National Conference on Consumer Affairs to Start

India and World Bank Sign $ 250 million IDA Agreement to develop Technical Education

An agreement for an IDA credit for Rs. 1200 crores for the Technical Engineering Education Quality Improvement Project (TEQIP) between the Government of India and the World Bank is signed by the Addl. Secretary, Ministry of Finance Dr. Adarsh Kishore and the Country Director of the World Bank Mr. Michael F. Carter in New Delhi on February 4, 2003 (Tuesday).

The Government of India and the World Bank today signed an agreement for an IDA credit of SDR 180 million (US$ 250 million equivalent : approximately Rs.1200 crores) for the Technical Engineering Education Quality Improvement Project (TEQIP). The agreement was signed by Dr. Adarsh Kishore, Additional Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance on behalf of the Government of India and Mr. Michael F. Carter, Country Director on behalf of the World Bank. Six state governments are also participating in this project and Secretaries in charge of Technical Education of these states signed the documents ! on behalf of their states.

TEQIP is a new initiative taken by the Deptt. of Secondary and Higher Education with assistance of US $ 250 million in the first phase covering a period of 5 years. It is expected to bring a systemic transformation of the technical education sector and will develop 40 to 50 competitively selected engineering institutions into centres of excellence by introducing wide ranging reforms and greater autonomy.

National Conference on Consumer Affairs to Start

The National Cooperative Consumers’ Federation of India Limited (NCCF) is holding a National Conference on Consumer Cooperatives to be inaugurated by Shri Sharad Yadav, Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution here tomorrow. The Consumer movement works under a four-tier system comprising 23975 stores at primary level, 706 wholesale stores at district level and 29 federations at state level with NCCF as their apex level national federation. This has around 58000 Primary Agriculture Cooperative Societies and Large Scale Agriculture Marketing Stores. Around 2.5 crore people are members of the cooperative societies. NCCF also runs 1.25 lakh fair price shops in the cooperative sector which are doing retail business of consumer items worth approximately Rs. 14000 crore annually.

The theme of the two-day National Conference is "Role of the consumer cooperatives in the distributive trade under the changed economic scenario". The conference will debate on various subjects like present status of consumer cooperatives, their relevance and importance in the distributive trade, steps needed to strengthen them to meet the challenges ahead and role of Federal Cooperative Organisations etc.

 

A large number of Anganwadi workers meet the Prime Minister Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee to thank him for doubling their monthly honorarium in New Delhi on February 4, 2003. (Tuesday).