On March 27, 2020, the Reserve Bank of India [RBI] governor, Shaktikanta Das announced a comprehensive action plan to resuscitate the economy devastated by the Corona virus. Apart from measures to inject liquidity in the financial system, increase in availability of credit and reduce the cost of capital, the plan sought to ease the stress of loan repayments on businesses and individuals. Amongst others, this includes 3-month moratorium on payment of installments in respect of all term loans outstanding on March 31, 2020. Even as the lockdown continued much longer than it was initially envisaged [there were three extensions after the first phase announced by Prime Minister, Modi on March 24, 2020] on May 22, 2020, the governor announced extension...
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Category: Regulatory environment
Mass movement of migrant labor – a Himalayan Blunder
Announcing the lockdown on March 24, 2020, Prime Minister, Narendra Modi offered the mantra of ‘social distancing’ [put simply, this requires maintaining a minimum distance between two persons] to prevent Covid – 19 pandemic from spreading. Accordingly, all activities involving assembly and movement of persons in group were brought to a grinding halt. Amongst others, these included complete ban on inter-state and intra-state movement of persons. The announcement came under flak from critics who argued that people should have been given time to prepare themselves; this included letting migrant labor working in urban agglomerations [UAs] such as Delhi, Mumbai etc move to their native place. The government’s decision was perfectly in order. Had it given time and allowed people to...
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Facebook–Jio deal – will it cheer mom-and-pop
Amidst all round gloom caused by Corona virus that has also impacted foreign direct investment [FDI] [during the first quarter of 2020, it has dipped by 30%], comes a buoyant news. On April 22, 2020, the California based US Internet giant Facebook announced its decision to buy 9.99% stake in Reliance Industries Limited [RIL] digital unit Jio Platforms Limited [it owns a wide spectrum of businesses viz. wireless broadband, home broadband, enterprise broadband, narrow-band, internet-of-things businesses and a bouquet of digital apps], for US$5.7 billion [more than Rs 43,450 crore]. While, the deal gives an opportunity to Facebook foray in India’s telecommunication sector [after unsuccessful attempts made in the past], RIL gets to pare its debt – currently about Rs 300,000...
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RBI booster dose – will it work
In a bid to resuscitate the economy devastated by the Corona virus, on March 27, 2020, RBI governor, Shaktikanta Das announced a host of measures to inject liquidity in the country’s financial system; reduce the cost of capital and ease the stress of loan repayments. These included (i) reduction in policy rate [interest rate charged by the apex bank on loans given to banks] by 75 basis points to 4.4%; (ii) 3-month moratorium on payment of installments in respect of all term loans outstanding on March 31, 2020; (iii) relaxation in the norms for cash credit and working capital limits; (iv) reduction in cash reserve ratio [CRR] [portion of deposits, banks are required to keep with RBI] by 100 basis points...
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A system failure
The bailout given to Yes Bank, using public money, emboldens banks to continue with their game plan. The Govt and the RBI must do everything to give a body blow to this attitude Much before the crisis at the beleaguered Yes Bank reached a flashpoint [when the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on March 5, 2020, superseded its Board, appointed ex-Chief Finance Officer (CFO) of the State Bank of India (SBI) as its administrator and imposed a moratorium for a month on critical operations such as sanction of fresh loan, renewal of existing loans, Rs 50,000 ceiling on withdrawal of money per account] some depositors had already sensed it coming. They withdrew about Rs 18,000 crore during the first six...
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Yes Bank saga – it’s a system failure
Much before the crisis at the beleaguered Yes Bank reached a flash point [when the banking regulator, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on March 5, 2020, superseded its Board, appointed ex-chief finance officer (CFO) of the State Bank of India [SBI] as its administrator and imposed moratorium for a month on critical operations such as sanction of fresh loan, renewal of existing loans, Rs 50,000/- ceiling on withdrawal of money per account] some depositors had already sensed it coming. They withdrew about Rs 18,000 crore during the first six months of current year [deposits declined from Rs 227,000 crore as on March 31, 2019 to Rs 209,000 crore as on September 30, 2019]; of this, Rs 16,000 crore were withdrawn...
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Telecom industry on the brink; Trai, banks need to play proper role
In an order delivered on October 24, 2019, the Supreme Court (SC) directed the telecom service providers (TSPs) to pay ‘unpaid’ dues towards license fee and spectrum usage charges (SUC) to the department of telecommunication (DoT). In doing so, the SC accepted DoT’s interpretation that adjusted gross revenue (AGR) (license fee and SUC is charged as a percentage of AGR) includes – apart from telecom services revenue – revenue from non-telecom services such as rent, profit on the sale of fixed assets, dividend, interest etc. Given the inherent character of the order with focus on including revenue from non-telecom services as well, it requires even companies such as Gas Authority of India Limited etc (they had taken licenses for setting up their...
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Between the devil and the deep blue sea
An announcement of foreign direct investment [FDI] in India is normally welcome in recognition of its contribution to capital formation, accelerating growth and adding to our foreign exchange kitty. Deviating from this normal practice, last month, the union minister for commerce and industries, Piyush Goyal was dismissive about the decision of Amazon boss to bring a few billion dollars to India. Goyal meant that Jeff Bezos was bringing money to make up for the huge loss the company was incurring on its operations in India. Losses or gains are intrinsic to any business. So, what was so special about the terse observation by the minister? Amazon essentially operates the ‘market-place’ model of e-commerce – a special dispensation carved out by...
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Telecom industry on the brink
Bringing to a climax more than a decade old court battle between department of telecommunication [DoT] and telecom service providers, in an unprecedented judgment, on October 24, 2019, the Supreme Court [SC] ordered the latter to pay ‘unpaid’ dues towards license fee and spectrum usage charges [SUC]. The unpaid dues [call these additional liabilities] arose consequent to the SC accepting the DoT interpretation that adjusted gross revenue [AGR] [license fee and SUC is charged as percentage of AGR] includes – apart from telecom services revenue – revenue from non-telecom services viz. rent, profit on sale of fixed assets, dividend, interest etc. The additional liability on private telecom service providers is a whopping about Rs 147,000 crore for the period 2006-07 to 2016-17...
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Amnesty schemes cannot help fill the void in tax collection
While presenting the Budget for 2019-20, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had set gross tax receipts (GTR) target of about Rs 24.6 lakh crore. In the Budget for 2020-21, the revised estimate [RE] for 2019-20 at Rs 21.6 lakh crore is short by a whopping Rs 3 lakh crore. In direct taxes alone, the shortfall is Rs 1.6 lakh crore, the RE being Rs 11.7 lakh crore against the budget estimate [BE] of Rs 13.3 lakh crore. For 2020-21, the FM has set the GTR target of Rs 24.23 lakh crore – an increase of Rs 2.63 lakh crore over the RE for 2019-20. The direct tax target is Rs 13.19 lakh crore, an increase of Rs 1.49 lakh crore over the...
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