Revision Series | Economic Survey | Contemporary Affairs | 78

Answer: C

Answer: D

Answer: C

• The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Central Bank of the UAE agreed on July 15 to establish a framework for enabling the use of the two countries’ local currencies for cross-border transactions.
• The move towards permitting payments in the Indian rupee and the UAE dirham is aimed at promoting their use bilaterally, thus reducing the dependence on a third country’s currency such as the U.S. dollar as an intermediary for settling transactions.
• As per the memorandum of understanding between the two central banks, all current account payments, including those involving the two countries’ exporters and importers, and certain “permitted” capital account transactions could be settled using either the rupee or the dirham.

Answer: D

• The Trucial States, which became the United Arab Emirates in 1971, originally consisted of six sheikhdoms on the southern coast of the Persian Gulf: Abu Dhabi; Ajman; Dubai; Ras al-Khaima; Sharjah; and Umm al-Quwain.
• Given that the UAE’s predecessor entity, the Trucial States, used the Indian rupee and later the Gulf rupee as de facto currency until the mid 1960s, it may appear natural to reestablish currency ties.

Answer: C

• Aiming to construct 2.95 crore houses under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Gramin (PMAY-G) by March 2024, ahead of next year’s Lok Sabha elections, the Centre has withdrawn the allocation of 1.44 lakh houses from about two dozen states and Union Territories which failed to sanction the houses by June 30, and given these to Uttar Pradesh as additional allocation.
• The Ministry of Rural Development, which is in charge of the PMAY-G scheme, has conveyed this to the states and UTs where the allocation of houses under the rural housing scheme has been revised downwards.
• THE PMAY-G aims to provide pucca houses with a minimum area of 25 sq m in rural areas. Each beneficiary gets up to Rs 1.2 lakh in the plains, Rs 75,000- Rs 1.30 lakh in hilly states, “difficult” areas.
• The cost of unit assistance is to be shared between Central and State Government in the ratio 60:40 in plain areas and 90:10 for North Eastern and the Himalayan States.
• These states and UTs are: Gujarat, Tripura, Odisha, Sikkim, Meghalaya, Maharashtra, Assam, Nagaland, Mizoram, Tamil Nadu, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Arunachal Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Ladakh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Jharkhand, Punjab, Haryana, Uttarakhand and Andhra Pradesh.
• The Centre has set a target of constructing 2.95 crore houses by March 2024.
• Of the 2.95 crore houses, 2.04 crore were to be allocated to states based on the Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC) data, while the remaining 91 lakh houses were allocated based on a survey, Awas+, which was conducted between June 2018 and March 2019 across the country.

Answer: A

Answer: C

• According to World Bank’s Migration and Development Brief, the remittance inflows to India are expected to grow by only 0.2% in 2023.

Current Status of Remittances

• In 2022, the inward remittances rose by 24% to reach US$ 111 billion. Remittances were equivalent to ~3.3% of India’s GDP.
• ~36% of India’s remittances are from the high-skilled and largely high-tech Indian migrants in 3 high-income destinations: the US, the UK, and Singapore. Remittances from Gulf Cooperation Countries account for about 28% of India’s total remittance inflows.
• According to the World Bank, India has reduced the transaction cost of receiving remittances to 4.6%, compared to global average of 6.3% per transaction.

Answer: D

Answer: B

• Engineers India (EIL) is studying the prospects and feasibility of developing salt cavern-based strategic oil reserves in Rajasthan.

About India’s Strategic Petroleum Reserves (SPRs)

• India has an SPR capacity of 5.33 million tonnes, or ~39 million barrels of crude. This can meet around 9.5 days of demand.
• India’s strategic oil reserves come under the Ministry of Petroleum’s Special Purpose Vehicle Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserve (ISPRL).
• India 3 existing strategic oil storage facilities at Mangaluru and Padur in Karnataka, and Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh. These reserves are made up of excavated rock caverns.

Answer: D

• India’s insurance penetration (the ratio of premium payments to GDP) has risen from 2.7% in 2001-02 to 4.2% in 2021-22. The highest penetration (5.2%) was achieved in 2009-10.
• The global average is ~6.8%.
• Taiwan has highest penetration of ~15%.
• Non-life insurance policies are yet to surpass 1% of the total mark.

Answer: C

Evergreening of Loans

• Evergreening loans is a practice of extending new or additional loans to a borrower who is unable to repay the existing loans.
• Through evergreening, banks try to revive a loan that is on the verge of default (i.e., becoming an NPA) by granting further loans to the same borrower.
• It is a form of zombie lending. Zombie lending refers to the practice of providing credit to entities that do not have the capability to repay.
• Through evergreening, banks conceal the true status of the NPAs.
• Evergreening falls in the domain of misgovernance. Some banks have extended loans to wilful defaulters to keep them out of the defaulters’ books.

Answer: A

RBI’s Framework for Compromise Settlements and Technical Write-offs:

• According to the Framework, regulated entities are expected to put in place board-approved policies for making compromise settlements with debtors as well as for technical write-offs.
• Compromise settlement would mean a negotiated arrangement with the borrower to settle the claims of the lender (bank) in full, which may lead to sacrifice of some amount due from the borrower (e.g., Bank may agree to recover only 70% of the loan amount).
• The beneficiary borrowers will have to agree to a cooling off period, i.e., no fresh loan will be issued to the borrower for some period of time.
• Settlement for willful defaulters will require board approval in all cases.
• The compromise settlement does not absolve the willful defaulters.
• Banks can file cases against willful defaulters in their discretion.

Answer: C

• According to report ‘e-Conomy India 2023’ published by Google, Bain and Temasek, India’s internet economy will touch US$ 1 trillion by 2030 (US$ 175 billion in 2022) and contribute ~12% to the GDP.

Key Findings of ‘e-Conomy India 2023’ Report-

• The growth would be driven by more Indians starting to transact online and the overall expansion of digital businesses. The time spent by Indian users on ‘online’ activities has risen phenomenally.
• The key thrust would come from ‘Tier 2+ locations’, smaller towns and rural areas in terms of impact on the value of the Internet economy.
• Enablers like the Aadhaar, the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), and Digilocker have laid the foundations for the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), Open Credit Enablement Network (OCEN), Unified Health Interface and the rapid development of the India Stack, or rather stacks.
• Software as a service is expected to be a big export-growth area e.g., India is already looking to set up RuPay and UPI-style networks abroad. 6 nations are already using the India Stack, and many more have expressed their interest in it.

Answer: B

• First ever “Credit Guarantee Scheme” for Livestock Sector launched for rebooting rural economy by leveraging MSMEs.
• Department of Animal Husbandry & Dairying, Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying is implementing the Credit Guarantee Scheme under Animal Husbandry Infrastructure Development Fund (AHIDF) to strengthen credit delivery system and facilitate smooth flow of credit to the Micro, Small & Medium Enterprise (MSMEs) engaged in Livestock sector without hassles of collateral security.
• For operationalizing the scheme, DAHD has established a Credit Guarantee fund Trust of Rs. 750.00 crores, which will provide credit guarantee coverage up to 25% of the credit facilities extended to the MSMEs by the eligible lending institutions.

Answer: C