Parliament question diary: 662 border villages being developed

Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai on Tuesday informed the Lok Sabha that 662 border villages were being developed under the Centre’s Vibrant Village Scheme that has a budget of Rs 4,800 crore. Of these, 455 are in Arunachal Pradesh, 75 in Himachal Pradesh, 51 in Uttarakhand, 46 in Sikkim and 35 in Ladakh. Rai said the scheme targets comprehensive development of villages in 46 blocks abutting the northern border in 19 districts of Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Uttarakhand and UT of Ladakh.

Farmers benefited from higher MSPs

Farmers across the country benefited from the successful implementation of higher Minimum Support Prices (MSPs), Minister of State for Agriculture Ram Nath Thakur told the Lok Sabha. He stated that between 2022-23 and 2023-24, 3.2 crore farmers received a total of Rs 5.1 lakh crore as MSP payments. Thakur clarified that the government annually sets MSPs for 22 mandated crops nationwide, rather than on a region- or state-specific basis.

2 lakh businesses struck off in 5 years

Answering a question by Punjab MP Raghav Chadha in the Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for Corporate Affairs Harsh Malhotra said the Companies Act does not define “shell company”. However, inactive companies — those with no significant transactions or financial filings in the past two years — can have their names struck off under existing rules. Malhotra revealed that 2,33,566 such companies were removed from official records over the last five years.

Women make up 10% of police force

Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai informed the Lok Sabha that women account for 10 per cent of the Indian police force, with 2,63,762 women personnel in a total force of nearly 22 lakh. Uttar Pradesh leads with 33,319 women officers, followed by Maharashtra with 32,172. Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh have 8,167, 5,506 and 2,593 women police personnel, respectively.

Same income cap for OBC, EWS quotas

Social Justice Minister Virendra Kumar clarified in the Lok Sabha that the annual income cap for determining the creamy layer for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and for the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) in the general category is Rs 8 lakh. He asserted that the criteria for both quotas are equitable.

(By Aditi Tandon)