To bail out an entity majority-owned and controlled by private parties using the taxpayers’ funds is a bad idea In her Budget speech, Finance Minister (FM) Nirmala Sitharaman had proposed setting up of a new Development Financial Institution (DFI) termed the National Bank for Financing Infrastructure and Development (NaBFID). The Government passed a Bill to establish the NaBFID, its objective being “to coordinate with the Centre and States, regulators, financial institutions (FIs), institutional investors and other relevant stakeholders, in India or outside India, to facilitate building and improving the relevant institutions to support the development of long-term non-recourse infrastructure financing in India, including the domestic bonds and derivatives markets.” The NaBFID will also be involved “in lending or investing, directly or indirectly,...
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Category: Infrastructure
NaBFID – drop sovereign guarantee clause
In her Budget speech for 2021-22, the Finance Minister (FM), Nirmala Sitharaman had proposed setting up of a new Development Financial Institution (DFI) termed the National Bank for Financing Infrastructure and Development (NaBFID). In the following month, it passed a bill to establish the NaBFID, its objective being “to coordinate with the central and state governments, regulators, financial institutions (FIs), institutional investors and other relevant stakeholders, in India or outside India, to facilitate building and improving the relevant institutions to support the development of long-term non-recourse infrastructure financing in India including the domestic bonds and derivatives markets”. The NaBFID will also be involved “in lending or investing, directly or indirectly, and seek to attract investments from private sector investors and...
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Vehicle scrapping needs more incentives
If the owner goes for scrapping, he is promised a total benefit of 11per cent, including scrap compensation of nearly five per cent, discount five per cent and one per cent rebate in road tax On March 18, 2021, Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari announced in the Lok Sabha a “voluntary” vehicle scrapping policy which will lay the foundation for what he termed the “Voluntary Vehicle Fleet Modernisation Programme” and enable the Indian automobile industry to more than double its turnover from the current Rs 450,000 crore to Rs 10,00,000 crore in a few years. Besides, it will have a salutary effect on environment due to the mitigated vehicular pollution. Apart from it, other benefits are...
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Vehicle scrappage policy – more incentives needed
On March 18, 2021, the Union Minister for road, transport and highways Nitin Gadkari announced in the Lok Sabha a ‘voluntary’ vehicle scrappage policy which will lay the foundation for what he terms as “the Voluntary Vehicle Fleet Modernization Program and enable Indian automobile industry to more than double its turnover from the present Rs 450,000 crore crore to Rs 1000,000 crore in a few years. Besides, this will have a salutary effect on environment due to mitigated vehicular pollution. Other benefits are expected by way of reduction in fuel consumption (as old vehicles get replaced by more fuel efficient new ones) and cut in import bill; boost to inclusive development as investment flows into setting up of scrapping and...
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Paratroop reforms on the ground
Of crucial importance is the need to actually execute reforms and make them work on ground zero. Unfortunately, this is not happening Unlike the Economic Survey for 2019-20, which was prepared keeping in mind the ambitious target of achieving a $5 trillion economy by 2024-25, this time around, the overarching theme revolves around demonstrating how brilliantly the Government has managed the Coronavirus pandemic. Through lucid elaboration on the details and modeling with facts and figures — using international as well as inter-State comparison within India, Chief Economic Adviser (CEA) Krishnamurthy Subramanian has given ample justification for the “early” and “stringent” lockdown from March and thereafter calibrated lifting of restrictions from June onward. Tacitly, he has also admitted that this led to compression...
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Many a slip…
It is natural to expect an economic rebound in FY 2021-22. But it is vital to take a pragmatic view based on an objective assessment of how the situation unfolds on ground zero The green shoots seen in October, in particular the rise in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) by 3.6 per cent, have prompted agencies to revise their growth assessment for the current financial year (FY) from the minus 9.5-10.5 per cent projected earlier to minus 7.5-8.5 per cent, now. For the FY 2021-22, when the impact of the virus is expected to subside to a large extent due to the availability of the vaccine, it is only natural to expect an economic rebound. However, it is necessary...
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On road to recovery
The growth of real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) had already started sliding from the third quarter of FY 2018-19 and continued all through the FY 2019-20 culminating in a low of 3% during its last quarter ending March 31, 2020. During the whole of 2019-20, the growth plummeted to a decade low of 4.2% down from an average of 7.5% recorded in the previous 5 years i.e. 2014-15 to 2018-19. A nation-wide lockdown announced by the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi on March 24, 2020 dwelt a body blow by bringing most of the economic activities to a grinding halt. As a result, there was precipitous decline in GDP growth by 24% during the first quarter of current FY ending June...
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AGR dues – let the rider pay
The turbulence in the telecommunication sector in India refuses to subside. First, it was the mayhem triggered by Reliance Jio (RJio) which in a brazen display of ‘predatory’ pricing offered ‘free’ and ‘unlimited’ voice calls and rock bottom data tariff from the word go (its services were launched in September 2016). This forced incumbent operators viz. to reduce tariff to match RJio pushing majority of them into red. Many downed shutters while others were bought over. Next was an order of the Supreme Court (SC) on October 24, 2019 directing telecom firms to pay ‘unpaid’ dues towards license fee and spectrum usage charges (SUC). The license fee and SUC is charged as a percentage of service provider’s adjusted gross revenue...
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Bailout or blowout?
When the wheels of the economy on ground zero are stuck and there is little demand for credit, lowering of interest rates will not help in any way Following marathon deliberations of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) over three days, the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) Governor, Shaktikanta Das, made four important announcements under the central bank’s bi-monthly monetary policy review on August 6. First, Das warned that India’s real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth is set to contract in 2020-21 but did not give a specific forecast. He also cautioned that “while an early containment of the Covid-19 pandemic may impart an upside to the outlook, a more protracted spread of the pandemic, deviations from the forecast of a normal monsoon...
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SC will have to solve the telco mess
A cue is available from the stance taken by SC itself in case of unpaid dues from public sector undertakings (PSUs) such as Gas Authority of India (GAIL), etc. The licence fee and SUC is charged as a percentage of service provider’s adjusted gross revenue (AGR)—8% and 3-5% respectively. During the last three years or so, the telecom industry has been enduring an unprecedented crisis, with most of the companies having huge debt in their books and not generating adequate cash flows for servicing the loans. The crisis was aggravated by an order of the Supreme Court (SC) on October 24, 2019, directing telecom firms to pay ‘unpaid’ dues towards licence fee and spectrum usage charges (SUC). The licence fee...
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