Raw material prices had been on the rise, but since Russia waged war on Ukraine, prices have surged.
'You have come out with a package for the kisan.' 'You have a package for industry.' 'But has anyone addressed the issues concerning small traders?'
'Fear psychosis has gripped the entire world.' 'Nobody is going to enter shops freely in the next 5, 6 months.' 'Secondly, the priority has changed.' 'Now that they have seen the bottom of the economy, people will prefer to save for tomorrow.'
Five Star Business Finance is in the business of providing loans to MSME entrepreneurs. Gireesh Babu finds out more about the company that plans to grow to 3,000 crore by 2020.
'You peel one layer, then another layer, then another, but in the end, you will see that there is no onion inside.' 'This package has been packaged well, but there is nothing much inside the package!'
'In times of recovery, we may see a rural-urban divide with the urban pockets affected more by COVID-19, but the MFI business model should encourage banks to handhold them in this hour of crisis,' notes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Bandhan Bank is expecting that a little less than 50 per cent of its portfolio will be dominated by affordable housing loans in the next three to five years.
The focus of the meeting will be on enabling businesses and households to avail of the revival framework on the basis of viability, necessary steps like finalising bank policies and identifying borrowers, and discussing issues that require addressing for smooth and speedy implementation.
In his monthly Mann Ki Baat radio broadcast, Modi hailed the potential of India and said the basis of its strength is the country's farmers, artisans, weavers, engineers, small entrepreneurs, the MSME sector and people from many different professions."
Credit to priority sectors as well as small and medium industries will be discussed to find ways to accelerate economic growth.
A day after the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) Monetary Policy Committee hiked the policy repo rate by 50 basis points (bps), several commercial banks, including ICICI Bank and Bank of Baroda, raised their external benchmark-linked loan rates by an equal amount on Thursday. HDFC, the country's largest mortgage lender, too, increased its interest rates on housing loans by another 50 bps. In total, it has raised rates by 85 bps since May 4, when the RBI had increased the repo rate by 40 bps in an off-cycle meeting.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday pitched for front loading of capital expenditure, saying it is critical for revitalisting the economy post the coronavirus pandemic. During a virtual meeting with senior government officials to discuss the infrastructure roadmap ahead, she also asked ministries to aim to achieve more than their capital expenditure (capex) targets. The Union Budget 2021-22 provided a capital outlay of Rs.5.54 lakh crore, a sharp increase of 34.5 per cent over the Budget Estimate of 2020-21.
'A change we have seen after the Russia-Ukraine war is the energy crisis in Europe.' 'Earlier, in Europe, people used to change their clothes after 5 washes, now they are using it till 15-20 washes.' 'They used to change their entire wardrobe after 2 months or so, but because of the economic conditions, it has changed.' 'It has affected exports as 40% of our exports is to Europe, 30% to the US and 10% to the UK.' 'The war has to end for better days to come.'
The government on Tuesday raised the deposit threshold limit to Rs 5 lakh per annum in provident fund for which interest would continue to be tax-exempt.
Survey calls for reorienting policies to promote young firms which have the potential to become big, rather than small MSME firms which remain small.
RBI has invited case studies from participant banks by January 31.
According to industry sources, domestic toy manufacturers are seeing a sharp rise in sales during the current financial year. On January 1, 2021, India had banned the sale of toys that are not certified by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS). This meant that all factories churning out toys to be sold in India had to be certified by the bureau along with mandatory product testing, including for units abroad.
The repo rate has been left unchanged at 4 per cent, Governor Shaktikanta Das said while announcing the decisions taken by the central bank's MPC.
Led by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, the Opposition members in the Lok Sabha demanded sacking of Union minister Ajay Mishra from the government in connection with the Lakhimpur Kheri violence.
'Unemployment barely figures in the Budget except as a derived demand from the industry and infrastructure.' 'There is no effort at direct attack on unemployment.'
The Bills are primarily aimed at helping the MSME sector and small traders, Finance Minister Piyush Goyal said while introducing these in the Lok Sabha
An immediate RBI rate cut will lower lending rates for banks' MSME/retail/mortgage loans before the 'busy' industrial season ends in March.
Unless controlled and contained, given the untested belief that the north Indian labour support and follow the Hindutva kind of political ideology, there is a potential in terms of ideological clashes with their Dravidian brethren in the local neighbourhoods, and it all escalating into violence, especially during election time, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
Companies in the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) sector may legally challenge the Haryana government's new law which mandates 75 per cent reservation of jobs in the private sector for locals. "We had earlier gone to the high court against this law, but the court said that it would hear the matter after the law was notified," said Manoj Tyagi, general secretary, IMT Industrial Association. Industries and associations feel that the law will not benefit the state and will hit MSMEs that are just coming out of the crippling effects of the lockdowns owing to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The plan includes step-wise expansion of a crucial credit guarantee net, establishment of an unprecedented number of functional clusters and increased government procurement from MSMEs.
After the finance minister directed public sector banks to join the account aggregator (AA) ecosystem, 5-6 major ones, including State Bank of India (SBI) and Bank of Baroda are expected to go live by July-end. Sahmati, an industry alliance for the AA ecosystem, has been working with PSU banks to get them onboarded for quite some time now. So far, Union Bank of India and Punjab National Bank (PNB) have gone live on the AA ecosystem. While Union Bank has been live for a while, PNB went live earlier this month.
Chief Economic Adviser K V Subramanian on Wednesday said India is expected to hit a growth rate of 6.5-7 per cent in 2022-23 and accelerate further to 8 per cent in the subsequent years on the back of reforms undertaken by the government. He also said the government is expected to meet the fiscal deficit target of 6.8 per cent in the current fiscal despite pressure on revenue collections.
'Our automakers export 50 per cent of what they manufacture and once the policy comes into play, which is in the next 2-3 years, we would become a Rs 10 trillion industry.'
"Unfortunately, while homage was paid to the photos of Bapu, and he found mention in speeches for many years, Khadi, handicrafts, use of swabhasha and swadeshi were forgotten. After becoming the prime minister, Narendra Modi gave a new lease of life to all these ideas of Bapu," Shah said.
Of the total cash outgo Rs 40,000 crore is towards enhanced expenditure under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Program and Rs 33,771.48 crore have been sought for direct benefit transfer under Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana and National Social Assistance Programme.
Despite being given the post of a Union minister, Rane has been behaving like a "roadside gangster", Shiv Sena's mouthpiece Saamana said in an editorial.
The Budget, to be presented on February 1, is likely to be less worried about fiscal deficit and will be focused more on nursing the fragile growth, according to a Wall Street brokerage report. Bank of America Securities India expects the budget to peg "fiscal deficit at a high 5 per cent of GDP for FY22 and 7.2 per cent for FY21, as it is likely to step up capex, recap public sector banks, push asset sales to break government monopolies, offer sops for real estate, tax cuts for lower income groups and creation of a bad bank". Its house economists expect these spends to be funded by debt and partly by imposing a cess on high income groups and also by some non-fiscal measures like tapping the central bank's revaluation reserves and bank recapitalisation and infra bonds.
Small and medium enterprises have been struggling to raise bank credit even as they have been powering India's manufacturing growth in recent years.
Known for delivering time-bound results, Sharma earned Modi's confidence as his secretary during his tenure as the Gujarat chief minister by successfully handling the Vibrant Gujarat campaign to get investments to the state.
Finance Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday asked various ministries to try to spend more than their capital expenditure targets as well as explore public private partnerships for viable projects. During a meeting with senior government officials to discuss the infrastructure roadmap, she also urged the ministries and their CPSEs to ensure clearance of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) dues at the earliest. This was the fifth review meeting by the finance minister with ministries and departments on the infrastructure roadmap.
As the FM said, this is a Budget that lays the foundation for the next 25 years, observes Kumar Mangalam Birla.
With the spectrum auction now delayed till at least next May, the expected 5G orders for telecom equipment have not been sealed, the companies point out. Surajeet Das Gupta reports.
The presence of the private sector at a prestigious military training institution is an important acknowledgement of its growing capabilities in designing and manufacturing cutting edge aerospace and defence equipment, reports Ajai Shukla.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's Uttar Pradesh vice president Arvind Kumar Sharma will be reaching out to residents of western UP with public meetings in Noida, Greater Noida and Bulandshahr from Friday.
The background work of creating a suitable digital architecture of a website also remains unfinished as it has been a challenge to shortlist technology partners.
