Climbing down from its austerity drive, Railway Minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday pegged working expenses of the Railways higher at Rs 39447.14 crore (Rs 394.47 billion) for 2003-04
Following a strong performance in the 2022-23 January-March quarter, publicly listed paint industry giants displayed a mixed performance in the 2023-24 (FY24) April-June quarter. While Berger Paints India outperformed its peers and reported results in line with expectations, market leader Asian Paints and Kansai Nerolac Paints fell slightly short of expectations.
The Centre's fiscal deficit mounted to Rs 110,470 crore (Rs 1.104 trillion) till February despite higher growth in tax collections.
Except for Westlife Foodworld (Westlife), a weak 2022-23 (FY23) January-March (fourth quarter, or Q4) quarter performance and a muted near-term outlook led to a downward revision of earnings estimates for quick-service restaurant (QSR) players. Brokerages have slashed estimates by as much as 10 per cent for 2023-24 (FY24) and 2024-25 (FY25). The downward revisions have weighed on the performance of listed players, who have underperformed the market with low single-digit returns over the past month.
While the likelihood of these states going the Lanka or Greece way may be an alarming assessment, the financial situation of some states such as Punjab and West Bengal is indeed quite weak.
Since the start of this financial year (FY24), the stock of Aurobindo Pharma has been one of the top pharma gainers, enhancing investor wealth by over 68 per cent, with a third of those gains coming in the last three months. The stock is riding on multiple triggers given its investments in the production-linked incentive or PLI scheme, biosimilars, injectables and vaccines, which should drive revenues and profits over the medium term. Better than expected performance after the June quarter results led to a revision of earnings estimates for FY24 and FY25.
India's industrial production growth rose to a 14-month high of 10.3 per cent in August, mainly due to good show by the manufacturing, mining and power sectors, according to the official data released on Thursday. The factory output growth measured in terms of the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) had contracted by 0.7 per cent in August 2022. The previous high was recorded at 12.6 per cent growth in June 2022.
Given the uncertain macroeconomic conditions, most brokerages have turned slightly cautious on the pace of growth in State Bank of India's (SBI's) earnings going ahead. While they don't see any significant risk arising for now, its sheer balance sheet size and systematic importance has nudged them to cut earnings estimates for fiscal year 2023-24 (FY24) and 2024-25 (FY25) up to 5 per cent. India's largest state-owned bank, on Thursday, reported standalone net profit of Rs 16,694.51 crore for Q4FY23.
Centre's fiscal deficit amounted to Rs 114,993 crore (Rs 1149.93 billion) during the first 11 months of this fiscal, which is 79.1 per cent of the revised estimate for this fiscal.
Striking a different note from its peers, US brokerage Bank of America Securities has maintained that the Reserve Bank will leave rates unchanged next week, recognising growth-focused and capex-driven fiscal expansion, which though poses huge price pressure and interest rate risks later. The RBI's rate setting panel Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) will begin its deliberations next Monday and announce the policy moves on Wednesday (February 9) in the backdrop of a massive spike in bond yields post the Budget. Almost all major central banks are in the process of hiking rates to tame inflation.
A Rs 559.91 crore (Rs 56 billion) deficit budget (2003-04) that proposes to generate Rs 170 crore (Rs 1.7 billion) additional resources through taxes was presented on Monday by Madhya Pradesh Finance Minister Ajay Narayan Mushran in the Assembly.
It is pegged at 6.8-8% by various economists, as compared to 6.7%.
With land acquisition completed and infrastructure work streamlined, India's bullet train dreams are slowly, but finally, inching closer to reality.
While the economy seems to be on a firm growth path, the fight against inflation is not over yet. Shaktikanta Das seems to be in no hurry. After playing well through a five-year Test match, he doesn't want to get out hit wicket, observes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Buoyed by the surge in India's exports for April-December 2002 despite global slowdown, the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy on Monday revised the export growth forecast for 2002-03 from 10 per cent to 18.7 per cent.
The railways have been able to project improvement in finances.
This time, five states, including Tamil Nadu, have requested the Centre to delay the pay hikes.
'Personal income tax collections have been high on account of impressive advance tax mop-up.'
The Propulsion Module (PM) of Chandrayaan-3 has been moved from an orbit around the Moon to an orbit around Earth, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has said, terming the operation a unique experiment.
'We expect a pick-up in the second half of the current fiscal. But before that, data is likely to show a further slowdown. The second quarter print is likely to be worse than the first quarter,' said a senior official.
Base metals major Hindalco's overseas subsidiary, Novelis, has submitted a draft registration with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for the proposed public offering of promoters' shares. Novelis' sole shareholder, AV Minerals (Netherlands) NV, is a 100 per cent subsidiary of Hindalco. Novelis would not receive any proceeds from the sale. Assuming SEC clearance could go through in about 6 months.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the Union Budget for 2023-24 in Parliament on February 1. The Budget is a statement of the government's estimated receipts and expenditures for a fiscal year (April 1 to March 31). It's divided into Revenue and Capital Budget. The Revenue Budget includes the government's revenue receipts and expenditures while the Capital Budget includes its capital receipts and payments.
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The document said potential growth, which hovered at 8-8.5 per cent levels in the period from the second quarter of 2005-06 to the second quarter of 2008-09, has gone down to 6 per cent.
Moody's on Friday slashed India's GDP growth projections for 2022 to 7 per cent from 7.7 per cent earlier as the global slowdown and rising domestic interest rates will dampen economic momentum. This is the second time that Moody's Investors Service has cut India's growth estimates. In September, it had cut projections for the current year to 7.7 per cent from 8.8 per cent estimated in May. "For India, the 2022 real GDP growth projections have been lowered to 7 per cent from 7.7 per cent.
Government has pegged the annual budget of the Department of IT at last year's level of Rs 470 crore (Rs 4.7 billion) for 2003-04 even as DIT scaled down its original demand by over 50 per cent.
Of the cash outgo, Rs 64,598 crore is for enhanced expenditure on fertiliser subsidy under Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan 3.0 and Rs 20,466 crore for the capital outlay in defence services.
MGNREGA scheme: A significant Rs 17,370.58 crore has been carried forward over to the next financial year as unpaid dues as demand for work continued unabated for the scheme in rural areas.
India's gross tax collections soared to a record high of Rs 27.07 lakh crore in the fiscal year ended March 31, led by impressive growth in corporate tax and customs, taking the tax-to-GDP ratio to an over two-decade high of 11.7 per cent, Revenue Secretary Tarun Bajaj said on Friday.
The government on Saturday made its prior approval mandatory for foreign investments from countries that share land border with India to curb 'opportunistic takeovers' of domestic firms following the COVID-19 pandemic, a move which will restrict Foreign Direct Investment from China.
While activity in the highway segment has been slow, the bid pipeline saw recovery in January 2024, and awards are expected to improve in Q4FY24. The national highway (NH) bid pipeline has recovered from a low of Rs 15,900 crore in December 2023 to Rs 68,400 crore at present. The NHAI's pipeline stands at Rs 66,100 crore, with hybrid annuity model (HAM), build operate transfer (BOT) and engineering procurement and construction (EPC) projects accounting for 60 per cent, 29 per cent and 13 per cent share, respectively.
Collection will have to rise by 30 per cent in the remaining period of the financial year to achieve the Budget estimate.
Amid economic uncertainties owing to the pandemic, the government's key revenue agency, the Income Tax Department, has close to 400 vacancies at commissioner level and above, affecting its functioning. Seventy-three of the 91 chief commissioner positions are lying vacant, with some for more than a year. Chief commissioner is the second-highest post in the department, below principal chief commissioner, which is at par with secretary in a ministry.
The Delhi government's budget size for 2022-23 was Rs 75,800 crore and Rs 69,000 crore in the preceding year.
Mr Jaitley should devise methods to attract better talents at the higher level.
For the second month running, the demand for work under the flagship MGNREGA scheme has been lower than in 2020, which was an extraordinary year for the scheme. Latest data shows that around 35.1 million households have sought work under MGNREGA this June, or 21.48 per cent lower than the number that had sought work in the same month of 2020. This May, some 27.6 million households had sought work under the scheme, or 26.01 per cent lower than the same month last year.
Eminent economist Arvind Panagariya has said India is on the cusp of returning to a high growth trajectory and voiced confidence that the country will become the world's third-largest economy by 2027-28. Currently, India is the fifth largest economy "so it's another five years.We are already in (the year) 2023. "So 2027-28, India should be the third-largest economy," Panagariya, Columbia University Professor and former Vice Chairman of NITI Aayog, told PTI in an interview in New York.
