Category: Economy

Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari on Friday said that electric buses can help reduce ticket prices for passengers by as much as 30%. The minister also urged banks to give loans at lower interest rates to those keen to buy vehicles that run on clean energy, such as flex fuel, electricity and hydrogen.

Speaking at the golden jubilee celebrations of a cooperative bank in Kalyan in Thane, Maharashtra, the minister said the cost of operation of a non-air conditioned electric bus is Rs 39 per kilometre, while it is Rs 41 per kilometre for an AC electric bus. ”All buses in cities like Thane, Kalyan can be converted into electric ones, which will help reduce ticket prices for passengers by as much as 30 per cent,” he emphasised.

Nitin Gadkari said that it was his dream that vehicles running on diesel and petrol get phased out in the next four to five years. He suggested that banks must rate industries based on the performance on various parameters over the past five years and give the industries scoring high marks loans within 24 hours.

India has handed over 125 Mahindra SUVs to Sri Lanka under an existing line of credit. The fleet is part of the 500 state-of-the-art SUVs committed under a memorandum of understanding signed earlier this year.

High Commissioner of India Gopal Baglay handed over the fleet to Sri Lanka’s Minister of Public Security, Tiran Alles for use by Sri Lankan Police to help them provide prompt and efficient services to the public. The Indian High Commission in Sri Lanka tweeted that another 375 SUVs will be dispatched to Colombo under an existing line of credit.

The SUVs are part of India’s ongoing efforts to support the cash-strapped island nation and address the serious mobility restriction issues faced by its police due to non-availability of vehicles.

India has extended multi-pronged assistance to Sri Lanka over the last 12 months to help it overcome its worst economic and humanitarian crisis since its independence from Great Britain in 1948. The country has provided economic assistance of about $4 billion to help secure Sri Lanka’s food, health and energy security by supplying essential items such as food, medicines, fuel and kerosene. The neighbours are currently negotiating the crucial debt restructuring scheme, a requirement for Sri Lanka to close the deal with the International Monetary Fund.

India’s coal production will touch one billion tonnes in the next financial year from this fiscal’s 900 million tonnes, Union Coal Minister Pralhad Joshi told Parliament on Monday. The government plans to stop import of thermal coal by 2024-25.

In response to questions asked during the Question Hour in the Rajya Sabha, the Coal Minister said India’s domestic coal requirement will reach 1,500 million tonnes by 2030, for which the country needs to scale up its production, said Pralhad Joshi.

“This year, our production will be 900 million tonnes; next year, it will be 1 billion tonnes…. I would like to assure this House, from 2024-25 we will stop the import of thermal coal,” said the minister.

Coal mines are planned according to demands and their operations are run to ensure the energy security of the country. Development of new mines is also important for self-reliance of the country and reduction of import dependence. Coal demand of 1500 million tonnes per annum is projected by various agencies by 2030.

The global demand for coal is set to hit a record high with a bulk of it coming from India. The International Energy Agency, in its latest report, has forecast the global coal demand to grow by 1.2% in 2022 and cross 8 billion tonnes for the first time.

Union Steel Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said on Monday that India has become the second-largest steel producer in the world in the last eight years.

While replying to a question on environmental concerns due to steel production, the minister said, “India has now reached a new record. We have become the second largest steel producer in the world in the last 8 years, doubling our capacity from 150 to 154 million tonnes of production. We are very very aware of the environmental concerns.”

The steel industry produces 7% of CO2 emissions internationally, while the Indian steel industry accounts for 12% of such emissions. The steel minister said that steel has to conform to that path of environmental protection.

On Tuesday, Scindia launched India’s first green steel brand, KALYANI FeRRESTA in New Delhi. This first-of-its-kind steel has been manufactured by a Pune-based steel company, Kalyani Group by using renewable energy resources, leaving zero carbon footprints in the environment.  Speaking at the launch, the minister said that making it mandatory for steelmakers to dedicate a certain percentage of their production lines to making green steel and encouraging its use in government projects may be some of the ways to encourage its use.

India and Vietnam are emerging as Apple Inc.’s next manufacturing hubs in view of assembly partners trying to add resilience to a supply chain heavily concentrated in China and disturbed by its geopolitical and health challenges.

Counterpoint Research analysts Ivan Lam and Shenghao Bai point out that key electronics manufacturers are diversifying their production globally, making use of local incentive policies. The effort of many years, beginning before the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns that shook China, may see leading partner Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. , also known as Foxconn, shift as much as 30% of its capacity to India and Vietnam and Brazil, they experts add.

While a direct replacement for China is not immediately in the cards, Taiwanese assemblers such as Hon Hai and Pegatron Corp. are putting the foundations in place to handle more of the final assembly and packaging of products outside the country. “Led by Foxconn and Pegatron, companies have already invested in factories, production lines, relatively advanced manufacturing processes, and personnel training in India,” the experts wrote.

India’s vast population and high birth rate make the country an attractive market for end-products and a manufacturing base, while Vietnam’s workforce offers lower labour costs than Chinese. According to Counterpoint’s research, smart phones manufactured in India grew 16% in the second quarter of this year, reaching more than 44 million units.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated and laid the foundation stone of several development projects worth over Rs. 6,800 crore in Tripura and Meghalaya on Sunday.

The Prime Minister launched projects worth Rs. 4,350 crore in Tripura. The projects include Grih Pravesh programme for beneficiaries under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana – Urban and Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana – Rural. These houses, which have been developed at a cost of more than Rs. 3400 crore, cover over two lakh beneficiaries. He also inaugurated State’s first Dental College in Agartala.

In Meghalaya, the Prime Minister unveiled projects worth over Rs. 2,450 crore. The multiple projects include the inauguration of 320 completed and 890 under-construction 4G mobile towers, the new campus of IIM Shillong, at Umsawli, the Shillong – Diengpasoh Road, which will provide better connectivity to the new Shillong satellite township, and four other roads projects across the three states of Meghalaya, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh. The Prime Minister also laid the foundation stone of the Integrated Hospitality and Convention Centre at Tura and Shillong Technology Park Phase-II, and inaugurated 21 Hindi libraries in Mizoram, Manipur, Tripura and Assam.

Speaking on the occasion, the Prime Minister said, in the last eight and half years, the Government has brought immense development in the northeast region. There has been a four-fold increase in development expenditure in the north-east from Rs. 2 lakh crore in 2014 to over Rs. 7 lakh crore now.

Union Petroleumand Natural GasMinister Hardeep Singh Puri has said that India would contribute 10% to the incremental growth of global petrochemical demand.

Speaking at the Plenary Session at the 7th Petrochemical Conclave, New Delhi, on Sunday, the minister said the petrochemical market size is currently in India at about $190 billion, whereas the per capita consumption of petrochemical segments is significantly lower, compared to that in developed economies. “And this gap offers substantial space for demand growth and investment opportunities,” Puri was quoted as saying in a statement.

“One of the most important factors driving the growth of the petrochemical industry is the increasing demand for petrochemical products from a growing population and a rapidly expanding economy,” he added.

Union Minister of State for Petroleumand Natural GasRameswar Teli said sectors such as petrochemicals have contributed immensely to the GDP success story and shall continue to add in the future. “The exuberant growth of the Indian economy cannot be spoken of without mentioning the role that the petrochemical industry has and is expected to play in this journey,” he added.

A white paper on “India’s Petrochemical Future – Sustainable and Aatmanirbhar was also released at the 7th Petrochemical Conclave. 

There is an urgent need to create a new and dedicated fund to help developing countries successfully implement a post-2020 global framework to halt and reverse biodiversity loss, said Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav at the stocktaking plenary at the UN biodiversity conference, Convention on Biological Diversity COP15, in Montreal, Canada.

The Global Environment Facility, which caters to multiple conventions such as the UNFCCC and UN Convention to Combat Desertification, is the only source of funding for biodiversity conservation.

India said the developing countries bear most of the burden of implementing the targets for conservation of biodiversity and, thus, need adequate funds and technology transfer for this purpose. The minister underlined India’s stand that the goals and targets set in the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) should not only be ambitious, but also realistic and practical.

At CBD COP15, the parties are also trying to achieve a consensus on eliminating subsidies that are harmful to the environment, such as subsidies for fossil fuel production, agriculture, forestry and fisheries, by at least $500 billion annually, and using this money for biodiversity conservation.

However, Yadav said, India does not agree on reducing the agriculture-related subsidy and redirecting the savings for biodiversity conservation, as there are other national priorities. He added that when food security is of utmost importance for developing countries, prescribing numerical targets in pesticide reductions is unnecessary and must be left to countries to decide, based on national circumstances, priorities and capabilities.

Electronics production in India increased to Rs 6.4 lakh crore in value terms and exports hit an all-time-high of Rs 1.09 lakh crore in 2021-22, Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said in a statement in the Parliament.

The electronics production in 2020-21 was over Rs 5.44 lakh crore and exports were Rs 81,822 crore based on the data sourced from industry associations and Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics.

The minister said that the Centre’s goal is to broaden and deepen the country’s electronic manufacturing ecosystem. The National Policy on Electronics 2019 envisions positioning India as a global hub for Electronics System Design and Manufacturing (ESDM) by encouraging and driving capabilities in the country for developing core components such as chipsets, and creating an enabling environment for the industry to compete globally. To create this ecosystem, 333 companies have received direct benefit of various schemes and programmes under Make in India programme, he added.

In another statement given during a session with UAE minister Omar Sultan Al Olama at the India Global Forum in Dubai, Chandrasekhar said with more than 820 million internet users, the MoS for Electronics and IT said India has the largest presence on the global internet and deserves an opportunity to shape its own destiny. He said that the India stack has helped build trust between the government and its citizens.

India could attract about $10 billion in renewable energy investment in 2023—a bright spot as public markets remain largely shut to raising big-ticket capital—said the top officials of Bank of America in India.

Kaku Nakhate, the President and India Country Head of Bank of America, in an interview, said that deals and investments will continue to flow into areas such as electric vehicles and green hydrogen, as investors need energy transition in their portfolios.

Sectors such as renewable energy and retail are set to benefit as India performs better than other emerging markets in drawing investors. Despite deal-making being hit globally by increasing interest rates and market volatility, India’s geopolitical stability helps position it for greater inflows. The bank also expects India to benefit from “friend-shoring” by companies that are rethinking their supply chains, disrupted by COVID-19 and the Ukraine war. India, with its democratic traditions and robust domestic markets, is well suited to attract this capital, Nakhate said.

Investors and companies attending the Bank of America’s recent North American roadshow were impressed by the Indian government’s clear targets to achieve net zero carbon, Nakhate said. The lender will continue to build out its distressed debt financing business in the renewable energy sector, which has generated double-digit returns, she said.