'With new projects and recently awarded projects kicking in, capital expenditure should only increase going forward.'
The number of fresh formal jobs generated in a month increased to a seven-month high in April, signalling a recovery in the formal labour market in the country, according to the latest monthly payroll data released by the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) on Thursday. In April, the number of new monthly subscribers under the Employees' Provident Fund (EPF) sequentially increased by 18.77 per cent to 887,438 from 747,146 in March.
'Efforts are on to make the data readily available so that it proves useful for policymakers.'
After adding 11.7 million workers in the October 2022-September 2023 period from the pandemic lows in April 2021-March 2022, total workers employed in the vast informal sector in India - at 109.6 million - still remains below the pre-pandemic period.
With a large number of Indian youth aspiring to work in the railways, delays in filling up railway job vacancies were a point of criticism against the BJP in the run-up to the elections.
>Bihar (18 days) has the most number of heatwave days in 2023, followed by Andhra Pradesh (15 days), Odisha (15 days), Jharkhand (13 days), West Bengal (8 days) and Tamil Nadu (6 days).
Recovering from an order dry-up and change in market conditions, Gurgaon-based Rites is looking to bid aggressively in global export and consultancy tenders and run with a volume-led approach, its chairman and managing director (CMD) Rahul Mithal said. Rites is a railway consultancy public sector undertaking (PSU) under the aegis of the Ministry of Railways. "We started the year with two huge challenges - the export order book, where no new orders had happened, and the opening up of Indian Railways quality assurance works to four players.
The share of women employed in regular salaried jobs in urban India hit a fresh low in the January-March quarter (Q4) of 2023-24 (FY24). In the same period, the share of women engaged in self-employment went up. An analysis of the latest quarterly Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) data showed the share of women in regular wage work among all employed women stood at 52.3 per cent in Q4FY24, down from 53 per cent in the previous quarter.
The government is planning to tweak its procurement policy to give a fillip to domestic manufacturing. The industry department has floated a proposal to raise the minimum local content requirement for public procurement for Class-I and -II suppliers from 50 per cent currently to 70 per cent, and 20 per cent as of now to 50 per cent, respectively.
India's 10-year bilateral contract with Iran for the operation of Chabahar Port is likely to bring in an investment of approximately $370 million. This comprises a direct investment of $120 million from India for infrastructure development and a $250 million line of credit to Iran, Business Standard has learnt. With the $120 million committed for port development, India is set to procure advanced equipment, such as rail-mounted quay cranes, rubber-tyred gantry cranes (also known as transtainers), reach stackers, and forklifts.
The share of the Hindu population declined by 7.8% to 78.06%.
In contrast, the share of the Muslim and Christian populations increased by 43.15% to 14.09%, and by 5.4% to 2.36%.
Amid the rhythmic chug of the train, a chorus of voices rises, each bearing its tale of hope and despair.
The Ministry of Heavy Industries announced on Tuesday that it has received bids from seven players for the re-bidding tender of the 10 gigawatt-hour (Gwh) tranche of the Advanced Chemistry Cell (ACC) manufacturing production-linked incentive (PLI). "The list of bidders (in alphabetical order) who have submitted bids in response to this tender are ACME Cleantech Solutions, Amara Raja Advanced Cell Technologies, Anvi Power Industries, JSW Neo Energy, Reliance Industries, Lucas TVS, and Waaree Energies for a cumulative capacity of 70 Gwh," the ministry said in a statement. After the re-auctioning for the manufacturing unit was announced in January, the pre-bid meeting was held on February 12, the ministry said.
The Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) is considering raising the monthly minimum wage ceiling from Rs 15,000 now to improve the coverage and bring millions of informal workers under its purview. The last increase in the minimum wage ceiling was in 2014 to Rs 15,000 from Rs 6,500.
The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is looking to monetise 33 stretches of national highways during the current financial year (FY25) through its toll operate transfer (TOT) and infrastructure investment trust (Invit). These stretches include Lucknow-Aligarh, Kanpur-Ayodhya-Gorakhpur, and Bareilly-Sitapur in Uttar Pradesh, Gurugram-Kotputli-Jaipur bypass and Jaipur-Kishangarh in Rajasthan, Panikoili-Rimuli in Odisha, Chennai Bypass in Tamil Nadu, and Muzaffarpur-Darbhanga-Purnia highway in Bihar. Cumulatively, the 33 stretches, spanning 2,741 kilometres (km) earned approximately Rs 5,000 crore revenue in FY24.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led central government will use the unorganised workers database - e-Shram portal - to provide the benefits of various government programmes to the nearly 300 million workers over the next five years, if it is voted to power for the third consecutive term in the upcoming general elections. "We have registered unorganised workers on the e-Shram platform. "We will reach out to the e-Shram registered 'shramik bandhu' and help them avail the benefits of various government programmes that they are eligible for," the manifesto of the party read.
Indian Railways has managed to improve its freight volumes each year since the pandemic. However, its inability to add new industries and goods will pose a challenge for the national transporter in the wake of it setting an ambitious target of 45 per cent share in the national logistics by 2030. According to officials, the ministry of railways achieved 114 million tonnes (mt) of miscellaneous goods (classified as balance and other goods) in 2023-24.
Key infrastructure sectors -- from railways to power, and from coal to petroleum -- will not only be part of the achievements but promises too, as the BJP fights to get a third term at the Centre.
Under the National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme, close to 1 million apprentices will be trained in FY24.
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