Shipping firms to benefit from rising iron ore exports to China

Mumbai: scenario in terms of volumes and freight rates, having improved on the India-China route, shipping firms are increasingly deploying large sized-vessels there.
“Until September-October last year, there was not a single vessel getting loaded for China. But in the last few weeks, about eight to 10 vessels have been loaded at Goa to get shipped to China," said Captain Kiran Kamat, managing director at Link Shipping and Management Systems.
“In coming months, a maddening rush is expected on this route as all iron ore exports will have to be done by June, before the monsoon halts activities for over three-four months," he added.
Unlisted Essar Shipping carried dry bulk cargo of almost 11.5 million tonnes (mt) in 2016-17, up 18 per cent from the previous financial year, the company said in a release last week. More than 80 per cent of the Essar Shipping fleet carries dry bulk cargo, which includes iron ore, coal, bauxite and limestone.
“Our deployment of Supramax- and Panamax-sized vessels on this route depends on the availability of vessels. I agree there is some improvement in freight rates and volumes have picked up, but it’s too early to say if these rates are sustainable," a senior official with Shipping Corporation of India (SCI) told Business Standard.
The SCI is the largest shipping company in the country, with a fleet size of 69 vessels, of which 16 vessels belong to the dry bulk division. Essar Shipping, on the other hand, has a fleet of 14 vessels.
In the first nine months ended December 31, 2016, the SCI witnessed a loss of 171 crore in its dry bulk earnings, compared to 108 crore in the same period the previous year.
Apart from the SCI and Essar Shipping, Great Eastern Shipping is another big shipping company in the domestic market. However, industry officials are of the view that Great Eastern Shipping may not be too active on the India-China route as most of its vessels are deployed on foreign waters on medium- to long-term contracts.
Between February 2016 and March 2017, the Baltic Dry Index, a key indicator for freight rates, shot up four times from a low of 290 to 1,300.
“Iron ore exports are about 10 mt already between January and March, and we expect this figure to touch 40 mt this year. This will also push up freight rates, and hence Baltic is seen moving in the upward direction here on," said Rahul Sharan, lead research analyst with Drewry, a maritime research and consulting firm. He refrained from giving a level for the Index.
India exported 21.41 mt iron ore in 2016 from a meagre 4 mt in 2015. India was the world’s third largest iron ore exporter after Australia and Brazil before the government banned the exports in 2011. The ban was lifted in 2014. Prior to the ban, India had shipped more than 100 mt of the commodity, mainly to China in the form of fines.

Govt eases norms for states to fund infrastructure projects

New Delhi: In a move that will potentially improve India’s infrastructure funding options, the cabinet on Wednesday allowed state government entities to directly tap bilateral agencies for resources.
Not only will this give greater flexibility to state entities to fund infrastructure projects, it will also enable state governments to move some debt off their books.
The new fundraising route will allow for direct borrowing by state public sector undertakings (SPSUs) from Official Development Assistance (ODA) partners in countries like Japan, the US and Germany.
While such a dispensation is available to central public sector units, it wasn’t available for SPSUs, thereby exhausting state governments’ borrowing limits.
Also, these infrastructure projects are long-gestation projects requiring loans with a long tenure.
As part of this new mechanism, Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority will be allowed to borrow directly from the Japan International Cooperation Agency a Rs15,109 crore loan to implement the Rs17,854 crore Mumbai Trans Harbour Link project.
Currently, if an SPSU has to avail of such loans, it has to be facilitated by the respective state government, with such borrowing reflecting on its books. Also, it has to be limited to 3% of gross state domestic product (GDP).
“It reduces the state government’s resources for development spending,” finance minister Arun Jaitley said at a press conference.
As per Wednesday’s cabinet decision, eligible state entities can borrow directly with a government guarantee, which frees up the state’s borrowing space, Jaitley explained.
According to the N.K. Singh panel which reviewed India’s fiscal rules, “The states’ combined primary deficit of around 1.3% of GDP is much higher than the centre’s primary deficit of 0.3% of GDP in 2016-17 (BE). This implies that the combined debt of the states is projected to rise even if they adhere to their FRBM (fiscal responsibility and budget management) targets.”
The panel has recommended a debt-to-GDP ratio of 38.7% for the central government, 20% for state governments together and a fiscal deficit of 2.5% of GDP by financial year 2022-23.
India plans to invest as much as Rs3.96 trillion in the current financial year to bankroll its new integrated infrastructure planning paradigm comprising roads, railways, waterways and civil aviation.
While the concerned state government will furnish a guarantee for the loan, the Union government will provide the counter-guarantee.
“This dispensation will allow the financially sound state entities to directly borrow and repay the loan required for major infrastructure projects without burdening the state exchequer,” a government statement said.
Experts welcomed the move.
“With this move, more vibrant federalism is being brought in where state decides for its own finances...This move gives more responsibility and freedom to the state government. Responsibility and freedom go hand-in-hand with the rider that if they become frivolous in managing their finances, then it will hit India’s balance of payment,”said Jaijit Bhattacharya, partner, infrastructure and government services, at consulting firm KPMG.
It’s a positive step in simplifying the process of financing by bilateral agencies, said Sanjay Garg, partner and leader, capital projects, at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
“This will put more onus on the states to assess viability of projects. There has to be some checks in place to prevent this from becoming a channel for off-budget borrowings, thus circumventing the fiscal prudence requirements,” he added.
Gireesh Chandra Prasad contributed to this story.

Cabinet approves signing of the Protocol amending the Convention between India and Portugal for avoidance of Double Taxation

New Delhi: The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has given its approval for signing of a Protocol amending the Convention between India and Portugal for avoidance of double taxation. The Protocol will also ensure prevention of fiscal evasion with respect to taxes on income.
Once the Protocol enters into force, both India and Portugal would be able to exchange tax related information, which will help tax authorities of both countries to curb tax evasion.

GO BACK Rolls-Royce opens defence service delivery centre in India

New Delhi: Aircraft engine maker Rolls-Royce Holdings Plc on Thursday opened a new defence service delivery centre (SDC) in Bengaluru, the first outside the US and UK, to provide localized engineering support and solutions and reduce turnaround time for the Indian Air Force, Indian Navy and state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL).
Rolls-Royce is looking to improve capability and provide faster front-line support for over 750 engines in a range of aircraft used by the defence as well as commercial aircraft such as the C-130J, Hawk advanced jet, Embraer and Jaguar, among others.
Shaun Agle, vice-president (customer services), India defence, said the new service delivery centre will be able to deliver real-time solutions through MRO (maintenance repair and overhaul), provide first and second line of support, have field service representatives, manage the health of the fleet, manage supply chains and collaborate with the armed forces.
India is the last remaining user of the Jaguar type of aircraft and is one of the largest users of the Hawk, the company said, while trying to highlight the need for a local presence.
The SDC will have at least 10 specialized engineers and service personnel to find localised solutions specific to India. The SDC is based on the model operated by the company at Marham in the UK and Kingsville in the US.
The company did not quantify the reduction in time or cost that would result from setting up the local SDC, which will do the work that would otherwise have been referred to Bristol, UK.
Last year, Indian customers raised 138 issues, according to the company, which were referred to Bristol.
Rolls Royce has over 1,600 engineers based in India who help provide solutions for the UK-based company’s global customers, Kishore Jayaraman, president, India and South Asia, said.

Disinvestment for 2017-18 kicks off with Rs 1,200 cr Nalco share sale

New Delhi: Overwhelming response from retail investors in the share sale of National Aluminium Company helped the government kick off the new financial year’s disinvestment programme.
Small investors bid 3.2 times over while high-networth individuals and institutional buyers bid 1.8 times more for the Nalco shares, stock exchange data showed.
The government mopped up Rs 1,204 crore--Rs 250 crore from retail and Rs 954 crore from institutions--by selling 9.2% in Nalco.
Commenting on the Nalco share sale, the secretary at the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM), Neeraj Gupta, said the government was confident of retail investor demand and hence had exercised the green-shoe option keeping in mind the last four disinvestments. “Today’s response validates our market assessment.”
The government has drawn up plans to sell stakes in more than 20 companies, including Indian Oil Corp, National Thermal Power Corp, Rural Electrification Corp, Power Finance Corp, Neyvelli Lignite Corp and NHPC, to raise Rs 72,500 crore during 2017-18.
Apart from the blue-chip stocks, the government also has plans for listing 16 state-owned companies.
The process has started for appointing legal advisers and merchant bankers for Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd, IRCON International Ltd, Indian Railway Finance Corporation Ltd, Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Ltd, RITES Ltd, Bharat Dynamics Ltd, Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers Ltd, Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Ltd (MDSL), North Eastern Electric Power Corp, MSTC Ltd and Mishra Dhatu Nigam Ltd.
The government has plans to list five state-owned insures—New India Assurance Company Ltd, United India Insurance Company Ltd, Oriental Insurance Company Ltd, National Insurance Company Ltd, and General Insurance Corporation of India.
The government has set a target of Rs 46,500 crore through small stake sales and Rs 15,000 crore from strategic disinvestment during 2017-18.
The finance ministry is planning to step up disinvestment as it has to spend more on infrastructure and social schemes while cutting the fiscal deficit to 3.2% of GDP in 2017-18, from 3.5% last year.

Legal Aid and Empowerment initiatives launched

New Delhi: Minister of Law & Justice and Electronics & IT, Sh. Ravi Shankar Prasad today appealed to all those involved in the delivery of justice to join hands in improving the system to ensure that assistance is available to every citizen irrespective of his socio-economic position. He said this after the launch of three key legal aid and empowerment initiatives of the Department of Justice – including ‘Pro bono legal services’, ‘Tele law service’ and ‘Nyaya Mitra scheme’. The Minister also mentioned that the country’s legal system would be digitally transformed, as digital inclusion holds the key to the country’s march towards Digital India.
The Minister emphasized the need for increased opportunities of legal aid and awareness for people, especially the marginalised sections of the society. He said that the three initiatives launched today were aimed at fulfilling the department’s core mandate of enhancing ‘access to justice’ for the poor and vulnerable communities, including making accessible quality and effective legal aid for them. He acknowledged and appreciated the initiatives undertaken, over the last two decades, to safeguard and deliver this right to citizens, first, by the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) and subsequently by the Department of Justice – both of whom have the shared mandate of delivering adequate and efficient legal aid to the marginalised and vulnerable sections. The Minister also underscored that the initiatives launched by the department here are to supplement the efforts of NALSA and not to overlap the activities undertaken by the legal services authorities.
Pro bono legal Services
The ‘Pro bono legal services’ initiative is a web based platform, through which interested lawyers can register themselves to volunteer pro bono services for the underprivileged litigants, who are unable to afford it. The Department of Justice has launched the online application for this initiative on its website doj.gov.in. Through this online portal, litigants from marginalised communities (including members of scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, women, children, senior citizens, persons with low income and persons with disabilities) can also apply for legal aid and advice from the pro bono lawyers.
The Minister described this effort as an ‘earnest step’ towards fulfilling the mandate of quality legal aid for all. He noted that many from the legal fraternity were already volunteering legal support for the underprivileged clients, in an individual capacity. However, he stressed that the time has come to promote the concept of pro bono legal aid in an institutionalized manner and ensure that those who volunteer their valuable time and service towards this public service are duly recognized.
The Minister called upon all lawyers from across the country to wholeheartedly support this initiative and help in fulfilling the constitutional mandate of legal aid for all.
Tele Law: Mainstreaming Legal Aid through Common Service Centre
Through the second initiative, launched by the Minister, the Department of Justice and NALSA are partnering with CSC- E- Governance Service Limited for mainstreaming legal aid to the marginalized communities through the Common Service Centers (CSCs). This initiative, called ‘Tele Law’, is aimed at facilitating delivery of legal advice through an expert panel of lawyers – stationed at the State Legal Services Authorities (SLSA). The project would connect lawyers with clients through video conferencing facilities at CSCs, operated by para legal volunteers. For this purpose, this initiative would also play a pivotal role in empowering 1000 women para legal volunteers.
The Minister said that using CSCs for mainstreaming legal aid services for the marginalized at the panchayat levels would ensure that legal aid reaches populations which remained untouched due to geographical challenges and/or lack of infrastructure. He also described the use of CSCs as change agents, enablers of community participation and capacity building in rural settings as commendable.
The project would be launched across 1800 panchayats in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, North Eastern States and Jammu & Kashmir.
District Facilitation Centre to reduce pendency: Engagement of Nyaya Mitra
The Minister also discussed the issue of heavy pendency of cases in courts across the country. He noted that at present, more than 2.4 crore cases are pending in the district and lower judiciary, of which nearly 10% are more than 10 years old. He called for collective action and efforts in remedying this situation. In this context, the Minister also inaugurated the Nyaya Mitra scheme, which is aimed at reducing pendency of cases across selected districts, with special focus on those pending for more than 10 years.
Functionalized through a retired judicial or executive officer (with legal experience) designated as the ‘Nyaya Mitra’, the project would be operated out of District Facilitation Centres, housed in CSCs. Nyaya Mitra’s responsibilities would include among others assistance to litigants who are suffering due to delay in investigations or trial, by actively identifying such cases through the National Judicial Data Grid, providing legal advice and connecting litigants to DLSA, CSC Tele Law, other government agencies and civil society organisations. He/she shall also refer the marginalized applicants to Lok Adalats for dispute resolution and render assistance towards prison reforms within the district, in coordination with the district judiciary and other stakeholders.
This initiative would be launched in 227 districts including 27 districts from North East and Jammu & Kashmir and 200 districts from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Odisha, Gujarat, West Bengal etc. and would be operated out of CSCs.
The Minister stated that the department was committed to fulfilling its mandate of securing access to justice through these initiatives and called for support and action for all stakeholders in making them a success.

C-DOT develops CCSP (C-DOT Common Service Platform) to make smart cities more efficient, economical and future proof

New Delhi: Government of India’s announcement of Smart Cities project in mission mode has generated a lot of interest. The concept of smart cities is incomplete without intervention of communication and Information Technology.
A network of wireless sensors, a reliable public communication infrastructure and innovative applications working on big data and analytics will help us realise smart cities. Innovative local solutions will have to be found for local problems. Though this offers great opportunities to industry, including, MSMEs and start-ups. But adoption of standards will ensure that solution developers do not reinvent the wheel but devote their energies to the actual building of product and on innovations. Further, the interoperability will be another dividend of a standards based approach.
Telecommunications Standards Development Society, India (TSDSI), the Indian telecom Standards Development Organisation (SDO) and European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), an established and highly respected, 29 years old telecom SDO have joined hands to unroll a collaboration project on ICT Standardisation in an endeavour of creating awareness about telecom standards and promoting their wider adoption that
Recognising C-DOT’s R&D strengths, an India - European Union project called ‘India-EU Cooperation on ICT-Related Standardisation, Policy and Legislation’ is organising a workshop on “Future proof smart cities with a common service layer: a standards driven approach” at C-DOT campus at Mehrauli, New Delhi on 21st April 2017. Some of the global smart cities will be sharing the standards driven approach they have adopted for building smart cities in their countries.
The workshop aims to provide a platform where foreign and Indian experts from IoT and M2M forums, academia, R&D, industry and senior officials from Ministries of Communications, Urban Development and Electronics and Information Technology and cities named in Indian Smart Cities project can interact to share knowledge and experiences. It is also planned to enrich the interaction by inviting City Councillors from Europe and Korea who have actually implemented smart city projects in their respective cities.
C-DOT’s offering:
C-DOT has developed CCSP(C-DOT Common Service Platform), the oneM2M standards compliant common service platform which can be deployed on any off-the-shelf generic server platforms or cloud infrastructure. The business application providers can deploy their oneM2M compliant applications in either co-located infrastructure or on any public or private cloud.
Using the CCSP platform from C-DOT, the smart cities can reap all the benefits of using a standards compliant horizontal service layer and thus be more efficient, economical and future proof.
Along with the CCSP C-DOT has also developed various oneM2M indigenously designed hardware nodes like AND (Application Dedicated Node), ASN (Application Service Node) and MN(Middle node).
To effectively showcase the strength of the platform, C-DOT has also developed various applications like Smart Living, Smart Street Light, Carbon Footprint Monitoring Application and Power Monitoring which are fully oneM2M compliant.
C-DOT has also participated in two international interoperability events where the CCSP and the ADN were tested for interoperability with many other oneM2M compliant nodes from various international organisations like Interdigital, Herit, Huawei, HPE, NTT, KETI, LAAS-CNRS etc. C-DOT also participated in the conformance testing with ETSI.
Brief on P.D.O. (Public Data Office)
C-DOT PDO is ready to bring yet another revolution by taking internet connectivity to every nook and corner of the country like it did in the 1980s when PCOs changed the Indian telecom scene in by taking telephones to rural India. C-DOT hopes that PDOs would bring next telecom revolution by taking internet connectivity to the masses. Like PCOs, the PDOs would enable small shop owners increase their income by selling data vouchers. This will also encourage village-level entrepreneurship and provide strong employment opportunities, especially in rural and semi urban areas.

GST reform an act of courage, says IMF chief Christine Lagarde

Washington: The introduction of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) reform is an act of courage by the Government of India, said Ms Christine Lagarde, International Monetary Fund Chief. The decision is expected to yield positive outcomes for the country in the future. The Indian economy has shown significant development and has a clear determination to continue and sustain growth going forward. The IMF has forecasted a 7.2 per cent growth for the country in 2017. GST will replace central excise, service tax, Value Added Tax (VAT) and other local levies to create an uniform market. It will boost India’s GDP growth by approximately 2 per cent, and will help in reducing tax evasion.

Amazon gets RBI nod for e-wallet in India

Bengaluru: Amazon India has received the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) approval to launch its own digital wallet in India, paving the way for the American online retail giant to gain a slice of India’s fast-growing digital payments business.
Amazon India, which had applied for what is called a Prepaid Payment Instrument (PPI) licence nearly a year ago, will now look to take on established rivals such as Paytm and Freecharge as it prepares to launch a prepaid wallet service that will be broader in scope than its Pay Balance service and will not be restricted to Amazon-based transactions.
In December, Amazon had launched its Pay Balance service in order to boost cashless transactions. While Pay Balance works in a similar manner to other mobile wallet services, it was restricted to transactions on Amazon.
Amazon confirmed the development, but did not comment on the broader scope of what its wallet service could look like and whether it would cover areas such as bill payments.
“We are pleased to receive our PPI licence from the RBI. Our focus is providing customers a convenient and trusted cashless payments experience. RBI is in the process of finalizing the guidelines for PPIs. We look forward to seeing a continuation of the low-limit wallet dispensation with simplified KYC (know-your-customer norms) and authentication. This will allow us to help customers adopt digital payments at scale and thereby contribute towards making India a less-cash economy,” said Sriram Jagannathan, vice-president of payments at Amazon India.
Amazon’s new wallet service will look to address a vital problem in the world of payments — like other wallet services such as Paytm, it will help customers bypass the two-step authentication process for online payments using credit or debit cards and makes the process smoother for online shoppers, thus plugging a key gap in the payments process that reduces the risk of loss of business from online shoppers.
In September, mobile payments start-up PhonePe Internet Pvt. Ltd, which is owned FLIPKART (Amazon’s biggest rival in India), launched an app based on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) platform, which was a key bet for Flipkart, given how payments are still largely an unsolved problem in both online and offline commerce.
Amazon received the PPI licence in late-March. The development comes weeks after the RBI issued guidelines on issuance and operation of PPI licences, indicating potentially stricter norms for mobile wallet players as the central bank looks to ramp up focus on security and customer protection.
RBI raised the minimum capital requirement for digital wallet operators by nearly five times and introduced a directive for full compliance with Know-Your-Customer (KYC) norms, among other new guidelines, causing an outcry among top digital payments firms.
Following the guidelines, top leaders from the payments industry met RBI officials to discuss some of the clauses, including the KYC mandate, which they argued would act as a deterrent towards expanding the digital payments business.
“We hope the government and RBI would continue to encourage multiple ways to shift consumers from cash behaviour by recognising the value of digital wallets, used especially for making small value payments to large merchants like e-commerce, government, IRCTC, utility or insurance companies,” said Amazon’s Jagannathan.

Petrol, diesel prices to change daily from 1 May

Mumbai/New Delhi: Petrol and diesel prices in some cities will now see daily change in sync with international rates, according to two officials from oil marketing companies.
This will be effective 1 May in five cities including Puducherry and Visakhapatnam, Udaipur, Jamshedpur and Chandigarh as part of a pilot project. This will be extended to other parts of the country after an assessment of consumer response.
Diesel and petrol prices move in tandem with the price of crude oil in most countries. In January, Mint reported that the fuel retailers plan to introduce dynamic pricing in India this year.
“We have been piloting dynamic pricing at a few of our retail outlets for some months now, and the response has been encouraging. This has allowed us to go ahead and introduce it formally,” an executive director from an oil marketing company said on condition of anonymity as he is not allowed to talk to reporters.
Currently, state-run fuel retailers—Indian Oil Corp. Ltd (IOCL), Bharat Petroleum Corp. Ltd (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corp. Ltd (HPCL)—revise petrol and diesel prices on the 1st and 15th of every month based on average international price of the fuel in the preceding fortnight and the currency exchange rate.
“Due to the fortnightly revision of fuel prices, petroleum dealers were applying breaks (not lifting fuel daily) on uplifting of fuel. If the prices go up on the 1st or 15th of every month, there would be a rush to uplift products, else, the upliftment would be impacted. This would result in losses for OMCs and we wanted that this price predictability should go away. So dynamic pricing will be a good bet,” said a senior official from an oil marketing company on the condition of anonymity.
Shares of Indian Oil fell 0.07% to Rs408.90 on BSE, Bharat Petroleum rose 1% to Rs717.60, Hindustan Petroleum rose 1% to Rs542.45 while India’s benchmark Sensex fell 0.49% to 29,643.48 points.
Although state-run fuel retailers have the capability to revise petrol and diesel prices on a daily basis, what needs to be monitored is how consumers react to price volatility, industry experts say.
“If there is heightened volatility in global markets due to geopolitical developments, it could get reflected in domestic retail prices too. Therefore, companies are doing the right thing in testing the model in pilot projects to see how its impact and consumer response. In the medium- to long-term, daily price revision may be a good idea as is practised elsewhere,” said R.S. Butola, a former chairman of Indian Oil.
Indian Oil chairman B. Ashok and Hindustan Petroleum chairman and managing director M.K Surana didn’t immediately respond to phone calls seeking comment.
Besides, global fuel prices and currency exchange rate, central and state taxes account for a major part of the fuel prices. It accounts for half of retail petrol price and 46% of retail diesel price. The central government collected Rs64,509 crore from petrol as excise duty in 2016-17 up to end-February, 20% more than what was collected in the whole of FY16. Excise receipts from diesel jumped 36% in the same period to Rs1.37 trillion.