The new urea project at Talcher will worsen the already unsustainable fertiliser subsidy burden as retention price at this project may surpass the current high of $350/tonne The RP in turn, is calculated taking into account efficiency norms such as capacity utilisation, energy consumption, capital related charges (CRC), other fixed cost, delivered cost of gas and other inputs, etc. The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has recently approved subsidy for urea to be produced by Talcher Fertilizers (TFL) —a joint venture of four PSUs: Coal India Limited (CIl), GAIL, Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilizers (RCF), and Fertilizer Corporation of India (FCI). TFL is setting up the capacity of 1.27 million tonne per annum at Talcher, Odisha, at an estimated investment of Rs 13,277...
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News & Media
Patent waiver alone won’t help
There are three ways to overcome the issues facing us in our anti-COVID fight Amidst exponential increase in demand for vaccination, Indian policy makers are looking for all possible options to ramp up supplies. A major hindrance in the way is the intellectual property rights (IPRs) associated with new drugs which are mostly discovered and developed by multinational pharmaceutical companies. For instance, Covishield was discovered and developed by Astra-Zeneca in collaboration with Oxford University; a license for its manufacture has been given to Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII). The most crucial of these rights relates to patent. The patent granted to an innovator company for a new drug gives a period of ‘market exclusivity’ during which no other firm can...
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NEP: A bundle of pious intentions
The Government should avoid overambitious targets that will result in gross underutilisation or even scrapping of the assets already created In yet another attempt to improve the power sector, the Modi Government has come up with a new draft National Electricity Policy (NEP), the major objectives being to promote clean energy such as power based on renewable and gas without debunking coal; revitalise power distribution companies (discoms) and developing an efficient market for electricity distribution. All the three objectives are laudable. These are crucial to development of an efficient, competitive and sustainable power sector to meet the needs of the economy on a high growth trajectory while at the same time, meeting the environment goals (especially India’s commitments under the...
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Make the COVID jabs free for everyone
There is a dire need to vaccinate at least one billion people within a short time and, given the pitfalls of differentiated pricing, the Centre should opt for inoculating everyone free of cost Under the ‘Liberalised Pricing and Accelerated National Covid-19 Vaccination Strategy (LPANCVS)’, announced on April 19, which was kicked off from May 1, the Centre has plans to vaccinate all adults above 18 years of age. Before this, the inoculation drive that was launched on January 16, covered healthcare and frontline workers and people above 50 years of age and those with comorbidities. In the second phase of the drive the age limit was brought down to those above 45. Vaccine manufacturers were giving all their supplies to...
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A flawed idea that the US must abandon
Imposing a global corporate minimum tax will interfere with the right of a country to determine its tax policy and impair its ability to galvanise the policy to achieve certain objectives The Joe Biden Administration is pushing for a Global Corporate Minimum Tax (GCMT) rate under the new international tax rules being coordinated by it with G20 countries. In 2017, the erstwhile Donald Trump Administration had introduced the US corporate offshore minimum tax called the Global Intangible Low-Taxed Income (GILTI). It is applied on the offshore incomes of US multinationals (MNCs) having subsidiaries in low-tax countries, at 10.5 per cent, which is half the Domestic Corporate Tax Rate (DCTR) of 21 per cent. US President Biden wants to double GILTI...
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Export subsidies face WTO challenge
The leeway to withdraw subsidies was meant for those developing nations which in 1995 had GNI in excess of $1,000 per capita. It can’t be availed by India, which is in a different category The Coronavirus pandemic played havoc with the economy of the country during the first half of last year. However, exports were beginning to look up in March — touching a record $34 billion which was higher than $33 billion in March 2019 — and signalling a sharp increase during the current fiscal. But now, the exporters face a triple whammy. First, they have not received export benefits worth approximately Rs 35,000 crore under the Merchandise Export from India Scheme (MEIS). Under the MEIS, which was withdrawn...
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What’s ailing PSUs’ sale?
The PM will do well to ‘debureaucratise’ the process of running CPSUs. This should be done even before privatisation is taken up The process of disinvestment needs to be unshackled. Against the `210,000 crore target set for disinvestment proceeds from Central Public Sector Undertakings (CPSUs) in FY21, the actual realisation was just about `32,000 crore. Even as the Centre may explain it away as ‘corona pandemic effect’, the prospects in FY22, when the economy is expected to register high growth, don’t seem much better. For this year, the target for speaks for itself. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman has fixed the target for FY22 at `175,000 crore, substantially lower than year before. This is despite adding two public sector banks (PSBs)...
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Nix sovereign guarantee clause for the NaBFID
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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Scrappage policy can be more attractive
Announcing a ‘voluntary’ vehicle scrappage policy in the Lok Sabha on March 18, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari listed its numerous benefits, such as doubling the turn-over of the Indian automobile industry from the present Rs 4.5 lakh crore to Rs 10 lakh crore, the salutary effect on environment due to mitigation of vehicular pollution, a reduction in fuel consumption and fuel import bill, job creation, increased safety on the roads, reining in input costs for industries such as automobile, steel, electronics, etc., increase in GST collection, and so on. Currently, there are 5.1 million vehicles in India which are more than 20 years old, 3.4 million that are between 15 and 20 years old, and 1.7 million vehicles older than...
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Bank fraud: No fetters on CBI, please!
A sweeping order that the CBI will look only at frauds involving a certain amount, or higher, will send out a wrong signal. It is tantamount to glossing over the wrongdoings Even as the Government is making all efforts to ensure that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) — after witnessing 8 per cent contraction during 2020-21— returns to a high growth trajectory, it is concerned about the tepid recovery in credit availability which is considered to be the sine qua non of growth. According to the latest data by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the annual non-food bank credit growth in January this year was at 5.7 per cent compared to 8.5 per cent in the same period last...
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