,500 crore. The projects, with 100% funding from the government, will generate direct employment for about 70.6 million man-days during construction, an official statement added.

“The proposals of multi-tracking will ease operations and reduce congestion, providing the much required infrastructural development on the busiest sections across Indian Railways,” Vaishnaw said.

He said that these projects — doubling of the existing line between Gorakhpur Cantt-Valmiki Nagar, doubling of the existing line between Guntur-Bibinagar, doubling of the existing line between Chopan and Chunar, the Son Nagar-Andal multi-tracking project, a third line between Nergundi and Barang and Khurda Road and Vizianagaram, and between Mudkhed and Medchal and Mahbubnagar and Dhone, and the quadrupling of the line between Samakhiali and Gandhidham — will cover 35 districts in nine states, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Odisha, Jharkhand and West Bengal.

Vaishnaw said that each of these projects would significantly reduce passenger travel time.

The Railways ministry in a statement also highlighted the importance of these routes for transportation of varied basket of commodities such as foodgrains, fertilisers, coal, cement, fly ash, iron finished steel, clinkers, crude oil, limestone and edible oil.

‘This capacity augmentation works will result in additional freight traffic of magnitude 200 MTPA (million tonnes per annum). The Railways being an environment friendly and energy efficient mode of transportation, will help both in achieving climate goals and for reducing logistics cost of the country,” the statement read.

The projects are the result of the PM-Gati Shakti National Master plan for multi-model connectivity which is aimed at providing seamless connectivity for the movement of people, goods and services, the government said.

The PM-eBus Sewa scheme will support bus operations for a decade, and the central government will provide support of ₹20,000 crore. A government statement said the scheme will cover cities with population of 300,000 and above, including the capitals of Union territories, the northeastern region and hill states. “Under this scheme priority will be given to cities having no organised bus service,” the statement said.

The government said the scheme will generate 45,000 to 55,000 direct jobs. It will augment bus services in 169 cities, with associated infrastructure to support development or upgradation of depot infrastructure, and creation of behind-the-meter power infrastructure for e-buses.

The second segment of the scheme will focus on green urban mobility initiatives in 181 cities. “The scheme envisages green initiatives like bus priority, infrastructure, multimodal interchange facilities…automated fare collection systems, charging infrastructure, etc,” the statement said.

Read here: Centre announces 10K e-buses, subsidised loans for craftsmen| Top points

“Under the scheme, states/cities shall be responsible for running the bus services and making payments to the bus operators. The central government will support these bus operations by providing subsidy to the extent specified in the proposed scheme,” it added.

The support to bus priority infrastructure shall not only accelerate the proliferation of state-of-the-art, energy efficient electric buses but also foster the innovation in the e-mobility sector as well as development of resilient supply chain for electric vehicles, the government said. “Adoption to electric mobility will reduce noise and air pollution and curb carbon emission,” it added.