Piped cooking gas rates are also increased by Re 1 with effect from midnight.
The recovery in the Indian services sector was sustained in November as new work orders supported business activity growth and the first rise in employment in nine months, a monthly survey said on Thursday.
Provisions of RERA, subsidy under PMAY and relaxation in PF withdrawal to buy a house will aid affordable housing, points out Harsh Roongta.
ADB too had projected Indian's economic growth for current fiscal at 7.6 per cent
The reduction in rates is likely to be announced by the month end as per the practice of fortnightly revision in prices, and has been made possible due to appreciation of rupee against the US dollar.
Oil Minister M Veerappa Moily on Friday hinted at a reduction in price of petrol in next few days, the first cut in rates in over five months.
The Nikkei India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index (PMI), fell from 52.1 in February to a five-month low of 51.0 in March, indicating the slowest improvement in operating conditions recorded by the survey since last October.
7 key areas that the Budget must address to re-energise the infrastructure sector, suggests Vinayak Chatterjee.
The Reserve Bank on Friday retained the GDP forecast for the current financial year at 9.5 per cent and flagged global semiconductor shortages, elevated commodity prices and potential global financial market volatility as downside risks to economic growth. In his address after the three-day meeting of the rate-setting panel, RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said recovery in aggregate demand gathered pace in August-September, and it is reflected in high-frequency indicators, like railway freight traffic; port cargo; cement production; electricity demand; e-way bills; GST and toll collections. "The ebbing of infections, together with improving consumer confidence, has been supporting private consumption," he said, and added the pent-up demand and the festival season should give further fillip to urban demand in the second half of the financial year.
A weaker rupee against the US dollar and the Japanese yen along with margin sustenance pressures have forced companies to raise prices.
There is positive correlation between crude oil prices and Indian equities and investors can expect more upside after the recent rally in Brent crude price.
The price of aviation turbine fuel has increased by 50 per cent since January and the situation has adversely impacted IndiGo, its CEO Ronojoy Dutta said on Wednesday. He said the government should bring aviation turbine fuel (ATF) under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and make flying affordable for consumers and viable for airlines. IndiGo is India's largest airline and with around 55 per cent share in the domestic passenger market.
'In a joint operation carefully planned by the NCB and the Indian Navy in the high seas, NCB officials have successfully seized around 529 kg of very high quality of hashish, 234 kg of finest quality of crystal methamphetamine and some quantity of heroin,' the anti-drug agency said in a release.
The country's top automaker in terms of revenue plans to launch a total of 50 products in the CV segment during 2018-19.
Despite near-term headwinds of rising input costs and the possibility of lower demand for products as Covid dented rural & urban India, and impacts both production & consumption, analysts remain bullish on stocks of fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies and expect the index to relatively outperform its peers in the second half of fiscal 2021-22 (FY22). In the past one year, prices of key commodities such as groundnut oil, mustard oil, Vanaspati, soya oil, sunflower oil and palm oil have shot up in the range of 20 per cent to 60 per cent, data show. The FMCG sector macros in this backdrop, according to analysts, have further deteriorated because of weakness in consumer demand and likely margin pressure due to elevated crude oil, palm oil and global food prices.
According to Ind-Ra's analysis, credit metrics of hotel companies have showed a downward trend since FY08.
The stock of India's largest agrochemical player - UPL (formerly United Phosphorus) - fell 2.8 per cent in trade. It was among the top losers in the BSE 100 on Tuesday. Weak 2022-23 (FY23) January-March quarter (fourth quarter, or Q4) performance and muted near-term outlook led to the decline. The company reported lacklustre growth in revenue of 4 per cent on the back of a price reduction of 3 per cent and volume growth of 1 per cent.
However, predictions that economic conditions will normalise after the elections underpinned optimism regarding the outlook and supported a stronger upturn in employment.
Regarding employment, the manufacturing sector hiring remained broadly unchanged.
'Earlier-than-expected tapering from the US, followed by rate hikes, and locally, a potential third wave, which mimics the second wave in terms of severity.'
The repo or short term lending rate remains unchanged at 6.75 per cent and the reverse repo rate at 7.75 per cent.
India's manufacturing sector activity contracted for the third straight month in October amid falling levels of production and new orders, as the business climate within the country remained tough, an HSBC survey said on Friday.
As the Indian currency hovers around its lowest versus the US greenback, several smaller and mid-sized companies are expected to face rough weather as almost 44 per cent of the foreign loans taken by Indian companies remained unhedged. According to the data sourced from the Reserve Bank of India, Indian companies raised around $38.2 billion in the financial year ended in March. Of this, only 56 per cent of the loans are hedged while the rest of the foreign loans remain unhedged, thus risking the companies to forex volatility.
Except for Westlife Foodworld (Westlife), a weak 2022-23 (FY23) January-March (fourth quarter, or Q4) quarter performance and a muted near-term outlook led to a downward revision of earnings estimates for quick-service restaurant (QSR) players. Brokerages have slashed estimates by as much as 10 per cent for 2023-24 (FY24) and 2024-25 (FY25). The downward revisions have weighed on the performance of listed players, who have underperformed the market with low single-digit returns over the past month.
Reserve Bank of India on Thursday said a centralised portal would be ready in three to four months wherein depositors and beneficiaries can access details of unclaimed deposits across various banks. As of February this year, about Rs 35,000 crore of unclaimed deposits were transferred to RBI by public sector banks in respect of deposits which were not operated for 10 years or more. "In order to improve and widen the access of depositors/beneficiaries to such data, RBI has decided to develop a web portal to enable search across multiple banks for possible unclaimed deposits based on user inputs," RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said while announcing the first bi-monthly monetary policy for the current financial year.
MSI in January increased prices by up to Rs 31,600.
'In the medium to long term mid-caps tend to generate higher returns, albeit with increased volatility.'
