Top headlines: 'Capex route to economic revival', gold import duty hike

The hike in import duty on gold is designed to dampen import demand. The basic duty hike to 12.5 per cent from 7.5 per cent also has a load of 3 per cent goods and services tax (GST). In an exclusive interview with Shrimi Choudhary and Arup Roychoudhury, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the Centre had kept the promises made to states and hence there was trust at the recently-held GST Council meeting. On broader economic issues, Sitharaman said while there were still uncertainties on the expenditure side of things, she was confident of a healthy tax revenue buoyancy in FY23

Capex is the route to economic revival, says FM Nirmala Sitharaman 
 

The government would depend on its public capital expenditure programme to revive demand in the economy and might not go for sector-specific fiscal measures, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman told Business Standard on Friday. In a wide-ranging interview, Sitharaman said the Centre would finalise the privatisation of a public sector bank soon. Also, the fiscal deficit and growth situation were very comfortable this year in spite of continuing external headwinds, she added. Read more

Trust between Centre and states intact in GST Council: FM Sitharaman

In an exclusive interview with Shrimi Choudhary and Arup Roychoudhury, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the Centre had kept the promises made to states and hence there was trust at the recently-held GST Council meeting. On broader economic issues, Sitharaman said while there were still uncertainties on the expenditure side of things, she was confident of a healthy tax revenue buoyancy in FY23. The FM said the high level of government debt-to-GDP ratio should not be a concern against the backdrop of two years of the Covid-19 pandemic. Read more

Profit at country's top-10 biz groups grows at 30.6% CAGR to Rs 2.57 trn

The past three years have been among the best for India's top business groups in terms of margins and profits. Six of the country's top ten business groups by revenue reported 35 per cent-plus annualised growth in their group profits during these years. The top gainers were groups with a big play in industrial metals such as steel and non-ferrous metals. Read more

Import duty hike likely to weigh on stocks of gold jewellery retailers

The hike in import duty on gold is designed to dampen import demand. The basic duty hike to 12.5 per cent from 7.5 per cent also has a load of 3 per cent goods and services tax (GST). This hike is designed to ease pressure on the country’s trade account and the rupee. Gold is the second biggest item on the import list and accounted for $46 billion in financial year 2021-22 (FY22), up from $34.6 billion in FY21. Volumes rose to at least 842 tonnes, according to latest official data between April 2021 and February 2022, versus 642 tonnes in FY21 (April 2020-March 2021). Read more

Coal India, the producer with no experience in importing supplies

One of the quirky elements of the coal supply crisis is that the government has nominated a company with no experience of importing coal as a sort of canalising agency to import for government- and private-owned power generation companies. This is state-owned Coal India Ltd (CIL), the world’s largest producer and monopoly domestic supplier. It is unclear why the coal ministry decided that it would not be useful to rope in specialised state-run importers such as MMTC. Read more

20 yrs of privatised Delhi discoms: Leap in tech but feet tied in populism

At the dawn of this century, the Sheila Dikshit-led Delhi government of the time took the bold decision of privatising the power distribution business in the national capital. A similar model was shaping up only in two other cities — Ahmedabad and Surat. This made the Delhi model the largest and also the most politically sensitive. During the two decades, Delhi’s electricity sector has never been out of the news. In the initial years, the Bharatiya Janata Party used it to attack Dikshit with charges of crony capitalism, and since 2013, it is a populist tool for the current Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government. Read more