Urban unemployment rate drops to 6.6 percentage in Q1 (GS paper 3, Economy)
Why in news?
- The Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), carried out by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), has reported that unemployment rate in urban areas of the country has shown a decrease during the period April-June 2023.
- Similarly, the labour force participation rate (LFPR) for persons aged 15 and above and the worker-population ratio (WPR) have also improved during the period.
Key Highlights:
- The LFPR in urban areas increased from 47.5% in April-June 2022 to 48.8% in April-June 2023. While it hovered around 73.5% for men during this period, for women, the LFPR increased from 20.9% to 23.2% during this period.
- The WPR in urban areas increased from 43.9% in April-June 2022 to 45.5% for persons aged 15 and above. For men, it increased from 68.3% to 69.2% and for women, it increased from 18.9% to 21.1% during this period.
Decreasing trend:
- The PLFS claimed a decreasing trend in unemployment rate (UR) for persons aged 15 and above.
- UR in urban areas decreased from 7.6% in April-June 2022 to 6.6% in April-June 2023 for persons of age 15 years and above.
- For men, it decreased from 7.1% to 5.9% during this period and for women, it decreased from 9.5% to 9.1%.
Key indicators:
- The Centre also claimed improvement in key labour market indicators in urban areas compared with those in pre-pandemic period (April-June 2018 to October–December 2019).
- The LFPR ranged from 46.2% to 47.8% during the pre-pandemic period and in the latest report it was 48.8%.
- The WPR was between 41.8% and 44.1% before the pandemic and now it is 45.5%.
- The unemployment rate ranged between 7.8% and 9.7% during the pre-pandemic period and at the latest survey it was 6.6%, which is lower than the unemployment rates observed in the quarters covered in the pre-pandemic period.
ICMR to conduct study to develop solutions to remedy childhood undernutrition
(GS paper 2, Health)
Why in news?
- The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) is constituting a team to start a multi-centre research study to assess the effects of providing appropriate take home foods in combination with behaviour change intervention to ensure good complementary feeding practice that is nutritionally optimum to meet young children’s nutrient needs.
Complementary feeding:
- Time between six and 24 months is a critical age-window that influences subsequent growth trajectory and heightens the risk of wasting, stunting and undernutrition if the diet and care environment of children is not optimal. The period, typically, determines a child’s growth, development, and future potential.
- Complementary feeding is defined as the process starting when breast milk alone is no longer sufficient to meet infants’ nutritional requirements, resulting in the need for other foods and liquids along with breast milk.
Challenges:
- Listing out the challenges in complementary feeding, the ICMR maintained that there are often suboptimal practices, including inadequate quality or quantity of foods, poor feeding practices, complementary feeding being initiated too early or too late, or being provided in quantities that are too small or infrequent.
- The ‘Take Home Ration (THR)’ programme aims to play a critical role in improving the nutritional intake of children.
- However, continued poor complementary feeding practices suggest that there is a need to re-look at the programme and make strategic adaptations to increase its impact and reach through improving quality and nutritional content of THR.
Way Forward:
- It suggested that apart from providing the right food, ensuring that an infant or a young child is actually eating it is equally critical.
- As part of the project, the selected researchers will be invited to join the research team. They will collaborate to develop a full research proposal and roll out the multi-centre research project which will be coordinated by ICMR.
Status Holder certificates under Foreign Trade Policy 2023
(GS paper 3, Economy)
Why in news?
- Recently, the Union Minister of Commerce & Industry, unveiled a significant initiative to issue system based automatic ‘Status Holder’ certificates under the Foreign Trade Policy (FTP) 2023.
Details:
- Now the exporter will not be required to apply to the office of Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) for a Status Certificate and the export recognition will be provided by the IT system based on available Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics (DGCIS) merchandise export electronic data and other risk parameters.
- This perspective is a paradigm shift in doing things as it not only reduces compliance burden and promotes ease of doing business but also recognizes the need and importance of collaboration within the Government.
- At present, the exporter is required to file an online application along with an export certificate from a Chartered Accountant for grant of Status.
- The DGFT Regional Offices are supposed to issue the certificate in 3 days. The new arrangement will lead to a simplified regime where no applications are invited from exporters and the certification is granted every year in August based on annual export figures available with the partner government agency i.e. DGCIS.
- Exporters who are eligible for a higher status based on additional export data relating to services export, deemed exports or double weightage to some entities like MSME etc., which is not getting captured in disaggregated form presently, can apply online for a Status modification also at a later date.
Status Holder certification program:
- The Status Holder certification program provides credibility to the Indian exporters in the international markets.
- In addition, it provides certain other privileges including simplified procedures under FTP 2023 and priority custom clearances on self-declaration basis, exemption from compulsory negotiation of documents through banks, exemption from filing Bank Guarantee for FTP schemes etc.
Significance:
- With the launch of this new system, the Department of Commerce, Ministry of Commerce and Industry will be recognizing about 20,000 exporters under FTP 2023 as Status Holders which will be a quantum jump from the earlier number of 12,518 exporters.
- The biggest increase in Status certification is seen in the 1 Star category, which is the lowest category and requires an export performance of at least US$ 3 Million in the last 3 preceding financial years plus the 3 months of the current financial year.
Way Forward:
- This will enable the Government to hand hold a larger number of small exporting entities and create a vibrant export ecosystem and help reach our export target of US$ 2 Trillion by 2030.
