Delhi, Mumbai airports get top World Airport Awards

New Delhi: Delhi and Mumbai airport today said that they have secured top awards at World Airport Awards organised by Skytrax.
GMR-led consortium, which runs Delhi International Airport, said that its Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) has been adjudged as the "Best Airport in India and Central Asia" by Skytrax at the World Airport Awards.
GVK Mumbai International Airport (MIAL), the company that administers Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, said that it secured the top award for the 'Best Airport Staff Service' in India & Central Asia at the World Airport Awards organized by Skytrax.
The World Airport Awards are the most prestigious accolades for the airport industry, voted by customers in the largest, annual global airport customer satisfaction survey. The Skytrax World Airport Awards are a global benchmark of airport excellence and widely known as the Passengers Choice Awards, the release from the airport operator added.

Aviation to become part of multi-modal logistics hubs: Gadkari

New Delhi: Mr Nitin Gadkari, Minister for Road Transport, Highways and Shipping, said that the Indian aviation sector will be included in the multi-modal logistics hubs in order to promote comprehensive logistics solutions for enabling the logistics sector to grow to a projected US$ 360 billion by 2032 from the current US$ 115 billion. The Government of India also plans to set up 400 regional airports with solutions like pre-cooling cold storages across the country. The country’s first Integrated Transport and Logistics Summit to be held during May 3-5, 2017 is expected to receive investments worth Rs 50,000 crore (US$ 7.63 billion). The government also plans to implement a special programme for developing multi-modal logistics parks and transport facilities with the aim of changing the country’s logistics from a point-to-point model to a hub-and-spoke model. 44 economic corridors as well as many feeder routes and inter-corridor routes covering 55,000 km have been identified and along with Golden Quadrilateral and North-South-East-West Corridors will account for 80 per cent of India's logistics freight.

Govt approves Rs2,147crore highway project in Uttar Pradesh

New Delhi: The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, Government of India, has approved the project to widen the Handia-Varanasi section of National Highway-2 in Uttar Pradesh. The project has been awarded under the National Highways Development Project (NHDP) Phase-V road building programme. It will be built on the Hybrid Annuity Mode (HAM) and is estimated to cost Rs 2,147 crore (US$ 327.7 million), which includes cost of land acquisition, resettlement and rehabilitation and other pre-construction activities. The length of the road is estimated to be approximately 73 kms.

Development and Upliftment of Farmers is the first priority of the Government: Shri Radha Mohan Singh

Hon’ble Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi has given special emphasis on lab to land, water, soil, productivity, food processing.
Essential to maintain fertility of the land for sustainable agriculture development: Shri Singh
Country is self-sufficient in foodgrains and exporting foodgrains to the other countries: Union Agriculture Minister
Shri Radha Mohan Singh inaugurates three days Krishi Unati Mela-2017
New Delhi: The Union Minister for Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Shri Radha Mohan Singh has said that development and upliftment of farmers is the first priority of the government and to achieve it, the government aim is to double the income of farmers by 2022. Shri Singh said this on the inauguration of 3 days Krishi Unati Mela being held in Indian Institute of Agriculture Research today. On this occasion, Secretary, Department of Agricultural Research and Education (DARE) and Director General, ICAR, Dr. Trilochan Mohapatra, Secretary, Department of Agriculture, Cooperation & Farmers Welfare (DAC&FW), Secretary, Department of Animal Husbandry, Dairying & Fisheries (DADF), Deputy Director General, Director, Indian Institute of Agriculture Research, Scientist and official were present. Information will be given of crops and new species of cattle, special schemes and programmes prepared keeping in view of the protection, empowerment and their progress in the mela.
Shri Singh said on this occasion that it is essential to maintain fertility of the land for sustainable agriculture development. Hon’ble Prime Minister launched soil health card in Feb., 2015 itself and till now 460 soil testing laboratory has been sanctioned. The government has made it mandatory the production of neemcoated urea in May 2015. Further the cost of DAP and MOP has been reduced. Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana has been launched to safeguard the farmers from natural disaster like drought, flood etc. It includes cereals, oilseeds and commercial, horticulture crops. About 366.64 lakh farmers has been covered in kharif 2016.
Union Agriculture & Farmers Welfare Minister said that Ministry has made arrangements for conducting whole sale market through e-platform (e-NAM) in the whole country so that the farmers may sell their products at reasonable price. To overcome the problem of drought, Prime Minister Krishi Sichae Yojna has been launched under which water is being provided to every khet. To encourage agriculture and to strengthen the rural livelihood many scheme of agriculture and farmers welfare have been launched. The main schemes are Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sichae Yojana, agriculture mechanization, national agriculture marketing, kisan suvidha mobile app, Rashtirya Krishi Vikas Yojna, Fisheries Developmnent Management, Integrated Agriculture System Model etc.
Shri Singh said that the country is self-sufficient in foodgrains and exporting foodgrains to the other countries. India is number one in milk production in the world. Milk production has increased from 137.61 million tonnes during 2013-14 to 146.31 million tonnes during 2014-15 and during 2015-16 milk production was 155.49 million tonnes. New Scheme “National Bovine Productivity Mission” has been started in November, 2016 with an amount of Rs. 825 crore. A production of 82, 930 million eggs was made during year 2015-16. Seeing the unlimited scope of development in fisheries, the Modi government has called for Blue Revolution in the fisheries sector. For Blue Revolution scheme, central budget of Rs. 3000 crore has been earmarked for the period of five years. The number of Krishi Vigyan Kendra has reached to 665 so that the farmers may adopt from training to agriculture technique. Cabinet has approved Rs 3960 crore for running the Krishi Vigyan Kendras. Hon’ble Prime Minister, Shri Narnedra Modi has given special emphasis on lab to land, water, soil productivity, food processing. Prominent among them are Farmer First, Arya, Student Ready Mera Gaon, Mera Gaurav.
On this occasion the regional level Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyay Rashtriya Krishi Vigyan Protsahan Puraskar were distributed. Ramkrishna Ashram, Nimpith Dist.- South 24 Parganas, Sundarbans won the National Award at the event.
The winners at the regional level were Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVK) Dhanori - Roorkee; KVK Badgaon, Vidya Bhawan, Udaipur; KVK Saharanpu; Divyayan Krishi Vigyan Kendra run by Ramakrishna Mission Aashram, Morabadi, Ranchi; KVK, Mayurbhanj, Shamkhunta, Odisha; KVK Teok run by Assam Agricultural University Jorhat, CU; College of Horticulture & Forestry, Imphal; KVK run by College of Horticulture & Forestry, Pasighat, Arunachal Pradesh; KVK Baramati, Malegaon, Maharashtra; KVK Uttar Bastar, Kanker at KVK, IGKV, Raipur; KVK Virinjipuram, Vellore, (Tamil Nadu) run by Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) Coimbatore and KVK Malappuram (Kerala) run by Kerala University.

Boost to Education: Cabinet approves setting up of 50 new Kendriya Vidyalayas in the country under Civil / Defence Sector

New Delhi: The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs,chaired by the Prime Minister ShriNarendra Modihas approved the proposal for opening of 50 new KendriyaVidyalayas (KVs) under Civil / Defence Sector in the country keeping in view the high demand for these schools for their quality of education and excellent results.
The total project cost based on KendriyaVidyalayaSangathan (KVS) norms for the proposed 50 new KVs is Rs.1160 crore.
New KVs will be opened from classes I to V for which 650 regular posts shall be created in all 50 KendriyaVidyalayas. The school grows every year with addition of one more higher class and, when the school grows upto class XII and becomes a full fledged school with two sections in each class, there shall be a requirement of about 4000 regular posts of various categories i.e., about 2900 teaching posts and about 1100 non-teaching posts. These new KVs when fully functional will provide quality education to approximately 50,000 students in addition to the approximately 12 lakh students already studying in present KVs.
The new KVs will address the educational needs of eligible students with high quality standards and will play a role of pace-setting educational institutions in the districts concerned.
Background: The main objective of KVS is to cater to the educational needs of children of transferable Central Government employees including Defence and Para-military personnel by providing a common programme of education. There are at present 1142 functional KendriyaVidyalayas under the KVS including three abroad at Moscow, Kathmandu and Tehran.
The KendriyaVidyalayas are considered as model schools in the country in terms of physical infrastructure, teaching resources, curriculum and academic performance. KendriyaVidyalayas as pace setting schools have consistently turned out excellent academic performance as is evident from the Board Results of Class X and XII exams conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE).

25% surge in FPI flows before DTAA

New Delhi: Grandfathering is the term that allows investment actions taken before a certain date to be subject to old rules. In the new tax arrangement with Mauritius and Singapore, all investments from these places will be subject to a short-term capital gains tax (if booked before 12 months). However, all investments prior to March 31, 2017, would be exempt from paying such capital gains tax, under the grandfathering clause.
In those three months, for instance, the market value of Morgan Stanley Mauritius jumped more than two-fold to ~6,719 crore in the three months. Similarly, the portfolio value of Government of Singapore funds, HSBC Mauritius, Ishares India and Cinnamon Capital saw their holdings’ value rise a little more than a fifth. FPIs pumped a little more than $6 billion (~38,500 crore) into Indian equities during the three months.
In contrast, the total value of investments of these top 50 FPIs remained the same at around ~3.65 lakh crore.
As on April, the Singapore and Mauritius-based entities owned nearly 30 per cent of all FPI assets, showed data from depository NSDL.
Said Pranav Sayta, senior tax partner at consultancy EY: “A number of other factors would have also contributed, including the outcome of the recent state elections and high potential growth for the Indian economy as a whole. Yet, the fact that investments made up to end-March are grandfathered under the tax treaties with both, and also under the newly-applicable General AntiAvoidance Rule provisions (on taxes), encouraged investors to accelerate their investments, to be eligible for tax benefits upon a future exit.”
Investments between April 2017 and end-March 2019 would attract 7.5 per cent tax. From April 1, 2019, all investments through these countries would attract 15 per cent short-term capital gains. Long-term capital gains (on holdings of more than one year) will be exempt for both domestic and foreign investors.
Experts say all the major FPIs domiciled in Singapore and Mauritius are revaluating their strategies with the new tax regulations. While some of them are moving out of these jurisdictions to more tax-friendly countries like France and Netherlands, some others plan to reduce their short-term trades and concentrate on long positions.
“FPIs are coming to terms with the new reality, that there will be no tax havens. For a short span of time, they could think of shifting their base to other jurisdictions. But, from a long-term perspective, the government has already made its stance clear. If it is under the impression that any tax treaty is being misused, they would amend the treaty with that country,” said Tejesh Chitlangi, partner, IC Legal.

Exporters to get tax refund within 10 days

Exporters to get tax refund within 10 days
Business Standard: May 22, 2017
New Delhi: Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman at a press conference on the key initiatives and achievements of the ministry during the three years of the NDA government in New Delhi on Saturday
The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council has accepted the commerce ministry’s suggestion of refunding 90 per cent of exporters’ claims on incentive schemes within 10 days of applying for them.
However, the Council, which had met on Thursday and Friday in Srinagar, is yet to take a decision on allowing a different mechanism of claiming incentives for exporters belonging to medium, small and micro enterprises (MSME), Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Saturday.
The ministry had argued for exempting the sector from paying duties, since it would be difficult for such firms to go without crucial working capital for long.
“On the refund issue, our request to the GST Council was that for MSMEs, if an alternative could be thought of, rather than asking them to pay first and then get a refund. We are yet to hear from them,” Sitharaman said, addressing a press conference on three years of the government. Exporters are now allowed duty-free import of inputs that are used to manufacture export products. However, under the GST regime, which is expected to be rolled out on July 1, they will have to pay the duty and then apply for refunds.
Subsequently, they had argued that significant working capital would be locked up in the new system.
While the government had earlier promised that the duty would be refunded within the first seven days of submitting an application, it had added a further step of acknowledging each claim within three days, Director General of Foreign Trade Ajay Bhalla said.
Provisions have been made for additional refunds of 6 per cent if payments are late. The last 10 per cent of refunds would be subject to verification by the revenue department.
The issue was referred to the GST Council by a special three-member committee including Commerce Secretary Rita Teaotia; the head of the committee on duty drawbacks, GK Pillai; and a finance ministry official.
It had also raised the issue that under the GST, if exempt goods were inputs in making products used for exports, export credits would not be provided for them.
Sitharaman also said the government was considering creating spice development agencies at the state level to boost the working of the Spices Board. On this note, it is looking at spice development parks in Telangana and other states.

GST to help improve India's exports: Sitharaman

New Delhi: As per Ms Nirmala Sitharaman, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India, GST is expected to boost Indian exports following fitment discussions in the GST council and the treatment of commodities and services. India's total exports bounced back with a 4.95 per cent growth in 2016-17, inspite of services having a negative growth. The GST council on May 19, 2017 announced the fitment of services and GST rates for 1,211 goods as it headed towards July 1, 2017 rollout.

India Inc ready for July 1 GST roll-out: CEO poll

New Delhi: Captains of Indian industry across sectors say they are ready for a July 1 roll-out of the “game-changing” goods and services tax (GST).
The GST would help the economy pick up pace, bring down the inflation rate, and boost the fortunes of corporate India, a nationwide poll of top chief executive officers (CEOs) revealed.
A survey of 34 CEOs conducted across India on Saturday, after the GST Council agreed on the rates for various goods and services in Srinagar last week, found that 88 per cent of corporate executives were prepared for a July 1 roll-out.
Ninety-four per cent of the CEOs surveyed said the GST would have a positive impact on the economy and 62 per cent said that the tax would have a positive impact on inflation. The GST rates have exempted several food products from the tax and kept a majority of essential items in the lower tax bracket of 5 per cent.
However, the anti-profiteering clause, which requires firms to pass on the benefit of input credit or tax reduction to the end consumer by a commensurate reduction in prices, is cause for worry in the corner office as 32 per cent of the CEOs said it could lead to harassment by tax officials, and another 21 per cent chose not to respond in ‘yes’ or ‘no’ terms.
CEOs are upbeat on the impact of the GST on their industries and companies. About 65 per cent of them said their industry would benefit from it, and only 26 per cent say it would adversely impact them.
“I have always been and continue to be very optimistic about India's future after the GST roll-out. While demonetisation has helped in checking black money, and ensuring medium- and long-term growth, the GST, which would be implemented from July, would help in achieving positive economic growth in the country,” said Adi Godrej, chairman emeritus, Godrej group, and a vocal supporter of the GST since it was first announced in 2005.
Most companies said they had set up cross-functional core groups with external consultants to get the software in place and train the staff. Industry is likely to undergo a phase of transition in the next two-three months, and then things will return to normal.
Industry says a unified GST is a prerequisite for a modern developed economy. “With India's primacy in the global commercial and economic space, we cannot lag behind. The pain of short-term inflation and adverse tax burden on companies will be eventually compensated by gains from transparency, better tax credit systems, and ease of administration. It is certainly a progressive tax reform and industry is for it,” said Harsh Goenka, chairman of RPG Enterprises.
However, CEOs said they wanted more clarity on rates. “On the one hand, healthcare is exempted, while, on the other hand, certain rates are given for pharmaceutical industry. I do not know yet what it means,” said Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, chairperson and managing director, Biocon.
CEOs in the hotel industry are apprehensive about the impact of the 28 per cent rate on five-star hotels, which could dampen demand. “We need clarity on how the GST will work in the hotel industry, in which we see seasonal fluctuations in tariffs and a lot of discounts by outside agents,” said the CEO of a leading hotel chain.
When asked whether there was enough clarity on input tax credit, 56 per cent of CEOs said they were aware of the input credit, and 28 per cent of the CEOs said there was no clarity. The rest were non-committal.
All the CEOs said they would not look at any relocation of their manufacturing plants because of the GST.

Rank of India Improves in International Tourist Arrivals

New Delhi: As per the UNWTO definition, International Tourist Arrivals (ITAs) comprises two components namely Foreign Tourist Arrivals (FTAs) and Arrivals of Non-Resident Nationals. The UNWTO in its barometer ranks countries in terms of their ITAs. So far only the figures of FTAs were compiled in India. However, now India has started compiling the data arrivals of Non-Resident Indians (NRIs), also.
The number of NRI arrivals during 2014 and 2015 were 5.43 million and 5.26 million, respectively. Accordingly, the numbers of ITAs in India during 2014 and 2015 were 13.11 million and 13.28 million, respectively. The data of ITAs, containing both the arrivals of NRIs and FTAs, is now as per International recommendations.
Due to this inclusion, India’s improved rank reflecting the true and comparable scenario has now been acknowledged by the UNWTO. As per the latest UNWTO Barometer for March 2017, Rank of India in International Tourist Arrivals in both 2014 and 2015 is 24 as against the previous rank of 41 and 40 in the year 2014 and 2015, respectively. With this inclusion the share of India in the ITAs has also increased from 0.68% (based on FTAs) to 1.12% in the year 2015.
Earlier India’s rank in the Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI), 2017 had also shown a 12 places jump from 2015. Rank of India in TTCI Report of 2017 was 40th as compared to 52nd in 2015, 65th in 2013 and 68th in 2011.
While UNWTO gives ranking in terms of numbers of ITAs, TTCI is composed of 14 pillars organized into four sub-indices of ‘Enabling Environment’, ‘Travel & Trade Policy and Enabling Conditions’, ‘Infrastructure’ and ‘Natural and Cultural Resources.