Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

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Vasu
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by Vasu »

Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code set for major overhaul
The ministry of corporate affairs is finalizing a series of IBC amendments based on a panel’s recommendations to remove difficulties in turning around businesses and to strike a balance between the interests of lenders, customers of failed businesses and their promoters, according to the insolvency law panel’s report which was submitted to the government last week.

The IBC amendments proposed by the panel, led by corporate affairs secretary Injeti Srinivas, make a strong case for treating homebuyers as financial creditors, enabling them to take builders defaulting on their obligations to a bankruptcy court and decide their future along with lenders. The amendment was proposed because in many cases, advances from homebuyers account for more than the bank lending secured by the builder, but homebuyers have no say in the bankruptcy proceedings whereas lenders get a favourable position.

The bankruptcy code of 2016 will also be amended to make it easier for the panel of creditors to make key decisions for resolution or liquidation with 66% of the vote, less than the 75% required now. Routine decisions to run the company can be taken with 51% votes from creditors.

Also, pure-play financial institutions such as ARCs, alternative investment funds, foreign institutional investors and venture capital funds which may be related to companies classified as non-performing assets (NPAs) will not be barred from bidding for the bankrupt firm.

Also, it will be ensured that regulators such as stock exchanges will not be able to drag a company to bankruptcy court for defaulting on dues by clarifying that regulatory dues are not operational credit.
chetak
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by chetak »

Suraj wrote:Names of projects and reference news please.

Did anything not kosher come up regarding the chinese financed power projects??

Please do tell.
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by Supratik »

Supratik
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by Supratik »

Direct tax collection exceeds budget estimates.

https://swarajyamag.com/insta/2017-18-d ... lakh-crore
Supratik
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by Supratik »

Second largest mobile maker (assembly notwithstanding).

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/te ... n&from=mdr
Suraj
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by Suraj »

Thanks Supratik, for posting the news round up. You saved me the trouble!
vijayk
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by vijayk »

https://www.livemint.com/Opinion/DIaSrB ... ction.html
Narendra Modi govt’s creative destruction
The Narendra Modi government’s aim is a radical right-wing revolution—in the economy, in society, in culture. The current disruptions are a symptom of that revolution
And yet, the Modi government has set the stage for ushering in a mature capitalism in the country. The initiatives taken in the last four years will change the face of the Indian economy. Modi’s demonetisation gambit, together with the introduction of the goods and services tax (GST), has dealt a huge blow to petty commodity production and paved the way for an expansion of the formal sector, as gleeful brokerage reports never tire of pointing out. The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code will lead to a rapid turnaround of stranded assets. The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, or RERA, besides cleaning the Augean stables in the sector, will eliminate the smaller and shadier operators. Extending contract labour to all sectors of the economy will increase “labour flexibility”. Environment restrictions and regulations have been whittled down and there has been a massive programme of building infrastructure.

Consider the changes on the macro front, such as the decision to bring in an inflation targeting regime at RBI, bringing down inflation, keeping the fiscal deficit in check, laying down the red carpet for foreign direct investment (FDI).

In politics, Modi has taken steps to transform India into a hard state, emulating the East Asian model. Not all his policies are working, of course, but it isn’t for want of trying. No wonder foreign investors are all praise for him.

Modi has taken steps to transform India into a hard state, emulating the East Asian model. Not all his policies are working, but it isn’t for want of trying
All this is underpinned by the ruling party’s ideology, which aims to restore the lost glories of Hindu India, but is, at the same time, a modernizing rather than a conservative movement. Their use of religion and chauvinism has been a potent weapon of mass mobilization. It’s a way of papering over the cracks in a society riven by the fissures of caste, class, language and culture. It’s a great way to sell capitalism to the masses.
The main problem is the reforms being undertaken have a short-term cost. GST, for instance, has caused a lot of disruption. Cleaning up the banks is proving to be a Herculean task and it could lead to more caution on lending, affecting smaller businesses. The spate of scams in banks hasn’t helped. The bankruptcy code, like GST, is a messy work-in-progress. The informal economy has been badly hit.

True, finding decent jobs for people moving away from unviable farming is a huge challenge, but it’s one common to Third World countries and has led to what Mike Davis calls a “Planet of Slums”. The global landscape is fraught with risk, with rumblings of trade wars and lower liquidity in the markets.

On the other hand, the economy has turned the corner, investment demand is picking up and company bottom lines are growing fatter, which should encourage job growth.

But these are transient issues. It is far more important to realize that the Modi government is a fundamental break with the past. Its aim is a radical right-wing revolution—in the economy, in society, in culture. The current disruptions are a symptom of that revolution
Suraj
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by Suraj »

Interesting trends from manufacturing PMI, which is down to 51 in March - still in +ve growth territory but softer:
Manufacturing PMI at 5 month low in March
Activity in India's manufacturing sector expanded at its weakest pace in five months in March as order and production growth slowed, discouraging firms from hiring, a business survey showed on Tuesday.

Orders softened despite manufacturers keeping price increases to a minimum, suggesting retail inflation will remain near the Reserve Bank of India's medium-term target of 4 percent and reinforcing views it will hold interest rates steady this year.

The Nikkei Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index, compiled by IHS Markit, fell to 51.0 last month from February's 52.1, well short of a Reuters poll median of 52.8.

"PMI employment data signalled warning signs in the labour market as jobs growth was not sustained in March amid reports of spare operating capacity."

Giving a scant reason for optimism, the new orders sub-index, a proxy for domestic demand, has been on a downtrend for three months and slumped to a five-month low of 51.5.
I'm guessing that the March weakness is seasonal; tax deadlines are at the end of March, which causes a liquidity contraction slowing down general demand and economic activity. A pick up in April & May would confirm whether March was a blip.

RBI did not do proper auditing during period of PNB loan fraud: CVC
Apportioning blame to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) over the PNB loan fraud, Central Vigilance Commissioner K V Chowdary today said there had been "no apparent audit" by the central bank during the period of the scam.

Chowdary stressed the need to put into place a more robust auditing system.

"They did not do this (an audit)," the head of the probity watchdog told PTI.

The CVC exercises superintendence over the CBI which is looking into the over Rs 130 billion Punjab National Bank fraud case.

The RBI had the regulatory responsibility for the banking sector but any lack of integrity would be looked at by the Central Vigilance Commission, he added.

Chowdary said according to the RBI it had switched over from a periodic audit to a "risk-based" audit which is conducted when there is a financial risk involved.
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by vijayk »

https://swarajyamag.com/economy/gst-rev ... one-signal
GST Revenue Numbers Show Modi’s Call Was Correct; Congress Criticism Is Just Sour Grapes
After nine months of experience with GST revenue collections, and regular glitches and hiccups, one can now declare the new tax scheme a moderate success. And it could get better. One can additionally conclude that the timing of the rollout from 1 July 2017 was one of the best politico-economic calls taken by the Prime Minister. Anything later would have resulted in a needless spillover of the negative effects into the last year of his tenure, with state assembly elections and general elections due over the next one year.

The GST revenue graph rose from August to October 2017, peaking at Rs 95,132 crore, before tumbling precipitately in November – the month when more than 200 items were moved to lower slabs – to Rs 85,931 crore, and bottoming out in December at Rs 83,716 crore.

Since then revenues have been firm and on a slight uptrend. March 2018 saw revenues at Rs 89,264 crore, above February’s Rs 88,047 crore. If we adjust for the fact that February had only 28 days this year, the adjusted notional revenue for a 30-day month would be more than Rs 94,336 crore – which is close to the peak last October. March figures could undergo a revision once GST stragglers file late returns.
These numbers exclude collections under the IGST (inter-state GST), and also the cess on imports introduced from March in the Union budget, says a press release from the Ministry of Finance. These collections totalled Rs 27,811 crore. (See the details here)

In nine months of trial-and-error, Doctor Modi has delivered a healthy GST baby that can only grow healthier as new anti-evasion measures – like the launch of the e-way bill from this month – improve collections, and the natural buoyancy of the economy kicks in.
Tamil Nadu, which was the lone dissenter on the launch of GST, reported a near 23 per cent surge in GST collections between July 2017 and January 2018, from Rs 19,017 crore in 2016-17 to Rs 23,317 crore during the corresponding period of 2017-18.

The performance of Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, both producing states with a large manufacturing base, suggests that the old fears about consuming states gaining at their expense of producers have been proved wrong. Both states happen to be both producing and consuming states, and hence their revenues have not taken a beating. Far from it, they have made huge gains. The poorer states anyway gain from economic buoyancy, and the Centre’s decision to compensate them fully.
The moral of the story is this: there may be no such thing as a perfectly designed GST, but the key to success is a willingness to make mistakes, correct them quickly, and then fix problems as they surface. This is exactly what the GST Council, the Finance Ministry under Arun Jaitley and Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia have done. Above all, Narendra Modi can take a bow for orchestrating the tax at the right time, and making it work.
Katare
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by Katare »

Can someone find a growth rate graph of direct tax collection going back to UPA 1 please.
vijayk
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by vijayk »

Katare wrote:Can someone find a growth rate graph of direct tax collection going back to UPA 1 please.

Image

https://www.firstpost.com/business/inco ... 59342.html
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by vijayk »

Modi government’s Pradhan Mantri Gramin Awaas Yojana (PMGAY), a reformed version of the Indira Awaas Yojana, has nearly doubled the number of houses completed each year since its overhaul two years ago, a report in The Print has revealed. Around 38.67 lakh houses were built under the scheme in 2017-18 and 32.22 lakh in 2016-17. In contrast, only 18.22 lakh and 11.91 lakh were built in 2016-16 and 2014-15 respectively. Under Manmohan Singh-led United Progressive Alliance government, merely 10.51 lakh were built in 2013-14 and 10.49 lakh in 2012-13.

Under PMGAY, families living in dilapidated houses are entitled to a pucca house with basic amenities. While the scheme is part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s plan to provide “housing for all” by 2022, the immediate objective is to give houses to one crore families living in kutcha houses.

https://theprint.in/governance/2-yrs-mo ... 46754/amp/
Katare
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by Katare »

Thanks VijayK,
This translates into average growth of 17% in direct taxes since 2001.

Highest growth was in 2007 @ 39%
UPA 1 - 26%
UPA 2 - 13.8%
UPA last year(2014)- 14.3%
NDA2 -
Year 1 - 8.9%
Year 2 - 6.6%
Year 3 - 12.8%
Year 4 - 20%
Average - 12.1%

Seems like economy's been turned around or we are seeing higher tax compliance in an anemic economy or a bit of both. Not great numbers when compared with global boom time that UPA1 benefited from but clearly a significant turnaround from recent past. If it holds for another year, Modi ji ki naiyya par lag jawegi.
Rahulsidhu
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by Rahulsidhu »

Katare wrote:Thanks VijayK,
This translates into average growth of 17% in direct taxes since 2001.

Highest growth was in 2007 @ 39%
UPA 1 - 26%
UPA 2 - 13.8%
UPA last year(2014)- 14.3%
NDA2 -
Year 1 - 8.9%
Year 2 - 6.6%
Year 3 - 12.8%
Year 4 - 20%
Average - 12.1%

Seems like economy's been turned around or we are seeing higher tax compliance in an anemic economy or a bit of both. Not great numbers when compared with global boom time that UPA1 benefited from but clearly a significant turnaround from recent past. If it holds for another year, Modi ji ki naiyya par lag jawegi.
Be careful when interpreting this data since this is not inflation or GDP adjusted! a 14% growth when inflation is at 9% is not as good as 12% growth with inflation at 4%.

Tax/GDP actually went down in UPA-2. See the chart on page 5:
http://mofapp.nic.in:8080/economicsurve ... 017-18.pdf

The right statistics to look at are
* tax/NGDP (to see how good compliance is) and
* real GDP growth (to see how much the economy is growing), with the caveat that higher GDP is not always better, there is a wrong kind of GDP growth too, which happened during UPA-1 and 2.
Katare
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by Katare »

You are right, Could you list the inflation-figures for each year and do a deeper dive into the numbers.
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by Aditya_V »

You forgot the 2016-17. Direct Taxes 8.50 Lakh crore and IDT 866 Lakh crore and 2017-18 RE DT 10.05 Lakh crore and 9.41 Lakh crore.
hanumadu
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by hanumadu »

Aditya_V wrote:You forgot the 2016-17. Direct Taxes 8.50 Lakh crore and IDT 866 Lakh crore and 2017-18 RE DT 10.05 Lakh crore and 9.41 Lakh crore.
Indirect taxes may have suffered on account of GST and Demonetisation in 2017-18. There might have been a shortfall from budget estimates.

Will the GST revenue for march filed by businesses and received by businesses in April be counted as govt revenue for the FY 2017-18 or 2018-19.
Katare
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by Katare »

Aditya_V wrote:You forgot the 2016-17. Direct Taxes 8.50 Lakh crore and IDT 866 Lakh crore and 2017-18 RE DT 10.05 Lakh crore and 9.41 Lakh crore.
I did not write the numbers and years but I did take those in account as year 3 and year 4 of NDA in my post above.
Year 3 - 2016-17
Year 4 - 2017-18

20% growth in DT this year, in many ways, is more impressive than, say, 39% growth in year 2007 on account of -

- Much larger base
- 2007 was era of Alan Greenspan’s quantitative easing and global boom
- 2007 tax regime was shifting for years from IDT based system to DT based progressive system. 2006-07 was the tipping year when DT finally exceeded IDT.
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by Uttam »

RBI keeps key policy rate unchanged at 6%, lowers FY19 inflation projection
Five of six members on the monetary policy committee (MPC) voted for a hold, while one wanted a hike in the repo rate

The Reserve Bank of India kept its policy rates on hold on Thursday and retained its "neutral" stance but lowered its inflation call, reducing the odds of a near-term rate hike and spurring a rally in stocks and bonds.

The RBI kept its policy repo rate unchanged at 6.00 per cent for the fourth straight meeting as unanimously expected by 61 respondents in a Reuters poll. That level is the lowest since November 2010.

It also kept the reverse repo rate unchanged at 5.75 per cent.

Five of six members on the monetary policy committee (MPC) voted for a hold, while one wanted a hike in the repo rate.

The MPC trimmed its April-September inflation projection to 4.7-5.1 per cent, from a previous range of 5.1-5.6 per cent that it had released in February.

The "statement was more dovish than expected, particularly the cut in inflation forecasts," said Teresa John, an economist with Nirmal Bang Equities in Mumbai.

Inflation concerns have eased substantially in recent weeks following a crash in vegetable prices, which are expected to keep price pressures soft for the next few months. Oil prices remain a risk however, with India importing roughly 80 per cent of its crude requirements.
............

India Spends Record $18 Billion to Develop Roads

Services PMI back on growth track in March; job-creation at 7-yr high

Manufacturing sector growth falls to 5-month low in March: PMI
The Nikkei India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), compiled by IHS Markit, declined to 51 in March from 52.1 in February.

Since a reading above 50 indicates growth and one below it denotes contraction, March’s figure means manufacturing activity remained in expansion mode.
This is great news. A moderation of inflation while the Service PMI and Manufacturing PMI shows expansion is the Goldilocks situation. The formalization of the economy coupled with large expansion in infrastructure will pay dividends for atleast a decade to come.
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by Supratik »

vijayk
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by vijayk »

All these are great but so much of lies being peddled and fakenews being spread on everything banks, oil prices etc. No one in the Govt. is defending it.

I saw a fake video in telugu saying out of Rs 74/petrol it is Rs 20 goes to Ambani.

Here is a counter

https://deepakdogney.wordpress.com/2017 ... ed-petrol/
Break down of Petrol taxes Here is the composition of Petrol price per litre :

Crude Oil cost - Rs.25 per litre

(1 Barrel consisting of 159 litres of Crude oil costs Rs.3970 per Barrel)

Refining cost per litre - Rs.3.62

Transportation cost per litre - Rs.2.72

Excise duty (as on 1st Jan 2017) per litre - Rs.21.48

Commission to Dealers per litre - Rs.2.58

VAT (27%, varies from State to State) - Rs.15.01

FINAL RETAIL price as of 1st Jan 2017 per litre - Rs. 70.6

SO the tax percentage is a little more than the cost of acquiring it. That is, Rs.37 per litre approximately.
kit
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by kit »

Supratik wrote:No 2 in steel production.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/bus ... 615281.cms
2 nd largest steel producer and 3rd largest electricity production .. now the core sectors of construction; 2nd largest in cement production ;
Suraj
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by Suraj »

We're overtaking Japan in steel production sooner than I thought we would. So far this calendar year we're ahead of them, in addition to keeping ahead for almost all of last fiscal. I thought we were 1-2 years away from this point.

We're clear #2 in cement production.
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by hanumadu »

At 126 mt capacity and production of >100 mt, we have reached a capacity utilization of 80%. This should probably be enough for most of the steel plants to be profitable except the laggards. While Jindal and Tata Steel seem to be making money, essar, the other jindal and bhushan steel are loss making. Tata is buying Bhushan steel at a good price, so they expect to turn it around.
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by Prem »

Reserves up by 1.80 Billion , almost 425 Billion
https://www.rbi.org.in/Scripts/BS_ViewW ... x?id=43588
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by Supratik »

No 2 in casting industry (foundry).

https://www.covaipost.com/coimbatore/ca ... -position/
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by chetak »

Writing off NPAs has generated Rs 40,000cr in illegal profits
Writing off NPAs has generated Rs 40,000cr in illegal profits

Shantanu Guha Ray

April 7, 2018,

Strangely, the investigating agencies have so far ignored the flourishing NPA creation industry.


At the heart of the ICICI-Dhoot-Deepak Kochhar imbroglio is the issue of brokerage and the way it works between clients and banks in South Asia.

Even as investigations continued over the alleged role of Chanda Kochhar, MD-CEO of India’s largest private sector ICICI Bank, in disbursing loans to companies with links to her husband, Deepak, experts in Delhi decoded the way such brokerage works, although it must be added that so far no such link has been claimed by the investigating authorities in the ICICI case.

Within the hugely profitable “writing off of NPAs industry” that has proliferated in India, 5% brokerage for loans between banks and clients is considered standard business practice. But, claimed experts, if another 5% is paid by the client to the broker and if the broker is related to a top bank official, then more cash may change hands.

For every lakh extended, brokerage of Rs 5,000 could be paid by a broker to the bank. For every lakh crore, this figure could go as high as Rs 5,000 crore. “India has Rs 2,000,000 crore of NPAs. The brokerage payable would be huge,” said Gopal Aggarwal, who heads BJP’s Economic Cell. Aggarwal said he estimates that brokerage on declaring loans as NPAs may have gone as high as Rs 40,000 crore. Strangely, the investigating agencies have so far ignored the flourishing NPA creation industry, which is at the root of the crisis in Indian banking. This points to the patronage the hidden industry is getting from influential officials and politicians since two decades.

The crisis is big, and growing bigger by the hour.


Turning now to the ICICI investigation, Chanda Kochhar could put in her papers if pressures mount. Else, she could excuse herself from her day-to-day operations of India’s largest private bank till the time her name is cleared from such charges levelled by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

There are high chances that RBI could ask Chanda to step aside and institute an independent inquiry commission and look into the matter of this scam. There are high chances that the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) will get involved to look into the loan of crores of rupees given to a shell company.

“This is a serious issue. ICICI has close to 50% foreign ownership and is answerable to the whole world. It is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol IBN,” said a senior government official in Delhi.

Highly informed sources said the Ministry of Finance (MoF) has nominated Lok Ranjan, a joint secretary in the Department of Financial Services of the MoF on the board of ICICI Bank as the government nominee to stem the rot and control the crisis, especially issues that could trigger some volatile movements in the market.
Repeated attempts to seek reactions from ICICI, Videocon and Kochhar proved futile.

The sources further said the MoF was contemplating looking into the role of its own Department of Financial Services (DFS), ostensibly because private banks like Axis and ICICI have substantial government holding. Moreover, the DFS appoints all PSB officers at ED and above levels, while Board level posts are cleared by the all powerful Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC).

Interestingly, this is not the first time ICICI was trying to salvage the situation for Videocon. Way back in 1998, the bank helped Videocon raise what was then a whopping Rs 1,526 crore to repay institutional loans and other liabilities. The news was scooped by seasoned journalist Sucheta Dalal, who then was the business editor of the Times of India (TOI) [see image].

The decision to send in the joint secretary, DFS, has the support of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The decision was taken by the government after the CBI issued lookout notices against Kochhar’s husband Deepak and Venugopal Dhoot, the chairman of the Aurangabad-based Videocon group.

The government, it is reliably learnt, is keen to get to the bottom of the case, even if ICICI is India’s largest private bank. The Supreme Court has already ruled that for Prevention of Corruption Act, chairpersons of private banks shall be considered public servants. This was the ruling on 23 February 2016, by a bench consisting of Ranjan Gogoi and Prafulla C. Pant. This ruling came down in the case of Global Trust Bank, where the chairman and managing director abused their position to siphon off cash.

The Supreme Court recently empowered the RBI and its Governor Urjit Patel to take action. Since millions of depositors are following the case, RBI is expected to act quickly.

In a recent speech, Patel—his reference was to the Nirav Modi scam involving the Punjab National Bank (PNB)—expressed helplessness about not having adequate legal powers to supervise and manage PSU banks.

Chanda, considered among the most powerful figures in India’s banking and corporate circles, has admitted to her friends that the crisis is the “toughest” in her 34-year banking career. She has been troubled by a steady rise of non-performing assets (NPAs) and RBI’s penalties on ICICI Bank over the last one year, but those were nothing in comparison to the controversy alleging her of making personal gains, involving her husband Deepak and relating to loans given to Videocon Group.

The CBI says Chanda influenced the decision to give loans worth Rs 3,250 crore to Videocon as Venugopal had business dealings with the banker’s husband Deepak’s firm, NuPower Renewables. The news surfaced after Arvind Gupta, an ICICI Bank shareholder, wrote a letter to the Prime Minister, Finance Minister, RBI Governor and investigating agencies, seeking “appropriate investigation into illicit banking and commercial relationship between Venugopal and Chanda Kochhar’s family owned NuPower Renewable Group steered by her husband Deepak”.

The CBI notices were issued on 6 April 2017, a day after Deepak’s brother, Rajiv, the son-in-law of former Maharashtra Chief Secretary Sharad Upasani, was questioned at Mumbai airport and not allowed to travel to Singapore.

Rajiv, who is being questioned by the CBI as part of a probe into loans given by the bank to Videocon Group, runs financial services firm Avista Corporate Finance, the Indian arm of the Avista Advisory Group, a Singapore-based financial services firm owned by Rajiv Kochhar-promoted Hillingdon Holdings.

At the Mumbai airport, Rajiv was questioned for seven hours. Interestingly, Avista Advisory was “credit adviser” to the debt-laden Videocon group for the restructuring of an FCCB (Foreign Currency Convertible Bond).

At its offices in Mumbai’s Bandra Kurla Complex, the CBI had questioned a host of ICICI Bank officials in connection with the allegation that a quid pro quo was involved in the bank issuing a Rs 3,250 crore loan to the Videocon Group in 2012. The quid pro quo allegation is related to a deal that Deepak’s company, NuPower Renewables, allegedly engaged in with Venugopal.

Earlier, ICICI chairman M.K. Sharma had tried hard to defend the MD-CEO, first saying that the bank’s overall exposure in Videocon Group’s gross NPAs was less than 10% and then saying the regulators had looked at the matter in 2016. “ICICI Bank was not the lead bank for this consortium and the bank only sanctioned its share of facilities aggregating approximately Rs 3,250 crore which was less than 10% of the total consortium facility in April 2012,” Sharma told reporters in Delhi last week.

But Sharma did not answer on what basis the ICICI board gave Chanda a clean chit and whether a due process was followed in the review of the case. He did not even say why the review was not disclosed to the stock exchanges. Worse, Sharma did not share the board’s replies to the Securities and Exchange Board of India, the market regulator. No wonder the charges made by the CBI have stuck.

However, the BJP-led NDA government does not want to take any chances, ostensibly because there are fears the case could snowball into a political controversy after Venugopal played the Marathi card to give his financial woes a strange twist to nudge the controversy. Venugopal, it is reliably learnt, is meeting up with senior leaders of the Shiv Sena to explain his side of the story and why he feels the Marathi Manoos is unnecessarily targeted. “We belong from a Varkari community of Maharashtra, who are devotees of Lord Vitthal. We would never enter into illegal act or any financial irregularities,” Venugopal said, arguing he came in contact with Deepak through Deepak’s brother Rajiv.

Sources in Mumbai said Venugopal was pushing the Marathi Manoos agenda through his brother, Rajkumar, a three-time Rajya Sabha Shiv Sena MP. After the exposure of the alleged conflict of interest between Dhoot-Kochhars-ICICI Bank, the Shiv Sena is yet to make any statement on the controversy.

Venugopal has maintained all along that he severed his business alliance with Deepak and his firm NuPower Technologies—it is into renewable energy business—as soon Videocon got an oil and gas rigging contract. Venugopal further said he had nothing to do with Supreme Energy, and it is not a part of Videocon.

But a senior CBI official said Supreme Energy allegedly funded Rs 64 crore to NuPower and assumed majority and Venugopal had transferred his shares to his associate Mahesh Chandra Punglia, who, in turn, transferred his entire stake in Supreme Energy to Deepak’s Pinnacle Energy for only Rs 900,000, just six months after the Videocon Group got a loan of Rs 3,250 crore from ICICI Bank.

A preliminary enquiry or PE into the case, registered last month, is reported to have named Venugopal, Deepak and unidentified others. Chanda Kochhar, who has recently been cancelling all her high-profile public appointments, could also be questioned further, the CBI official said.

Unlike other deals of ICICI, this one remains wide, wide open.
Suraj
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by Suraj »

Foreign bond investors get access to $16 bn of additional debt in India
India’s central bank raised limits for overseas investors that could lure $16 billion of additional funds into the nation’s sovereign as well as corporate debt.

Foreign investors will be allowed to increase holdings of a sovereign, state and corporate bonds by Rs 1.04 trillion ($16 billion) in the fiscal year to March 2019. Overseas investors can boost holding of central government securities by 0.5 percentage points a year, taking the limit to 5.5 per cent in fiscal year to March 2019 and to 6 per cent in the following 12 month period, the Reserve Bank of India said in a statement on Friday. The central bank set 9 per cent as the limit for foreign investors to own in debt sold by Indian companies.
Supratik
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by Supratik »

Xiaomi is setting up PCB plant in India. I believe Foxconn is doing the same.

https://swarajyamag.com/insta/make-in-i ... g-facility
nam
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by nam »

Nice. As I mentioned in my earlier post, GoI introduced import duty on some of the electronic components. It is forcing manufacturers to set up PCB & components manufacturing in India.

This is the core of pulling the rug off Dragon's feet. Electronic manufacturing.
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by JohnTitor »

All well and fine. But the electronics industry is one of the most polluting industries out there. I hope there is very strict enforcement of regulation to ensure there isn't an ecological disaster
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by vijayk »

Image
Supratik
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by Supratik »

hanumadu
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by hanumadu »

Jingo Kush Hua.
kit
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by kit »

Now where are those semiconductor FAB units coming up .. i would say India has arrived when the MNC s invest serious moolah like a few billions on a single FAB
Suraj
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by Suraj »

I would rather see a bottom up ecosystem of component and PCB makers and assembly plants come up first. The reason is simple - far greater employment potential. Fabs are hugely capital intensive and require comparatively little by way of labor, most of it high skilled. A large assembly supply chain on the other hand employs a large number of people with correspondingly lower capital input that can be raised incrementally.

Of course this isn't binary. We can have both. But I'd rather we had the supply chain first. Having been privy to behind closed door conversations between GoI and fab people (don't ask how, though...), there's almost always a very persistent demand for tax breaks to make the massive capital input viable quickly. There isn't so much pressure from assembly and parts supply chain investors - just a smart tariff policy will attract them to our shores.
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by yensoy »

^^^^ Absolutely, agreed. There are countries with deep pockets out there who will go to any extent to retain their edge in semiconductors. Let them have it. We can have fabless design houses instead and employ loads of chip and systems designers, and have them print out chips at commodity cost.
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by nam »

The biggest items Chini export are PCs/tablet/phones, earphones, heaters etc. Fundamentally commodity items nothing high profile. We need to grab this market.
Here are my export areas which we can do.

1.Commodity hardware exports
2.Private industry led Arms manufacturing
3. Private industry Ship building
4. Train coach manufacturing
5. If possible supply chain for civilian Aircraft from Boeing+ Airbus. Need to use our market size to force these duo to make part of aircraft here.

We have usual BPO+IT, Pharma & Cars. Should help us cross that 10 trillion magic figure.
kit
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by kit »

nam wrote:The biggest items Chini export are PCs/tablet/phones, earphones, heaters etc. Fundamentally commodity items nothing high profile. We need to grab this market.
Here are my export areas which we can do.

1.Commodity hardware exports
2.Private industry led Arms manufacturing
3. Private industry Ship building
4. Train coach manufacturing
5. If possible supply chain for civilian Aircraft from Boeing+ Airbus. Need to use our market size to force these duo to make part of aircraft here.

We have usual BPO+IT, Pharma & Cars. Should help us cross that 10 trillion magic figure.
If we tax the components coming from China will that help in localized production ? .. much like how the cell phone production went up ?
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