by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate, Corporate Governance, News, Politics
By Anand K. Singh,
New Delhi : Unfazed by opposition criticism, Indian Railways is working overtime to push ahead with the much-talked about the “Bullet Train” project, aiming to complete it ahead of the August 2022 deadline set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Railway Board Chairman Ashwani Lohani, who has a reputation of a turnaround man, has taken up the task of monitoring and chairing the periodic review meetings of the project that is estimated to cost over Rs 1 lakh crore ($15 billion).
Lohani held a high-level meeting in Rail Bhavan last Thursday which was attended by Japanese Ambassador Kenji Hiramatsu, Niti Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar, Central government officials, Principal Secretary-rank officials of Gujarat and Maharashtra, officials of NHSRCL (National High Speed Rail Corporation Limited), officials of Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the General Manager of Western Railway.
A senior railway board member, requesting anonymity, told IANS, “The railways is in no mood to delay the Mumbai-Ahmedabad Bullet Train project. Lohani will now hold a review meeting once every three months… And even on weekly basis, if required.”
Emphasising on the government’s intention, the official said, “The attendance of the Niti Aayog Vice Chairman, the Japanese Ambassador and the CRB in the review meeting is a clear signal that the government is taking the project seriously and there is no scope for any delay.”
“The CRB wants Indian Railway officials to take lessons from their Japanese counterparts about meeting deadlines,” he said.
The opposition has attacked the government for taking up a project at a huge cost instead of focusing on safety, a dire need of the time, and on schemes to improve passenger amenities.
The official said it was also decided at the meeting that “a road map for consultancy and civil engineering works will be prepared by January 2018”.
A ministry official associated with the Bullet Train project said a report on the signalling system and electrical reports would be ready by April 2018. According to him, the tracks and most of the signalling system would be brought from Japan.
The foundation stone for the Rs 1.08 lakh crore ($17 billion) 508-km Ahmedabad-Mumbai Bullet Train was laid in Ahmedabad by Modi and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe on September 14.
Of the Rs 1.08 lakh crore, Japan is giving a loan of Rs 88,000 crore at a minimal interest of 0.1 per cent for 50 years. And the repayment will begin only after 15 years.
The railway official said that to encourage the Prime Minister’s ambitious ‘Make in India’ programme, “an appeal will be made to Indian and Japanese companies to make use the opportunity to work together”.
Meanwhile, the officials of the government of Maharashtra and Gujarat assured the railways of their help in land acquisition and smooth shifting of raw materials to construction venues.
A three-level monitoring committee was also constituted, including the Vice Chairman of Niti Ayog and Special Advisor to Japanese Prime Minister.
A working group led by Managing Director of NHSRCL Achal Khare and consisting of representatives of the ministries concerned, and the representative of JICA, has been formed. Besides the two committees, a technical expert committee led by the Managing Director of NHSRCL has also been formed.
Of the 508 km stretch, 92 per cent (468 km) of the route will be elevated, six per cent (27 km) will be in tunnels and the remaining two per cent (13 km) will be on the ground .
The high-speed train would also pass through the country’s longest tunnel of 21 km, of which seven km will be under the sea.
Twelve stations have been proposed that include Mumbai, Thane, Virar, Boisar, Vapi, Bilimora, Surat, Bharuch, Vadodara, Anand, Ahmedabad and Sabarmati.
The distance will be covered in two hours and seven minutes if the train stops at four stations — Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Surat and Mumbai. If the train stops at all 12 stations, it will cover the distance in two hours and fifty-eight minutes.
According to Railway Ministry officials, the operating speed of the bullet train would be 320 kmph and the maximum speed would be 350 kmph.
(Anand K. Singh can be contacted at anand.s@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Opinions
By Amit Kapoor,
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s efforts in building India’s global appeal for investors seems to have finally yielded returns in terms of the country’s performance in the World Bank Doing Business rankings. India witnessed its highest-ever jump of 30 places in the rankings, reaching the 100th place among 190 countries. Subsequently, it also joined the list of top 10 improvers for the first time and became the first South Asian country to achieve the feat.
The World Bank measures this in terms of a Distance to Frontier (DTF) metric, which shows the distance of the economy from the best performer in each category on a scale of 0 to 100, with the latter representing the frontier. India has shown a drastic improvement of 4.71 points over the last year from 56.05 to 60.76. To put things in perspective, China has witnessed an increase of 0.40 points.
India’s performance has been impressive by any standard. It has moved closer to the global standards in nine of the ten parameters on which the Doing Business rankings are based and has enforced reforms in eight of these categories over the last year. The three key reforms among these were resolving insolvency, ease of paying taxes online and protection of minority investors. Despite these improvements, the general sentiment has been to dismiss the rankings mainly for the flaws in its methodology.
First, the rankings are based on perception surveys of few entrepreneurs or professionals based on questions that are mostly subjective in nature. Second, they are not even based on the economic conditions of the entire economy but on one or two cities within a nation. For India, it is based on Delhi and Mumbai alone. However, the critics miss the point.
If India performs poorly even on such a limited study that chooses the best cities in the country, it speaks volumes of the business conditions across the country and is indicative of the scope of improvement that remains. Moreover, rankings are relative by definition and since the World Bank chooses a maximum of two cities for other countries as well, it should depict a near accurate performance of any country on a relative scale. Therefore, any improvement up the ladder cannot be summarily dismissed.
Further, reforms considered by the World Bank include a mix of central and state initiatives. Passing of central legislation like the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016, that helped India jump from 136 to 103 in the “resolving insolvency” parameter have pan-India benefits and are not just limited to Delhi and Mumbai. Therefore, it would be incorrect to presume that merely focusing on a few cities is disassociated from reality even though the actions of state governments are not reflected.
Incidentally, India performs poorly in parameters where state government interference is maximum: Getting an electricity connection, starting a business and registering a property. This underlines the importance of policy coordination between the states and the Centre. Nevertheless, credit needs to be given where it is due for an improvement in rankings majorly driven by reforms undertaken by the central government over the last few years. It must be noted that the rankings have not taken into account the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST). Therefore, considerable potential remains for further improvement.
But it should also be kept in mind that these rankings are not an end in themselves and are far from perfect. A lot of it is based on policies which are on the books and do not necessarily capture the real experiences on the ground. After reforms are initiated to ease the business environment, the main task of implementation begins where the real problems emerge. For instance, the World Bank applauded India’s efforts at increasing access to credit with the adoption of a new insolvency and bankruptcy code. However, the parameters fail to recognise the problem that India is going through one of its slowest phases of credit growth and that banks are wary of lending so easily.
Moreover, a lot more parameters, apart from the ones considered in the Doing Business rankings, need to be considered to understand the business environment in India. The country’s dismal performance in the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom (in which it is ranked 143, below most of its South Asian neighbours) and Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (ranked 79th), reflect the areas that the country still needs to improve upon to better the business environment.
Therefore, the chest-thumping around the Doing Business ranking improvements needs to be seen in conjunction with these factors and worked upon to ease the problems faced by common businessmen. A premature celebration can be counter-productive.
(Amit Kapoor is chair, Institute for Competitiveness, India. The views expressed are personal. He can be contacted at amit.kapoor@competitiveness.in and tweets@kautiliya. Chirag Yadav, senior researcher, Institute for Competitiveness, India has contributed to the article)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business, Corporate, Corporate Reports, Economy, Large Enterprise, Markets, News, Politics
Kapil Sibal
New Delhi : The Congress on Saturday slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for “patting himself in the back” over the World Bank report on India’s ease of doing business, saying it was only for the “creamy layer of businesses” and that the Prime Minister was “not well-informed about its facts”.
The party said that Prime Minister Modi and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley should also hold a press conference on India’s slide in the global hunger index.
Prime Minister Modi on Saturday attacked the Congress for questioning the World Bank Report on ease of doing business in India and said with GST and other reforms, its report next year would show further improvement in ranking.
“I don’t know whether the Prime Minister is informed about all the facts or not. I don’t think he is aware of the concept of ease of doing business.
“Prior to 2015, there was only one city in every country that was taken into account and that was Mumbai (for the World Bank Report). Now, in 2015, they changed it to two cities. So, Mumbai and Delhi are the two cities for business in India,” said Congress leader Kapil Sibal.
“The businesses don’t take place only in these two cities of the country. The PM has forgotten that there are crores who do small businesses in other cities of the country. Is the PM thinking about them – the informal sector, small traders and factories,” he added.
Sibal said: “He is the Prime Minister of the country and all the business communities, and not just a handful of them. This is called creamy layer of businesses.
“He is not the Prime Minister of the creamy layer of businesses who are located at the top end of the pyramid in Delhi and Mumbai,” he added.
Sibal said the two factors taken into consideration for the report were e-filing, which he said was started by the UPA government, and Insolvency Act which was also conceived by the Congress-led UPA.
“Now the World Bank does not consider the impact of all this. So, I do not know why the Prime Minister is patting himself on the back. Does he realise that our Health Index has gone down from 87 to 108. Why does not he (Modi) or Finance Minister (Arun Jaitley) do a press conference on that?” Sibal asked.
“The global Hunger Index in India is worse than most countries of the world. Why does the Finance Minister not do a press conference on that?” he asked.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business, Economy, Investing, News, Politics
New Delhi : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday invited global investors to do business in India, which he said was “easier now” after his government repealed archaic laws and launched attractive fiscal incentives.
Describing India as “one of the fastest growing economies” in the world, Modi said it was an opportune time for global businesses to invest in the country.
“India has jumped 30 ranks this year in the World Bank’s (Ease of) Doing Business rankings. India was ranked number one in the world in 2016 in greenfield investment.
“India is also rapidly progressing on the Global Innovation Index, Global Logistics Index and Global Competitiveness Index,” Modi told the gathering of global businessmen at the inauguration of World Food India 2017 here.
Billed as the biggest congregation of global investors and business leaders of major food companies, the three-day event aims to transform the food economy and realise the government’s vision of doubling famers’ income by establishing India as a preferred investment destination and sourcing-hub for the global food processing industry.
“Private sector participation has been increasing in many segments of the value chain. However, more investment is required in contract farming, raw material sourcing and creating agri-linkages. This is a clear opportunity for global chains.”
Modi said India offered single window clearance for investors and had launched attractive fiscal incentives.
“There are opportunities in post-harvest management, like primary processing and storage, preservation infra, cold chain and refrigerated transportation.
“There is also immense potential for food processing and value addition in areas such as organic and fortified foods.”
He said food processing was a way of life in India that had been practiced for ages.
“Simple, home-based techniques, such as fermentation, have resulted in the creation of our famous pickles, papads, chutneys and murabbas that excite both the elite and the masses across the world.”
Modi said farmers were central to India’s efforts in food processing and as such the government launched the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Sampada Yojana to create world-class food processing infrastructure.
“This will leverage investment of $5 billion, benefit two million farmers and create more than half a million jobs.”
The food event will host over 2,000 participants and 200 companies from around 30 countries.
Apart from representatives of 28 states, it will also see participation of 18 ministerial and business delegations, nearly 50 global CEOs along with heads of all leading domestic food processing companies.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Mumbai : As the Narendra Modi government proceeds with the grandiose plans for a Bullet Train between Mumbai and Ahmedabad, a RTI query has revealed that over 40 percent of seats on all the trains on this sector go vacant causing huge losses to Western Railway.
According to RTI replies received by Mumbai activist Anil Galgali, only in the past one quarter, the Western Railway’s staggering losses on this sector is nearly Rs 30 crore, or around Rs. 10 crore per month.
“The Indian government is over-enthusiastic and plans to spend more than Rs 1 lakh crore on the Bullet Train project, but it has not done its homework properly,” Galgali said, adding it raises serious question marks on the viability of the Bullet Train project, whenever it comes up.
The Indian Railways have also admitted that they have no plans to introduce any new trains on this sector which is already in the red.
Replying to Galgali’s query on seats occupancy on all the trains between the two cities, the WR revealed that in the past three months, 40 percent all seats went vacant on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad sector and 44 percent empty on the Ahmedabad-Mumbai route.
WR’s Chief Commercial Manager Manjeet Singh said that between July 1-September 30, there are 32 mail/express serving this sector with a total seating capacity of 735,630 seats on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad sector.
Of these, only 441,795 seats were booked during that period generating a revenue of Rs 30,16,24,623 against the total estimated expected income of Rs 44,29,08,220 – incurring a huge loss of Rs 14,12,83,597 in the past quarter.
Similarly, on the Ahmedabad-Mumbai route served by a total of 31 mail/express trains with a seating capacity of 706,446, only 398,002 seats were booked, resulting in a revenue of Rs 26,74,56,982 against the estimated expected income of Rs 42,53,11,471, spelling a massive loss of Rs 15,78,54,489.
The WR provided the data of all the major trains plying on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad-Mumbai route like the Durantos, Shatabdi Expresses, Lokshakti Express, Gujarat Mail, Bhavnagar Express, Saurashtra Express, Vivek-Bhuj Express and others.
Faced with the vacancies on existing trains, the WR Divisional Engineer, Ahmedabad informed that there is no fresh proposal to introduce any new trains on this sector.
In fact, Galgali said that the most popular train, 12009 Shatabdi Express with a capacity of 72,696 seats sold only 36,117 during the July-September period on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad route and in the return direction of the total 67,392 seats, only 22,982 were sold.
This train, which once always ran packed in all seasons both ways has now proved to be a loss-maker, and the executive chair car with 7,505 seats was practically deserted with just 1,469 seats booked, plummeting revenues from the estimated Rs 1,45,49,714 to a paltry Rs 26,41,083 during the last quarter.
The position in all other trains was similar and though there is a higher demand for sleeper class compared to seats, the WR has not done enough to augment its capacity.
Galgali pointed out that given this current alarming scenario, coupled with growing preference for flights and improved road travel, the Central and Gujarat governments must review the expensive option of the Bullet Train before it becomes a white elephant for the Indian taxpayers.
—IANS
