20th JANUARY 2024 ENGLISH TNPSC CURRENT AFFAIRS PDF TNPSC SHOUTERS
Stalin flagged off 100 new PS4 buses
- Chief Minister Stalin announced on 19.10.2022 in the Legislative Assembly under Rule 110 that in view of the increasing use of buses by the public, various schemes are being planned to improve the transport corporations, 1,000 new buses will be procured at an estimated cost of Rs 500 crore and 1,000 old buses with good chassis will be refurbished. He also announced.
- Also, in the financial statement for the year 2023-24, it was announced that 1,000 new buses will be procured at an estimated cost of Rs 500 crore and 500 old buses whose chassis are in good condition will be refurbished.
- Apart from that, an order has been issued for procurement of 16 new buses for the Nilgiri district under the hill development project.
- According to the announcements, in order to fulfill the transport needs of the public and to run new buses in the government transport corporations. Steps are being taken to procure and run 1666 PS4 buses at an estimated cost of Rs 634.99 crore.
- As a preliminary to that. 40 new buses for Villupuram State Transport Corporation, 40 new buses for Coimbatore State Transport Corporation, 10 new buses for Kumbakonam State Transport Corporation, 5 new buses for Tirunelveli State Transport Corporation, 5 new buses for Madurai State Transport Corporation totaling 100 new PS4s. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Stalin flagged off the buses for public use today.
- The remaining buses are expected to be commissioned in the next two months. Transport Minister Sivashankar, Charities Minister Shekhar Babu, Chennai Mayor Priya, Chief Secretary and others participated in this program.
- Union Minister for Power and New and Renewable Energy R.K. Singh chaired the Power Department's Inspection Planning and Monitoring (RPM) meeting in New Delhi.
- The meeting was attended by the Secretary (Electricity) and Secretary (MNRE), Government of India, Additional Chief Secretaries, Secretaries and Principal Secretaries (Electricity / Energy) and CMDs of State Utilities from various states.
- During the event, Minister Singh launched the third edition of Consumer Service Ratings of Discoms covering the performance of Discoms for the financial year 2022-23. NPCL (Uttar Pradesh), BRPL (Delhi), BYPL (Delhi), and TPDDL (Delhi) have the highest A+ rating among the 62 rated discoms in the country.
- The minister also unveiled Powerthon 2024, an initiative to enable startups and entrepreneurs with innovative solutions for power discoms to participate in an incubation programme. Facilitated by established domestic incubators, the program provides guidance, resources and nurturing for the development of prototypes.
- Additionally, the Electricity Distribution Network Planning Criteria developed by the Central Electricity Authority covers various aspects of distribution planning processes at the sub-transmission and distribution level, including the introduction of smart technologies.
- Addressing the stakeholders, Minister Singh acknowledged the significant progress in the power sector, which saw an improvement in average daily electricity supply from 12.5 hours per day in rural areas to ~21 hours per day in 2015-16 and 23.8 hours per day in urban areas.
- China has designed a reusable non-corrosive liquid rocket and named it “ZuQ-3”. In this case, the test of ZQ-3 was successfully conducted at the Jiuquan satellite launch site in northwest China.
- A vertically launched spaceship has successfully landed with the base vertical. The 4.5-meter-diameter "ZuQ-3" spacecraft uses liquid oxygen and methane as propulsion.
- The rocket is designed to be reusable at least 20 times. Chinese space experts say the cost of the spacecraft will be reduced by about 80 to 90 percent compared to disposable rockets.
