Innholdsfortegnelse for 2 October 2022 i Business Today

₹6‚100 crore ESTIMATED CAPEX ATTRIBUTABLE TO PLI SCHEMES IN FY22; IT IS LIKELY TO PEAK IN FY25 AT ₹ 1,04,300 CRORE 16.6 per cent EXPECTED GROWTH (CAGR) IN PRIVATE SECTOR CAPEX DURING FY21 TO FY24, ACCORDING TO HDFC SECURITIES DOUBLE DELIGHT OVERALL, THE CAPEX BY THE CENTRAL AND STATE GOVERNMENTS, PSUs AND PRIVATE PLAYERS IS LIKELY TO DOUBLE BY FY24 AS COMPARED TO FY18 Note: Figures in ₹ lakh crore; E: Estimate; *Figures are derived after the addition of internal and extrabudgetary resources and deducting capital/money distributed to the states under capital expenditures, **Includes listed private capex, unlisted private capex and PLI capex. For private capex figures, HDFC Securities analysed the 250 largest public companies in India and 180 of the largest unlisted companies to understand the quantum and nature…

INDIA’S TRADE DEFICIT widened to $125.2 billion in April-August this fiscal as against $53.8 billion in the same period a year ago. The oil imports bill for the period from April to August jumped by 88.4 per cent to $99.4 billion, data released by the commerce ministry showed. Imports during the same five-month period of this fiscal grew by 45.7 per cent to $317.8 billion, while India’s exports rose by 17.1 per cent to $192.6 billion. While both have risen, imports have risen much more, widening the trade deficit.…

▶ FINALLY, IT HAS come down to one loan of ₹403.85 crore that has resulted in a significant change in shareholding at New Delhi Television Limited or NDTV as it is more commonly known. The broadcasting company, founded in the late 1980s, will need to dig deep to retain control at a time when the process looks challenging. Promoted by Prannoy Roy and Radhika Roy, the story of NDTV’s debt has many layers and goes back to 2008. A company owned by them, RRPL Holdings, borrowed ₹540 crore from the Gurugram-based conglomerate Indiabulls Financial Services during the middle of that year. A few months later, a loan of ₹375 crore was taken from ICICI Bank to repay that loan. That was followed by another borrowing from an entity linked to…

The Government of Rajasthan led by Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot launched 'Indira Gandhi Shehari Rojgar Yojana' (India Gandhi Urban Employment Scheme) to provide employment to residents of cities in Rajasthan. This scheme is the biggest and the first in the country. Now, every needy family under the scheme will get employment for 100 days a year. He said that in this scheme, the needy family getting the job card made through Jan Aadhar can get employment by demanding the same. The chief minister launched the scheme by plastering the wall at Khania ki Baori near Jaipur and distributing necessary resources (tools) to the labourers. He said that Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) was started at the time of the UPA Government in the entire country to provide…

ON AUGUST 1, while addressing the Rajya Sabha on inflation, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman declared that despite adversities, India remains the world’s fastest-growing major economy. The applause in Parliament that followed does ring true, but what is also true is that the country’s $3.1-trillion economy and 1.3-billion population were sucker-punched by the consecutive waves of Covid-19. The extent of the damage finds mention in RBI’s report titled Scars of the Pandemic. Here’s a peek. The output losses for individual years have been worked out to ₹19.1 lakh crore, ₹17.1 lakh crore and ₹16.4 lakh crore for FY21, FY22 and FY23, respectively. Taking the actual GDP growth rate of (-) 6.6 per cent for FY21, 8.9 per cent for FY22, and assuming growth rate of 7.2 per cent for FY23 and…

WHEN BUSINESS OWNER Shivam Gupta, hailing from Prayagraj (earlier Allahabad), had to travel to Mumbai recently, instead of going via train, he decided to take a flight from the local airport. “The journey which earlier used to take more than a day, will be completed within a few hours,” says Gupta before boarding. Similarly, when homemaker Vijaya Chavan from Kagal town in Maharashtra’s Kolhapur district decided to go on a pilgrimage to Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam, she too decided to book air tickets. “We are happy that we are getting to travel to Tirupati cheap and in lesser time,” says an elated Chavan while waiting for her flight at Kolhapur airport. People like Gupta and Chavan are among the 10.4 million Indians that have availed of improved regional connectivity and subsidised…

HOW TO TOKENISE YOUR DEBIT/CREDIT CARDS 1 Go to e-commerce merchant website/application Enter your credit/debit card details at the time of checkout 3 Secure the card and tokenise by selecting the ‘secure your card’ option 4 Authorise the token’s creation by using OTP sent to your registered mobile phone or email 5 Token gets created, replacing actual card data 6 To help you recognise your card, the last four digits of the saved card will be displayed when you revisit the website HOW DOES AN ACCOUNT AGGREGATOR WORK? It empowers people with control over their personal data, which otherwise remains in silos FINANCIAL INFORMATION PROVIDERS Banks/NBFCs Mutual fund house Insurance provider Invoice/Tax platform FINANCIAL INFORMATION USERS Cash flow-based lending (Bank/NBFC) Personal finance management Wealth management Robo advisors SOURCE PIB WHAT DOES CYBER INSURANCE COVER? Financial…

TALKING ABOUT HOW India is not late in rolling out 5G capabilities, Sunil Bharti Mittal, Founder and Chairman of Bharti Enterprises, in a chat with Rahul Kanwal, News Director, India Today and Aaj Tak, and Executive Director, BT, said that 5G has started to take root across many countries around the world, and the Indian telecom industry, too, is absolutely ready to roll it out. He added that some use cases of the technology have already been developed and the prices of devices have also started to come down. Further elaborating on how Airtel and the other telecom players in the country have been building towards this moment, he sounded a word of caution for the customers. He said that while in the beginning, the average customer might not be…

IN A DEBATE moderated by Rajdeep Sardesai, Consulting Editor, India Today Television, on “The ‘New’ Idea of India@100,” Lok Sabha MP Shashi Tharoor engaged with author and investor Harsh Gupta Madhusudan on a range of topics that has dominated the political discourse of the country for some time now. When asked about the probability of a new constitution being enacted by the time India completes 100 years of independence, Tharoor said that while the leaders espousing the Hindutva chain of thought might want to make India into a Hindu Rashtra, it is easier said than done as the basic structure of the Constitution has been upheld by the SupremeCourt. Following this, asked if the Nehruvian vision of secularism—that his party swears by, and which has been the guiding principle of…

NOWAS REGULATORY issues mount and losses balloon to ₹789 crore in the April-June quarter of the current financial year, Gurugram-headquartered SpiceJet is desperately scrounging for fresh funding. The low-cost carrier may get ₹225 crore in emergency funding from the government to clear part of its outstanding dues. “We are also looking at fundraising through investments from external parties, including other airlines,” CEO Ajay Singh told Business Today recently. The beleaguered carrier has also appointed Ashish Kumar as its new CFO. Will the airline be able to turn around its fortunes? Only time will tell.…

▶ SPACE TECHNOLOGY START-UP Skyroot Aerospace has recently created a flutter by raising $51 million, or ₹403 crore, in Series-B financing led by Singapore’s long-term investment fund GIC. This is the largest funding for a start-up in the segment. It will help the small launch vehicle or rocket manufacturer boost its capabilities and tap into the $469-billion global space economy. Founded in 2018 by former ISRO engineers Pawan Kumar Chandana and Naga Bharath Daka, Skyroot plans to cater to the burgeoning demand from the international small-satellite market. “This round puts us on a trajectory of hyper-growth by funding all of our initial developmental launches and enables building infrastructure to meet the high launch cadence required by our satellite customers,” says Chandana, also the CEO of the Hyderabad-headquartered firm. How critical…

It was a historical day on August 29 in Rajasthan, as for the first time Mahakumbh of sports Rajiv Gandhi Rural Olympics-2022 was organised on National Sports Day. The objective of this event was to search the rural sports talents and prepare them for the state, national and international level competitions. Approximately 29.80 lakh sportspersons from 11,285 gram panchayats in the state registered themselves to play various sports and games. A total of2,21,055 teams were formed in which 20.37 lakh men and 10 lakh women players took part including children to elderly people. The sports that will be played in Rural Olympics include Tennis Ball Cricket, Kho-Kho, Kabaddi, Volleyball, Hockey and Shooting Volleyball. Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot inaugurated the Rajiv Gandhi Rural Olympics at Pal village in Luni panchayat…

SINGAPORE Start-up ecosystem of accredited investors, government support, meritocracy and a recently launched Tech Pass UAE Economic resilience, a conducive tax structure and global connectivity MALTA Openness to upcoming fields like fintech, blockchain and gaming; access to multilingual talent, strategic location UK R&D opportunities through its universities and higher education infra AUSTRALIA Global Talent Independent visa MAPS ARE FOR REPRESENTATION ONLY AND NOT TO SCALE; SOURCE HENLEY & PARTNERS…

INVESTMENTS Slowing growth in consumption and private investment is a formidable challenge INFLATION Elevated headline CPI is another bugbear haunting the economy TRADE Global economic slowdown, especially in the US and Europe, is putting exports’ growth in a tight spot CURRENT ACCOUNT DEFICIT Widening current account deficit and trade deficit are double trouble UNEMPLOYMENT Employment creation remains a big challenge even as the economy recovers…

AT THE AGE OF 37, Subathraa Vasan left her job as CEO and Vice Principal of Emerald Heights College for Women, Ooty, in mid-2015, to pursue her long-term dream of becoming an entrepreneur. An M. Tech graduate, her interest was in food products made of millets. But having taught image processing for over 15 years, it was a steep learning curve for Vasan to switch from teaching to start selling value-added, millet-based products. “It was an amazing job [of teaching], but still, my mind was in search of an opportunity to get into entrepreneurship. I had a keen interest in food. But food was not my domain of learning, so I spent nearly a year on R&D before jumping in,” says Vasan. She launched her venture—PVR Foods—in October 2016…

HOLDING FORTH ON how the government is looking to revamp the growing data economy along with its supplementary sectors like telecom with the data protection Bill that has been in the works for a while, Ashwini Vaishnaw, Minister of Railways, Communications, Electronics and IT, said in a fireside discussion titled ‘India and the Tech Revolution,’ with Siddharth Zarabi, Managing Editor of BT TV, that the bill will focus on creating an online environment that has the trust and safety of users as its core operative framework. Asked about the touchstones that the proposed law will have, the minister said that there are three fundamental focus areas on which the law will rest. He listed the first one as the idea that the user has a right over their data, how it…

ART FOR ME CAME from my paternal grandmother,” says Roshini Sanah Jaiswal, Promoter and Chief Restructuring Officer at Jagatjit Industries Ltd, one of the oldest distilleries manufacturing potable alcohol in the country. “In the 1950s, when people in India did not really turn towards art or thought it was cool, she started collecting it. Lakshman Pai, Satish Gujral, M.F. Husain, were her friends. She was part of that circuit, so the art collection began,” says Jaiswal. Her parents imbibed that collection and developed their own passion and taste in art. Having grown up surrounded with art, it was but natural for her to develop an interest in it. However, her taste in art is different from what her parents or grandmother loved. “The art I collect is different from the…

1.41 LAKH KM The length of NH in the country in FY22, compared to 91,287 km in FY14 and 70,934 km in FY10 63.72 LAKH KM The length of India’s total road network, the second largest in the world ₹1.99 LAKH CRORE Total outlay for the highway sector in Budget FY23, compared to the revised allocation of ₹1.31 lakh crore in FY22 SOURCE NHAI, MEDIA REPORTS, HDFC SECURITIES, UNION BUDGET…

▶ WITH THE EXTREME heat waves witnessed across the country during the summer months, demand for air conditioners (AC) has spiked in the domestic market. Unlike 2019 and 2021,when the annual domestic sales of ACs was recorded at 7 and 6.4 million units, respectively, the industry has already sold 6 million units in the first half of 2022 (January-June). Only 4.25 million units were sold in the corresponding period in 2019, industry numbers show. “AC sales this year have been better than the last two years, especially in the first half. We never had such high numbers in the past,” says Eric Braganza, President, Consumer Electronics and Appliances Manufacturers Association (CEAMA). But the heat wave alone hasn’t contributed to the spiking sales. Industry players have observed a pent-up demand owing…

MY EARLIEST memory of Cyrus Mistry—and that was the first time I met him—goes back to 1975. He was a young boy and all of seven. The occasion was his navjote (the ritual through which a Parsi child is inducted into the Zoroastrian religion) and that is the age when it is normally done. It was held in the family’s home in Juhu Tara Road, a suburb in western Mumbai. My connection to the family has been there for many years. I was familiar with the business of the Shapoorji Pallonji Group, having been involved in various issues related to taxation. As a result of that nature of work, I came into close contact with his father, Pallonji Mistry, and advised him not just on taxation but on areas related…

Digitalization has taken over nearly every aspect of our activities. The automotive industry is one sector where digitalization has had the maximum impact. This is not only limited to enhanced safety features for those inside the vehicle but also those on the roads. Digitalization has also impacted the way consumers interact with brands while taking a decision on purchase. The virtual world has today come to play an important role in connecting brands with customers. However, the most difficult task that a marketer has is figuring out how to break through the virtual and digital clutter. When an iconic brand like Volvo wants to debut an EV that will be a trail blazer in the e-luxury mobility market, the difficulty becomes much greater. Volvo has always been noted for its…

Titan Company, India’s largest branded jewellery firm that had sales of ₹28,799 crore last year, managed to grow its top line and bottom line (₹2,197 crore) to beyond pre-pandemic levels in FY22. This success did not come easy. The Bengaluru-headquartered Titan had to transform itself into a more agile and digital-savvy entity with stricter controls on its finances after the blow it received during the first wave of Covid-19, says Managing Director C.K. Venkataraman. In a chat with Business Today’s Arnab Dutta, the 61-year-old Venkataraman says that with the Tata group firm’s business now on track, Titan aims to become the market leader in all key categories it is present in. Edited excerpts: Q: The pandemic has disrupted companies and businesses. What changes did it bring to Titan? A: First, the behavioural…

AMID THE RAGING debate on ‘moonlighting’ that has taken the Indian IT sector by storm, leading tech titans held forth on the topic at the recently concluded BT India@100 event. In a fireside chat with BT Editor Sourav Majumdar, titled ‘The power journey from services to products to consulting,’ N. Ganapathy Subramaniam, COO & Executive Director at TCS, said that moonlighting is an ethical issue. Describing the hunt for finding and retaining talent as a war, he said that while India has abundant talent, it is vital to communicate the value of being ethical and right among employees. He further added that people need to be educated about the value systems and ethics of how the Indian IT sector has grown its business, and by looking for short-term gains employees…

KICKING OFF A discussion with BT Editor Sourav Majumdar on the vitality of the power sector in India’s fast growing economy, R.K. Singh, Minister of Power and New & Renewable Energy, said at a discussion titled ‘Powering India Towards Energy Security’, that today the country consumes around 1,450 billion units of power annually. And with the rate of growth at which the economy is currently growing, the country will need 2,900 billion units of electricity by 2030. While the established capacity today is 404 GW (gigawatts), by 2030 it will have to be 820 GW. Which means that the country needs to add about 50 GW on average every year between now and then. Highlighting the financial crunch faced by the sector, he added that no bank is willing to…