The Centre has proposed allowing captive mine owners to sell minerals in the open market after meeting the requirement of their linked end-use plants, as part of a broader overhaul of mineral concession rules aimed at easing operational restrictions and encouraging deeper mineral exploration.
Ushering in reforms, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday proposed to open up the nuclear power sector for private players and announced a Rs 20,000 crore Nuclear Energy Mission for research in the field, with an aim to set up five small and modular reactors by 2033.
A bill to allow the private sector to mine six atomic minerals, including lithium, and deep-seated minerals like gold and silver was approved by the Lok Sabha on Friday.
The massive coal mine in Queensland state has been a controversial topic, with the project expected to produce 2.3 billion tonnes of low-quality coal.
Here is the complete list of ministers in Modi 3.0 and their portfolios:
As concerned Indians we need to ask what can be done in the short term, which does not require legislative approval to enhance investment.
The government is set to divest its shareholdings in defence PSUs, Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers Ltd and Mishra Dhatu Nigam Ltd (MIDHANI). It will also divest its shareholding in BEML Limited, said Shripad Naik. Minister of State for Defence, on Monday. The government has invited preliminary bids to sell its 26 per cent stake in BEML along with transfer of management control.
The Centre has taken a major step towards increasing efficiency in decision-making by empowering joint secretaries to report to secretaries directly, officials said on Wednesday.
Stocks of public sector undertakings (PSUs) have been on fire in the past year as investors cheered an improvement in key operating metrics and embraced counters of these state-owned enterprises, analysts suggest. The S&P BSE PSU Index has gained over 90 per cent in the past year, rising much higher than the S&P BSE Sensex, which has rose nearly 19 per cent during this period, according to ACE Equity data. The BSE PSU Index, reports show, has delivered a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 28 per cent (including dividends reinvestments) over five years and risen by almost 60 per cent in the past year.
What stood out in his 15-year journey as a member of the political executive at the Centre was his glowing record as India's most successful and effective finance minister. Both as prime minister and finance minister, he understood the importance of gradualism, except when the economy or the polity was in a crisis.
'There has definitely been a breakthrough in the nuclear logjam. It is good to see nuclear energy back on the rails,' says Dr Anil Kakodkar, former chairman, Atomic Energy Commission.
Faced with one setback after another in expanding the scope of mining in the country, almost all the major miners of the world have wound down their operations in India.
The government is not in a "crazy rush" to sell everything and it will continue to have a presence in four strategic sectors, including telecom, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Saturday. In strategic sectors, a bare minimum presence of the existing public sector commercial enterprises at the holding company level will be retained under government control. The remaining enterprises in a strategic sector will be considered for privatisation or merger with another PSE or for closure.
Air India sale will give a boost to India's privatisation drive, the Economic Survey said on Monday, as it suggested redefining the public sector role in business enterprises to encourage private participation in all sectors. The government earlier this month handed over ownership rights in national carrier Air India to Tata Group for Rs 18,000 crore. The amount includes the takeover of the debt burden of Rs 15,300 crore and another Rs 2,700 crore in cash.
The Rashtrapati Bhavan has come out with a communiqu announcing distribution of portfolios of the ministers sworn-in on Monday in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's council of ministers:
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday said the interest of all employees of state-owned banks which are likely to be privatised will be protected, even as bank unions observed a two-day strike against the government's privatisation decision. Replying to a query during a press conference, she clarified that public sector presence will continue in the banking space. "...we have announced public enterprise policy based on which we have identified those four areas in which we said government presence, public sector presence will be there, and bare minimum presence is what we have said, in that financial institutions are also there. "Meaning, even in financial sector we will still have the presence of public sector enterprise...not all of them are going to be privatised," she said.
With the new owner shelling out Rs 18,000 crore for the buyout of 'Maharaja' this would be the highest ever amount garnered through privatisation or even the cumulative sum garnered through strategic sale in 1999-00 to 2003-04. The government had garnered roughly over Rs 5,000 crore during that five-year period by privatising 10 CPSEs.
The government was going in the "wrong direction" and it was "highly condemnable" that it did not discuss the proposed changes with trade unions and other stakeholders, says BMS, trade union arm of the RSS.
'While we note the very strong cyclical recovery in the economy, we believe there is still uncertainty over medium-term prospects.'
The government's programmes should be expected to generate some momentum, but the macro-economic numbers are not encouraging, observes T N Ninan.
After a hiatus of nearly two decades, the government's programme to privatise state-owned firms restarted with the handing over of debt-laden national carrier Air India to the Tata Group. With the new owner shelling out Rs 18,000 crore for the buyout of the 'Maharaja', this would be the highest-ever amount garnered through privatisation, and is even more than the cumulative sum mopped up through strategic sales from 1999-00 to 2003-04. The government had in October last year inked the share purchase agreement with the Tata Group for sale of national carrier Air India for Rs 18,000 crore. Tatas would pay Rs 2,700 crore cash and take over Rs 15,300 crore of the airline's debt.
The department of investment and public asset management (Dipam) can also seek in-principle approval from the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) for strategic divestment of PSUs on a case-to-case basis considering investor appetite and sectoral trends.
The government on Monday budgeted Rs 1.75 lakh crore from stake sale in public sector companies and financial institutions, including 2 PSU banks and one general insurance company, in the next fiscal year beginning April 1. The amount is lower than the record Rs 2.10 lakh crore which was budgeted to be raised from CPSE disinvestment in the current fiscal year. However, the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the government's CPSE stake sale programme, and the target has been lowered to Rs 32,000 crore in the Revised Estimates.
Fifteen Cabinet ministers and 28 Ministers of State were sworn-in by President Ram Nath Kovind at a ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhavan on Wednesday evening.
Full list of the rejigged Union Council of Ministers
The idea is to do away with the need for the approval of the Core Group of Secretaries on Divestment for privatisation of companies, especially in non-strategic sectors.
'Decisions on nuclear power have so far been taken by a small select group, primarily interested in profiteering from their actions, stating 'secrecy' as necessary from the national security point.' 'This argument is false, because we are dealing with the 'civilian' nuclear power sector, which is open even to the IAEA,' says Dr A Gopalakrishnan, former chairman of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board.
The government must justify why we need to buy foreign reactors when we have developed up to 700 MWe unit-size pressurised heavy water reactors, a design which can be easily extended to 900 to 1000 MWe unit size. Why can't the 'Make in India' philosophy apply to indigenous nuclear reactors, more than 18 of which have been designed, built, and being operated by Indian engineers, asks Dr A Gopalakrishnan.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will retain DoPT, Atomic Energy as well as all important policy issues and portfolios not allocated.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, Hua Chunying said China-Pakistan cooperation is in accordance with the 48-member nuclear club, which supervises global nuclear commerce.
In his meeting with the secretaries of all government departments, Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave the top bureaucrats space and time to voice their expectations from the new administration besides listing areas needing urgent attention.
The Congress party on Tuesday vowed to oppose the present format of the land bill both inside the Parliament and outside.
In a first, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday met the secretaries of all the government departments collectively and asked them to directly get in touch with him to resolve issues and expedite decision-making.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday demanded a statement from the prime minister on media reports about the government's 'decision' to allow an American company to install a nuclear reactor diluting the provisions of Nuclear Liability Bill.
Speaking at industry association CII's annual session, PM Modi said the government has taken tough steps to fight the coronavirus pandemic and has also taken care of the economy. "On the one hand we have to safe the lives of our people and on the other hand we have to stabilise the economy and speed up the economy," he said. "Yes, we will definitely get our growth back," he asserted.
Changing tracks helps. But, not taking the beaten path isn't always helpful. This is the story of two of India's biggest privatisations - Air India and Bharat Petroleum (BPCL). Nearly two decades after the last privatisation, a landmark divestment concluded this year when the loss-making national carrier Air India was sold to the Tatas.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said the government has no business to be in business and his administration is committed to privatising all PSUs barring the bare minimum in four strategic sectors. "It is government's duty to support enterprises and businesses. But it is not essential that it should own and run enterprises," he said. Modi also said the Centre's policy is to either monetise or modernise public sector enterprises, with the intent that the government has "no business to be in business".
As many as 295 infrastructure sector projects worth Rs 150 crore or more are delayed with total cost overrun of Rs 1,01,436 crore (Rs 1.01 trillion), Parliament was informed on Thursday.
'If it weren't for Om Puri, a whole range of our big city experiences wouldn't have found their honest representations on the screen.'
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