{"id":21495,"date":"2024-03-14T12:15:21","date_gmt":"2024-03-14T06:45:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=21495"},"modified":"2025-04-06T12:37:45","modified_gmt":"2025-04-06T07:07:45","slug":"vocal-for-local-initiative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/vocal-for-local-initiative\/","title":{"rendered":"What is the \u2018Vocal for Local\u2019 Initiative?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>About \u2018Vocal for Local\u2019 Initiative<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>It is an\u00a0initiative of NITI Aayog\u00a0under its\u00a0Aspirational Blocks Programme to encourage a spirit of self-reliance among the people and propel them towards sustainable growth and prosperity.<\/li>\n<li>As a part of this initiative,\u00a0local products from 500 aspirational blocks have been\u00a0mapped and consolidated under the Aakanksha brand.\n<ul>\n<li>Aakanksha is\u00a0an umbrella brand, which could be supplemented into multiple sub-brands that have the potential to create an international market.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>In order to encourage these products, a\u00a0dedicated window\u00a0for the Aspirational Blocks Programme\u00a0under the brand name Aakanksha has been\u00a0established on the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) portal.<\/li>\n<li>The\u00a0partners will also provide technical and operational support for the facilitation of e-commerce onboarding, establishing linkages, financial\/digital literacy, documentation\/certification, and skill enhancement, among others.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Key Facts about Government e-Marketplace (GeM)<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>It is an\u00a0online platform for public procurement, launched in 2016\u00a0by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India.<\/li>\n<li>It is a one-stop portal to\u00a0facilitate online procurement of common use Goods &amp; Services required\u00a0by various Government Departments \/ Organizations \/ PSUs.<\/li>\n<li>The\u00a0purchases made through GeM\u00a0by Government users have been authorised and\u00a0made mandatory by the Ministry of Finance under the General Financial Rules, 2017.<\/li>\n<li>The platform is\u00a0owned by GeM SPV (Special Purpose Vehicle), which is a\u00a0100% Government-owned, non-profit company\u00a0under the\u00a0Ministry of Commerce and Industry.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Key Facts about Aspirational Blocks Programme<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>It is\u00a0on the lines of the Aspirational District Programme that was launched in 2018 and covers 112 districts across the country.<\/li>\n<li>This new programme is aimed at\u00a0improving performance of blocks lagging on various development parameters.<\/li>\n<li>This will enable holistic development in those areas that require added assistance.<\/li>\n<li>The programme will initially\u00a0cover 500 districts across 31 states and Union Territories.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Over half of these blocks are in six states: Uttar Pradesh (68 blocks), Bihar (61), Madhya Pradesh (42), Jharkhand (34), Odisha (29), and West Bengal (29).\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Q1) What is the Aspirational District Programme?<\/h3>\n<p>Launched in 2018, the ADP aims to quickly and effectively transform (socio-economic status of) 112 most under-developed districts across the country, with a vision of a New India by 2022. With States as the main drivers, this program focuses on the strength of each district, identifying low-hanging fruits for immediate improvement and measuring progress by ranking districts on a monthly basis.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/pib.gov.in\/PressReleseDetailm.aspx?PRID=2014411#:~:text=In%20a%20move%20towards%20bolstering,from%20various%20states%20and%20blocks.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>NITI Aayog Launches \u2018Vocal for Local&#8217; Initiative Fostering Grassroots Entrepreneurship and Self- reliance<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u2018Vocal for Local\u2019 Initiative is an initiative of NITI Aayog under its Aspirational Blocks Programme to encourage a spirit of self-reliance among the people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":21496,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-21495","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21495\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}