Current Affairs 23rd September 2017

Current Affairs 23rd September 2017 - Important Points

• New PPP Policy for Affordable Housing announced by - Union Government
• India to collaborate with Russia for Bangladesh nuclear power plant on - 20th September 2017

Current Affairs 23rd September 2017 - Details

New PPP Policy for Affordable Housing announced by - Union Government

The Union Minister of Housing & Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri announced a new PPP Policy for Affordable Housing that allows extending central assistance of up to Rs 2 lakh and 50 thousand
for each house to be built by private builders even on private lands on 21st September 2017.

The policy seeks to assign risks among the government, developers and financial institutions and to those who can manage them the best other than leveraging un-utilized and underutilized private and public lands towards meeting the Housing for All target by 2022.

The two PPP models for private investments in affordable housing on private lands include:
• Central assistance of about Rs 2.50 lakh per house as interest subsidy on bank loans as upfront payment under the Credit Linked Subsidy Component (CLSS) component of Pradhan Mantri Awas yojana (Urban).
• Central assistance of Rs 1.50 lakh per each house to be built on private lands would be provided in case the beneficiaries do not intend to take bank loans.

This new policy gives eight PPP (Public Private Partnership) options for private sector to invest in affordable housing segment. Among these, six options which call for using government lands are as follows:

• DBT Model: Under this model, private builders can design, build and transfer houses built on government lands to public authorities.
  Government land will be allocated based on the lowest cost of construction.
• Mixed Development Cross –subsidized Housing: Government land will be allotted based on number of affordable houses to be built on the plot which is offered to private builders.
  Annuity Based Subsidized Housing: Builders will be investing against deferred annuity payments by the Government and land allocation to builders will be based on unit cost of construction.
• Annuity-cum-Capital Grant Based Affordable Housing: Builders will be paid a share of project cost as an upfront payment.
• Direct Relationship Ownership Housing: Under this plan, promoters will be directly dealing with buyers and recover costs.
  Allocation of public land will be based on unit cost of construction.
  Direct Relationship Rental Housing: Cost recovery by builders is through rental incomes from the houses built on government lands. Under these six PPP models, beneficiaries will be availing central assistance of Rs 1.00 to Rs 2.50 lakh per house as provisioned under different components of Pradhan Mantri Awas yojana (Urban).

India to collaborate with Russia for Bangladesh nuclear power plant on - 20th September 2017

India announced a collaboration with Russia to build a nuclear plant in Bangladesh on 20th September 2017. It is the first initiative under the Indo-Russia deal to undertake atomic energy projects in the third-world nations. It will also be India's first atomic energy venture which is outside India.

The Atomic Energy Commission chairman Sekhar Basu shared this information at the 61st general conference of the global nuclear watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)."We are collaborating with our Russian and Bangladeshi partners to establish Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant in Bangladesh," he said.

Important Highlights

• The Roppur project, about to be built near Dhaka, will be Bangladesh's first atomic energy project.
  After the commissioning of two units, each has a capacity of 1200 MWs, Bangladesh will be the third South Asian country after Pakistan and India to harness energy from atomic fission.
• In India, the government has approved construction of 10 new indigenously built nuclear power projects.
• With this, the total number of reactors would rise up to 21 under construction and 22 in operation, which in turn will be increasing the country’s atomic energy capacity to over 22,000 MW by the end of next decade.
• The Atomic Energy department is also stepping up mining operations and exploration for uranium production in India to cater to the needs of the country's expanding nuclear power program.