The central government has agreed in-principle to Air India employees' main demands. It fears an industrial dissension now could impede the process of privatisation. It has agreed to bear the cost of liquidation loss on account of transfer to the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) from company-owned trusts, inclusion of employees in the central government health scheme (CGHS), and encashment of leaves. The template of the Air India process will be followed for other public sector undertakings up for privatisation at a later date.
'Had there been no war, maybe, we would come out with a 7.5 per cent stake sale.' 'At this point in time, a 3.5 per cent stake sale looked good.'
'In FY21, as of October, LIC has booked a profit of Rs 18,800 crore through sale of equities.'
Salt-to-software conglomerate Tata group was among "multiple" entities who on Monday put in preliminary bids for buying the government's stake in loss-making carrier Air India.
Finance ministry tells PM fiscal deficit target will be met, capex expenditure won't be cut and GDP growth will surpass 7.5%.
'The business continuity clause will mean the Tatas will have to keep running the airline for three years, and cannot exit the flying business.'
Merely bringing down the government stake below 51% may not find any taker for the PSBs. The government must bring down its holding to at least 26%, recommends Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
The government currently holds 87.40 per cent stake in IRCTC. To meet Sebi's public holding norm, it has to lower its stake in the company to 75 per cent.
Finance Secretary Hasmukh Adhia vacates his post on November 30 and Expenditure Secretary Ajay Narayan Jha, the second seniormost bureaucrat in the finance ministry, retires on January 31, the day before Jaitley presents the 2019-20 interim budget.
rediffGURU and financial planning expert Colonel Sanjeev Govila will answer your personal finance-related questions.
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.
FinMin does not expect tax or non-tax revenue to reach anywhere close to the targets set in the interim Budget. Sources say that the challenge before the new government will be either to accept the reduced projection and tailor the Budget accordingly or set a more ambitious target.
Education finance is a complex and dynamic sector. There are too many variables -- the course, the calibre of students, the universities, and the job prospects once the course is over, notes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
'Das is friendly, but he finally does what he does. The quality of engagement is very good.'
'Just the amount of work which is there just to become more and more successful in banking. For this to happen you need to have leaders who understand technology.'
In a proposal to FinMin, the Banks Board Bureau suggests asset sales to PSUs within a deadline to recover bad loans.
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.
A chunk of divestment till now has come from follow-on offerings in the Centre's two ETFs, Bharat-22 and CPSE. Now, there will be initial public offerings of Mazagon Docks, rail companies RVNL and IRFC and MSTC.
For first time in 8 yrs, stake sale proceeds could exceed Budget Estimates. ONGC's acquisition of HPCL alone could get the exchequer more than Rs 30,000 crore.
In a bid to resurrect Air India privatisation, the government is planning to give flexibility to potential investors to decide on the humongous debt with the national carrier, a top official has said. The flexibility to potential investors on the quantum of the Rs 60,074 crore debt that they want to absorb will replace the current condition of the buyer taking over more than a third of the debt and transferring the rest to a special purpose vehicle, Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey said.
Banks will need more funds, as they have to provide more capital.
Jaitley's team presents a quintessential mix of foreign-educated, intellectual technocrats and seasoned bureaucrats
Of the three major Budget announcements related to the banking sector, privatisation of PSBs is the most audacious, says Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
There is money to buy the central public sector enterprises, but buyers will need a firm assurance that the disvestment programme will keep environment issues front and centre of their corporate plans.
However, the road to profitability has already hit some hurdles for the Delhi-based bank as the Union government has rejected its demand for an additional capital infusion of around Rs 8,000 crore in 2018-19
SVAMITVA is a new government project that primarily aims to demarcate abadi areas that includes inhabitant land, inhabited areas contiguous to abadi and wadis/basties in rural areas, using drone surveying technology.
The new owner may be allowed to dispose of assets accruing from the 10-26 per cent of the net assets of the company.
Since 2016, Sebi has made many rules to prevent unauthorised trading by stockbrokers. Yet, one comes across dozens of cases of blatant overtrading in client accounts, every year, leading to massive losses to investors, observes Debashis Basu.
Janmejaya Sinha lays down Urjit Patel's agenda - cleaning up bank balance sheets, evaluating robustness of CPI and pushing for digitisation in financial services.
Modi government has to come up with a robust economic agenda to impress the masses.
The best available recourse to keep the defence sector healthy, is to source most of our requirement within the country so that procurement outlays under both the Revenue and Capital heads flow within the country, recommends says Brigadier S K Chatterji (retd).
Within the next 3 months, most brokers will enable you to intelligently invest via mobiles in MFs, FDs, and IPOs.
While IDBI Bank's 140 million customers and 1800-odd branches will come in handy for LIC to hawk insurance, the bank can use LIC's massive agent network to sell its retail loans. But if it is run the same way it had been in the past and LIC is a proxy of the government, then it has no future, says Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das tells Anup Roy, Raghu Mohan and Niraj Bhatt that it is time for banks to lower interest rates and start lending to cash-starved finance companies after due credit appraisal and proper risk assessment.
Of the seven surveys presented under Modi govt, predictions of three were quite close to the actual GDP growth rate, one saw the base year change in between, but the last three were way off the mark.
With cash shortage and plans going awry, the AirAsia owner is looking to cash out of the venture he built with Ratan Tata in 2013.
In fact, no other recent Union Budget has held so much significance for the Indian economy as the one to be presented in about six weeks from now, notes A K Bhattacharya.
India Inc has few leaders who are likely to grab headlines in 2015.
Indian economy about to take-off
'The Reserve Bank's independence has remained a work in progress, an enduring challenge that the nation has been grappling with on an ongoing basis,' says RBI Deputy Governor Dr Viral Acharya.
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