Ashwini Bhide, additional municipal commissioner, MCGM
Mumbai needs to convert its need-based policy to land-based policy and plan properly to handle crisis situations in future, believes Ashwini Bhide, additional municipal commissioner, Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM), who was part of Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray’s task-force on Covid-19 response.
“Mumbai needs to address basic issues of sanitation, access, and proper planning within these settlements and ensure that its transportation systems work efficiently,” she said.
Bhide was speaking at a panel discussion, ‘Towards Resilient Cities: Lessons from the Pandemic, as part of Colaba Conversation 2021’, held by Observer Research Foundation in partnership with the Government of Maharashtra on February 2-3.
1. Health and Wellbeing
There is substantial increase in investment in Health Infrastructure and the Budget outlay for Health and Wellbeing is Rs 2,23,846 crore in BE 2021-22 as against this year’s BE of Rs 94,452 crore, an increase of 137 percentage.
The Finance Minister announced that a new centrally sponsored scheme, PM AatmaNirbhar Swasth Bharat Yojana, will be launched with an outlay of about Rs 64, 180 crore over 6 years. This will develop capacities of primary, secondary, and tertiary care Health Systems, strengthen existing national institutions, and create new institutions, to cater to detection and cure of new and emerging diseases. This will be in addition to the National Health Mission. The main interventions under the scheme are:
Return path committed to fiscal consolidation without compromising on investment
GN Bureau | February 1, 2021
With the clear intent of achieving fiscal targets and affirming the government’s commitment towards prudent fiscal management and boosting investments, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman proposed several measures in the Union Budget 2020-21 in Parliament on Monday.
The finance minister identified the fiscal deficit for FY 2019-20 at 3.8%(RE) and pegged it at 3.5% (BE) for FY 2020-21 which is consistent with government’s abiding commitment to macroeconomic stability as part of Medium Term Fiscal Policy cum Strategy Statement 2020-21. She said, “Section 4(2) of the FRBM Act provides for a trigger mechanism for a deviation from the estimated fiscal deficit on account of structural reforms in the economy with unanticipated fiscal implications. Therefore, I have taken a deviation of 0.5%, consistent with Section 4(3) of FRBM Act, both for RE 2019-20 and BE 2020-21.”
“New generation not being taught to be responsible journalists”
Nilesh Khare, Business Head and Editor-in Chief, Zee 24 Taas, in conversation with Kailashnath Adhikari, MD, Governance Now
GN Bureau | February 1, 2021
The new generation entering the field of Journalism is not being taught to be responsible journalists and also denied the opportunity to present their point of view which is detrimental to their growth in the profession, says Nilesh Khare, Business Head and Editor-in Chief, Zee 24 Taas.
Speaking to Kailashnath Adhikari, MD, Governance Now, in an episode of ‘Masterminds: Masterclass on Journalism’ held by the public policy and governance analysis platform last week, Khare said, “We are not teaching new generation entering the field of journalism to have social and civic responsibility and only teaching them how to sell news. This is emerging to be a huge problem.”
Covid impact: weak revenue flow, high expenditure on essential relief
Union Budget: Fiscal deficit pegged at 9.5% of GDP in re 2020-21, Amendment to the FRBM Act; target to reach fiscal deficit level below 4.5% by 2025-26
GN Bureau | February 1, 2021
In the budget speech on Monday, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman drew the attention of the Parliament on the fact that the pandemic’s impact on the economy has resulted in a weak revenue inflow. This was combined with high expenditure to provide essential relief to vulnerable sections of the society especially the poor, women, SCs and STs.
Revised Estimates (RE) 2020-21
“We opted for a series of medium-sized packages during the pandemic so that we could calibrate and target our response according to an evolving situation. Once the health situation stabilised, and the lockdown was being slowly lifted, we switched to ramping up Government spending so as to revive domestic demand,” Sitharaman said. As a result, against an ori