Daily Current Affairs

First Ever Census on Water Bodies in India (GS Paper 3, Economy)

Why in news?

• Recently, the Ministry of Jal Shakti has conducted the first-ever census of water bodies across the nation.
• The census provides a comprehensive inventory of India's water resources, including natural and man-made water bodies like ponds, tanks, lakes, and more, and to collect data on the encroachment of water bodies.

 

Coverage:

• The census was launched under the centrally sponsored scheme, “Irrigation Census” in convergence with the 6th Minor Irrigation Census in order to have a comprehensive national database of all water bodies.
• The information on all important aspects of the water bodies including their type, condition, status of encroachments, use, storage capacity, status of filling up of storage, etc was collected.
• It covered all the water bodies located in rural as well as urban areas that are in-use or not in-use.
• The census also took into account all type of uses of water bodies like irrigation, industry, pisciculture, domestic/ drinking, recreation, religious, ground water recharge etc. Census has been successfully completed and the All India and State-wise reports have been published.

 

The key features/findings of the Census are as follows:

• 24,24,540 water bodies have been enumerated in the country, out of which 97.1% (23,55,055) are in rural areas and only 2.9% (69,485) are in urban areas.
• Top 5 States in terms of number of water bodies are West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Assam which constitute around 63% of the total water bodies in the country.
• Top 5 States in terms of number of water bodies in urban areas are West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh and Tripura, whereas in rural areas, top 05 States are West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Assam.
• 59.5% of water bodies are ponds, followed by tanks (15.7%), reservoirs (12.1%), Water conservation schemes/percolation tanks/check dams (9.3%), lakes (0.9%) and others (2.5%).
• 55.2% of water bodies are owned by private entities whereas 44.8% of water bodies are in the domain of public ownership.
• Out of all public owned water bodies, maximum water bodies are owned by Panchayats, followed by State Irrigation/State WRD.
• Out of all private owned water bodies, maximum water bodies are in hands of Individual owner/farmer followed by group of individuals and other private bodies.
• Top 05 States which lead in the private owned water bodies are West Bengal, Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Jharkhand.
• Out of all 'in use' water bodies, major water bodies are reported to be used in pisciculture followed by Irrigation.
• Top 05 States wherein major use of water bodies is in pisciculture are West Bengal, Assam, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh;
• Top 05 States wherein major use of water bodies is in irrigation are Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, West Bengal and Gujarat.
• 78% water bodies are man-made water bodies whereas 22% are natural water bodies. 1.6% (38,496) water bodies out of all the enumerated water bodies are reported to be encroached out of which 95.4% are in rural areas and remaining 4.6% in urban areas.
• The information on water spread area was reported in respect of 23,37,638 water bodies. Out of these water bodies, 72.4% have water spread area less than 0.5 hectare, 13.4% have water spread area between 0.5-1 hectare, 11.1% have water spread area between 1-5 hectares and remaining 3.1% of water bodies have water spread area more than 5 hectares.

 

Conservations efforts:

• Ministry of Jal Shakti is the nodal ministry responsible for laying down policy guidelines and programmes for the development, conservation and management of water as a national resource.
• The Ministry has multidimensional approach towards water sector, on one hand it is spearheading the ambitious programmes  on providing safe and adequate drinking water to every household in the country, eliminating open defecation in rural areas, rejuvenation of river Ganga and its tributaries, improving the safety and operational performance of existing dams, etc and on the other hand, it is involved in assessment, development and regulation of the country’s water resources through technical guidance, scrutiny, clearance and monitoring.

 

India jumps 6 places on World Bank's Logistic Performance Index, ranks 38

(GS Paper 3, Economy)

Why in news?

• India has climbed six places on the World Bank's Logistic Performance Index (LPI) 2023, now ranking 38th in the 139 countries index, as a result of significant investments in both soft and hard infrastructure as well as technology.
• India's performance has drastically improved from 2014, when it was ranked 54th on the LPI.

Policy framework for logistics:

• The government had announced PM Gati Shakti initiative, a National Master Plan for multimodal connectivity, in October 2021 to reduce logistics cost and boost the economy by 2024-25.
• In 2022, the Prime Minister had launched the National Logistics Policy (NLP) to ensure quick last-mile delivery, end transport-related challenges, save time and money of the manufacturing sector and ensure desired speed in the logistics sector.
• These policy interventions are fructifying, which can be seen in India's jump in LPI and its other parameters.

 

India’s journey:

• India's rank moved up five places in infrastructure score from 52nd in 2018 to 47th in 2023. It climbed to 22nd spot for international shipments in 2023 from 44th in 2018 and moved four places up to 48th in logistics competence and equality.
• In timelines, India witnessed a 17-place jump in rankings, whereas it moved up three places in rank in tracking and tracing to 38th.
• The report quotes modernisation and digitalisation as a reason for emerging economies, like India, to leapfrog advanced countries.

 

Role of technology:

• Technology has been a critical component of this effort, with implementation under a public-private partnership of a supply chain visibility platform, which contributed to remarkable reductions of delays.
• NICDC Logistics Data Services Limited applies radio frequency identification tags to containers and offers consignees end-to-end tracking of their supply chain.

 

Dwell time:

• Dwell time is how long a vessel spends at a specific port or terminal. It may also refer to the amount of time that a container or cargo spends at a port or terminal before being loaded onto a vessel or after being unloaded from a vessel. Shipping container vessels operate on schedules and delays in any particular port are felt across the service.
• The shorter the dwell time, the lower the vessel and marine-terminal operating costs.
• The average dwell time for containers between May and October 2022 was three days for India and Singapore, much better than some of the industrialised countries.
• The dwell time for the US was seven days and for Germany it was 10 days. India's very low dwell time (2.6 days) is one example.
• With the introduction of cargo tracking, dwell time in the eastern port of Visakhapatnam fell from 32.4 days in 2015 to 5.3 days in 2019.

 

Logistic Performance Index:

• Logistics Performance Index report is a bi-annual report released by the World Bank Group.
• The LPI covers 139 countries, measures the ease of establishing reliable supply chain connections and the structural factors that make it possible.
• The LPI analyses countries across six components viz.

1. Quality of trade and transport infrastructure
2. Competence and quality of logistics services
3. Efficiency of customs and border management clearance
4. Ease of arranging competitively priced shipments
5. Ability to track and trace consignments and
6. Frequency with which shipments reach consignees within scheduled or expected delivery times.

 

The EU’s new crypto-legislation

(GS Paper 3, Science and Tech)

Why in news?

• Recently, the European Parliament has approved the world’s first set of comprehensive rules to bring largely unregulated cryptocurrency markets under the ambit of regulation by government authorities.
• The regulation, called the Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA), will come into force after formal approval by member states.

 

Why regulation?

• Having a comprehensive framework like MiCA for 27 countries in Europe not only harmonises the crypto industry but also gives the EU a competitive edge in its growth compared to the U.S. or the U.K. which lack regulatory clarity.
• 2022 saw some of the biggest failures and wipeouts in the crypto industry involving bankruptcies and fraud scandals, be it the collapse of the crypto exchange FTX and its spat with Binance or the failure of Terra LUNA cryptocurrency and its associated stablecoin.
• The liquidity shortage caused by these shocks led other crypto lending platforms to halt customer transfers and withdrawals before filing for bankruptcy.

 

What kind of assets will MiCA cover?

• The MiCA legislation will apply to ‘cryptoassets’, which are broadly defined in the text as “a digital representation of a value or a right that uses cryptography for security and is in the form of a coin or a token or any other digital medium which may be transferred and stored electronically, using distributed ledger technology or similar technology”. This definition implies that it will apply not only to traditional cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum but also to newer ones like stablecoins.
• As for the assets that will be out of MiCA’s scope, it will not regulate digital assets that would qualify as transferable securities and function like shares or their equivalent and other cryptoassets that already qualify as financial instruments under existing regulation.
• It will also for the most part, exclude nonfungible tokens (NFTs).
• MiCA will also not regulate central bank digital currencies issued by the European Central Bank and digital assets issued by national central banks of EU member countries when acting in their capacity as monetary authorities, along with cryptoassets-related services offered by them.

 

What are the new rules?

• MiCA will impose compliance on the issuers of cryptoassets, who are defined as the “legal person who offers to the public any type of cryptoassets”.
• It will apply to cryptoasset service providers (CASPs) providing one or more of these services, the operation of a trading platform like CoinBase, custody and administration of crypto-assets on behalf of third parties (customers), the exchange of crypto-assets for funds/other crypto-assets, the execution of orders for crypto-assets, the placing of crypto-assets, providing transfer services for crypto -assets to third parties, providing advice on cryptoassets and crypto-portfolio management.
• The regulation prescribes different sets of requirements for CASPs depending on the type of cryptoassets.
• The base regime will require every CASP to get incorporated as a legal entity in the EU. They can get authorised in any one member country and will be allowed to conduct their services across the 27 countries.
• They will then be supervised by regulators like the European Banking Authority and the European Securities and Markets Authority, who will ensure that the companies have the required risk management and corporate governance practices in place.

 

Regulation:

• Besides authorisation, service providers of stablecoins also have to furnish key information in the form of a white paper mentioning the details of the crypto product and the main participants in the company, the terms of the offer to the public, the type of blockchain verification mechanism they use, the rights attached to the cryptoassets in question, the key risks involved for the investors and a summary to help potential purchasers make an informed decision regarding their investment.
• Another legislation passed with MiCA requires crypto companies to send information of senders and recipients of crypto assets to their local anti-money laundering authority, to prevent laundering and terror financing activities.

 

How is crypto regulated in India?

• India is yet to have a comprehensive regulatory framework for cryptoassets. A draft legislation on the same is reportedly in the works.
• A full-fledged regulation aside, the Indian government has taken certain steps to bring cryptocurrencies under the ambit of specific authorities and taxation.
• In the Union Budget for 2022, the Finance Ministry said that cryptocurrency trading in India has seen a “phenomenal increase” and imposed a 30% tax on income from the “transfer of any virtual digital asset.”
• In March 2023, the government placed all transactions involving virtual digital assets under the purview of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).