Around 31 million households have demanded work under the flagship MGNREGA in the month of May this year, which is almost 11 per cent more than the same period last year and much higher than the corresponding pre-Covid period, data sourced from the website showed today. In April 2022, around 23.26 million households have sought work under the scheme which as per the provisional data for May has risen to almost 31 million households. The April 2022 work demand was almost 11.15 per cent less than the corresponding period of April 2021.
The government has already crossed the fiscal deficit at 132 per cent of the estimate as of December end.
We will find it difficult to exceed an average of 5 per cent growth in the medium term, warns Shankar Acharya, the former chief economic adviser.
India's economy recovered faster than expected in the September quarter as a pick-up in manufacturing helped GDP clock a lower contraction of 7.5 per cent and held out hopes for further improvement on better consumer demand. The gross domestic product (GDP) had contracted by a record 23.9 per cent in the first quarter of the 2020-21 fiscal (April 2020 to March 2021) as the coronavirus lockdown pummelled economic activity.
Unified Payments Interface (UPI) clocked over 6 billion transactions in July: the highest ever by India's flagship digital payments platform since its inception in 2016. UPI reported 6.28 billion transactions amounting to Rs 10.62 trillion, according to data released by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which operates the platform. Month-on-month, the volume of transactions was up 7.16 per cent and value increased 4.76 per cent.
Digital payments and financial services firm Paytm is likely to allocate shares at the upper price band of Rs 2,150 apiece on November 16 after market regulator SEBI's approval which is expected to come on Monday, sources aware of the development said. Earlier the allocation was expected to take place on Monday and the Paytm Money app also displayed the same.
India Inc resorted to salary cuts to protect their profits in the June quarter, as revenues came under pressure due to the second pandemic wave that affected nearly the entire country, a report said on Wednesday. The "weak" wage growth will prove to be a drag on the overall economic recovery in the medium term as it will affect household consumption, the report by India Ratings and Research said. An environment of pandemic-led uncertainty and elevated inflation could impact the level of spending and hence the overall demand, it said.
'In FY21, as of October, LIC has booked a profit of Rs 18,800 crore through sale of equities.'
RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das on Tuesday launched a new service, which will enable over 40 crore feature phone users to undertake digital payments in a secure way. The service christened UPI (unified payments interface) '123PAY' is a three-step method to initiate and execute services for users which will work on simple phones which do not have an internet connection. Das said, as of now, the multifaceted features of UPI are mostly available only on smartphones, which excludes people from the lower rung of the society from an economic perspective, especially in the rural areas, from accessing the popular service, even though the smartphone prices are going down.
The first spending item on the chopping block is capital expenditure, followed by operating costs and overheads, including sales and marketing expenses.
60-65 per cent of the FMCG industry's overall sales come from urban areas; 35-40 per cent from rural areas.
The current operating environment remains highly volatile and persistent inflation will likely impact demand across categories, Tata Consumer Products Ltd chairman N Chandrasekaran said on Monday. To navigate through these "short-term bumps" in this uncertain environment, the company will focus on strong execution, maintaining agility and nimbleness," he said while addressing shareholders at the annual general meeting (AGM). "Geo-Political tensions, supply chain challenges, and demand-supply mismatches in crude and several other commodities are driving persistent inflation, which will likely impact demand across categories.
'It is critical that the Covid curve does not have a fat tail and the chain is broken quickly.'
BSE-listed companies' market capitalisation reached Rs 197.7 trillion on January 21, against India's nominal GDP of Rs 190 trillion during 12 months ended December 2020.
Radhakishan S Damani, investor and promoter of the D-Mart supermarket chain, has broken into the elite club of the top 100 global billionaires. Damani, who grew up in a single-room apartment in Mumbai, is now ranked 98th on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index with $19.2 billion as his net worth. The index is a daily ranking of the world's richest people. The other Indians on the top 100 rich list ahead of Damani are Mukesh Ambani, Gautam Adani, Azim Premji, Shiv Nadar, and Lakshmi Mittal.
The rupee breached the 80-mark against the dollar on Tuesday. The steady depreciation in the value of the rupee against the US dollar is likely to prove expensive for corporate India. The listed companies' revenue expenses in foreign currency or imports exceed their export revenues or revenue earnings in forex. In their latest financial year, BSE500 companies, excluding banks and non-banking finance companies and insurance (BFSI), reported combined forex expenses of Rs 12.31 trillion against forex earnings of around Rs 10 trillion.
The information technology services sector will see a sharp fall in revenue growth to 12-13 per cent in FY23 from 19 per cent in FY22, ratings agency Crisil said on Thursday. However, the current depreciation in the rupee, strong demand for new age technologies like artificial intelligence, cloud computing and Internet of Things will help the over $220-billion sector maintain a double digit growth, it said in a report. The moderation from 19 per cent to 12-13 per cent will be the highest in the last eight years, it said and attributed the decline to expected tightening of IT expenditure by corporates amid the inflationary headwinds in the United States and European Union (EU), which together contribute almost 85 per cent to the sector's revenue.
Global investors have cited the ongoing war and high valuations of Indian equity markets as a reason to skip the IPO.
It is nearly after 13 years that a foreign brokerage has resumed holistic coverage on stocks of public sector banks (PSBs). To that extent, Morgan Stanley's report dated March 3, where the analysts have listed their order of preference for PSB stocks, is an indication that the state-owned banks may once again be attracting some interest, thanks to three back-to-back quarters of good results in FY21 so far. "State-owned banks' balance sheets have improved, and bad loans formation should moderate going forward," the analysts note and this is the key reason for them to relook at their stance on PSBs. While State Bank of India (SBI) remains their preferred pick, stocks of Bank of Baroda (BOB) and Punjab National Bank (PNB) have been upgraded from 'underweight' to 'equal-weight'. The brokerage maintains its underweight recommendation on Bank of India and Canara Bank.
Passenger vehicle exports from India increased 43 per cent in FY22, with Maruti Suzuki India leading the segment with dispatches of over 2.3 lakh units, as per the latest data by industry body SIAM. The total passenger vehicle (PV) exports stood at 5,77,875 units in 2021-22 fiscal, as compared to 4,04,397 units in 2020-21. Passenger car shipments saw 42 per cent growth at 3,74,986 units, while utility vehicle exports rose 46 per cent at 2,01,036 units during the last fiscal, the data by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) showed.
While Mukesh Ambani-led RIL posted a 108 per cent YoY rise in profit after tax for Q4FY21 at Rs 13,227 crore, it fell short of Bloomberg estimate of Rs 13,704 crore.
Among the key concerns of the Street is market share losses in growth segments, led by higher competitive pressures.
'They have started becoming an important player, but not at the same level as they were in the earlier part of the decade.'
'Spends are likely to increase from the current levels because recovery is yet to fully be over.'
Mukesh Ambani, who took over the reins of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) after the sudden demise of his legendary industrialist father Dhirubhai Ambani, completes 20 years at the helm during which the company saw a 17-fold jump in revenues, 20-times surge in profit and has become a global conglomerate.
While presenting her 2021-22 Union Budget, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had set a fiscal deficit target of 6.8 per cent of nominal gross domestic product (GDP) against the 2020-21 Revised Estimate of 9.5 per cent. The fiscal correction in the upcoming 2022-23 Union Budget is unlikely to be that steep. Even as discussions among top Budget-makers are ongoing, the fiscal deficit target for 2022-23 may likely be in the range of 6.5-6.8 per cent.
However, despite Covid, Indian markets registered their best financial year performance in a decade, with the Sensex and Nifty50 rallying 68 per cent and 71 per cent, respectively, in FY21.
Anil Rego, CEO, Right Horizons, answers your personal income tax queries.
It said the company had tweaked leave accumulation only up to Q2 (FY21) end, and only as an interim measure.
Housing Development Finance Corp (HDFC) chairman Deepak Parekh on Tuesday said that while the country's macroeconomic fundamentals remain strong and the recovery is in progress, the unpredictability of coronavirus will remain a key challenge. Owing to the second wave, the Indian economy is likely to mirror a similar trend seen in FY21, where the first half of the financial year is weaker and the second half is significantly stronger, he said. "I remain confident that India's macroeconomic fundamentals are strong. Recovery is underway," Parekh said while addressing the 44th annual general meeting of HDFC Ltd. He said, the country's forex reserves and foreign direct investment inflows have scaled record highs, the capital markets are also buoyant and agriculture growth is expected to remain strong with food grain production estimated at over 305 million tonnes.
The Centre earned nearly Rs 8.02 lakh crore from taxes on petrol and diesel during the last three fiscal years, of which more than Rs 3.71 lakh crore was collected in FY21 alone, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman informed Parliament on Tuesday. The minister was responding to queries on the hike in excise duty on petrol and diesel during last three years and the details of the revenue earned through various taxes on these fuels. The excise duty on petrol rose from Rs 19.48 per litre as on October 5, 2018 to Rs 27.90 a litre as on November 4, 2021.
The country's economy will start witnessing a growth of 6.5 to 7 per cent from fiscal 2023 onwards, helped by various reforms undertaken by the government so far and also as COVID-19 vaccination drive progresses, Chief Economic Advisor Krishnamurthy Subramanian said. He said the second wave of COVID-19 is unlikely to have a very significant on the economy. The country's economy contracted by 7.3 per cent in fiscal 2020-21. "Together with the reforms and focus on vaccination, I expect growth to start hitting close 6.5 to 7 per cent from FY23 onwards and accelerate from there on," Subramanian said at a virtual event organised by Dun & Bradstreet.
Though COVID-19 will wreak more damage to the finances of the Indian population, the insurance sector is unlikely to get hurt.
In 2017, when Infosys announced that Salil Parekh would be its next chief executive officer (CEO) and managing director (MD), very few in the industry or the analyst community doubted his ability to bring the company back to a healthy growth trajectory, improve morale within the company and, more importantly, win the promoters' trust and investor confidence. There were reasons for this confidence. He was not only the deputy CEO of the Paris-headquartered IT services major Capgemini, but also one of the only non-European faces on the executive board of the company.
Systematic investment plans (SIPs) of mutual funds (MFs) have seen a spike in demand with new registrations touching a five-year high already this year. Around 19.5 million new SIPs have been registered till December end, as against 14.1 million in the whole of financial year 2020-21 (FY21). Market participants say increasing investor awareness and positive experiences have spurred this increase.
Mihir Tanna, Associate Director, S K Patodia & Associates, answers your income tax queries.
Baba Ramdev-led Patanjali Ayurved Ltd will sell its food retail business to group firm Ruchi Soya Industries Ltd for Rs 690 crore as part of its strategy to focus on non-food, traditional medicine and wellness business.
The Indian IT industry will stage a "strong recovery" in 2021-22 with a revenue growth of up to 11 per cent, ratings agency Crisil said on Wednesday. The recovery will be led by increasing outsourcing and accelerating digital transformation services mainly in sectors such as banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), healthcare, retail and manufacturing, it said. As per Nasscom, the IT services industry grew 2.7 per cent to $99 billion in 2020-21.
PSU divestment, LIC IPO, fiscal deficit: Budget 2021 marks a clear change in the Modi government's stance from fiscal conservatism to growth orientation.
For Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) - India's largest and the world's second-largest IT services provider - the attrition rate touched an all-time high of 17.4 per cent in Q4FY22. The management, following the announcement of the Q4 results, has warned that the attrition situation could become even worse before any improvement. According to analysts, the short term, the attrition rate at TCS could even touch 20 per cent.