CURRENT AFFAIRS: DAYS
World Youth Skills Day
- The United Nations, at its General Assembly in November 2014, declared15 July as World Youth Skills Day. World Skills is proud to be part of a global recognition and promotion of skills.
- This year’s theme is Skills for a Resilient Youth in the Era of COVID-19 and Beyond.
CURRENT AFFAIRS: NATIONAL
Govt approves Rs 107 cr for fire-fighting facilities at Haldia Dock
- The government has approved Rs 107 crore for modern fire-fighting facilities at Haldia Dock Complex of Kolkata Port to ensure safe cargo operations, especially petro-chemical goods.
- Kolkata Port is one of the top 12 major ports in the country.
- It was approved by Union Minister of State (I/C) for Shipping Shri Mansukh Mandaviya.
- The modern fire-fighting facility will enable Haldia Dock Complex in safe handling of the movement of petro-chemical products.
- The existing fire-fighting facility does not support the handling the LPG and other petroleum products as per the guideline of Oil Industry Safety Directorate (OISD) of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.
About Ministry of Shipping
- Union Minister of State for Shipping and Union Minister of State for Chemical and Fertilizers: Mansukh Laxmanbhai Mandaviya
- Constituency: Gujarat
Indian Railways on mission mode of becoming ‘Green Railway’ by 2030
- The Ministry of Railways is on a mission mode with the goal of transforming Indian Railways into Green Railways by 2030 and has taken a number of major initiatives towards mitigation of global warming and combating climate change.
- Railway Electrification, improving the energy efficiency of locomotives and trains and fixed installations, green certification for installations/stations, fitting bio-toilets in coaches and switching to renewable sources of energy are parts of its strategy of achieving net-zero carbon emission.
- Indian Railways has completed electrification of more than 40,000 Route km (RKM) (63 per cent of Broad Gauge routes) in which 18,605 km electrification work has been done during 2014-20. Previously, only 3,835 km electrification work was completed during the period 2009-14. Indian Railways has fixed a target of electrification of 7000 RKM for the year 2020-21.
- All routes on Broad Gauge (BG) network have been planned to be electrified by December
- Indian Railways has also taken a number of initiatives to promote solar energy. Indian Railways is working to harness the potential of 500 Mega Watt (MW) energy through rooftop Solar panels (Developer model). Already awarded for 245 MW and target for completion of these plants is December 2022.
- One project of 7 MW at Bina (Madhya Pradesh) in collaboration with Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) has already been installed and is presently under extensive testing. This is First of its kind of solar project in the world.
- In the wind energy sector, 103 MW wind-based power plants have already been Among them, 26 MW is in Rajasthan (Jaisalmer), 21 MW is in Tamil Nadu and 56.4 MW is in Maharashtra (Sangli). Indian Railways has also planned to set up 200 MW wind energy plants in next 2 years in Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Karnataka.
- In the field of Green Initiatives, a total of 69,000 coaches have been fitted with more than 2,44,000 bio-toilets in Indian Railways.
About Ministry of Railways
- Piyush Goyal (Minister), Suresh Angadi (Minister of State)
- Constituency: Maharashtra
