Daily Quiz #26 UPSC Prelims Marathon – July 30, 2019

Explanation: The Scheme of Mega Food Park aims at providing a mechanism to link agricultural production to the market by bringing together farmers, processors and retailers so as to ensure maximizing value addition, minimizing wastage, increasing farmer’s income and creating employment opportunities particularly in rural sector. The Mega Food Park Scheme is based on “Cluster” approach and envisages creation of state of art support infrastructure in a well-defined agri / horticultural zone for setting up of modern food processing units in the industrial plots provided in the park with well-established supply chain. Mega food park typically consist of supply chain infrastructure including collection centers, primary processing centers, central processing centers, cold chain and around 25-30 fully developed plots for entrepreneurs to set up food processing units. The Mega Food Park project is implemented by a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) which is a Body Corporate registered under the Companies Act. State Government, State Government entities and Cooperatives are not required to form a separate SPV for implementation of Mega Food Park project. Subject to fulfillment of the conditions of the Scheme Guidelines, the funds are released to the SPVs.

Explanation: Announced on 8 April, 1948 this was not only the first industrial policy statement of India, but also decided the model of the economic system (i.e., the mixed economy), too. Thus, it was the first economic policy of the country. The major highlights of the policy are given below:
•India will be a mixed economy.
•Some of the important industries were put under the Central List such as coal, power, railways, civil aviation, arms and ammunition, defense, etc.
•Some other industries (usually of medium category) were put under a State List such as paper, medicines, textiles, cycles, rickshaws, two wheelers, etc.
•Rest of the industries (not covered by either the central or the state lists) were left open for private sector investment—with many of them having the provision of compulsory licensing.
•There was a 10 year period for review of the policy.

Explanation: In January 2005, the Government of India decided to constitute a ‘National Investment Fund’ (NIF) which has the following salient features:
•The proceeds from disinvestment will be channelized into the NIF, which is to be maintained outside the Consolidated Fund of India.
•The corpus of the National Investment Fund will be of a permanent nature.
•The Fund will be professionally managed, to provide sustainable returns without depleting the corpus, by selected Public Sector Mutual Funds (they are, UTI Asset Management Company Ltd.; SBI Funds Management Company Pvt. Ltd.; LIC Mutual Fund Asset Management Company Ltd.).
•75 per cent of the annual income of the Fund will be used to finance selected social sector schemes, which promote education, health and employment. The residual 25 per cent of the annual income of the Fund will be used to meet the capital investment requirements of profitable and revivable PSUs that yield adequate returns, in order to enlarge their capital base to finance expansion/diversification.
•The income from the NIF investments was utilised on selected social sector schemes, namely the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), Accelerated Irrigation Benefits Programme (AIBP), Rajiv Gandhi Gramin Vidyutikaran Yojana (RGGVY), Accelerated Power Development and Reform Programme, Indira Awas Yojana and National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS).

Explanation: The organised form of money market in India is just close to three decades old. However, its presence has been there, but restricted to the government only. It was the Chakravarthy Committee (1985) which, for the first time, underlined the need of an organised money market in the country and the Vahul Committee (1987) laid the blue print for its development.

Explanation: After successful experimentation in the partial nationalisations the government decided to go for complete nationalisation. With the help of the Banking Nationalisation Act, 1969, the government nationalised a total number of 20 private banks:
•14 banks with deposits were more than Rs. 50 crore of nationalised in July 1969, and
• 6 banks with deposits were more than Rs. 200 crore of nationalised in April 1980.
•After the merger of the loss-making New Bank of India with the Punjab National Bank (PNB) in September 1993, the total number of nationalized banks came down to 19. Today, there are 27 public sector banks in India out of which 19 are nationalised (though none of the so-called nationalised banks have 100 per cent ownership of the Government of India).