Cabinet Approvals on June 8, 2022

On June 8, 2022 the Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi approved the following proposals:

i.Transfer of 10 In-orbit Communication Satellites from Government of India to NSIL

ii.Increases MSP for Kharif Crops for Marketing Season 2022-23

Cabinet approves Transfer of 10 In-orbit Communication Satellites from Government of India to NSIL

The Union Cabinet has approved the transfer of 10 in-orbit communication satellites from Government of India (Gol) to NewSpace India Ltd. (NSIL), a wholly owned Public Sector Enterprise (PSE) of GOI under the administrative control of the Department of Space.

• It also approved increasing the authorized share capital of NSIL from Rs 1000 crore to Rs 7500 crore.
• This approval envisages boosting domestic economic activity in space sector and increasing India’s share in the global space market.

Key Points:

i.The Space Sector reforms mandated NSIL to undertake end-to-end commercial space activities and function as a full-fledged satellite operator.

ii.NSIL, as a single-window operator will also facilitate the ease of doing business in space sector.

iii.NSIL Board is also empowered to price the transponders as per the global trends in the Satellite Communication sector.

iv.Founded in 2019, it commercially exploits the research and development work of the space agency, co-produce Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) and launch satellites through Small Satellite Launch Vehicles (SSLVs).

• It has already launched 46 international customer satellites under commercial arrangements and has also signed four dedicated launch service arrangements for international satellite customers in 2022.
• Apart from this, it is also working on commercialising High Throughput Satellite (HTS) capacity on satellites including GSAT-11 (Geosynchronous Satellites), GSAT-19 and GSAT-29.

About New Space India Ltd (NSIL):

It is the commercial arm of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

Chairman & Managing Director– Radhakrishnan Durairaj

Headquarters– Bengaluru, Karnataka

CCEA increases MSP for Kharif Crops for Marketing Season 2022-23

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) chaired by the PM Narendra Modi, has approved the increase in the Minimum Support Prices (MSP) for all mandated Kharif Crops for Marketing Season 2022-23 to ensure remunerative prices to the growers for their produce and encourage crop diversification.

Key Points:

i.The above increase is in line with the Union Budget 2018-19 announcement of fixing the MSP at a level of at least 50% over the All-India weighted average Cost of Production (CoP) for fair remuneration for the farmers.

ii.Notably, the return over MSP for bajra, tur, urad sunflower seed, soybean and groundnut is more than 50% over the All-India weighted average CoP at 85%, 60%, 59%, 56%, 53% and 51% respectively.

iii.As per 3rd Advance Estimates for 2021-22, the production of food grains in India is estimated at a record 314.51 million tonnes which are higher by 3.77 million tonnes during 2020-21.

• The production during 2021-22 is higher by 23.80 million tonnes than the previous five years (2016-17 to 2020-21) average production of food grains.

Recent Related News:

i.CCEA has approved the offering of coal (dry fuel) by coal companies via a common e-auction window of CIL (Coal India Limited)/Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) which will replace the sector specific auctions.

ii.CCEA also approved the national roll-out of Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) which was launched by the PM Narendra Modi in September 2021. It is the mission of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoH&FW) with a budget of Rs 1600 crore for five years.