March 2019: Rajasthan Current Affairs Summary

Barmer Ranks top in Per Capita Income in State

• Once considered the ‘Kala Pani’ of Rajasthan, Barmer has ranked 1 in the highest per capita income in the state.
• The per capita income of Barmer district touched Rs 1.28 lakh (at constant prices), which is 36% higher than the national average of Rs 82,226 in 2016-17.
• Contribution to State GDP: Jaipur occupies first position, followed by Barmer and then Alwar. Barmer has replaced the industrialized Alwar to claim second position.

Reasons for Barmer’s rise:

• The rise of district’s income can be majorly attributed to the  discovery and production of crude oil.
• The share of industry sector in Barmer’s economy has shot up as high as 72.55% followed by the service and agriculture sectors contributing 19.33% and 8.12%, respectively.
• Cairn India is producing 24% of India’s crude from the district.
• The government which is receiving about Rs 10 crore as oil royalty daily has also started spending on social infrastructure.

Native Tree Species Bank

• India’s first seed bank of native trees species for Thar desert will be set up in Jodhpur under project Maruvan (dessert forest).
• The seed bank will be created of all these native trees species which are fast vanishing to preserve them for future. This will be done by procuring seeds with the help of tribal communities and villagers who have been protecting sacred grooves or mini forests where the last remnants of these tree species are still intact.
• The native tree species play a crucial role as front frontier in containing further expansion of desertification and the related damaging impact of climate impact in the Thar desert.
• The introduction and massive plantation of invasive species, Vilayati Keekar (Prosopis Juliflora), for firewood in 1970 has replaced native species and expanded like wildfire but now with people resorting to other fuel resources, this has become a menace. The project aims for revival of native species and preservation of healthy gene pool of seeds, the healthy forests can be recreated in the Thar desert.

Food Delivery Startup to promote Voting

• The district administration of Bhilwara has roped in online food delivery app Zomato to promote voting in the Lok Sabha polls scheduled in the.

EC Specifies colour code to identify vehicles

• In a bid to curb misuse of vehicles during the Lok Sabha elections, the Election Commission in a fresh directive stated that it would issue stickers of different colours for identification of the vehicles to be used by candidates, political parties and poll officers.
• The election department has allotted:
  • Red colour sticker for the star campaigners
  • Purple for the state leaders and political parties.
  • White for the vehicles that carry publicity material for the election.
  • Green for vehicles meant for the candidates and party workers.
  • Blue for the district-level election officials and on the day of election it would be yellow.
  • Brown for the vehicles to carry poll material.

The Vehicles will have stickers of above colour codes for easy identification.

The ECI’s latest data on political parties show that presently there are 2,293 political parties in the country.  They also include 7 “recognised national” and 59 “recognised state” parties.

Jaipur has highest number of registered unemployed

• The National Career Service (NCS) data of the ministry of labour and employment shows that Jaipur has the highest number of unemployed persons in the state, 58,893.
• With 3188, Jaisalmer has the lowest number of unemployed persons registered with the NCS.
• According to the data, the total number of registered job seekers in the state are 6.89 lakh (up to Feb, 2019) but there are only 27,535 job vacancies available which is just 3.99% of the total job seekers.
• The total number of voters in the age group 18-19 is 12.82 lakh in Rajasthan.
• Unemployed persons can go and register to seek job at National Career Service Portal: Click Here

Two Farmers from State awarded Padam Shri

• Hukumchand Patidar from Manpura, Jhalawar and Jagdish Chand Pareek from Ajitgarh, Sikar have been awarded with Padma Shri for using and promoting organic farming. Both these farmers never used a drop of chemical fertilizer and have now become examples for other farmers in the state.

Recruitment of Gram Rakshaks

• The State Government of Rajasthan is planning to recruit 40,000 youths as ‘gram rakshaks’ who will facilitate the villagers on the welfare schemes run by the state government for them.
• As per NEWS by TOI, The state government is planning to pay a remuneration of Rs 4,000 per month to those getting appointment as Gram Sewaks.
• The appointment of these gram rakshaks would be for two years.]

29 Lac applications for PM-Kisan Initiative

• 29 lakh farmers in Rajasthan have already applied for Union Govt.’s Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) scheme.
• PM-KISAN is an initiative by the government of India under which small and marginal farmers who have less than 2 hectares of landholding will get up to Rs 6,000 per year as minimum income support. The amount will be paid to each eligible farmer in three instalments (Rs. 2000 each) and will be deposited directly to their bank accounts.
• Additionally, over 21 lakh names have been already uploaded on the farm loan waiver portal, which was announced by the recently elected state government.