AAPI: August 2019

DELHI, 20th August 2019

Index of this Newsletter

INDIA

INDIA & THE WORLD

21.1. L&T Hydrocarbon Engineering bags over Rs 7,000 crore order from Saudi Aramco
21.2. Byju Raveendran, a former school teacher, is India’s newest billionaire
22.1. India received highest-ever FDI at US$ 64.37 billion
22.2. Metro Cash & Carry partners ePay Later to digitise kirana stores
23.1. Cisco partners with Google to roll out high-speed public WiFi in India
23.2. Indian IT companies contributed US$ 57.2 billion to US GDP in 2017, says top official
24.1. IndiGo to launch services to Vietnam
24.2. India's renewable energy capacity crosses 80GW-mark
25.1. Ferrying hope on the Brahmaputra
25.2. Breathing life back into Mumbai’s fountains

* * *

DELHI, 20th August 2019

NEWSLETTER, 20-VIII-2019

INDIA

– GENERAL POLICY, INFRASTRUCTURES, COUNTRY FINANCES, ETC.

1.1. Biggest reform, National Medical Commission bill: Harsh Vardhan

IBEF, Jul. 30, 2019

As per Union Minister, Harsh Vardhan, Genuine concerns over the National Medical Commission bill have been tended to and the legislation will be probably the greatest reforms.

The bill would supplant the 63-year-old Medical Council of India (MCI) with the commission to change the medical education sector.

It additionally looks to repeal the Indian Medical Council Act 1956, expressing that the council that was set up was corrupted. It has been asserted that the procedure by which the MCI managed medical colleges was flawed.

Moving the bill for deliberation in Lok Sabha, Vardhan said it looks to set up another structure to handle difficulties in the medical education sector.

Declaring that the bill is a master poor enactment, which would not only bring government seats but as well as 50 per cent of all private seat inside the reach of meritorious students having a place with financially weaker section.

The Minister of Health and Family Welfare looked to guarantee that real worries of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) have been tended to.

Supporting the bill, BJP part Mahesh Sharma said the 1956 India Medical Council Act has totally neglected to satisfy aspiration of the people and the council has turned into a "den of corruption" and it has been "commercialised".

Sharma said in the proposed board, out of the 26 individuals, 21 individuals would be doctors. The legislation would improve the number of seats and instructors in medical colleges and have control over the fee structure.

There has been 25 to 30 per cent development in country’s medical tourism every year and for continuation of this trend, the country needs great doctors and great medicinal facilities. The bill proves for that

Among others, the bill has the arrangement for making national standards in medical education uniform by recommending that the last year MBBS exam be treated as a entrance test for PG and a screening test for students who graduate in medicine from foreign country. This exam would be called the National Exit Test (NEXT).

'NEXT' would guarantee that the NMC moves from a system of repeated inspection of infrastructure and to concentrate on results rather than the process.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

1.2. What is clogging up India’s district courts?

Livemint, 24 Jul. 2019, Sriharsha Devulapalli, Vishnu Padmanabhan

A shortage of judges is behind the increasing backlog of cases in lower courts across the country, according to National Judicial Data Grid records

New Delhi: India's slow wheels of justice are slowing down the economy. Such is the magnitude of the problem that the last two economic surveys authored by two different chief economic advisers have dedicated entire chapters to it. Much of the discourse around India’s pendency problem focus on the delays in high courts and the Supreme Court. Delay in these courts matter because they deal with high-profile cases but the root of the problem lies in India’s lower courts. Nearly 90% of all pending cases in the country come from India’s lower courts (district and subordinate courts) which are the first port-of-call for most legal disputes.

As part of a broader effort to digitize court records, the Supreme Court launched the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) in 2015 to track judicial performance across different courts in the country. Among original cases (i.e., new cases registered at the courts), more than half the cases (56%) in India’s lower courts are disposed of within a year, the database shows. Much of this is because around half the cases registered in courts are either dismissed without trial (21%), transferred to another court (10%), or settled outside the court (19%).

For other cases though, a resolution can take time. And of these cases, certain types of cases are particularly prone to delays. For instance, land-related issues seem to take significantly more time than the average case with nearly two-thirds of these cases resolved after three years. Similarly, around half of all labour-related cases in lower courts are only resolved after three years. As this year’s Economic Survey put it, these type of delays are casting a ‘long shadow’ on economic activity. Slow courts lower uncertainty and allow firms to make crucial investment decisions. In a 2012 study, Matthieu Chemin of McGill University found that speedier courts, defined as courts with a lower workload, were associated with small firms suffering fewer breaches of contract, investing more, and enjoying better access to finance.

Delays in the lower courts are a result of several factors. The biggest factor for delays is stay orders. Nearly half of all cases are delayed because of a stay order issued by a high court or the district court itself — which can temporarily stop a judicial proceeding and require responses from involved parties. Lower courts also struggle to secure the presence of witnesses, the second biggest reason for delays according to the NJDG data. Only around 17% of cases pending for more than 5 years are delayed because of the complexity of the case.

For all of these problems, the most commonly prescribed solution has been to increase the staff strength. Several commissions and legal scholars have suggested India’s courts need more judges to process the backlog of cases. According to the 2018-19 Economic Survey, an addition of 2,279 judges would allow India’s lower courts to clear all the fresh cases it receives in a year while 8,152 additional judges would allow it clear its entire backlog within five years.

Currently, across India’s lower courts, there are 17,785 judges which is 5,450 short of the sanctioned strength, according to data presented in the Rajya Sabha on 11 July 2019. Some states’ courts are particularly understaffed. Uttar Pradesh’s lower courts need 1,427 judges to reach their sanctioned strength while Bihar needs 643.

These are also the states with more pending cases with nearly 50% of cases in lower courts pending for more than three years. However, there are exceptions to this trend. For instance, West Bengal’s lower courts are at 92% capacity in terms of judges but around 50% of cases have been pending for more than three years.

This could suggest that simply increasing the judges may not be enough to address the backlog. The 245th Law Commission, for instance, suggested that merely increasing the number of judges without improving infrastructure in lower courts would do little to help address delays.

To improve this infrastructure, the 2018-19 Economic Survey recommends creating a specialized service called the Indian Courts and Tribunal Services (ICTS) which would provide critical administrative support to Indian judges. This, the surveys argue, would allow judges to devote time to judicial activity while the ICTS could focus on streamlining processes and reducing case-related delays.

2.1. Not enough low-cost units to meet rising demand (housing)

Livemint, 04 Aug. 2019, Ashwini Kumar Sharma

Various government incentives over the past few years have pushed up demand for affordable housing, but there isn’t enough supply in the segment

Budget 2019 announced extra tax deduction of ₹1.5 lakh on interest paid on loans taken for affordable homes

While the overall real estate sector may be floundering, the affordable or low-cost housing is still in demand, which is only becoming robust with increased government focus on the segment. However, there is not enough supply to match this increasing demand.

The latest in a series of government incentives, over the last few years, was the budget announcement of additional tax deduction of ₹1.5 lakh on interest paid on home loans taken for buying an affordable house. This came close on the heels of reduction in the rate of goods and services tax (GST), effective 1 April 2019. While Budget 2018 expanded the scope of affordable housing by increasing the size of units to be included in the segment, in March 2017, the government granted it infrastructure status. Budget 2016 allowed developers to avail 100% deduction on profit made in the low-cost segment, and a year before, in 2015, a credit-linked subsidy scheme was launched for homebuyers. The various government initiatives have helped boost demand.

Demand-supply mismatch

Despite growing demand, the supply of affordable segment remains poor.

According to a joint report by Knight Frank, a property consultant, and Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), a real estate accreditation body, Brick by Brick: Moving Towards ‘Housing for All’, “There is a huge supply gap for urban housing and more so in the Economic Weaker Section (EWS) and Low Income Group (LIG) category, i.e. houses with a ticket size of less than ₹2.5 million ( ₹25 lakh). Whereas the demand in the EWS and LIG Category is around 340,000 homes, the supply in the category is only 44,000 homes only." Even in the price range of ₹50 lakh, there exists a big gap in demand and supply; while there is demand of about 480,000 units, the average supply is around 112,000 per year, according to the report.

While you would expect supply to increase with rising demand, it actually fell down, according to data from ANAROCK Property Consultants Pvt. Ltd, a real estate consultant. “Affordable housing saw a quarterly decline of total new supply—by a significant 20%—from 32,060 units in Q1 2019 to 25,580 units in Q2 2019," said a report by ANAROCK Property.

Why is supply low?

Developers are reluctant to take up affordable housing projects aggressively because of various reasons. Experts say that limited availability of affordable land parcels in urban areas makes it unviable for developers to take up such projects. “The prevailing high property prices within the municipal limits of major cities prevents builders from launching affordable housing projects there, while lack of basic infrastructure facilities in peripheral areas—where housing under ₹45 lakh could be developed—discourages buyers," said Anuj Puri, chairman, ANAROCK Property.

Developers also blame the time-consuming process of obtaining clearances and approvals. “It takes around a year to complete all the paperwork and commence construction after having entered into an agreement for land purchase," said Parveen Aggarwal, chairman, Signature Sattva, an affordable housing real estate developer.

Developers claim they need to take approvals from about 40 departments of central and state governments and municipal corporations to start a project. “Land cost is typically 30% of the project value, and spending a year on obtaining approvals escalates project cost by 3-5%. This is huge as profit margin in case of affordable housing is low, say, 8-10%," said Aggarwal.

What buyers look for

Buyers’ preferences remain the same for any type of property, including affordable. “While purchasing an affordable housing property, product quality ranked as the first key parameter, followed by brand name," stated the Knight Franck-RICS research. For 80% homebuyers, cost was the topmost consideration, followed by safety and security (71%). Besides, 52% homebuyers highlighted parking space as a major gap in terms of their requirements in their current residences; security, playground and availability of public transport accounted for 43% each. About half of the people surveyed said location was a factor that affected their decision to buy.

2.2. Government aims to enroll 150 million workers under PM pension scheme

Livemint, 01 Aug 2019, Prashant K. Nanda

Individuals need to make a monthly contribution till the age of 60 to get an assured pension of ₹3,000 every month

Out of the total enrolment, 50-60 million workers will be from the construction sector

NEW DELHI: The Union government will enrol around 150 million workers over the next three years under its flagship pension scheme Pradhan Mantri Shram Yogi Maan-dhan (PM-SYM), bringing more informal sector workers under the social security net.

Labour secretary Hiralal Samariya on Wednesday said the pension scheme will benefit a large pool of people who earn less, but form a large part of the labour market. The secretary said a sizable portion of beneficiaries will be construction workers.

The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government is targeting the bottom of the pyramid through various policy interventions, realising that they are a significant political constituency.

Speaking at a function organized by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci), Samariya said the “scheme is doing well" since its announcement six months ago. The government is likely to achieve the 150 million number over the next two to three years. The labour secretary said out of the total enrolment, 50-60 million workers will be from the construction sector, reiterating that even agriculture workers and self-employed retailers can be a part of this pension scheme.

The government had announced the scheme in the February 2019 interim budget, promising to provide pension of ₹3,000 per month. Individuals subscribing to the PM-SYM require to make a monthly contribution till the age of 60 years, to get an assured pension of ₹3,000 every month.

The monthly contributions varies according to age: An 18-year-old starts out by paying ₹55 per month, which moves up to ₹80 at the age of 25, and ₹105, ₹150 and ₹200 for those aged 30, 35 and 40, respectively. A matching amount will be paid by the government into the pension fund.

As per the scheme, if the pensioner dies, the spouse shall be entitled to receive 50% of the pension amount as family pension. Besides, if a regular contributor dies before the age of 60, the spouse will be entitled to join and continue the scheme subsequently by payment of regular contribution or exit the scheme as per provisions of exit and withdrawal.

Around 8% of the labour market are formal sector employees and social security benefits, including provident funds, pensions, etc., are only available to them. Samariya said this makes PM-SYM important as it aims to bring a chunk of informal sector workers under social security provisions.

The secretary’s statement comes a day after the Lok Sabha passed the wage code bill, which seeks to provide minimum wages to all workers. According to official data, at least 3.5 million workers have already enrolled under the scheme till the beginning of July. Both labour ministry and the Life Insurance Corp. of India are key stake holders in rolling out the plan.

3.1. Government nod to railway proposal to raise speed of Delhi-Mumbai, Delhi-Howrah route

IBEF, Aug. 08, 2019

The government has affirmed the railways’ proposal to increase the train speed on Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah courses to 160 kmph which will diminish travel time by 3.5 hours and five hours individually, making them medium-term ventures.

While the expense of the project for the Delhi-Mumbai route will be Rs. 6,806 crore (US$ 946 million), the expense for the other project will be Rs. 6,685 (US$ 957 million) by 2022-23.

Increasing the speed of the Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah section to 160 kmph will guarantee up to 60 per cent increase in normal speed of passenger trains and multiplying of normal speed of freight traffic. Together these two routes account for 29 per cent of passenger traffic and 20 per cent of freight traffic.

The government has also endorsed the Ministry’s plan to construct another line between Vaibhavwadi-Kolhapur (presently Shri Chhatrapati Shahumaharaj Terminus) (108 km) with an expected cost of Rs. 3,439 crores (US$ 478 million).

The project will be finished by 2023-24 and will be executed by Construction Organization of Central Railway.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

3.2. Green energy capacity to multiply 6-fold in 10 years: CEA

IBEF, Jul. 24, 2019

India's renewable power capacity limit will run ahead and multiply almost six-fold in the next decade, while the share of coal-fired plants in the energy mix will fall to 32 per cent from the flow 46 per cent as development in thermal generation will be far slower, the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) has assessed.

Complete share of non-fossil-fuel plants, which includes solar, wind, hydropower and nuclear, will jump to 65 per cent of the total projected limit of 831,502 MW from 36.6 per cent of the current installed limit of 356,817 MW, as indicated by CEA's report on 'Optimal Generation Capacity Mix’ for the year 2029-30.

Coal will have a higher share of actual electricity generated because of consistent supply dissimilar to wind and solar, which are erratic., coal's share will fall from 77 per cent to 52 per cent by 2030, thermal plants would need to keep running at an even lower utilization level of 40 per cent on days of heavy generation by renewable energy plants. On such days, green generation would also have to be cut by up to 17 per cent, it said. Gas-fired power plant capacity will be slightly lower than the current 24,937 MW by 2029-30.

The projected mix will be accomplished through a five-fold rise in renewable generation capacity, including a close 10-fold rise in solar power capacity, a three-fold rise in wind power capacity, and a 1.5-times rise in nuclear power generation capacity in the following 10 years.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

4.1. Opinion | The seriousness of the problem of unemployment in India

Livemint, 01 Aug 2019, Himanshu

Stagnant wages and jobless growth are a recipe for political instability in the Indian countryside

Most indicators of the Indian economy in recent months confirm that it is slowing. There is also a consensus that the economic slowdown is largely a result of weakening demand, most notably in rural areas. While slowing demand has obviously affected the overall growth rate, it has also contributed to declining availability of jobs in an economy already struggling with the spectre of jobless growth.

How serious is the employment problem in India? Official economists and politicians shrug off any such idea of jobless growth with claims of jobs having been created during the previous term of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government. However, evidence from multiple sources points to a far more serious crisis of employment generation than is accepted.

The most authoritative source on employment in the country remains the employment-unemployment surveys of the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO). The latest in this series is the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), the results of which were withheld by the NDA government until the Lok Sabha elections were over. These were released soon after the incumbent NDA won the election. Like most other data, the government tried to tarnish the credibility of the surveys that had been initiated by it and were approved by an expert committee on this matter at several levels. It is important to reiterate that the PLFS estimates are fully comparable to the estimates of employment-unemployment based on NSSO surveys earlier.

The PLFS estimates, like their counterparts in earlier years, only provide estimates of the workforce, labour force and the unemployed. These are then blown up using population estimates from the census to arrive at an absolute number of workers. The population estimates were usually provided by the office of Registrar General of India (RGI), which also conducts the census. However, as has been happening with most official statistics, this is the first time that the RGI office has not released population projections for the years after 2011. However, several private estimates using the same methodology have been published. Accordingly, the population of India on 1 January 2018 was 1.31 billion, comprising 858 million rural and 457 million urban inhabitants. These, incidentally, are similar to the population estimate provided by the Central Statistical Office (CSO) for 2018 in its national accounts publications.

What do these numbers tell us? First, the total number of workers in the economy was 472.5 million in 2011-12, which fell to 457 million in 2017-18. The absolute number of workers declined by 15.5 million over six years. This is the first time in the history of employment measurement by the NSSO that the total number of workers declined in absolute terms. However, this is not surprising, with almost a similar estimate of a 16-million decline in the number of workers reported by the Labour Bureau’s Annual Employment Surveys of the fourth and fifth rounds. The government, shocked by these estimates, quickly decided to abandon the release of the labour bureau reports. However, a confirmation of the decline in absolute number of workers from two official government sources clearly points to the severity of the jobs crisis.

Most of the decline in employment has happened due to the fall in the number of workers in agriculture and a sharp fall in the absolute number of female workers. Roughly 37 million workers left agriculture in the last six years. During the same time, 25 million women workers were out of the workforce. While the trend of workers moving out of agriculture is seen since 2004-05 and is welcome, it also points to the rising vulnerability of farm production. The crisis in agriculture in the last six years has only accelerated the process. What is surprising is the trend of declining women workers, which has absolutely no parallel in any developing or developed country of similar per capita income. In most East Asian countries, the period of rapid growth was also accompanied by a rising number of women workers.

The movement of workers out of agriculture is a welcome trend, but also raises questions on where they will go. Along with the fact that the number of people aged 25-64 years increased by around 47 million during the six-year period, it also means that the economy should have created at least 83 million jobs between 2012 and 2018 to accommodate those who have entered the labour force and those forced out of agriculture. As against these, the economy witnessed a decline in the number of workers by 15.5 million. These are hard facts and no effort at criticizing and demonizing the NSSO will provide answers to these problems.

No doubt, the problem is not new and even earlier governments are to be blamed for the mess that the economy is in. Unfortunately, blaming the data or earlier governments does not make people who are looking for jobs vanish from the country. Stagnant wages and jobless growth are not just indicators of a weakening economy, but also a recipe for political instability and a crisis in the countryside. The least that is expected of the government is an acknowledgement of the extent of the problem and then try to address it.

4.2. Motor Vehicles Bill 2019: Government seeks to put India on a safer road

Livemint, 01 Aug 2019, Shaswati Das, Gireesh Chandra Prasad

The bill was passed in the Upper House by a majority vote of 108-13, while also escaping scrutiny of a select panel

Union road minister Nitin Gadkari said a total of ₹14,500 crore is being spent on safeguarding fatal spots

New Delhi: Parliament on Wednesday cleared a landmark bill aimed at reversing India’s reputation as the world’s single-largest contributor to road deaths.

The bill is the government’s maiden attempt at enacting a separate law on road safety. It contains stringent rules for vehicle makers, drivers and cab aggregators aimed at changing road behaviour and improving road safety through effective implementation of rules.

The Rajya Sabha on Wednesday passed the proposed amendments to the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill, 2019. The bill, passed by the Lok Sabha last week, now requires the President’s nod to become a law.

India overtook China in 2006 as the country with the world’s deadliest roads. A total of 146,133 people were killed on Indian roads in 2015, an increase of 4.6% from 2014, according to the latest data with the roads ministry. The number of road accidents in India increased 2.5% in 2015 to 501,423 while injuries from road accidents rose 1.4% to 500,279 in 2015.

Road accident fatalities jumped 54% in the decade to 2015 in tandem with a sharp increase in the number of vehicles on Indian roads and rapid urbanization and expansion of the road network.

The bill proposes cashless treatment for victims in the first hour of fatal accidents—the so-called golden hour when victims are most likely to be saved by medical treatment—higher penalties for drunk driving and imprisonment and/or penalty for non-compliance with production standards.

The bill was passed in the Upper House by a majority vote of 108-13, while also escaping scrutiny of a select committee.

The Opposition, however, alleged that the Centre has misled the Rajya Sabha on the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill as it was “defective" and not in the form passed in the Lok Sabha last week.

“It is a defective bill," senior Congress leader B.K Hariprasad said, adding that “The clause 94 was not there in the 1988 Act nor is it there in the Act which was passed in Lok Sabha. It has come to this House without taking approval from the other House."

The proposed law also seeks to protect good samaritans or citizens who come forward and rescue accident victims from being harassed by the law.

The bill increases the minimum compensation for hit-and-run accident cases from ₹25,000 to ₹2 lakh in case of death and from ₹12,500 to ₹50,000 in case of grievous injury.

Nitin Gadkari, Union road transport and highways minister, said a total of ₹14,500 crore is being spent on safeguarding fatal spots which are vulnerable to road accidents. “Road engineering is responsible for road accidents and it is wrong to blame drivers. In this regard, 786 spots have been chosen and₹14,500 crore has been infused," he said, adding that it was imperative to identify and improve “fatal spots."

The bill also has a provision to penalize construction companies for building faulty roads.

Toward safety issues, the bill provides for setting up a National Road Safety Board by the government through a notification. The proposed law suggested higher penalty for offences such as driving without a licence, speeding, dangerous driving, drunk driving and for vehicles plying without a permit. Additionally, those who do not give way to an ambulance or fire brigade may have to face a hefty fine of as much as ₹10,000 and/or imprisonment up to six months.

Obtaining a driving licence (DL) could get tougher. The process of obtaining a licence will become technology- driven, reducing human interface to curb corruption. Currently, licence testing is manual, which means untrained people are also able to procure a licence. A national register of driving licence will be created comprising nationwide licence data to make transfer of vehicles across states easier and weed out fake licences.

The government will also have the power to regulate taxi aggregators such as Ola and Uber as the current Motor Vehicles Act does not recognize cab aggregators as a separate entity. Adding the word “aggregators" in the Act will give power to the Centre to frame guidelines for these companies and make them more compliant.

Likewise, the bill allows the Union government to order motor vehicles recalled if it thinks a defect in the vehicle may cause damage to the environment, the driver or other road users.

Shreya Nandi contributed to this story.

5.1. GIC to invest Rs 4,400 crore in IRB Infrastructure's 9 road projects

IBEF, Aug. 08, 2019

Singapore's sovereign wealth found GIC will put Rs 4,400 crore (US$ 611.6 million) in a private Infrastructure Investment Trust constrained by IRB Infrastructure Developers Ltd.

As a part of the transaction, IRB will transfer nine of its BOT resources into the Investment Trust in which IRB will hold the controlling stake of 51 per cent stake.

The portfolio traverses 1,200 km in Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Karnataka. Three of these projects have recently become operational and the balance six are under different phases of construction. Five of the assets under construction are 4 to 6 path projects, where tolling just as construction has already started. These projects are deliberately situated along economic corridors and across tourist hubs.

As per the press proclamation from IRB, has signed binding definite agreements with GIC for total investment of up to Rs. 4,400 crore (US$ 611.6 million), including financing of future construction costs.

IRB will have the executive authority over these assets with GIC having standard rights of a financial investor and corresponding board representation. GIC will also hold 49 per cent in the Investment Manager (IM) entity formed to deal with the Private Trust. The balance construction and O&M for the road projects will be executed by IRB as the project manager for the Private InvIT.

The net income of the nine road assets in FY 2019 was Rs. 630 crore (US$ 87.57 million). Toward the finish of construction, the enterprise estimation of the assets would be Rs. 22,500 crore (US$ 3.12 billion).

Virendra Mhaiskar, CMD, IRB, stated: "IRB and GIC plan to also investigate future road sector opportunities in India together through the Private InvIT.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

5.2. Vedanta to invest $650 million in new oil and gas blocks

IBEF, Jul. 17, 2019

Vedanta Ltd will invest US$ 650 million in its new oil and gas blocks. This block was won in the government's last two rounds of auctions.

It had won a total of 53 oil and gas blocks under the government's open acreage licensing policy (OALP) and Discovered Small Field (DSF) rounds.

The company intends to invest Rs 20,000 crore ($2.9 billion) in investigation and production of oil and gas over the coming three years which comprises its present and new fields.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

- AGRICULTURE, FISHING & RURAL DEVELOPMENT

6.1. Opinion | How MGNREGA transformed into a monument of failure

Livemint, 18 Jul. 2019, Himanshu

Wages under the programme have been kept low, which has resulted in fewer workers opting for it

There is now a plethora of evidence that the economy has been cooling down over the last three years. Official data was slow to pick up the trend, but data from private sources on indicators such as sales of consumer durables and automobiles clearly show that it is largely a result of declining demand, particularly in rural areas. The Union budget presented on 5 July was expected to address some of these concerns. However, it was a missed opportunity, with no effort being made to increase spending in rural areas, except for the electoral promise of cash transfer to farmers.

Also disappointing was the government’s approach in dealing with most rural development programmes. These not only directly contribute to creating rural infrastructure and assets, but also indirectly help increase rural demand and employment. For most of these programmes, the budget expenditure was kept constant or lowered. Of particular importance is the all-India scheme under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). Its budget allocation has fallen compared to the revised expenditure of last year, and is insufficient, given the wage-payment arrears.

The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) showed apathy towards the rural and agricultural sectors during its first term in government, and in many ways is continuing the flawed policies of the second term of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government. The UPA, which enacted MGNREGA and reaped political dividends for its successful rollout during its first term, contributed to the weakening of the programme as well as the changing of its basic character. The government kept the budget allocation low and created administrative bottlenecks that stifled the programme. This trend has continued under the NDA. This alliance also altered the basic character of the scheme. MGNREGA was envisaged as a provider of rural employment to casual workers at government-mandated minimum wages set above market wages. This was the case at its 2006 launch.

The National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) has been tracking wages received by casual workers employed under MGNREGA and private markets since 2007-08, when it introduced a separate category for MGNREGA work. This has been retained even in the Periodic Labor Force Survey (PLFS), the report of which was released recently. In 2007-08, the second year of MGNREGA implementation, wages under the programme were 5% higher than market wages for rural male workers and 58% higher for rural female workers. This was one of the reasons that the programme attracted almost 50% female workers, in contrast to the trend of declining female workforce participation since 2004-05. By 2009-10, MGNREGA wages were only 90% of market wages for males, but 26% higher than market wages for females. By 2011-12, they were lower than market wages for both category of workers, but for females, they were close to market levels.

The 2017-18 PLFS estimates show that private market wages for males were higher than MGNREGA wages by 74%, and female market wages were higher than MGNREGA wages by 21%. Clearly, no male worker is going to demand MGNREGA work when he can get a much higher daily wage with the same effort . However, women continue to demand and work under MGNREGA, though market wages are higher, because of non-availability of work and discrimination as well as exclusion from the private labour market. A peculiar result of this is the overwhelming participation of women in MGNREGA in southern states, where casual wages are higher in general, with Kerala reporting only female workers. However, many states, including Gujarat, did not report any MGNREGA work in 2017-18. Keeping MGNREGA wages significantly lower than market wages is a deliberate attempt to finish the programme.

MGNREGA wages are less than half of the national minimum wage of ₹375 per day (as on July 2018) proposed by an expert group. Even the Economic Survey presented on 4 July has a chapter on minimum wages, which argues in favor of keeping minimum wages at a sufficiently high level to reduce poverty and inequality.

At a time when the government is pushing for a minimum wage code, the largest government-run programme has been violating state minimum wages for almost a decade.

MGNREGA could have been the lifeline to revive the rural economy, which is in distress. However, the political slugfest and flawed policies of the government have led to a situation where MGNREGA, bereft of its original character, is unable to provide a stimulus to the rural economy, despite the strong evidence of it having pushed up rural wages and incomes during the first five years of its implementation. It also created rural infrastructure and provided much-needed employment to the country’s rural population.

On 27 February 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in Parliament that he would like MGNREGA to be a monument of failure, though he would not finish the programme for political reasons. This objective has been achieved, with the trend having started under the UPA-II regime.

Himanshu is associate professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University and visiting fellow at the Centre de Sciences Humaines, New Delhi

6.2. Small eateries log on to food delivery apps, discover new customer base

Livemint, 23 Jul. 2019, Suneera Tandon, Ananya Sharma

In small cities, the apps are helping outlets expand their business and in metros, iconic joints are getting new customers

India’s food services market is pegged at ₹4.2 tn, 65% of which comprises unorganized and unlicensed joints

NEW DELHI: Indore’s cult food joint Johny Hot Dog that sells vegetable, mutton and egg cutlets stuffed in soft hot buns is planning to open a second outlet.

It’s taken Johny Hot Dog nearly 40 years to do so. “I never had the resources," says Vijay Singh, the 62-year-old owner of the food outlet that was launched in the early 80s as little more than a hole in the wall.

But Singh’s business has grown over the past year-and-a-half, and it’s thanks to UberEats, on whose platform he registered in 2017, that he is gaining the confidence to expand. For Singh’s is an outlet that has never had delivery staff and offers no seating. For its business, it relies entirely on a daily queue of hungry customers drawn to Singh’s stuffed buns, priced attractively at ₹25, ₹30 and ₹100.

Singh says food aggregators have been a “boon" to his business—daily sales are up at ₹1 lakh from ₹25,000-30,000 earlier.

Just like Johny Hot Dog in Indore, thousands of small eateries line markets and streets up and down the country, relying on local customers to keep their business going. But as India’s organized food delivery ecosystem, backed by investors, proliferates to touch ₹12,140 crore, such tiny joints—kulfi makers, paan sellers and dhabas—are benefiting from their reach and scale.

While in Indore Singh’s business is booming, in Old Delhi, a few iconic joints have found a new customer base online for the first time. Anil Sharma, owner at the over-a- century-old Kuremal Kulfi that sells the dessert stuffed in fruits has recently listed with food ordering apps. Though business online is still small, Sharma says he is discovering demand in places he didn’t know existed.

Jung Bahadur Kachori Wala, a nearly half-a-century-old shop in Delhi’s Chandni Chowk, is listed on Zomato, UberEats and Swiggy, and registers 100 deliveries a day, says its owner Nitin Verma. In exchange for the 18-22% commission on each order, the apps help Verma deal with order cancellations, lag in payments, etc.

“Aggregators have enabled democratization of consumption from such small restaurants," says Ajay Kaul, senior director at private equity investment firm Everstone Capital and former head of pizza chain Domino’s (Jubilant FoodWorks Ltd) in India. Kaul added that with more and more people choosing to eat out, both dine-ins and takeaways are being converted into deliveries.

For online food delivery companies, outlets such as Singh’s are indispensable.

That’s because despite the popularity of food chains such as McDonald’s, Domino’s and Cafe Coffee Day, local stand-alone food joints still trump large chains of restaurants due to their familiar cuisines and affordable pricing. Moreover, large chains are still scaling their presence in India’s smaller cities from where online food aggregators are drawing their share of new restaurants on their platforms and adding business.

Gurugram-based Zomato adds over 400 restaurants on its platforms daily, and “a bigger share of this comes from small eateries followed by big chains, irrespective of the size of the city", says Rakesh Ranjan, vice president-food delivery at Zomato.

While the top 15 cities have a sizeable contribution from organized players, emerging cities, says Ranjan, still host most of the small eateries. For Zomato, nearly 80% of the restaurants in emerging cities are very small in terms of operations—some no more than 150-200 sq. ft. “Food delivery has helped them increase revenue by two-three times within a year," says Ranjan.

For Zomato, small eateries and dhabas in emerging cities contribute up to 80% of orders.

India’s food services market is estimated at ₹4.24 trillion. Of this 65% comprises unorganized, unregulated and unlicensed joints, according to the National Restaurant Association of India.

For Bengaluru-based Swiggy, backed by Naspers and Tencent Holdings among others, and operating its services in 245 cities of India with more than 110,000 restaurants on its platform, smaller establishments and stand-alone restaurants drive 35% of the food service aggregator’s business. That is increasingly the case as the company moves into tier III and IV cities.

“As we continue to widen the choice of restaurants on the platform, a large number of them consist of smaller establishments and stand-alone restaurants that are FSSAI-registered," said a Swiggy spokersperson.

Since its launch in India in 2017, UberEats has seen a significant increase in the number of local restaurants and eateries across metros as well as non-metros, says Bhavik Rathod, head of Uber Eats for India and South Asia. He adds that a majority of the company’s orders come from popular local restaurants rather than quick-service restaurants or chains. This is especially true for cities such as Indore, Bhopal, Vizag and Kochi.

But initial glitches around payments, commissions and discounts continue to dampen the experience for those who have boarded the platform.

In Delhi’s Connaught Place area, Pandey’s Paan is listed across multiple food aggregators such as Swiggy, and Zomato, says Hariom Pandey, who runs the outlet. While Pandey is happy with the overall experience, he says that sometimes “the area managers run discounts without any knowledge or permission. We have to wait for a long time to get any reply to our mails. Basically, it ends up being a long process".

Disappointed by a delay in payments and fewer orders, Rai Sharma, owner of Pt Babu Ram Devi Dayal Paranthe Wale has been forced to delist from these apps. “We began facing problems regarding payments a few months ago," he says. He prefers to work with deliveries for which he is paid on the spot. “We only allow deliveries when they pay up front. After which, we don’t care if they sell it for ₹200 or ₹500. We don’t want to work on credit any more."

Even though small restaurants form the backbone of the business for aggregators, unlike the large established chains they grapple with regulatory, logistical and hygiene issues. Last year, Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), India’s food regulator, forced online delivery firms to delist restaurants that were not complying with its food safety rules after it received consumer complaints over quality and hygiene.

As a result, thousands of restaurants were removed. Zomato says overall awareness among small eateries about FSSAI certification is low. The company provides DIY kits and works with FSSAI to get such eateries compliant.

Swiggy does not on-board any outlet without an FSSAI licence, the spokesperson said. The company has also tied up with third-party vendors to facilitate the licence procurement process for new restaurants.

Small eateries still don’t fully get the power of this business, says Ankur Pahwa, partner and national leader for e-commerce and consumer internet at EY India. “The teething troubles they have initially tend to overwhelm them and they fall out easily. It is just a matter of trust and sophistication coming around the model—such as tech integration around ordering to billing to reconciliations, along with prompt payments and transparent returns policies that will help them eventually," he says.

Everstone’s Kaul adds that while the discounts and cashbacks bring in artificiality and ad-hocism to the delivery business, once these stabilize, the real equilibrium will set in with definite changes in habits.

7.1. Maersk ships first Indian mangoes to Europe

Eurofruit, 17 Jul. 2019, Maura Maxwell

The option of sending the fruit by sea opens up new opportunities for exporters

Maersk has completed its first successful shipment of mangoes from Nhava Sheva in Mumbai, to the UK.

Bombay Exports shipped 21 tonnes of Kesar and Badami mangoes in less than three weeks in Maersk reefers which featured remote container management and controlled atmosphere technology.

India produces almost half of the world’s mangoes, and Maersk said the success of the shipment opens new possibilities in shipping perishable goods which otherwise required faster, more expensive, air freight solutions.

Commenting on the 25-30 per cent increase in airfreight costs in April 2019 due to the stagnation of cargo flights, Steve Felder, managing director of Maersk South Asia, said: “With the difficulties in air freight in the current scenario, approximately 200 tonnes of air exports of fruits and other perishables are being impacted every week, leading to a huge loss of produce.

“Furthermore, strong demand for mangoes in European markets provided us with a chance to leverage our superior technology in preserving refrigerated cargo.

“Through this shipment, we were also able to strengthen our relationship with government bodies, including the Agricultural & Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA).

“We believe that this successful project will further open doors for trade of more premium commodities.”

Maersk continues to develop technology for perishable goods. Earlier this year, AP Møller-Maersk became a shareholder of Traxens, an internet-of-things technology developer that has developed a device that can track the location of reefers, detect shocks, check temperature and humidity and generate alarms.

Traxens hopes to sell over 150,000 of the devices by mid-2020, with Maersk committing to order 50,000. Eventually, the devices will be able to allow customers to regulate internal temperature, reports IEEE Spectrum.

CMA CGM first invested in Traxens in 2012 and was later joined by MSC in 2016. With the new investment from Maersk, Traxens said it can now focus on strengthening its solution and drive interoperability based on non-proprietary technologies and open standards.

The development of Traxens as an open industry solution is expected to benefit the strategic ambition of digitising the container shipping industry, the company explained.

7.2. Felix Instruments unveils Mango Quality Meter

Eurofruit, 24 Jul. 2019, Maura Maxwell

The new tool allows growers to monitor mango crops in non-invasive, non-destructive way

Felix Instruments has developed a new tool that enables growers and packers to accurately and non-destructively measure the internal quality of mangoes.

The Mango Quality Meter measures dry matter and Brix in seconds, doing away with the need for more labor-intensive and destructive testing methods.

The instrument integrates with FruitMaps, a crop mapping application that makes easier monitoring of mango crops in a non-invasive, non-destructive way.

“I am extremely excited about this new tool, both for growers and distributors,” said Scott Trimble, marketing director for Felix Instruments. “This is a significant technological advancement for the worldwide mango industry.

“Our goal has always been to help producers make better decisions at harvest. Utilizing the Mango Quality Meter means more actionable data, the ability to reduce time and labor, and the complete elimination of the need to destroy fruit for testing. These are huge steps for the industry.”

The meter, which will be launched on 30 July, has been developed jointly with Kerry Walsh of Central Queensland University and Dr Jorge Osuna of INIFAP.

Based in the US Pacific Northwest, Felix Instruments designs and builds instruments for the agricultural and environmental fields.

Trimble, who recently presented the new tool at the Australian Mango Industry Association conference, explained that once the dry matter reading is taken, the data is transferred via Wi-Fi to a crop mapping application for analysis and sharing.

With FruitMaps, growers can achieve a complete understanding of their crop’s maturity. Co-created with Central Queensland University, FruitMaps provides mapping and visualization of crop maturity, enabling growers to see how different regions and zones within their crop are progressing.

The meter’s calibration and firmware were explicitly designed for dry matter and Brix readings. The unit is also highly portable, benefiting growers tremendously who have fields in various locations or regions.

According to the company, the device is also generating a high level of demand among mango distributors.

8.1. Indian dairy sector grows by 6.4% annually in last 4 years: Giriraj Singh

IBEF, Jul. 26, 2019

In India, the dairy sector has seen a growth of 6.4 per cent annually in the last four years against the global growth rate of 1.7 per cent. The aim is to improve milk productivity per animal further, as per the Minister of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying Giriraj Singh.

Despite being ranked number one in milk production, the per animal productivity is 1,806 kg a year, although the world average is 2,310 kg. The technologies implemented under Rashtriya Gokul Mission which include embryo transfer technology, creation of facility for sex sorted semen production and genomics selection, would support to expand the productivity.

Around 80 million rural Indian households are involved in milk production with very high percentage being landless, small and marginal farmers.

To handle the situation of milk adulteration, the department has now approved a scheme to improve laboratories in 313 dairy plants in the country for identifying adulteration in milk. There are 18 states which have central laboratory approved for the cooperative sector. The upcoming National Programme for Dairy Development will include testing for contaminants that would be considered for village level cooperative societies serving to create trust among farmers as well as consumers.

Apart from guaranteeing consumption of safe milk, improving laboratories in dairy plants would help to promote export. India by far contribute only 0.01 per cent of the global dairy export market.

Standards set by bodies like Food Safety and Standards Authority of India should be stringent about milk adulteration and urged the milk unions not to buy adulterated milk. Milk unions should keep in mind the welfare of farmers and pay attention to feed and fodder and infrastructure for quality clean milk.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

8.2. Nestle to invest Rs 700 cr to open a new plant in Sanand for Maggi

IBEF, Aug. 05, 2019

Nestle plans to ramp up its production capacity by investing around Rs 700 crore (US$ 99.54 millon) in two years to set up a new factory in Sanand, Gujarat to manufacture its range of popular instant noodles Maggi.

Nestle India soon initiate development of its ninth plant, which would create work to around 400 people.

"In accordance with commitment to 'Make in India', will soon initiate development of our newest, and ninth processing plant in India, at Sanand, Gujarat," said by, Nestle India Chairman and Managing Director Suresh Narayanan.

This plant would be a "significant step" in upgrading Nestle's manufacturing footprint in India.

The company said half of the employees at its Sanand plant would be women.

The environmentally sustainable manufacturing plant for MAGGI Noodles will include an initial investment of almost Rs 700 crore throughout the following two years, create work for around 400 people.

In 2018, Nestle India had an income of Rs 11,292.27 crore.

Nestle India had set up its first manufacturing facility at Moga (Punjab) in 1961.

The company has different units in Choladi (Tamil Nadu), Nanjangud (Karnataka), Samalkha (Haryana), Ponda and Bicholim (Goa), Pantnagar (Uttarakhand).

In 2012, the company set up its eighth assembling office at Tahliwal (Himachal Pradesh).

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

9.1. Indian logistics platform adds reefer

American, 7 Aug. 2019, Liam O’Callaghan

One of India’s leading digital logistics platforms, Cogoport, has added refrigerated cargo services to meet rising demand

Cogoport, an Indian-based digital logistics platform, has announced the addition of refrigerated cargo services to its platform, facilitating shipments to and from destinations around the globe.

Its customers can now compare rates and book reefer containers through a host of partner shipping lines on the company’s platform. The company works with 60 major international shipping line providers, more than 40 non-vessel operating common carriers and 300 freight forwarders.

This addition comes in response to the rapid growth in refrigerated exports India has experienced in the last decade, with fresh fruit and vegetables helping to drive the demand for reefer imports and exports the company said.

Refrigerated exports from India grew by 27 per cent in 2018 driven in part by demand for organic food from North America, Europe, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Vietnam, one example is the export of onions, which rose by 15 per cent year-on-year in 2018 over 2017.

“We are now able to pass on the benefits of Cogoport digital shipping to customers who move refrigerated goods – typically small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) moving seafood, fruit and vegetables, chemicals and pharmaceuticals,” said Purnendu Shekhar, founder and chief executive of Cogoport.

“We are meeting significant demand for reefer exports to North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East, and to those importing refrigerated cargoes – enabling SME shippers all over India to deliver better productivity, service and profitability when moving their perishable cargoes,” he added.

Anish Patel from Jyoti Exports, one of Cogoport’s customers, exports potatoes and onions to markets across Asia and the Middle East and expects this new service to help his company meet demand.

"Indian potatoes are in huge demand especially in countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Oman, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait and Mauritius where there is a shortage of good quality potatoes because the geography and climate are not favourable. Freshness is key and an efficient refrigerated export system is vital for our exports,” Patel said.

9.2. Interest in Indian startup (Walmart)

Americafruit, 4 Aug. 2019, Liam O’Callaghan

Walmart is set to make a large investment in Indian fresh produce supply chain startup Ninjacart

US-based retailer Walmart has committed to investing nearly US$50m into Ninjacart, a B2B fresh produce supply chain platform, according to local news sources.

An Economic Times report said the first tranche of this investment, reported to be US$10m, is set to close before the end of August and Walmart will get a board seat in Ninjacart as part of the transaction.

This new investment follows Ninjacart’s announcement in April it had raised US$100m funding from Tiger Global.

Currently, Ninjacart connects fruit and vegetable growers directly with retailers using a technology-integrated supply chain.

The company said it serves more than 17,000 retailers across seven major cities in India — Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Pune, Mumbai, and Delhi. It said it delivers more than 1000 tonnes of fresh produce daily and focuses on moving it from growers to retailers in less than 12 hours.

This investment will see Walmart gain another foothold in the Indian market, which it entered in 2009. It’s subsidiary, Walmart India, already owns and operates 26 Best Price stores and operates three fulfilment centres in the country.

Additionally, in 2018 it completed India’s largest e-commerce deal when it acquired a 77 per cent stake in e-commerce platform Flipkart, for US$16bn.

According to the Economic Times report, even though Walmart is scaling up Flipkart’s grocery business, there will be no direct integration of Ninjacart with Flipkart.

10.1. India’s retail landscape is evolving

Fruitnet, 24 Jul. 2019, Kris Komorek

India’s rapid economic growth prompts retailers to rethink their relationship with consumers as new trends emerge.

India has emerged as the second fastest growing major economy in the world and is expected to be one of the top three economic powers by 2025, according to a recent report released by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) agricultural service.

Agricultural related imports grew by 10 per cent, from US$22bn in 2013 to US$25bn in 2018, with the market for imported foods experiencing a 68 per cent growth over the previous six years.

Consumer oriented foods, including fresh fruits and tree nuts, are the fastest growing segments of imported agricultural products, reaching US$5.3bn in 2018.

Traditional roadside stands, open markets and corner stores, otherwise known as Kirana, make up 98 per cent of the total market share, however modern retail stores including supermarkets and hypermarkets are growing and are estimated to double their market share to 4 per cent by 2020.

With 62 per cent of India’s population below the age of 35, investment into e-commerce is an important step in diversifying the industry. Supermarkets and hypermarkets, such as FoodHall and Star Bazaar, are providing online services to their customers via their own mobile apps and are providing free home delivery in an effort to capitalize on convenience.

Other approaches include developing marketing strategies, offering new payment schemes and different pricing strategies via the creation of private label products. Outlets have also begun providing organic, natural and vegan grocery options to their customers as part of an ongoing healthy eating trend emerging in India.

USDA reports that although online grocery retailing is the smallest retail channel (representing 5 per cent of total retail grocery sales), it has the highest potential and is expected to increase by almost 27 percent in 2019.

The government has reduced the time and cost to import food through the implementation of electronic sealing of containers, the upgrading of port infrastructure and permitting the electronic submission of supporting documents with digital signatures.

However, exporting to India remains challenging due to high tariffs, ongoing import restrictions and strong competition from the domestic industry.

Tree nuts, including almonds and walnuts, apples, pears, grapes and non-local seasonal fruit all performed strongly in 2018.

10.2. Indian growers rally for change

Asiafruit, 22 Jul. 2019, Kris Komorek

Grape growers in Maharashtra join forces to fight market inequality

Indian grape growers in the Maharashtra district of Nashik are forming a federation in a bid to organize a market that’s riddled with inequality, according to a report published in Financial Express.

An estimated 1.43 lakh tonnes (143,000 tonnes) were exported this season and the move to develop the Maharashtra Grape Growers Association (MGGA) is seen as the first step in assisting farmers get more for their product.

Kailas Bhosale is the secretary of the association and he told Financial Express there are several factors that need to be addressed before farmers could get the right price, including “a lack of insurance, traders not honoring their financial commitments and the absence of a platform for addressing farmer grievances.”

He said the effort aimed to bring everyone together and would hopefully encourage farmer and producer companies to form that could then market their produce collectively through a common platform.

“At present, most farmers end up contracting their produce to commission agents or traders and there have been several cases of traders duping farmers of their money” explained Bhosale.

Traders are commonly given 15 days to settle accounts, but farmers realized many would not answer their calls because they had simply changed their contact details. Because of the disorganized nature of the market, farmers would often end up taking whatever was offered, meaning the price would fluctuate and farmers would be worse off.

The federation may also look to implement an approach devised by India’s Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) by encouraging the registration of traders. This would give farmers confidence to know they’re working with certified, trustworthy traders.

- INDUSTRY, MANUFACTURE

11.1. India's first underwater metro services to start soon in Kolkata

IBEF, Aug. 09, 2019

Minister for Railways and Commerce & Industry, Mr Piyush Goyal announced the underwater metro rail project in Kolkata which is being constructed in the Hoogly river of Kolkata city. The 520-meter twin tunnel, one east-bound and the other west-bound, is manufactured 30 meter underneath the riverbed. Commuters between Howrah and Mahakaran metro stations will be under the river for just about a moment when the metro train will go through the tunnel at a speed of 80 km per hour.

Of the 16.6-km course of the East-West Metro project, the tunneling covers 10.6 km, of which 520 meter is under the river. The underwater tunnel is being constructed at an expense of Rs 60 crore while the total cost of the East-West Metro project is evaluated to be around Rs 9,000 crore. The tunnelling work began in April last year and likely to be finished in the river section shortly, said by senior Railway Minster.

For the railways, besides the tunnel under the Hooghly river, drilling work is continuing for the seven-km-long under-sea route of the Mumbai-Ahmedabad rail corridor to find out soil condition for India's first bullet train path.

Travelers will get the thrill of traveling under the sea at a maximum speed of 350 km/hour, another first in the country, near Thane in the upcoming rapid train project connecting the two metropolis.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

11.2. Under FAME scheme, Government approves sanction of 5,595 electric buses

IBEF, Aug. 09, 2019

The government has approved 5,595 electric buses in 64 urban communities for intracity and intercity operations under the second period of FAME India scheme in order to push for clean mobility in public transportation.

The Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises had welcomed Expression of Interest (EoI) from cities with million or more population, smart cities, state or UT capitals and special category states for submission of proposal for sending of electric buses on operational cost basis.

During the procedure, the Department of Heavy Industry got 86 proposals from 26 states or UTs for the sending of 14,988 e-buses.

The government endorsed 5,095 electric buses to 64 cities or state transport corporations for intra-city operation, 400 electric buses for intercity operation and 100 electric buses for last mile connectivity to Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC).

According to EoI, buses which fulfil required localisation level and technical eligibility advised under FAME India scheme phase II will be eligible for funding under FAME India scheme phase II.

The buses are relied upon to keep running around 4 billion kilometres during their agreement period and are required to save cumulatively about 1.2 billion litres of fuel over the contract time, which will result into avoidance of 2.6 million tonne of CO2 emission.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

12.1. PepsiCo India to invest Rs 514 crore to open snacking plant in UP

IBEF, Jul. 29, 2019

Food and beverage maker PepsiCo India will invest Rs 514 crore (US$ 71.44 million) over three years to set up a greenfield snacks manufacturing plant in Uttar Pradesh (UP), Ahmed ElSheikh, president and CEO, PepsiCo India, said on Sunday.

The investment is in line with the company's plan to double its snacking business that includes brands such as Kurkure and Lays in India by 2022.

The company's senior leadership team signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with representatives of the UP government at the state's second ground-breaking event that is aimed at attracting investments in several projects.

"PepsiCo is committed to growing its food and beverage business sustainably in India. We have a long relationship with the people of Uttar Pradesh. As we look to double our snacks business over the next few years, we intend to invest Rs.514 crores (US$ 71.44 million) approx. to expand our footprint in Uttar Pradesh," ElSheikh said in a statement.

"Agriculture is at the heart of PepsiCo and our farmer friends are the backbone of our business. As we expand our operations, we will look forward to a fruitful association that will not only help create jobs and enable ancillary industries, but also ensure the socio-economic progress of potato farmers in the state," he added.

The plant will create 1,500 direct and indirect jobs.

PepsiCo, which sells Tropicana, 7Up, Mountain Dew and Kurkure, has been looking to grow its business beyond sugary drinks to address shifting consumer needs. As a result, it has been lining up new flavours and region-specific variants in its popular Lays and Kurkure brand of salty snacks. It also helps that India's packaged snacks and foods market is expected to grow 22.3 per cent between 2018 and 2022, according to estimates by research firm Euromonitor.

In India, PepsiCo competes with companies such as Prataap Snacks, Haldiram's, and ITC among others.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

12.2. Walmart launches third outlet in Telangana

IBEF, July 18, 2019

Walmart India launched its third Cash and Carry store, named as “Best price modern wholesale store” in Telangana at Nizamabad making it 26th store launched in the country by the company.

The retail company plans to inaugurate its fourth store in Telangana in Warangal. The store is constructed over 50,000 square foot. The store is planned to considerably add to the local and state economy by generating an estimated 2,000 direct and indirect jobs.

It is also predictable to increase the smallholder farmers and regional supplier eco-system as it will directly source from farmers and locally relevant food, non-food products from local suppliers to fulfill the needs of its members.

The new store has also been combined with sustainable solutions such as renewable energy, LED lights, water recycling through Sewage Treatment Plant and ground water recharging through collection of storm water and waste management.

This is the third store launched by Walmart within a span of 4 months.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

13.1. BHEL, CONCOR tie up for rail-based logistics terminal at Haridwar

IBEF, Jul. 16, 2019

Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), state-owned notifies that it has entered an agreement with Container Corporation of India (CONCOR) to set up a rail-based logistics terminal at Haridwar.

Utilizing BHEL's strategic location and CONCOR’s expertise in logistics, the two companies have signed an agreement to form a joint working group named BHELCON. The main purpose of this joint venture will be jointly setting up a rail-based logistics terminal at Haridwar.

This terminal will be further than be developed into a multi-modal logistics facility.

The terminal will fulfil the requirement of the large number of industries located in the neighboring SIIDCUL (State Infrastructure and Industrial Development Corporation of Uttarakhand Ltd) as well as other industrial clusters in the vicinity along with BHEL’s own requirement.

These industries will benefit enormously as the cost of rail transportation is significantly less than the cost of transportation by road. Furthermore, BHEL’s Haridwar plant is in close vicinity to the upcoming Eastern and Western Dedicated Freight Corridors which will be of further benefit to the PSU.

BHEL has one of its biggest manufacturing units at Haridwar, Uttarakhand, since 1967 and now has three manufacturing units and one research centre in the state.

CONCOR which is under Ministry of Railways, owns a network of 83 terminals situated across the country. It also holds ownership of more than 300 rakes for container transportation.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

13.2. India readies plan for $4 billion Tesla-scale battery storage plants

Livemint, 25 Jul. 2019, Utpal Bhaskar

India will need 6 gigawatt-scale plants of 10GWh each by 2025 and 12 by 2030

Apart from EVs, such battery storages will cater to the consumer electronics industry and electricity grids, given the intermittent nature of electricity from clean energy sources

New Delhi: India is putting the final shape on a plan to build at least four Tesla-style giga factories to manufacture batteries with an investment of around $4 billion, as the country prepares to switch to electric vehicles to curb pollution and cut its dependence on foreign oil.

“We are moving ahead with the plan and a cabinet note for the same has been floated," said a senior government official, requesting anonymity. “Why should India import battery storage units when we have the largest market here?"

Aimed at securing India’s energy needs, the plan to set up these factories of 10 gigawatt hours (GWh) each is being helmed by federal policy think tank NITI Aayog and looks to accomplish what Tesla has done at its Gigafactory in Nevada, US.

“The focus on battery storage manufacturing will enable India to develop an electric vehicle ecosystem including manufacturing and R&D, an opportunity the country missed while developing the solar industry," said Rupesh Agarwal, founder of AEM, an electric mobility company.

As part of the plan, the government may offer a raft of incentives to manufacturers such as concessional financing options with around 3% foreign exchange hedge on overseas loans and a fixed 3% interest subvention on loans availed in Indian rupees. In addition, a reduction in minimum alternative tax (MAT) may be offered.

According to information reviewed by Mint, the support extended by the government for advanced chemistry cells and battery manufacturing may also include an investment-linked tax incentive under Section 35 AD, a deemed infrastructure status and a suitable basic customs duty safeguard. It may also offer an output-linked subsidy on kilowatt hour (KWh) of cells sold.

Apart from electric vehicles, such battery storages will cater to the consumer electronics industry and electricity grids, given the intermittent nature of electricity from clean energy sources such as solar and wind.

According to a conservative scenario envisaged by NITI Aayog, India will need six such gigawatt-scale facilities (of 10 GWh each) by 2025 and 12 by 2030. While this doesn’t include the export market potential, the base scenario envisions 11 such giga factories by 2025 and 24 by 2030

To put this into perspective, each GWh (1,000 megawatt hour) of battery capacity is sufficient to power 1 million homes for an hour and around 30,000 electric cars.

The programme aims to be technology-agnostic, meaning it will be left to the market to determine which technology is best suited for the country, depending on demand and price.

India has become one of the top renewable energy producers globally with ambitious capacity expansion plans. The country has an installed renewable energy capacity of about 80 gigawatts (GW) and is running the world’s largest renewable energy programme, with plans to achieve 175GW by 2022 and 500GW by 2030, as part of its climate commitments.

The government has studied what other developed economies have done to secure their energy needs amid an escalation of tensions in the Persian Gulf region and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries-plus arrangement agreeing to extend production cuts for crude oil.

As the world’s third-largest oil consumer, India is particularly vulnerable as it imports more than 80% of its oil requirements and around 18% of its natural gas.

On the demand creation side, the plan involves providing tax credits at the retail level and state-level grants to promote usage of electric vehicles. The GST Council, chaired by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, is expected to meet shortly to decide on lowering tax rates for electric vehicles to 5% from 12%.

The Union budget earlier in July also announced tax breaks for setting up mega-manufacturing plants for solar photovoltaic cells, lithium storage batteries and solar electric charging infrastructure.

14.1. RIL unveils blockbuster $15 billion deal with Aramco

Livemint, 12 Aug. 2019, Kalpana Pathak

RIL to sell 20% in refining, chemicals business in bid to become zero-debt firm

Mukesh Ambani said Aramco will invest in RIL’s oil-to-chemicals unit at an enterprise valuation of $75 billion

Mumbai: Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) is in the process of selling a 20% stake in the company’s flagship chemicals and refining business to Saudi Aramco in a deal valued at $15 billion, as the Indian company seeks to cut its massive debt and secure an assured supply of crude oil to its refineries.

Chairman Mukesh Ambani, Asia’s richest man, announced the proposed transaction at the company’s 42nd annual general meeting on Monday, although the terms of the deal have not been finalized. The deal, which values the oil-to-chemicals (O2C) business at $75 billion, is part of a plan to make RIL a zero-debt company in the next 18 months, Ambani said in a speech at the annual meeting.

“Saudi Aramco will invest in Reliance for a 20% stake in oil-to-chemicals division at an enterprise value of $75 billion for the O2C division, which will be demerged into a separate subsidiary in the next five years," Ambani told shareholders. In addition to the stake sale to Aramco, RIL will raise $1 billion from BP Plc, which will acquire a 49% stake in RIL’s petro-retailing business for ₹7,000 crore, said Ambani.

The investments are subject to due diligence, definitive agreements, regulatory and other approvals, Ambani said, adding that the Saudi Aramco partnership will cover all of RIL’s refining and petrochemicals assets, including its 51% stake in the fuel retailing joint venture with BP. RIL and BP announced a joint venture to open a nationwide network of fuel retail outlets last week.

Ambani is aiming to slash RIL’s ballooning debt after spending as much as $50 billion to propel its telecom business to the top position in India within three years of starting operations, surpassing Bharti Airtel Ltd and Vodafone Idea Ltd.

As part of the proposed deal, Saudi Aramco will also supply 500,000 barrels per day of crude oil on a long-term basis to RIL’s Jamnagar refinery.

Saudi Aramco, the most profitable company in the world, controls the world’s second-largest proven crude reserves at more than 270 billion barrels, and the partnership will go a long way in insulating RIL from any future oil shocks and volatility in crude prices, said industry experts.

“This deal could not only ensure continuous crude oil supply to RIL’s twin refineries but also bring in pricing advantages and give RIL cushion from the uncertain global crude oil market," an analyst with a domestic brokerage said on condition of anonymity. “For Saudi Aramco, this deal gives a much sought-after foothold in India."

The proposed deal, once completed, is expected to significantly improve RIL’s debt profile. The company’s total financial liabilities rose to $65 billion as of 31 March from $19 billion at the end of March 2015, resulting in interest cost rising almost fourfold to $4 billion during the period.

“This programme to aggressively pursue deleveraging in businesses and emerge as a zero-debt company in the next 18 months will strengthen the consolidated balance sheet leading to strong valuation rerating of the stock," said Ajay Bodke, CEO of portfolio management services at Prabhudas Lilladher.

RIL has developed a strategy to transform the Jamnagar refinery from a producer of fuels to chemicals, moving up the value chain. The complexity index of RIL’s Jamnagar integrated refinery has been enhanced to 21.1 (from 12.7 in 2016) after the commissioning of various integrated projects and petcoke gasifiers.

14.2. Amazon plans launch of online food delivery service in India

IBEF, July 30, 2019

Amazon.com Inc is planning a foray into the burgeoning online food delivery business in India this year, two sources aware of the development said, in a move that could raise competition in an increasingly crowded market.

The Seattle-based company is working with local partner Catamaran, founded by IT industrialist Narayana Murthy, and has begun hiring staff for the new operation, the sources said, declining to be named because the plans had yet to be made public.

Amazon is aiming to launch the new service delivering from restaurants ahead of India's month-long festive season, which starts in September, one of the sources said.

India's rising middle class has driven the growth of the online food delivery sector; with research firm RedSeer Consulting saying order numbers rose 176 per cent in 2018.

Profitability, however, remains elusive. The industry is dominated by local start-ups Swiggy, backed by Naspers and Tencent, and Zomato, which counts Sequoia as an investor.

Uber Technologies launched its India food delivery service in 2017 but has been unable to keep pace with the local market leaders.

Indian daily newspaper Business Standard on Monday reported that Amazon was in talks to buy Uber Eats. Reuters could not verify the news independently.

Catamaran did not respond immediately to a request for comment. Amazon and Uber said they don't comment on rumours.

Uber rival Ola also launched a food delivery service and bought Food panda in 2017. That company is now moving away from marketplace deliveries and focusing on its own brand of kitchens.

Amazon last month closed its food delivery operations in the United States in the face of stiff competition.

In India, the company's move into delivery from restaurants and takeaway food outlets will help Amazon to attract customers for its other services, one of the sources said.

The company launched its Prime services in India in 2016 and already offers services such as video and music streaming as well as groceries delivery in many cities across the country.

Amazon has been pitched in a battle for Indian market share against Walmart Inc's Flipkart, with both companies announcing various plans to attract more customers in what is viewed as one of their most important growth markets.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

15.1. L&T’s order flows surprise even as infra business copes with macro challenges

Livemint, 23 Jul 2019, Vatsala Kamat

Barring the power segment, infra, defence, heavy engineering and hydrocarbons clocked good revenue growth

L&T’s robust project execution skills played out in its favour despite challenging macroeconomic times

Will investors give a thumbs up to Larsen and Toubro Ltd’s (L&T’s) June quarter performance? The engineering conglomerate reported a surprise 11% year-on-year jump in order flows to ₹38,700 crore. Note that investors had hammered the stock over the last few trading sessions, expecting a drop in order flows. The increase in order flows came primarily from the domestic market, despite tough conditions.

Although there were hardly any central government orders, public sector units and the private sector compensated.

Therefore, the order book of ₹2.9 trillion, which was 9% higher than a year ago, should insure the company against near-term slowdown in the economy.

Besides order flows, the Ebitda (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) margin was at 11.2%, or 100 basis points higher year-on-year. It also surpassed Bloomberg’s 14-brokerages’ average by 25 basis points.

However, a slight drag in margins of its core business of infrastructure (engineering and construction) mirrors pressure in long-gestation projects.

That said, L&T’s robust project execution skills played out in its favour despite challenging macroeconomic times. Barring the power segment, which has been languishing for long due to lack of orders, infrastructure, defence, hydrocarbons and heavy engineering segments clocked good revenue growth.

(Graphic: Vipul Sharma/Mint)

However, the 10% growth in total revenue to ₹29,636 crore was lower than Bloomberg’s forecast of ₹31,360 crore, because of the elimination of the electrical and automation segment, which was sold to Schneider Electric.

Operating leverage and strong execution together translated into 20.6% Ebitda growth.

To be sure, the infrastructure giant’s performance is commendable. But, there are concerns. Although the management has maintained its FY20 order flow and revenue guidance at 10-12% and 12-15%, respectively, it is cautious on the near-term outlook. The liquidity crunch in the system and weak consumption if allowed to fester, will delay economic revival.

According to ICICI Securities Ltd, “On the balance sheet side, borrowings increased a bit leading to higher interest cost while working capital (ratio up 200 bps YoY) and cash flows were impacted negatively."

In spite of these odds, L&T coped well on the profit front. But the macroeconomic trend in the next two quarters remain crucial to gauge the company’s prospects; not to forget the impact of Mindtree Ltd’s consolidation in the September quarter results.

15.2. India's electronics production accounts for 3.3 per cent of global market

IBEF, Jul. 19, 2019

India's electronic production is evaluated at Rs 4.58 lakh crore (US$ 63.62 billion) in 2018-2019.The domestic electronic hardware producing sectors faces absence of level-playing field against competing nation because of "several incapacities which render the sector uncompetitive", said by minister for electronics and IT Ravi Shankar Prasad.

To an inquiry on whether the government is satisfied with the current level of contribution of Indian electronics industry to global market.

The government and industry, have taken a slew of initiative; as a consequences of which generation of electronics in India has risen to an expected Rs 4.58 lakh crore (US$ 63.62 billion) in FY19, developing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of around 25 per cent over the most recent four years, compared with a rate of 5.5 percent in 2014-2015.

The National Policy on Electronics 2019 plans to advance local assembling and fare in the whole worth chain of Electronics System Design and Manufacturing (ESDM) to accomplish a turnover of Rs 26 lakh crore (USD 400 billion) by 2025.

"India's gadgets creation during 2018-2019 is assessed to be Rs 4,58,006 crore (US$ 70 billion) while the global electronic generation is evaluated to be of the order of Rs 136 lakh crore (US$ 2.1 trillion), Subsequently, India's offer in the global electronic production is about 3.3 per.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

- SERVICES (Education, Healthcare, IT, R&D, Tourism, etc.)

16.1. Government plans to spend Rs 5,000 crore on skilling unorganized workers

IBEF, Jul. 22, 2019

Skill mission promoted by government is planning to shift its focus from the formal to informal sector with an annual expenditure of around Rs 5,000 crore (US$ 695 million). This comes as a move in sync with government’s lean towards creating more beneficiaries.

The ministry of skill development and entrepreneurship thinks that though there has been a strong focus on the formal sector in the last five years, it left out 93 per cent of the workforce in the informal sector.

Therefore, it is believed that lest the informal sector is targeted, the skill mission will not be successful. This was also noted at a recent meeting at the Prime Minister’s Office.

The focus of the mission was on 7 per cent of the work force, which was involved in formal sector, without realizing the ignorance towards rest 93 per cent. That’s a big recognition for the ministry and all the 22 departments of the Union government who have some skilling agenda. All 22 departments will slowly shift their focus to informal and unorganised sector.

The skill development ministry along with the ministry for rural development can collectively spend Rs 4,000 crore(US$ 556 million) a year for skill training manpower for the informal sector and with the government departments pooling in, the total spending can touch around Rs 5,000 crore (US$ 695 million) to help small organizations improve, get better manpower or train their existing workforce to enhance their productivity. Estimates shows that at least 80 per cent of the labour market is working in businesses having less than six employees. The skills ministry is working on some small-scale initiative to effectively implement it across the country.

Authorities said the Centre will partner states especially at the municipality and block level to reach the target audience.

However, it is believed that states will have to play a pro-active role and the Centre will have to persuade them that such a shift will benefit most of the people at the grass root level.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

16.2. Grofers hires 5000 employees to cater increasing demand

IBEF, Aug. 08, 2019

Grofers, an online grocery retailer has hired 5000 employees in its warehousing and front-end operations to accommodate the growing demand.

According to the company officials, this comes as the online grocery start-up plans to expand its footprints in the tier-II cities next year and will later assess whether the retailer will go into the territories of Jammu and Kashmir.

The addition of 5,000 employees in warehousing and front-end operations, comes ahead of second Grand Orange Bag Days (GOBD) sale from August 10 to 18. The new staff will mostly be engaged in 15 new warehouses and help increasing its delivery.

According to company official, the Grofers is planning to expand in the tier-II cities next year and then territories of Jammu and Kashmir will be evaluated.

Grofers have hired around 400 women employees keeping the demand for GOBD, this is a customer acquisition strategy, as the retailer has all-women warehouses in Bangalore and will have such storehouses soon in Gurgaon before extending it to Kolkata.

At present, the company has 45 warehouses to feed 16 cities across the country.

The retailer is expecting to acquire 3 lakh new customers in the upcoming sale.

Grofers was following profitability by consolidating its operations and focusing on doubling its sales to Rs 5,000 crore (US$ 695 million) in the fiscal 2019-20.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

17.1. Genetic tests gaining popularity for diagnosis & treatments in India

IBEF, Jul. 23, 2019

Ramsinghani's doctors ran a progression of tests, including a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain, and determined him to have a genetic disease called leukoencephalopathy with vanishing white matter infection, which affects the mind and the spinal line.

What had caused this dynamic neurological issue in their little child? The Ramsinghanis chose to complete a hereditary test. At the time, The Netherlands was the main nation that had the specialized ability for the test, so they sent their blood tests along with the child's.

What pursued was a long and uncertain wait. The test took two years, at the the end of which they were told the reason was indeed genetic — a variation in both copies of a gene inherited from his parents caused this disease.

As per Dr Vrajesh Udani, presently a similar test should be possible in India in 3 a month, a pediatric neurologist at Mumbai's Hinduja Hospital, who analyzed Ramsinghani. While the Ramsinghanis did not need to pay for the genetic test in 2004 since it was done as a part of research on the disease, its cost at that point would have kept running into lakhs of rupees. But now, it can be accomplished for just Rs 20,000-35,000.

genetic tests in India can cost anywhere between Rs 3,000 for something like thalassemia, a blood disorder set apart by inadequate hemoglobin production, and Rs 1 lakh for whole genome sequencing (WGS). This is huge since the first effort to sequence a genome took 13 years and cost about US$3 billion. The genome contains all our deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), which carries our genetic information. The DNA module contains four chemical units, expressed in letters A, T, G and C. WGS looks at the order of three billion sets of these letters. The size of the industry, which is pegged at Rs 300-400 crore, has been growing at 30% annually.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

17.2. Microsoft partners Apollo Hospitals to fight cardiovascular diseases

IBEF, Aug. 06, 2019

Microsoft India and Apollo Hospitals Group have come together to set up a National Clinical Coordination Committee (NCCC), which will manage the two entities on all cardiology and cardiovascular related Artificial Intelligence projects. Will also give clinical insights on creating clinical algorithms and treatment guidelines based on the inference of national, multi-centre prospect study.

Sangita Reddy, Joint Managing Director of Apollo Hospitals Group, said, we have brought probably the best cardiologists from renowned hospitals like AIIMS and KGMU to be a part of this committee. The National Clinical Coordination Committee (NCCC) will help us immensely in our fight against the rising tsunami of non-communicable disease (NCDs).

The committee will work for the AI-controlled Cardiovascular Disease Risk Score API. It will have members drawn from Apollo Hospitals, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi; and King George's Medical University, Lucknow.

CVDs are the biggest reason for mortality in India with almost 25 per cent of mortalities in the age group of 25 to 69 years. Given the high predominance of CVDs in the country, Apollo Hospitals and Microsoft India launched the first ever AI-powered CVD Risk Score API, planned specifically to anticipate the risk of CVD in the country in 2018.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same

18.1. Delhi airport to have 4 runways, a first in India

IBEF, Aug. 06, 2019

The Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) in the national capital has initiated its next stage of infrastructure expansion plan which will empower it to deal with 100 million passengers per annum (MPPA) in the following three years.

In an announcement on Monday, the plan, disclosed by operator Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL), conceives an upgraded airside capacity to deal with 140 MPPA.

The overall development plan under Phase 3A is relied upon to be finished by June 2022.

DIAL (Delhi International Airport Ltd) would complete incorporation of the departure and Arrival' terminals of T1, development of new T1 Apron, fourth runway, dual elevated Eastern Cross Taxiways (ECT), landside advancements for flow and connectivity upgrades and T3 modification works.

After the extension, Delhi Airport would become the first airport in India to have four runways and dual elevated Eastern Cross Taxiways (ECT)

In the last decade, the Air Traffic Movements (ATMs) and passenger numbers have seen a massive surge surpassing projection.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

18.2. Reliance-BP ink new fuel retail JV; to set up 5,500 petrol pump outlets in 5 years

IBEF, Aug. 07, 2019

Eight years after they collaborated to create hydrocarbons in India, Reliance Industries Ltd and British oil major BP Plc have met up again to open an across the nation system of fuel retailing outlets.

The outlets will be set up through another joint endeavor organization that will be claimed 51 per cent by RIL and the rest of BP, as indicated by a joint proclamation issued by the companies. The partnership will also market aviation turbine fuel to take into India's developing aviation industry.

Together, the companies intend to set up 5,500 fuel retail stations across the country, which may incorporate the 1,378 retail outlets RIL freely keeps running across India at present.

Mukesh Ambani, administrator and managing director of RIL and Bob Dudley, group Chief Executive of BP, consented to the heads of agreement for the joint venture in Mumbai on Tuesday. "Our strong association in developing gas resources in India has now extended to fuel retailing and aviation fuels.

BP got a permit to market jet fuel in India in January 2016. In October 2016, it got a permit to set up 3,500 fuel retail outlets in India. RIL holds a permit to open 5,000 fuel outlets and plans to double its growth in the fuel retail section from the present 7-8 per cent share.

BP is RIL's partner in its exploration and production venture in the country. In February 2011, London-based BP purchased a 30 per cent stake in 21 oil and gas production sharing contracts worked by RIL for US$7.2 billion. The two are also partners in India Gas Solutions Pvt. Ltd, an equal joint venture for sourcing and marketing of gas in the country.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

19.1. Medanta plans 1,000-bed hospitals in Gorakhpur, Varanasi, Allahabad

IBEF, Aug. 07, 2019

Medanta group plans to open 1,000-bed hospitals in Uttar Pradesh in cities like Gorakhpur, Varanasi, and Allahabad along with the one in Lucknow.

According to the Medanta Group Chairman Naresh Trehan, who was present at the second ground-breaking ceremony, the 1,000-bed hospital in Lucknow is due to be inaugurated on October 15. The treatment cost at the hospital is set as such that people could afford it and avail the benefit.

This hospital is expected to generate 6,000 direct jobs, and overall more than 13,000 jobs will be generated by the opening of this facility, he said.

A 700-bed hospital’s foundation was also laid in last month in Noida.

Blurb: The Medanta group plans to open 1,000-bed hospitals in Uttar Pradesh in cities like Gorakhpur, Varanasi, and Allahabad along with the one in Lucknow.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

19.2. Shipping, Tourism Ministry to set up committee to promote coastal tourism

IBEF, Aug. 05, 2019

The Shipping and Tourism Ministry may soon set up a committee that will consider techniques to promote cruises, sea sports and a light house viewing exhibition among others, to explore the opportunities in Coastal Tourism.

The Minister of State for Shipping, Mansukh Mandaviya, and Minister of State for Tourism and Culture, Prahlad Singh Patel, examined the massive potential for in an ongoing meeting maritime travel industry in the country.

One of the numerous thoughts was that every coastal area can make a calendar of events to engage tourists. This would incorporate activities like beach volleyball, sand art, food festivals, dances of fishing community, and the preferences.

The Shipping Ministry is advancing the travel industry in maritime states under the Sagarmala Program, which is being done along with the Ministry of Tourism and Tourism Development Departments of maritime state governments.

In the coming years, coastal and maritime tourism will be a source for development and employment in the coastal state of India.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same

20.1. A. Super failure: Horrors of IIT dream

Livemint, 23 Jul 2019, Sandipan Deb

There is something deeply wrong in the IIT ecosystem, which should worry us as a society

What the media doesn’t report is that the median salary of a fresh IIT graduate is ₹8-10 lakh a year, and that even in the top IITs, 15-20% don’t get jobs on campus

There is a dire need to train students in communication and other soft skills. The absence of these is the key reason why many IITians leave the campus, unemployed. Sanjeev Verma/HT

Super 30, the Hrithik Roshan-starrer movie based on the life of Anand Kumar, who runs an IIT entrance coaching centre in Patna, is a hit. I haven’t watched this hagiography, but the release of the film is an occasion to talk about a deep malaise that has been affecting millions of families over the past two decades and more. This is the widespread insane belief among the Indian middle class that getting into an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) is a ticket to paradise on earth.

When we entered IIT in the 1980s, we studied for the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) for a year at most, and some super-bright kids, not at all. Many rejected an IIT seat to study pure science because that was their first love, or went to a lesser-known engineering college if they did not get a stream of their choice in an IIT.

Not so today. Nowadays, parental pressure to get into IIT starts building on the child when he (I’ll refer to the IITian as a “he", since the boy-girl ratio in the IITs is 10:1; in our time, it was 25:1) is in Class VII, maybe even earlier. These parents don’t give a damn about what the child’s real talents or interests are. This madness is typified by a query posted by an Indian parent on Quora, the public question-answer portal, in 2017: “Which coaching institute is best for my kid in 5th standard for IIT JEE preparation?"

The parent was trolled. Many rational voices suggested that he should allow his child to follow his dreams and not pressure him. The parent replied: “He is a kid and doesn’t know what is good or bad. So parents decide what is better. IIT tag is very prestigious and it will bring pride to our family." A few days ago, I mentioned this to an IIT professor. He said this sort of utterly selfish IIT-obsessed parenthood with venal disregard for the child’s well-being is common.

Before I get into the tragic details, though, I should clarify that IITs continue to produce thousands of fine young graduates. Some millennial IITians are the brightest tech minds I have ever met (and many of my friends agree). As students, they had kept track of cutting-edge research around the world, been in touch with leading scientists, and taken full advantage of the matchless facilities that the IITs offer. These men and women are some of the finest ever products of the IIT system. Yet, there is something deeply wrong out there that should worry us as a society.

The money game

The man on Quora is going to rob his son of his childhood joy, his adolescent tomfoolery, and cause him psychological damage that will possibly last a lifetime, even if he gets into an IIT. Imagine the sense of failure the son will carry all his life if he doesn’t get in. All this, because his parents read media reports every year that half a dozen IITians have been hired by Amazon/Facebook/whatever at $200,000 a year, with US postings. They instantly multiply the figure by the $- ₹ exchange rate, and go goggle-eyed, without considering purchasing power parity, or that the $200,000 includes elements that may be performance-based or could be paid out over several years. Then, there is Sundar Pichai, chief executive officer of Google. Every such parent sees a Sundar in their little Sonu.

What the media does not report is that the median salary of a fresh IIT graduate is around ₹8-10 lakh a year, and that even in the top IITs, at least 15-20% students do not get jobs on campus. The IIT Bombay website tells us that for the academic year 2017-18, 85.21% of B.Tech students who participated in the campus placement process got jobs. The figure for IIT Madras was only 73.96%. I’ll come to the reasons for these shocking numbers later.

If he is lucky, “Sonu" goes to a JEE coaching class for only two years. The moment he joins, he is told that if he does not make it to the top 500 in the all-India rankings, he is a loser (the IIT intake is about 12,000, out of the more than one million children who sit for the JEE every year). So, right from the beginning, whether it’s from the parents or the coaching class, the child knows that there’s a 99.99% chance that he’s going to be a failure. The coaching class applies this horrendous pressure because the more high-rankers it produces, the better it is for its business.

The classes teach Sonu how to crack the multiple-choice-format JEE. “More than teaching you to work out the right answer, they teach you to reduce your chances of pressing the button on a wrong answer, since it’s nearly impossible to answer all the questions in the allotted time, and incorrect answers carry negative marks. They do not impart knowledge; they train you to crack one specific exam. So, effectively, the child learns little," says an IIT professor.

During an induction programme for freshmen in his IIT, when the professor asked a group of 90 students how many were happy with the streams and IITs they had got, only a few raised their hands. “They had entered IIT, and they already felt they were losers!" he says. “So I told them that Sundar Pichai, too, did not get the stream or IIT he wanted." (Pichai studied metallurgical engineering in IIT Kharagpur.)

Absence of learning

Over the last two decades, I have visited several IITs, and met possibly a hundred students. It is astonishing how few of them are interested in learning engineering, and how many of them are unhappy on campus. Now, it is an undeniable truth that since the first IITs were set up in the 1950s, middle-class children have been going to these institutes, not necessarily because they were passionate about engineering, but because the IITs seemed to be a passport to a better life than their parents.

But till about 25 years ago (which roughly coincides with the explosion of the Indian information technology industry), getting into IIT was not a life-or-death question, and those who got in, studied (or did not), thoroughly enjoyed their campus life, and stepped out as normal adults. Speak to any IITian who graduated in the last century, and he or she will definitely say that those were some of the best years of their lives. This is not true anymore.

Once in IIT, not only is Sonu under greater pressure to fulfil his parents’ Sundar Pichai dreams, the competition is also far more intense. “There are the guys who have it all mapped out from Day 1. They have this formula: to crack Amazon or Google, you need to have a CGPA (cumulative grade point average) above 7.5, be on some students’ committee, and do some volunteering. These are the ‘insiders’. But obviously they are taking on enormous pressure, because you have to study really hard, plus there are only so many student committee posts available," says a successful entrepreneur (class of 2011).

The entrepreneur goes on to add: “Then there are the ‘outsiders’, who want to be ‘insiders’, so they are stressed out too. And some people want to do other things in life, and just don’t fit in. They are seen by the rest as losers. So they’re miserable also. If you’re found reading a novel, people think you’re a freak. But—and I’m not joking—in their final year, guys who want to get into Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), who haven’t read a book in their lives, mug up four (P.G.) Wodehouse novels, because they know that a standard question in IIM interviews is: ‘Who’s your favourite author?’"

Too much academic pressure

In strict empirical terms, the academic pressure on an IIT student has not increased over the years. But earlier, students did not suffer massive years-long parental pressure (which also implies a closeted upbringing) and carry an overwhelming terror of failure. So they bore the stress of IIT life far more easily than many of today’s students. “And once these guys stumble," says a professor, “many of them don’t have it in them to get up. They have been strictly guided and spoon-fed all the way. They go into a downward spiral".

“There were several suicides in my time," says an investment banker who graduated in 2013, “and dozens of suicide attempts. Our coping mechanism was to totally desensitize ourselves. One of our close friends tried to kill himself—hung himself from a fan—but neither did his neck break nor did he strangulate. We rescued him. Later, we were having chai, and we were discussing: ‘The bugger is in mechanical engineering, and he couldn’t figure out the tensile strength of the rope! Couldn’t even bloody hang himself properly!’ In hindsight, of course, it was horrible. But that was how we could deal with what was happening."

About a decade ago, one IIT student took the extreme step of removing ceiling fans from all hostel rooms. Thankfully, better sense soon prevailed, and the institutes have taken wiser measures to handle the students’ depression issues. Most IITs today have counselling centres where students can seek professional help. However, the counsellors, to be truly useful, need to be particularly perceptive. Quick fixes for pre-exam anxiety are hardly solutions.

Much more effective have been student initiatives, where a senior student becomes the “mentor" for a group of juniors in his hostel. The junior is able to speak far more freely to his senior, who understands the issues much better, and can provide practical advice. He is also available close by 24X7. A hostel-mate of mine suggests another potentially powerful idea: micro-courses in yoga, meditation, mindfulness, Reiki and so on. These cannot be credit-bearing courses, because then, the typical IITian hunger for high grades will kick in, ensuring zero positive outcomes. IITs could certainly try this out.

There is also a dire need to train students in communication and other soft skills. The absence of these skills is a key reason why many IITians leave the campus, unemployed. Companies complain that they cannot meet their recruitment targets because many candidates are woefully inarticulate or lack the basic qualities needed to work in a team. This is how the loss of a normal adolescence plays out. But in earlier times, IITians also developed these skills through constant peer interaction and sports or cultural activities. Nandan Nilekani once told me: “I learnt all my people and management skills in IIT Bombay." Today, with internet in every room, there’s much less peer contact.

The good news is that the IITs are aware of the problem, and are working at it. But the elephant in the room is the parents—people who want to achieve their own failed aspirations through their children, stunting their growth and damaging them perhaps irreparably to satisfy their own greed and twisted notions of “prestige". Here is a fact straight out of Ripley’s: IIT professors—even directors—start getting calls from parents within a week of their children enrolling, asking what compensation packages they can expect at the end of their course. “The ones who need counselling are not the students, but the parents," says a professor. “You can turn off the tap, but the leakage is in the pipe."

I began this piece with the parent’s question on Quora. This is perhaps the answer he deserves (here, I’m combining actual Quora replies from two IIT students): “Sir, you are already too late. You yourself should start taking JEE classes so that your sperm cells get IIT-ready. Then, when your wife is pregnant again, make her also solve JEE problems. So, like Abhimanyu learned about Chakravyuha, your child will get IIT prep as early as possible. And yes, Abhimanyu got trapped inside it."

Sandipan Deb is former editor of Financial Express, and founder-editor of Open and Swarajya magazines. He graduated in Electronics Engineering from IIT Kharagpur’s class of 1986.

20.2. Opinion | Primary school teachers are more valuable than we think

Livemint, 31 Jul. 2019, Anurag Behar

They set the foundation for a child’s education. Let’s not underestimate their role today

She was 23, living in that village alone, 600km from her parents’ home in Nanjangud near Mysore. She had been selected as a teacher two years before and posted there. The lush paddy fields encircling the villages’ government primary school were incongruous in the arid climate of Bijapur district. They were there because Krishna fed those fields generously through the canals of one its many dams. In front of the one-room school was a small pond. I met Uma for the first time in 2011 in that school.

The school had 25 students, distributed equally across classes I to V. She taught all three subjects of the curriculum, and for all the five classes sitting together, she was the only teacher. We had reached almost at the end of the school day. Still, her energy didn’t seem any less than that of her students. When the classes ended, the children did not leave, they merely moved out and started playing as we chatted with Uma.

How was it that all her students seemed to be ahead of expectations for their respective classes on both language and math? Her response wasn’t elaborate. She merely said, “All children are inherently very good, and I love teaching children."

Two elderly men came through the paddy fields to take their grandchildren back home. They decided to join our chat. They could not stop gushing about their village school teacher. Uma seemed to have transformed the school in her two years there. In gratitude, the village had collected money to build a toilet at the school.

Six years later, I was at a high school in a dusty town in North-East Karnataka. It shared a boundary wall with the town bus stand. Blaring horns and revving engines could be heard from any classroom. That is where I met Uma for the second time. We talked again.

The spring in her step that I had seen amid the paddy fields was missing, though her engagement with students seemed no less. Was she jaded after eight years of being a teacher? Or was it just an “off day"? Or perhaps the racket from the bus stand? It was none of this, she said. It was simply that she absolutely loved teaching young children, while with these older students she worked hard and did well, but did not have the same sense of fulfilment.

So, why did she move from a primary to a high school? Because, the salary is more and the social status is higher.

Uma’s story is very common because the compensation and career prospects for high-school teachers are more attractive than for primary-school teachers. The Indian education system clearly values teachers of higher classes more. Social status is a function of this value. And, it also reflects in the better working conditions of high-school teachers.

It is not that high-school teachers have perfect conditions and scintillating career prospects, but just that they are much better off. The most dramatic example of this valuation anomaly is the case of early-childhood educators, the Anaganwadi workers; they are not even recognized as teachers. Unsurprisingly, teachers of lower classes are continually seeking opportunities to move on to the higher classes.

The signalling of lower value is reinforced by lower expectations on qualifications: a two-year diploma after class XII for primary-school teachers versus two undergraduate degrees after class XII for teachers of higher classes.

This lower valuation of primary (and middle) school teachers is deeply flawed. Teaching young children is as challenging, if not more, than teaching older children. The expertise required in both roles are equally complex and deep—while being somewhat different. And the contribution of teachers of early classes is in many ways more important than that of high-school teachers, since they truly set the foundation for and trajectory of a child’s education.

This flawed valuation of teaching roles hobbles the entire teacher management system—in attracting, retaining and engaging teachers in primary and middle schools vis-à-vis high schools. More capable individuals prefer higher classes at entry as well as through their careers. This doesn’t mean that lower classes don’t have good teachers; just that on an average, the incentive structures pull teachers away from lower classes. This anomaly is also patently unfair and unjust.

The draft National Education Policy 2019 (NEP) has a slew of measures to correct this anomaly. It equalizes compensation and career prospects across the lower and higher classes. Teachers would have no incentive to move across primary to high schools. It extends this equalization to early childhood educators. It also provides for good working conditions for all teachers. And it completely re-architects the qualification norms for all teachers: to a four-year high-quality integrated degree in teaching after class XII.

These policy actions, if implemented, will transform the world of teachers in India. It will certainly require some doing, including a significant increase in public investment, as the NEP does recommend. And, when it gets done, no Uma will leave a role that she loves. And the most important foundational years of schooling will not lose enthusiastic and competent educators.

Anurag Behar is CEO of Azim Premji Foundation and also leads sustainability initiatives for Wipro Ltd

INDIA AND THE WORLD

21.1. L&T Hydrocarbon Engineering bags over Rs 7,000 crore order from Saudi Aramco

IBEF, Jul. 19, 2019

L&T Hydrocarbon Engineering, a completely owned division of engineering giant Larsen & Toubro, has been granted a 'mega' project in the Marjan Field by Saudi Aramco.

Although, the engineering and production company did not provide the exact value of the contract, but stated that as per its categorization, the mega project is in the range of over Rs 7,000 crore (US$ 973 million).

The project provides opportunity for oil facilities for the Marjan Incremental Development Project consisting of four tie-in platforms, one tie platform module, nine production deck modules (wellhead decks), 217 kilometers of subsea pipelines across 25 segments, and 145 kilometers of subsea cables across 16 segments.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

21.2. Byju Raveendran, a former school teacher, is India’s newest billionaire

Livemint, 29 Jul 2019, Saritha Rai , Bloomberg

India is going through a dramatic period of wealth creation - and destruction.

A new breed of self-made entrepreneurs is joining the ranks of the well-heeled, helping the country’s ultra-rich population grow at the world’s fastest pace

India’s newest billionaire is a former classroom teacher who developed an education app that’s grown to a valuation of almost $6 billion in about seven years. Byju Raveendran joined the rarefied club after his Think & Learn Pvt scored $150 million in funding earlier this month. That deal conferred a value of $5.7 billion on the company in which the founder owns more than 21%, people familiar with the matter said.

Its closing coincided with the announcement that the company’s Byju’s app - named after the founder - will team up with Walt Disney Co. and taking its service to American shores by early 2020.

The 37-year-old entrepreneur - who has said he wants to do for Indian education what the Mouse House did for entertainment - is taking his biggest step yet geographically and creatively. In his new app, Disney staples from The Lion King’s Simba to Frozen’s Anna teach math and English to students from grades one through three. The same characters star in animated videos, games, stories and interactive quizzes.

“Kids everywhere relate to Disney’s Simba or Moana, who grip kids’ attention before we take them through the loop of learning," said Raveendran, also chief executive officer.

India is going through a dramatic period of wealth creation - and destruction. A new breed of self-made entrepreneurs is joining the ranks of the well-heeled, helping the country’s ultra-rich population grow at the world’s fastest pace. Raveendran, at least on paper, assumes his place among those parvenus thanks to his effort in internet education.

Online learning is booming, perhaps nowhere more so than on Byju’s home turf, where internet usage is exploding because of the ubiquity of cheap smartphones and cut-price wireless plans. India’s online learning market is expected to more than double to $5.7 billion by 2020, according to the government-backed India Brand Equity Foundation.

Education technology for kindergarten through 12th grade is one of the fastest-growing segments of the country’s internet market, said Anil Kumar, chief executive officer of Redseer Management Consulting Pvt. “Indian education startups are well set to seize the global opportunity given that they already cater to a large English-speaking base and have created unique education content," he said.

Byju’s own fortunes have climbed alongside the market. Its revenues are expected to more than double to ₹3,000 crore ($435 million) in the year ending March 2020, Raveendran said. That pace of growth has already caught the eye of some of the industry’s biggest investors from Naspers Ventures and Tencent Holdings Ltd. to Sequoia Capital and Facebook-founder Mark Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan.

Those big-name backers buy Raveendran’s vision. The Byju’s founder grew up in a village on India’s southern coast where his parents were school-teachers. He was a reluctant pupil, playing hooky to frequent the football field, then learning on his own at home. He became an engineer and then began helping friends crack entry exams to top Indian engineering and management schools. The classes swelled till he finally began teaching thousands in sports stadiums, becoming a celebrity tutor who commuted between multiple cities during weekends.

He set up Think & Learn in 2011, offering online lessons before launching his main app in 2015. The business has signed up more than 35 million of whom about 2.4 million pay an annual fee of ₹10,000 to ₹12,000, helping it became profitable in the year ending March 2019. That’s when Raveendran began courting long-term investors such as pension funds and sovereign wealth funds - his latest backer is the Qatar Investment Authority.

In Byju’s latest funding round, the entrepreneur bought shares to maintain his equity level. Along with his wife and brother, the Raveendran clan now holds a total stake of about 35%, said the people familiar, asking not to be quoted as the matter is private.

Byju’s approach is simple - captivate kids by transforming the content to fit short attention spans. Raveendran has always harbored ambitions to crack English-speaking countries, and has flown in YouTube stars to feature in his videos.

In Disney, he may have found a ready-made audience. All the lessons on the new service with Disney are set in the context of the entertainment giant’s classics and stay true to the narrative. To explain temperature, the app sets up a scene where Frozen’s Elsa falls ill because she constantly plays with snow. Anna gets out the thermometer to gauge her fever and a little story is then built around heat and cold. Or, to learn shapes, young learners dive into the story of Cars where they have to sort items like tires, traffic cones and billboards into buckets to learn about round, triangular and rectangular shapes.

“We are customizing Disney Byju’s to the American and British school curriculum," Raveendran said. “The characters have universal appeal."

This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.

22.1. India received highest-ever FDI at US$ 64.37 billion

IBEF, Jul. 31, 2019

"In FY19, the country enlisted most raised ever FDI inflow of US$ 64.37 billion”.

Featuring the significance of FDI, it said the foreign inflows get resources, the most recent technology and best practices to drive financial growth on to a higher direction.

The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) under the commerce and industry minister further said path breaking change measures attempted during the last financial year have resulted in India outperforming the FDI received in 2016-17 and enrolling an inflow of US$ 60.98 billion during 2017-18.

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led NDA government assumed power in 2014-15, the FDI inflows was US$ 45.14 billion. And the inflows were US$ 55.55 billion in the following year.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

22.2. Metro Cash & Carry partners ePay Later to digitise kirana stores

IBEF, Aug. 06, 2019

Wholesaler retailer Metro Cash and Carry on Monday reported an organization with fintech start-up ePayLater to help kirana shops digitize their business utilizing smartphones.

As a major aspect of its next phase of kirana digitization program, Metro in association with ePayLater has co-created a mobile application ‘Digital Shop' to digitize kirana shops' business task instantly with no extra investment.

Through this application, kirana retailers can carefully follow their day by day and month to month deals, oversee stock, place orders with Metro and pay digitally.

The App will also give examination to kirana owners, such as inventory utilization patterns and the fast and moderate moving products that will enhance their product mix and eventually help in improving their revenues and margin.

Metro Cash and Carry entered the Indian market in 2003 and currently operates 27 wholesale distribution centers. Globally, it works in 26 countries with more than 760 wholesale markets and employs about 105,000 people.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

23.1. Cisco partners with Google to roll out high-speed public WiFi in India

IBEF, July 30, 2019

Technology company Cisco plans to roll out free high-speed Wi-Fi zones across India with Google’s gStation service.

Cisco will work with Google’s gStation platform to provide communities around the country access to a free, open, high-quality public Wi-Fi.

The project has already begun its first phase of implementation. By September 2019, 200 locations in Bengaluru will be Wi-Fi enabled, followed by another 300 by in the second phase. The locations include public spaces like bus stops, hospitals, government offices, etc.

India has only 52,000 Wi-Fi hotspots today, necessitating a proactive strategy to make high-speed Wi-Fi hotspots ubiquitous across the country.

Public Wi-Fi also provides an opportunity to develop a broader connectivity ecosystem, which can not only benefit users and wireless ISPs but also telecom service providers, handset manufacturers, and venue owners. It is already seeing widespread acceptance by service providers globally and has evolved as a complementary network for traffic offload purposes — offloading from congested cellular networks on to lower-cost-per-bit Wi-Fi networks extending the coverage of mobile networks within buildings and other public spots like cafés and restaurants, retail chains, hotels, airports, planes and trains for customers and guests. According to the Cisco VNI report, nearly 59 percent of Internet traffic will be offloaded from cellular networks to Wi-Fi by 2022, wherein lies the tremendous opportunity for ubiquitous dispersion of Wi-Fi.

According to Sajith Sivanandan, Managing Director and Business Head, Google Pay and Next Billion User Initiatives, India: “The results from gStation’s railway station rollout have been hugely encouraging, and we’re delighted to join hands with Cisco to broaden gStation’s coverage in the city of Bengaluru. Our approach is to help create abundance where there is scarcity and do it sustainably. The proliferation of public Wi-Fi in India can provide a significant boost to the government’s digital ambitions of ubiquitous connectivity and digital inclusion and serve as a complementary network for telcos and offer users full high fidelity experience across India.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

23.2. Indian IT companies contributed US$ 57.2 billion to US GDP in 2017, says top official

IBEF, Aug. 02, 2019

Indian IT companies contributed US$ 57.2 billion to the GDP of the US in 2017, according to India's Ambassador to the US, Mr Harsh Vardhan Shringla.

TCS launching an education initiative in 2017 called "My Future in School", Infosys tied with Trinity College on Applied Learning Initiative in September 2018, WIPRO's organization with First Book to distribute over 200,000 books by 2019-end, Mindtree's USD 2 million award to Stanford University in July 2018 are some of the instances of Indian IT companies contributon beyond their business operation.

Shringla said the two-way investment among India and the US came to about US$ 60 billion.

The US with US$ 45 billion total investment is the 6th source of foreign investment in India, he also said in his address to State International Development Organization annual (SIDO) convention’s India event organised in association with US India Business Council (USIBC).

SIDO is the only American association that is cantered on state international trade development.

"The US-India relationship is at a critical juncture and needs to evolve with the changing landscsape of US global trade relations”.

Through India's National IPR policy since its dispatch in 2016, the legislature has been working effectively to promote IPR awarenes and enlarge technical manpower to make simpler the patent methodology and diminish pendency in patents and trademarks,

It has finished 50 enforcement workshops for police officials across 26 states and union territories.

India has made strides across different sectors. The way that India has jumped 65 places in four years to arrive at 77th position on the World Bank's Ease of Doing Business ranking and 52nd position in the Global Innovation Index are just some of the global indices reflects India's development as a hub for innovation and manufacturing.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

24.1. IndiGo to launch services to Vietnam

IBEF, Jul. 31, 2019

India's largest domestic carrier, in terms of market share, IndiGo on Tuesday said it will launch services to Vietnam from October, making it the fifth South East Asian country in the airline's network after Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, and Myanmar.

Effective October 3, subject to government approvals, IndiGo will operate its non-stop daily flights between Kolkata and Hanoi, the airline said in a statement.

At present, no Indian airline flies directly to Vietnam. The grounded Jet Airways had a few years ago started flights to Vietnam only to discontinue the service months later.

"We foresee a rising demand for Hanoi, which is famous for its historic architecture and a rich cultural blend of Southeast Asian and French influence," William Boulter, chief commercial officer IndiGo said, adding that the airline was expecting high demand for the Buddhist tourism circuit from Vietnam as the South East Asian country has a large Buddhist community.

The management of IndiGo had last week told analysts over a call that the IndiGo has received 12 departures slots daily, earlier allocated to Jet Airways. The airline is expected to expand its international services in the coming months.

Jet Airways suspended operations in April 2019 due to an acute fund crunch.

“And out of this 12, we have made operational and already gone for sale on seven of that and remaining are still open because of slot issues," Wolfgang Prockschauer, president and chief operating officer (COO) at IndiGo told analysts during the call. “And then, going further, after there is more clarity about what's happening to Jet Airways, we will also expect a major boost to our portfolio in domestic and international slots, and the traffic rights, especially," Prockschauer added.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

24.2. India's renewable energy capacity crosses 80GW-mark

IBEF, Jul. 17, 2019

The government has set a goal-oriented focus of having 175 GW of clean energy capacity by 2022, including 100 GW solar and 60 GW of wind energy.

"The Government is regularly monitoring the advancement being made to accomplish the objective of 175 GW by 2022”.

"An aggregate of 80.46 GW of renewable energy limit has been introduced in the country as on June 30, 2019 which includes 29.55 GW from Solar and 36.37 GW from Wind control," according to Power and New and Renewable Energy Minister Mr R K Singh.

According to India’s submission to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change on Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC), a combined electric power limit of 40 per cent from non-fossil fuel-based energy resources is to be introduced by 2030. The government has set an objective of introducing renewable energy capacity of 175 GW constantly 2022.

The Ministry also told the House that a sum of 42 solar power parks with a total limit of around 23.40 GW have been approved by the government so far to encourage accomplishment of 100 GW target by March 2022.

Out of endorsed capacity of 23.40 GW, power purchase agreements (PPAs) have been marked for around 9.20 GW and out of this, around 6.40 GW of limit has been authorized in different solar parks as on June 30, 2019.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

25.1. Ferrying hope on the Brahmaputra

Livemint, 26 Jul 2019, Avantika Bhuyan

With over two million people having been affected by the floods this year, 15 boat clinics are taking relief to remote islands and sandbars in Assam’s 13 districts

Besides offering medical help, on regular days these floating clinics offer curative care, early detection of diseases, basic services

In 1977, while forming the group Xur Bahini to gather relief for flood victims, composer-singer Jayanta Hazarika (Bhupen Hazarika’s younger brother) wrote: “Luitor bolia baan, toloi koloi nu dhapoli meliso hir hir sowode kal roop dhori loi kaak nu bare bare khediso? (O, maddening floods of Luit, where are you headed this time? Whom are you chasing again with the frightening sound of the waves?)."

Forty-two years later, these lines still ring true, with the tempestuous waters of the Brahmaputra, along with its tributary Luit (or Lohit), continuing to wreak havoc every monsoon.

The floods this year, however, are being labelled the worst in 15 years. So far, the disaster has affected around 2,801,329 people in 28 districts (according to a 23 July situation report by the Assam State Disaster Management Authority), of which 1,120,532 are children (Unicef estimate).

Some of the worst scenes of devastation seem to be playing out on the vast network of sandbars and islands situated across the 891km-long course of the river in Assam. Considered unique geographical phenomena, these chars and saporis, home to three million people, get completely submerged during the floods. In such a scenario, the only way to get relief material to them is by boat. And for 15 years, an innovative set of boat clinics has been doing just that.

Started by a trust called the Centre for North East Studies and Policy Research, or C-NES, in 2004, these floating clinics have attempted to bring basic healthcare closer to the residents of saporis, which often don’t have even a proper road. As I meet Sanjoy Hazarika, managing trustee and founder of C-NES, in Delhi, he shows me images sent by boat clinic teams across the state—of people hanging on to rafts and doctors wading through water to reach villages.

I ask him why they decided to focus on the residents of these chars and saporis. “They are among the most economically backward in Assam, barely touched by development. They remain marginalized and vulnerable, with no access to communications and are badly hit by recurring floods," he says. In these villages, most men have moved to cities and towns in search of work, leaving the women and children behind. And it is this section that forms the focus of the boat clinics’ work.

In a C-NES documentary about the boat clinics, Where There Are No Roads, one can see a group of doctors and nurses trying to pass the hour-long journey to a riverbank by playing Ludo. As soon as they reach, they offload everything needed to set up an OPD—chairs for the doctors, medicines, food and drinking water. Then begins the long wade through water to reach the villages and offer halogen tablets, medicines for pregnant women and immunization for infants.

“Last year, during the floods, we were engaged in rescue work as well. This year, we are offering medicines and relief supplies," says Hazarika. “But the clinics are at work 24x7, 365 days a year, irrespective of whether it is the pre-flood phase, post-flood, or no flood at all."

Till March, basic health services had been provided to over 2.7 million people through the 15 clinics active in 13 districts —Dibrugarh, Tinsukia, Dhemaji, Lakhimpur, Jorhat, Barpeta, Sonitpur, Morigaon, Kamrup, Nalbari, Bongaigaon, Goalpara and Dhubri. “Every year, we handle not less than 340,000 cases," Hazarika adds.

The past 15 years have seen several stories of relief and rescue. In August 2008, as the waters raged around Lamba Sapori—an island home to the Mishing community—in Dhemaji, a couple, Punyadhar and Oiphuli Morang, watched helplessly as their two-year-old daughter, Moina, suffered an acute asthmatic attack. Having seen the boat clinic pass by the sapori several times, they had some idea of its schedule. So, Punyadhar stood atop his house and waved vigorously to the SB Shahnaz, which was plying these waters. The team spotted the couple and made its way to their home, where medication was administered and the child recovered.

In the book Hope Floats: The Boat Clinics Of The Brahmaputra, C-NES’ communications officer Bhaswati Goswami quotes Arumoni Regon, 55, from Pamua village of Laika Sapori in Tinsukia. “Prior to boat clinics, pregnant women had to cross the river in full spate during floods and trudge through the dense Dibru-Saikhowa reserve forest to access health check-ups at Government health centres," she says.

It is one such instance that inspired Hazarika to set up the boat clinics. “Film-maker Jahnu Barua and I were crossing over to Majuli when we heard the tragic story of a young woman in her teens having died on the ferry due to childbirth," he says. Troubled, he started discussions with local panchayat leaders on bringing healthcare to them by boat. In the same year (2004), C-NES won the World Bank’s India Marketplace competition for the innovative concept of “A Ship of Hope in a Valley of Floods", and the prize money of $20,000 (about ₹13.7 lakh now) led to the construction of the first boat clinic.

Named Akha, which means hope in Assamese, it was built with local raw material with the help of boat-builder Kamal Gurung. Made of wood, it is 65ft in length and equipped with an OPD, a lab, cabins, toilets, water supply and a generator. Fourteen more have been added since.

These 15 clinics offer curative care, early detection of locally endemic communicable and non-communicable diseases, reproductive and child care, family planning services, basic lab services and awareness-building sessions.

“For people in some of these saporis, it often takes 8-10 hours to reach a hospital. Yahaan hospital hota toh bohot accha hota(a hospital would have been welcome). But that’s where the boat clinics help fill the gap," says Urmila Yadav, 45, an accredited social health activist, or ASHA worker, in the Charkholiya ward No.1 of Dibrugarh district. She liaises between the residents and the clinics, passing on information about the date of the clinic’s arrival, imminent check-ups and emergencies.

How do these boat clinics function during floods? Shaarang Sachdev, head (emergency medicine), Fortis Escorts Heart Institute, Delhi, who undertook relief work in Kerala last year, draws parallels between the two states. “The areas affected the most in Kerala were away from the hospital. It was a challenge to get medicines, sutures and other equipment to them. Although the government tried its best to communicate in the time of the crisis, a little advanced intimation to those who were suffering could have enabled us to bring respite to a lot more people," he says. When it comes to Assam, these boat clinics already have the experience of reaching remote areas, and can aid the relief work better.

Tafikul Islam, 26, who has worked on the Barpeta boat clinic unit 1 for over nine months, has been counselling people on emergency measures. “We know that every year the floods will occur. So, we give a stock of medicines for viral fever, diarrhoea and gastroenteritis to the local ASHA workers to use during the floods," he says.

The 250-strong team comprises two doctors per boat. Some, like Dr Islam, a graduate from the Assam Medical College, Dibrugarh, do a stint on the boat to gain experience in rural areas. “We also have doctors who have retired from government service. On each boat, we have one-two auxiliary nurses, a lab assistant and a pharmacist. The programme management team sits in Guwahati, and we have coordinators in each district called district programme officers—out of these, at least five are women," says Hazarika. Their salaries and boat repairs are supported by the National Health Mission, with which the C-NES entered into a public-private partnership in 2008.

It has been a challenge to convince people to adopt modern healthcare methods. Arup Kumar Saikia, district programme officer, Dibrugarh boat clinic, says the education rate in the chars is dismal—a mere 19.31% (according to Hope Floats), well below the state literacy level of 73.18% (Census 2011), and people still believe in rituals to cure illnesses. “It took us three years to get people to understand the significance of modern medicine," he says.

Besides these clinics, organizations such as Rural Volunteers Centre, or RVC, are also helping out in the relief effort. Some of them focus on children, who form a major chunk of the population affected each year. There are currently 659 relief camps, housing 103,934 people. According to Unicef estimates, 41,574 of these are children.

So RVC has started Suraksha, a child-inclusive disaster risk reduction programme, in Dhemaji and Majuli, with technical support from Unicef Assam. It is activating child-friendly spaces in emergencies (CFSie) in designated relief camps. CFSie, in the context of Assam, is defined as a place designed and operated in a participatory manner where children affected by natural or man-made disasters, including armed conflict, can be provided with a safe environment and integrated services, including recreation, education, health and psychosocial support.

The various teams and individuals involved in relief work are now gearing up to tackle the post-flood challenges. Mumbai-based film-maker Reema Borah, who is from Assam, has been carrying out relief efforts at an individual level, in camps located in some of the most devastated areas in Morigaon. “It is after the flood waters recede that the real crisis will start in the form of infections and mud-related diseases. We will be working with adolescent girls on menstrual and hygiene issues," says Borah.

Nasima, 31, an auxiliary nurse on the Barpeta boat unit, concurs. “Floods ke baad, bohot gandagi ho jaati hai. It stinks everywhere," she says. So the team hands out phenyl and bleaching powder, besides medicines, as well.

“This year has seen a long, enduring wave of floods. We make sure all boats are in good condition and carry life jackets. Brahmaputra is not a river to be trifled with. It not only changes its course but also its speed rapidly. The teams do their work at great risk and with a great sense of commitment," concludes Hazarika

25.2. Breathing life back into Mumbai’s fountains

Livemint, 19 Jul. 2019, Benita Fernando

Restoration architect Vikas Dilawari is giving Mumbai’s 19th century fountains a new lease of life

The architect has won 16 Unesco Asia-Pacific Awards for Cultural Heritage Conservation, and the fountains are among his most recent projects

In July 1871, the Scientific American magazine carried a report on a newly built fountain, calling it “one of those rare works which captivate the artistic eye". The magazine even ran an illustration of the fountain on its cover page and described it in great detail—the fan-like jets of water that fall into shells, the four dolphins, the bronze heads of lions and panthers. It described the central jet of water that “wells up like a natural spring, the sound of which must be refreshing in a hot climate like that of Bombay".

The Frere Fountain in Mumbai’s Fort area was the largest of its kind in India and won the admiration of New York’s elegant circles. It was built in 1864 by the Agri–Horticultural Society of Western India to honour the then governor, Sir Bartle Frere. In the decades that followed, it would be renamed Flora Fountain, after the Roman goddess poised at the top. It would become the site of a tragic incident in 1955, when 15 protesters were killed in police firing during a demonstration for the Samyukta Maharashtra movement. Six years later, a memorial was built to commemorate those who died during the movement and the square was renamed Hutatma Chowk (Martyr’s Square). Around 2007, the water jets would work intermittently, and Flora Fountain was relegated to the same fate as many other colonial era structures in Mumbai—too graceful to be ignored but too cumbersome to maintain.

This January, Flora Fountain was back in action. Restoration architect Vikas Dilawari was commissioned by the Brihanmumbai municipal corporation (BMC) to revive the fountain—a job that took him and his team two-and-a-half years. Dilawari has worked on three more fountains in the vicinity: the Wellington Fountain, the Bomanjee Hormarjee Wadia Clock Tower and Fountain, and the Muljee Jetha Fountain.

Restoration architect Vikas Dilawari.

Dilawari meets us one afternoon at Flora Fountain during a brief, sunny respite from the rains. The architect has won 16 Unesco Asia-Pacific Awards for Cultural Heritage Conservation, including 14 for Mumbai projects. “I wanted to go beyond just restoring the fountains; I wanted to see how I could get the water fittings to function again. Having fixed the smaller fountains first, that experience gave me and my firm a lot of confidence to work on Flora Fountain," he says.

As he darts through criss-crossing lanes to take us to the other fountains, it is evident that Mumbai is his turf. It has several structures—public, commercial and residential—that still stand thanks to Dilawari. These include the Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum, the Royal Bombay Yacht Club, the Rajabai Clock Tower and the stained glass of Mumbai University’s Library Building. The fountains are among his more recent projects.

The first fountain restored by Dilawari is located at the convergence of six roads, at a roundabout used by nearly every visitor to Colaba. The Wellington Fountain was built by public subscription in 1865, at the height of the British empire. It was a tribute to Sir Arthur Wellesley, the duke of Wellington, adorned with inscriptions on his many victories, including one against the Marathas. The fountain has surprisingly survived the nativist decolonization mission to destroy or shift colonial monuments. What it didn’t survive, however, were the contractors who painted over the original marble, covering the fine bas-reliefs. The grand tribute had turned into a dowdy water spout.

Dilawari finished restoring the Wellington Fountain in 2017 and it earned a special mention in the Unesco Asia-Pacific Awards for Cultural Heritage Conservation that year. “We had to first undo old mistakes," he says. Dilawari called in conservators from the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (Intach), Mumbai, to carefully scrape the layers of paint off the bas-reliefs, a task that took them two months. Among the fountains, Wellington was also the easiest and the least expensive to restore, for it was functional. Funded by Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd, the restoration cost around ₹10 lakh.

The striking Muljee Jetha Fountain was built in 1894 and dedicated to the memory of Dharamsee Muljee, who died at the age of 15.

This was not the case with the Muljee Jetha Fountain, completed in 1894. There is a heartbreaking tale behind the creation of the fountain. It was built as a memorial to a young boy named Dharamsee Muljee, who died at the age of 15. His father, Ruttonsee, dedicated the fountain to him and offered it to the public, providing drinking water for both people and animals.

Since it had fallen out of use, Dilawari had to reactivate the fountain’s plumbing system. “The fountain now functions for a few hours every morning and evening. Care is taken in using the pipes or else they will wear out soon," he says. At the top of the fountain is a statue of young Dharamsee holding a book and gazing hopefully at the horizon. “I think it’s actually lovelier than Flora Fountain," says Dilawari.

The Muljee Jetha Fountain was designed by Frederick William Stevens, who also designed the sprawling Gothic Revivalist Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST). Stevens put 52 spouts on the Indo-Saracenic fountain, and, instead of CST’s menacing gargoyles, added alligators, elephants, cows and iguanas.

Each of the fountains that are spread across south Mumbai have unique designs, says Dilawari. The Bomanjee Hormarjee Wadia Clock Tower and Fountain has several elements of Persian architecture, in keeping with the heritage of the Parsi sheriff it was built in honour of. “Lots of things were considered while building fountains—a popular area had to be chosen, it had to be built at a square or junction of roads, its architectural style was decided on the basis of what the sponsor wanted, the quality and quantity of stones depended also on the sponsor money," says Dilawari.

When Dilawari set out to work on Flora Fountain, he discovered that Flora’s head had been severed and joined again. “Likewise, the hands and fingers of the other statues at the base of the fountain had been replaced by concrete limbs. Because the concrete was painted white, the statue had to be painted white; and because the statue was white, the whole fountain had to be painted white," he says. After restoration, the fountain’s original beige Portland stone glows with an understated elegance.

All great cities allow themselves to be read in many ways. That is surely the case with Mumbai. You can map it through its railway lines, its bus routes, its Gothic structures, and also through its fountains.

Historian Shekhar Krishnan says Mumbai had over 100 ornate fountains, cattle troughs and pyaus or water dispensers. Some of these were attached to places of worship but all were public structures, registered with the civic body. This water infrastructure is hard to sustain today, owing not just to negligence but also a growing water crisis. Flora Fountain requires 15,000 litres of water per week, according to Dilawari, though its tank capacity is 45,000 litres. The water comes from a nearby borewell and cannot be treated as chemicals could endanger the lives of the birds that drink from the fountain. All this means Flora Fountain gathers moss often and needs regular maintenance—something the BMC is looking into.

The purpose of a fountain in contemporary urban design can be debated. But Dilawari is clear that it is one of the first impressions you get of a city. “Fountains tell you that you are in a beautiful city," he says. Moreover, fountains are usually erected as memorials and tributes. “It was a philanthropic gesture on the part of citizens. They used to provide fountains as charity rather than the cement benches you see today," adds Dilawari.

“It is not enough to restore the structure alone but also enhance the area around it so that we can give it back the sense of dignity and historicity," he says. The restoration of Flora Fountain cost the civic corporation ₹3.7 crore but they also ensured that the square was cobbled and made accessible to pedestrians. Here is an invitation to relax after a busy day or finish that novel before you head home.

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AAPI

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Monday 19 August 2019

NEWSLETTER, 20-VIII-2019

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NEWSLETTER, 20-VIII-2019

– GENERAL POLICY, INFRASTRUCTURES, COUNTRY FINANCES, ETC.

- AGRICULTURE, FISHING & RURAL DEVELOPMENT

INDIA AND THE WORLD