Asserting that the self reliant India programme will help revive the global economy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday told global business community that his government aims to transform the country through access, inclusion and empowerment while also ensuring complete data security. Addressing the World Economic Forum's online Davos Agenda Summit, where he also interacted with global business leaders, Modi also said India offers a predictable and friendly environment from tax regime to FDI norms. He said Aatmanirbhar Bharat movement is committed to global good and global supply chain while the country's digital profile has been completely transformed.
India was among the top-five economies with the largest general government capital stock level, said, in 2015, an International Monetary Fund report called "Making Public Investment More Efficient". The report fuelled a debate on countries sitting on piles of cash that could be used better. India was believed to have public assets worth $4.5 trillion. The report urged countries to start asset recycling. Six years after the report, Australia's success in asset recycling has turned India into a believer; despite doing averagely in its previous efforts on roads, railways or meeting its divestment targets.
All banks are eligible for privatisation. A committee of secretaries will decide which banks will be privatised, says Financial Services Secretary Debasish Panda.
Infrastructure assets worth over Rs 1.62 lakh crore are expected to be monetised during the current fiscal, Parliament was informed on Monday. The government had last year announced a Rs 6 lakh crore National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) to unlock value in infrastructure assets across sectors, ranging from power to road and railways in four years till 2025. In a written reply to the Lok Sabha, Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary said about Rs 97,000 crore worth of public assets were monetised in the last fiscal (2021-22).
The world's third largest oil firm Royal Dutch/Shell has objected to state-run Gail India Ltd being made the sole agency to build the Rs 20,000 crore
Around 576,000 housing units, worth Rs 4.64 trillion, are delayed in seven major cities of the country
The ministry of railways has dropped its proposal for monetisation of stations on public-private partnership mode, and projects are now being taken up under engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) mode, a source said. The source also told PTI that the ministry of railways has been asked to expedite monetisation of other assets, including trains, goodsheds, hill rail, stadiums, railway colonies and railway land parcels among others. "Largest asset class (stations) dropped. Stations earlier proposed on PPP mode are now being taken up under EPC mode," the source said.
'Interim Budget has ignited the entrepreneurial spirit.'
A six-inch pipe has been laid at the Silkyara tunnel through which nutritious food and medicines could be supplied to the 41 labourers, trapped for over a week after parts of the under-construction structure collapsed following a landslide.
Major General S C N Jatar, who passed into the ages on Monday night, thwarted anti-national forces at the peak of the Assam agitation. Colonel Anil A Athale (retd) salutes this officer and gentleman.
Efforts to normalise trading relations expected during the first such meet on Saturday
The Indian economy is rapidly normalising towards pre-pandemic activity levels, even as uncertainty exists about coronavirus mutations and repeated infection waves, industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla said on Wednesday. Vaccination is picking up pace, which would improve India's resilience against a potential third wave, the chairman of Aditya Birla Group said while virtually addressing shareholders at the AGM of group firm UltraTech Cement Ltd. Moreover, various steps taken by the RBI and the government have helped in containing the economic disruptions of the pandemic, Birla added.
The document, shared by the prime minister on the occasion of the first anniversary of his second term on his Twitter account and web portal, detailed the steps taken by his government for the progress and development of the country. The document is divided into 15 heads ranging from ease of doing business, ease of living, to eliminating corruption and the country's fight against coronavirus.
The stock of the country's largest passenger vehicle maker, Maruti Suzuki India (MSIL), has been hitting successive all-time highs over the past three trading sessions. The rally in the scrip has helped it notch over a 21 per cent gain since the start of February, outperforming the National Stock Exchange Nifty Auto Index. The gains for the leader of small passenger cars have been more recent, as the company still trails the Nifty Auto over one- and two-year periods.
Reliance Industries, construction major L&T and IRB Infrastructure are some of the top companies that have used an infrastructure investment trust structure to reduce part of their debt and generate returns for their investors. Earlier this month, IRB Infrastructure InvIT was listed on the National Stock Exchange, giving its investors an option to exit by selling their units. The listing came within months of the Securities and Exchange Board of India's (Sebi's) guidelines for conversion of private unlisted InvITs into listed ones were issued.
State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) has cancelled the bids received for its Daman upside gas development project off the western coast due to high price quotes, sources said. The project is crucial to ONGC's strategy of ramping up gas production from its shallow-water fields off India's west coast. Once completed, the project would lead to nearly doubling of current gas production of 4-5 million standard cubic metres per day.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the much-awaited 2022-23 Union Budget on February 1. While there has been strong recovery in some sectors, touch services like hospitality, tourism and leisure continue to suffer after two Covid-19 waves. Household savings have been hit due to increased spending on health care. Consumption has still not reached pre-pandemic levels.
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".
While most experts suggest the government loosen its purse strings and not worry about the fiscal deficit in a pandemic impacted year, it will be a tightrope walk for the government to increase spending without going overboard.
The second cyber attack on AIIMS took place just last fortnight, but the hospital's cyber security systems were able to successfully thwart this attempt.
Investment in infrastructure was necessary for the economy, as power shortages, inadequate transport and poor connectivity affect overall growth performance, as per the Economic Survey 2019-20 tabled in Parliament by Union Finance and Corporate Affairs Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. "To achieve GDP of USD 5 trillion by 2024-25, India needs to spend about USD 1.4 trillion (Rs 100 lakh crore) over these years on infrastructure so that a lack of infrastructure does not become a constraint to growth," it said.
Capital expenditure (capex) by 54 large central public sector enterprises (CPSEs) and five departmental arms with an annual capex target of Rs 100 crore and above has reached around 42.5 per cent of their annual target of about Rs 7.33 trillion in this financial year so far, a senior official from the Ministry of Finance told Business Standard. "The Centre is pushing the big public undertakings in the infrastructure and refinery sector to achieve 90 per cent of their target by the end of the third quarter," he said. The capex by this group of CPSEs stands at around Rs 3.1 trillion in the April-August period so far.
India's production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme, which aims to make domestic manufacturing globally competitive, has attracted investment worth over Rs 45,000 crore and has also created three lakh jobs, NITI Aayog CEO Parameswaran Iyer said on Monday. The government has rolled out the scheme with an outlay of about Rs 2 lakh crore for as many as 14 sectors, including automobiles and auto components, white goods, pharma, textiles, food products, high efficiency solar PV modules, advanced chemistry cell and speciality steel. "The PLI programme has already started showing results.
For development finance institution to succeed now, the government must stand like a rock behind it and be patient.
The immediate need is to put more money in the hands of agriculture-based and rural households to improve their purchasing power, says S Mahendra Dev.
The Budget emphasises on capacity building and empowerment of marginalised sections of society including farmers.
The Sikkim Government has confirmed that 14 people have died so far in the flash floods that occurred in Sikkim in the early hours of Wednesday.
The Delhi high court on Thursday said the existing medical infrastructure in the national capital was 'exposed' and in 'shambles' when put to the test during the pandemic and directed the Delhi government to provide facility for medical treatment as required by all residents of the national capital who are suffering from COVID-19.
The government has been waiting for the expansion by the private sector, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said while reminding India Inc of various measures including corporate tax rate cut, policy consistency, ease of doing business, among others to facilitate investment.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday unveiled a Rs 39.45 lakh crore Budget with a view to fire up the key engines of the economy to sustain a world-beating recovery from the pandemic. This was Sitharaman's fourth Budget. While the taxpayers were left in the lurch, once again, was she able to cheer Corporate India?
A video shows that Shehbaz was asking an aide for help, however even after the aide's assistance, his headphones dropped once again.
But it is disappointing to note that Sitharaman's third Union Budget continues to promote a few problematic ideas, observes A K Bhattacharya.
'Inter-ministerial coordination, information on the proposed PSUs, and due diligence are taking longer than expected to conclude the process.'
Here's the full text of address to the nation by President Ram Nath Kovind on the eve of the Republic Day 2022.
"Those who ruled for decades since Independence believed Dispur was too distant from Delhi. 'Dilli ab door nahi aapke darwaaze par hai' (Delhi is not far now, it stands at your doorstep," he told a massive gathering.
Hemant Shivsaran lists the number of projects the Modi government has announced since August to woo Gujarat voters.
'This plan is basically to allow some of the government assets for rent, and surely not for sale.' 'There is a difference between selling a house and renting out a house.'
The government expects to realise Rs 35,100 crore from the partial sale of Bharatnet fibre assets and around 13,500 mobile towers owned by state-run telecom firms as part of its national monetisation pipeline released on Monday. Government think tank Niti Aayog has valued over 2.86 lakh kilometre of optical fibre assets laid by BBNL and BSNL under rural broadband project Bharatnet at Rs 26,300 crore, according to the National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) document. According to the document, BSNL's 13,567 mobile tower assets and MTNL's 1,350 towers have been valued at Rs 8,800 crore.
Seven of the meetings will be held in late November or early December at the finance ministry, as is the norm.
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