Tag: penalties

AP CM requests Centre to allow sale of excess FCV Tobacco without penalties

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Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy on Friday wrote to the Union Minister for Commerce and Industry, Piyush Goyal requesting to allow the sale of excess Flue Cure Virginia (FCV) tobacco produced in the state without any penalty for 2022 to 2023 crop season.
Jagan requested the Central government to issue necessary orders to the Tobacco Board, Guntur to allow the sale of excess FCV tobacco produced by the registered growers of the state without any penalty in SBS, SLS and NLS regions.
FCV tobacco Crop is grown under Southern Light Soils (SLS) and Southern Black Soils (SBS) regions in Prakasam, SPSR Nellore, Bapatla, Palnadu, Guntur and Northern Light Soils (NLS) West and East Godavari districts in the state.

He said that the crop was severely affected due to the Mandous cyclonic heavy rains and out of 53,000 hectares more than 50 per cent of the area was severely damaged.
The cyclone caused the tobacco growers to incur additional costs on the production of the crop during this year, as there is no alternate crop for the region the farmers were forced to go for replanting.
“As the FCV tobacco Farmers have already incurred heavy losses due to the mandous cyclone and also spent huge amounts for replanting and irrigating the crop, they are not in a position to pay the penalties to the Tobacco Board on excess tobacco produced beyond the authorised quantity,” said Jagan.
He mentioned that similar measures were taken by the Centre to allow the sale of excess FCV tobacco produced by the registered growers as well as the unauthorized FCV tobacco produced by the unregistered growers in Karnataka without any penalty during the 2022 to 2023 crop season.
The chief minister requested for the measures to be extended to provide to the AP farmers who suffered losses due to the cyclone.

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#requests #Centre #sale #excess #FCV #Tobacco #penalties
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

April 28, 2023
Lives at risk as delivery agents race against time to avoid penalties

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Noida: Two delivery agents were killed in separate accidents while they were on duty on Holi. Both the deceased were hit by cars as they raced against the clock to avoid penalties and deliver the orders in time.
According to the police, one of the deceased, identified as Bunty worked as a delivery boy in Noida. He was on his way to deliver an order when an unidentified car driver hit his scooty in Sector-112 of Noida on March 8.
He was admitted to a local hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries during treatment.
In the second incident, Deepak, who worked as a delivery agent in Big Basket, met with an accident while he was on his way to deliver an order near Lotus Boulevard society here, at around 3 p.m. on the same day.
Deepak was hit by a car and was admitted to a government hospital in Nithari where he passed away during treatment.
Sector-39 police station in-charge Ajay Chehar, said that the police sent his body for postmortem and arrested the car driver.
The increase in such accidents points towards the tough competition in the field and the increasing pressure faced by the agents to deliver the orders on time.
Many Apps have fixed time durations for the delivery agents, who, in the course of adhering to it, risk their lives on the roads.

Police officials said that such accidents have increased due to the pressure faced by the agents to deliver the order within the stipulated time limit. Pressurised by the companies, the agents resort to violating traffic rules and over-speeding to achieve the target.
Police officials said that the extra weight that the agents carry also becomes a factor leading to accidents as their vehicles lose balance.
Bal Govind Mishra, who works as a delivery partner in a food App based company, said that he picked up an order from a restaurant on March 15, after which he was informed of a health emergency at his home.
Mishra said that he frantically reached his home and dialled the customer care service of the company, asking them to assign the delivery to another agent, which was denied.
He alleged that he was warned of being fined if he failed to deliver the order. Upon refusal, the company imposed a fine of double the amount of money involved.
He stated that he has appealed in the Labour Court regarding the matter.
Talking to IANS, Mishra said that the company earns around Rs 500 if a delivery agent logs in for 10 hours, out of which the latter is paid Rs 200.
He added that when the log-in time is of 15-16 hours, the company earns around Rs 750 and pays Rs 350 to the agent.
He said that many a times restaurant workers trick the agents by falsely sending a notification of the order being ready on the food delivery App, but when an agent reaches there, they end up waiting for long intervals.
He said that only a notice is issued by the App to the concerned restaurant in this regard.
Mishra added that in the current scenario, delivery agents’ work carries great pressure and gets really difficult and tiring.
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#Lives #risk #delivery #agents #race #time #avoid #penalties
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 18, 2023
Biden officials weighing civil penalties in Ohio’s toxic rail disaster

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The officials also defended the furor of criticism of what some see as a delayed response by the administration, in particular DOT Secretary Pete Buttigieg who did not speak publicly about the derailment until over a week after it happened, by saying an evacuation order was in place early on because of the danger of an explosion and local authorities were telling people to stay out of the area. Beyond that, they said that visits by high-ranking officials can create a distraction to crews working on the ground.
Officials on the call touched on the debate over whether electronically controlled pneumatic brakes could have averted the disaster. In 2015, after a National Academy of Sciences study could not find conclusively that they were better than other braking options, a rule that would have mandated their use on certain trains carrying very dangerous substances was withdrawn under the Trump administration, as required by statute.
“We got an avalanche of lawsuits opposing it immediately after we finalized it, which was in 2015,” one administration official said. “In 2016, Congress created a new bar for the cost-benefit analysis of the rule and directed us to essentially revisit it, with additional costs to consider.”
“So we found the safety benefit benefit was sufficient,” the official went on. “Then Congress weighed in. So that created an artificially higher bar for that rule and demonstrated a lack of support for that portion of the rule.”
On Thursday, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy took to Twitter to insist that “even if the rule had gone into effect, this train wouldn’t have had ECP brakes” because it would have “applied ONLY to HIGH HAZARD FLAMMABLE TRAINS.”
“The train that derailed in East Palestine was a MIXED FREIGHT TRAIN containing only 3 placarded Class 3 flammable liquids cars,” she explained.
Several administration officials on the call said that ECP brakes have safety benefits and challenged Congress to act, since legislative action is quicker than regulatory action.
Officials also spoke about a pending rule that would require freight trains to have at least two crew members on board and to keep a sufficient maintenance and inspection workforce, saying it is “important it is not to curtail mechanical and brake safety inspections” as well as “making sure that the right people within the railroads are conducting those investigations.”

They also noted that the Biden administration has reinstituted audits of the railroads after they were suspended by the Trump administration.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this report misstated the day the officials spoke. It was Friday.

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#Biden #officials #weighing #civil #penalties #Ohios #toxic #rail #disaster
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 18, 2023