Cruise Tourism to be a growth driver for India's economy, says Shri Nitin Gadkari

Cruise Tourism to be a growth driver for India’s economy, says Shri Nitin Gadkari
Clear Action Plan drawn to revitalise Cruise Tourism in India
The Minister of Shipping and Road Transport and Highways Shri Nitin Gadkari has said that Cruise Tourism is one of the fastest growing components of the leisure industry worldwide, and can be a major growth driver for the Indian economy by generating huge employment opportunities. Shri Gadkari was speaking at the National Workshop on “Action Plan for Development of Cruise Tourism in India”, in New Delhi today. The workshop was also attended by Minister of State for Culture and Tourism (I/C) Dr Mahesh Sharma, and representatives of all stakeholder organizations – both from the government and the private sector – including regulatory agencies which deal with issues impacting cruise tourism.
Pointing out that tourism has the highest investment to employment multiplier Shri Gadkari said that on an average, employment generation on a cruise ship is 1 job for 3-4 passengers. With India having the potential to cater to 700 cruise ships per year as against 158 handled this year, the cruise industry can generate more than 2.5 lakh jobs for ten lakh cruise passengers, giving a big boost to the country’s economy. He further informed that cruise terminals are being developed at five major ports – Mumbai, Goa, Cochin, Mangalore and Chennai. In addition, the transport potential of 111 inland waterways will also be tapped. Work will start for developing ten inland waterways by the end of this year. This includes the rivers Ganga and Brahmaputra on which work is already in progress, he informed.
Shri Gadkari called upon state governments also to play an active role in promoting cruise tourism by developing, packaging and marketing their tourists attractions to draw more and more tourists.
The Ministry of Shipping has been working actively with all relevant ministries and organizations of the government to promote cruise tourism in the country. A joint task force headed by Secretary Shipping and Secretary Tourism was constituted for the purpose, and a global consultant was engaged for drawing up an Action Plan. The objective of today’s workshop was to discuss this Action Plan which requires various arms of the Government to take action for creating an enabling business eco-system for growth of cruise tourism in the country.
Speaking on the occasion Dr Mahesh Sharma said that India is fast growing as an attractive tourist destination. To realize the full potential for cruise tourism in the country there was a need for all stakeholders to work together, in cooperation with each other, and create a favourable ecosystem for growth.
Highlighting the efforts of the Shipping Ministry for promoting cruise tourism, Dr Alok Srivastava, Special Secretary (Shipping), informed that e visa, e-landing and incentives like minimum rebate of 30% on all cruise vessel related charges and additional rebate of 25% for coastal cruise movement have already been implemented. Further to this, a joint task force has been set up by the Ministry of Shipping & the Ministry of Tourism and an action plan for deriving standard operating procedure has been drawn, which would be implemented in a time bound manner after discussion with various stakeholders.
Secretary Tourism Smt Rashmi Verma said that the coming together of the Shipping and Tourism ministries to promote cruise tourism in the country would help maximize the benefits that the sector has to offer.
Stakeholders discussed several regulatory issues pertaining to various aspects of cruise port operations namely security, immigration, customs, ports in the workshop. They worked towards drawing up Standard Operating Procedures for all govt. organizations for cruise vessel handling.
Please click here for Backgrounder on Cruise Tourism

Cement sector to see 5-6% CAGR for next 3 fiscals: Crisil

New Delhi: The cement sector will witness 5 to 6 per cent CAGR over the next three fiscals on account of recovery in demand, rating agency Crisil said.
Primarily, the demand would be driven by government's focus on affordable housing and increased spending on infrastructure like roads, railways and urban development, it added.
According to Crisil, the demand of cement will double to 48 million tonnes (MT) over the next three fiscals as compared to the past three financial years.
It, however, said supply would be down to 31 MT from 39 MT.
"We foresee a sharp recovery in demand this fiscal after demonetisation dealt a major blow leading to a 1.2 per cent de-growth last fiscal," said Crisil Ratings Senior Director Sachin Gupta.
He further added: "The industry should be able to rack up 5-6 per cent compound annual growth rate between this fiscal and 2020, or nearly twice as fast as between fiscals 2015 and 2017."
According to the rating agency, the surge in demand would also improve the operating metrics of cement makers.
The cement segment, which is witnessing consolidation - last fiscal, had signed acquisitions of Rs 32,000 crore last fiscal.
It was financed through debt of Rs 25,000 crore.
"The acquisitions totalled 42 MT of capacity, tantamount to the capacity addition seen in the past 2.5 years," said Crisil, adding that once these transactions are completed, acquirers will increase their installed capacity significantly to 37 per cent from 28 per.
However, it also warned: "Their share of industry debt will increase from 17 per cent now to 45 per cent." PTI KRH

Tractor industry may record volume growth of 10% in FY18:ICRA

Mumbai: The Indian tractor industry is expected to record a volume growth of 9-10 per cent in the current financial year, mainly supported by healthy monsoon, according to rating agency ICRA.
"Healthy monsoon expectation, coupled with good reservoir levels, augurs well for farm output in the current fiscal. This, coupled with an expectation of improvement in non-farm income, aided by the government's focus on rural spending, infrastructure creation and irrigation spending, is likely to drive the demand for tractors, which is expected to record a volume growth of 9-10 per cent this fiscal," ICRA said in a report here.
"Over the long term, we continue to maintain an annual growth estimate of 8-9 per cent for the industry. The long term industry drivers for the industry continue to remain intact. The government remains committed towards rural development and agro-mechanisation, a critical component in improving the state of agriculture in the country," ICRA Senior Group Vice President Subrata Ray said.
Also, he said, continued support towards enhancing irrigation penetration through fresh allocations would reduce rainfall dependence.
"This, coupled with other factors such as increasing rural wages and scarcity of farm labour, is likely to aid growth in industry volumes," he added.
Tractor volumes reported a healthy growth during FY17, boosted by improving farm sentiments following healthy southwest monsoon and expectations of better cash flows in the backdrop of strong growth in kharif and rabi crop production.
Additionally, ICRA said, government support programmes in various states also supported demand to an extent.
The volumes suffered a blip in November 2016 following demonetisation. However, domestic volumes recovered quickly to a moderate to healthy growth in volumes during December 2016-March 2017, it added.
In April and May, 2017 also, leading tractor Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) have reported robust double digit growth rates in domestic volumes.
However, tractor exports market remained weak during FY17, with the weak demand in the global markets attributable to high supplies of commodities and accompanying fall in crop prices across various markets, ICRA said.

Textiles Ministry undertakes cleanliness drive

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ew Delhi: The Union Textiles Ministry has organised a fortnight-long cleanliness drive dubbed Swachhtha Pakhwada to drive home the government's Clean India campaign.
All 17 bodies under the Ministry, apart from jute mills and residential colonies of workers in the textile sector, undertook various activities towards cleanliness during the drive organised between May 1 and 15.
Besides, students of various National Institutes of Fashion Technology centres across the country worked closely with various sections of the society and cleaned public places and decorated walls with mural paintings containing messages of cleanliness.
An exhibition on waste management and organic farming was organised by Central Silk Board. Plantation drives, awareness campaigns, health and cleanliness camps, debate competitions, slogan-writing competitions, street plays, human chain, Padayatras and painting competitions were also held in various locations as part of the Pakhwada.
Addressing reporters here, Minister of State for Textiles, Ajay Tamta said there is a need for the message of Swachhtha (cleanliness) to reach every citizen of the country.
He said everyone needs to realise that Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India campaign) can become a success only if each one participates actively in it.

Commerce & Industry Minister launches the Startup India Hub

New Delhi: The Commerce & Industry Minister Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman today launched theStartup India Virtual Hub, an online platform for all stakeholders of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in India to discover, connect and engage with each other.
Speaking about the need to bring the entire ecosystem together on one platform, Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman mentioned that Startup India Virtual Hub is an effort to create a marketplace where all the stakeholders can interact, exchange knowledge, and enable each other to grow. It will streamline the lifecycle of existing and potential startups, helping them access the right resources at the right time. She also encouraged all entrepreneurs in India to utilize this portal and all enabling stakeholders to contribute to the platform as much as possible. The Minister also announced a new initiative, wherein a Startup exchange program amongst the SAARC nations would be organized.
The portal will host startups, investors, funds, mentors, academia, incubators, accelerators, corporates, Government bodies and more. The Hub attempts to solve the problem of information asymmetry and lack of access to knowledge, tools, &experts, especially in the nascent ecosystems across Tier II and III towns.
The Virtual Hub is a dynamic & interactive platform that will facilitate learning & development, networking, mentorship, funding,etc. for startups. The basic principle behind developing this platform is to aggregate different offerings of theecosystem and enable discovery by the right audience. Startup India Hub has partnered with various organizations to on-board entrepreneurs & investors, as well as build knowledge modules. To ensure accessibility across various platforms, dedicated Apps are also available on both Android and iOS.
India is the third largest startup ecosystem around the globe, with 3-4 startups commencing every day. The Hub will act as a nodal platform and will enable users to connect with ecosystem stakeholders, access free learning resources, tools & templates on legal, HR, accounting & regulatory issues and discussion forums. The Hub has also aggregated over 50 relevant Govt schemes/programs. In the next phase, the platform will also aggregate schemes available across various state governments. To provide a better user experience, the platform has been enabled to build smart intelligence along with Chatbots to automatically collate, update information and respond to queries.
The launch event of the Hub was kick-started by a panel discussion on ‘Navigating the Startup Landscape’ with a representative from each of the startup, investor, incubator, accelerator, and mentor communities. The discussion was followed by an address by Shri Ramesh Abhishek Secretary, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion who made a presentation on various initiatives taken up under the Startup India Initiative.
In his closing remarks, Joint Secretary Shri Rajiv Aggarwal requested all the members of the ecosystem to register on the Hub.

IT export to grow at 7-8%; 1.5L jobs to be created in FY18'

Hyderabad: Indian IT exports will grow by 7-8 per cent, unchanged from previous year's growth, despite protectionist voices in major markets like the US, industry body Nasscom said today.
The USD 156 billion Indian industry -- the biggest job creator in the organised sector -- is also projected to add 1.3-1.5 lakh new jobs during 2017-18 compared to a net hiring of 1.7 lakh in the previous fiscal.
In a first, the industry body had deferred giving the growth forecast in February and had instead postponed the same to April-June quarter.
Speaking to reporters, Nasscom president R Chandrashekhar exuded confidence that the outlook is positive despite the political and economic uncertainties in key overseas markets that may impact client spending.
"We expect export revenues to grow by 7-8 per cent, not hugely different from last year (7.5 per cent), notwithstanding the headwinds we talked about (H1-B visa curbs in the US, protectionism and Brexit)," he added.
The domestic infotech industry is expected to grow at faster pace of 10-11 per cent (in dollar terms) in 2017-18.
"We definitely see the industry to be net hirer of as many as 1.3 to 1.5 lakh people in the year ahead. This industry continues to be a substantial hirer and a substantial creator of new jobs. At the same time, there is a churn in the industry too," Chandrashekhar said.
He said as the industry is currently driven by the digital revolution, Nasscom has decided to re-skill about 1.5 to 2 million IT professionals to equip them for future requirements.
"Nasscom is working with its partners, members to establish a comprehensive digital platform. You will be hearing about this more during the months ahead. We expect 1.5 to 2 million people amongst the workforce to be re-skilled in the next 4-5 years."
The size of the Indian IT industry is pegged at USD 154 billion, including USD 11 billion incremental revenues added in the previous fiscal, according to Nasscom.
"Uncertainty impacted the businesses. Whether it is BFSI segment or healthcare, all segments confronted by the uncertainty delayed the decision-making in the quest for stability. That translated into low opportunities for IT industry," the Nasscom chief explained.
Chandrashekhar, however, was optimistic about growth of the domestic IT industry, backed by some of the Centre's initiatives such as aiming for one trillion dollar digital economy.
Replying to a query, he said the Indian IT industry is all set to move beyond the markets it is heavily dependent on and expand footprints to newer geographies such as Continental Europe, Japan, China and Africa.
The US and the UK account for almost 80 per cent of the country's IT export revenues.
Compared to Nasscom's guidance of 7-8 per cent growth, Infosys expects its revenues to rise 6.5-8.5 per cent in constant currency (and 6.1-8.1 per cent in USD terms), while Cognizant has guided for 8-10 per cent rise in topline in constant currency terms.
Keshab Panda, MD and CEO, L&T Technology Services, said he is confident of double-digit growth.

India-Australia to boost collaboration in clothing, fashion

New Delhi: India and Australia will intensify cooperation in the field of textiles, clothing, handloom and fashion, with the government approving an agreement between the two nations in this regard.
The Memorandum of Understanding between the Ministry of Textiles and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Australia will benefit weavers.
The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved the pact at a meeting here.
As per the agreement, the participants will jointly identify appropriate measures to connect the Australian and Indian textile and fashion sectors; promote collaboration and international engagement between those sectors.
They will also nurture the skills and talents; promote economic opportunities and encourage professional engagement, training, skill development and public exhibition of products derived from these sectors in the two countries.
However, Intellectual Property Rights of either side will stand protected.
"The MoU will facilitate cooperation in relation to matters within the textiles and fashion sectors that may be of mutual interest and benefit to the participants," an official statement said.
"The weavers including ancillary workers will be benefited from activities to be taken under MoU," it added.
The initiative also aims to increase the handloom fabric production by establishing market linkages, encourage innovation in designs and techniques for improvement in design capability, diversification of product lines and value addition and provide better access to domestic and export markets so that weavers are able to get continuous employment and improve their living standards.
According to the statement, Australian fashion designers producing garments using Indian woven and other textiles for Indian and Australian market have evinced interest to work with stakeholders in India which includes cooperation with textiles, handloom sector with a view to provide state-of- the-art designing of textiles and handloom products and market them in India as well as international market.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Government of Australia) had proposed to sign an MoU with the Ministry of Textiles in this regard.

Govt banks devise three-tier plan for bad loan resolution

Mumbai: A three-tier strategy is being evolved internally, according to four bankers who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Relatively smaller stressed accounts of less than Rs1,000 crore will be sold to asset reconstruction companies (ARCs), mid-sized cases of Rs1,000-5,000 crore will be resolved through the various RBI restructuring schemes and larger cases will be tried at the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) in accordance with RBI rules, according to the plan.
The need for a 360-degree approach to resolving the stressed asset cases comes as lenders want to ensure faster recovery from the stock of Rs10 trillion of stressed assets choking the banking system.
Earlier this month, RBI identified 12 large stressed accounts with outstanding debt of more than Rs5,000 crore to be referred to the NCLT. In other cases, the central bank asked banks to finalize a resolution plan within the next six months, failing which it will be filed for bankruptcy proceedings.
On Thursday, it announced the members of its oversight committee on bad loans and said this panel will also oversee stressed loans greater than at least Rs500 crore.
While RBI has kick-started the process, industry watchers say this is going to be a long-drawn process. Meanwhile, banks are keen on continuing the resolution process by referring eligible cases to various schemes such as strategic debt restructuring and scheme for sustainable structuring of stressed assets. Bankers said the involvement of the oversight panel would ensure that they can take higher haircuts, or sacrifice of the loan amount, without the fear of investigating agencies.
For other smaller cases, lenders have intensified their resolution efforts in the current quarter by clearing the old stock of non-performing assets (NPAs), a phenomenon which is usually seen in the fourth quarter of the fiscal year. Banks including State Bank of India, Andhra Bank, Allahabad Bank, and United Bank of India have already put on the block NPAs worth at least Rs8,500 crore, a majority of which are outstanding balance of less than Rs100 crore.
The final outcome of these sales will also help gauge whether the revised norms of the RBI, in effect since 1 April, are a deterrent for using the ARC route for bad loan resolution.
From the beginning of this fiscal, if a bank invests in more than 50% of security receipts created against the sale of its own stressed assets, it has to set aside more money as provisions. From 2018-19, this threshold of 50% will be reduced to 10%.
“Over a period of time, the redemption of these security receipts falls to nil as there is very little realization from the underlying assets of the company. Until then, banks have to keep higher provisions. So it’s best to sell smaller loans to ARCs,” said the executive director of a public sector bank, who is one of the four bankers cited above.
Given their capital position, most ARCs would also prefer smaller deals as they cannot afford an upfront cash payment of 50% for the underlying asset.
“If ARCs have no capital, then banks will have to look at bifurcating the NPA cases and selling the small accounts to ARCs while addressing the larger ones through the NCLT,” said Eshwar Karra, chief executive officer, Phoenix ARC, which manages Rs6,000 crore of stressed assets primarily in the small and medium enterprises.
According to a 2016 report by EY, the capitalization of all ARCs put together adds up to around Rs3,000 crore.

UP gets 70,784 more houses for urban poor under PMAY (Urban)

Karnataka gets 56,281 more; Andaman & Nicobar Islands get 609 first time
Ministry of HUPA approves 1,27,674 more houses with an investment of Rs.6,532 cr
Central assistance of Rs.1,915 cr approved for these new sanctions
New Delhi: Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation has approved construction of 70,784 affordable houses for the benefit of urban poor in Uttar Pradesh under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban) with an investment of Rs.3,528 cr for which central assistance of Rs.1,062 cr has been approved.
Further to the discussion Minister of HUPA Shri M.Venkaiah Naidu held with the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Shri Yogi Adityanath soon after assumption of office, the State Government sent affordable housing proposals for 145 cities and the same have been approved. Earlier, Uttar Pradesh has been sanctioned 41,954 houses including those approved under Rajiv Awas Yojana, which has been now subsumed under PMAY(Urban). With these latest approvals, the total number of houses sanctioned for Uttar Pradesh has increased to 1,12,738.
Of the 70,784 houses approved, 56,839 will be constructed under the Affordable Housing in Partnership component and 13,945 houses under Beneficiary Led Construction component of PMAY(Urban). Under these two components, central assistance of Rs.1.50 lakh is given to each beneficiary.
Under the latest approvals, Lucknow has got 1,525 houses, Gorakhpur-501, Ayodhya-500, Iltifatganj-903, Faizabad-769, Dudhi-765, Rudauli-713, Singahi Bhiraura-821, Chatra-783, Purdhinagar-674, Kanpur Dehat-442, Daurala-505, Sikandra-447, Akbarpur-449, Aliganj-511, Bareily-139 and Azamgarh-119.
Karnataka has been sanctioned 56,281 more affordable houses for 93 cities and towns with an investment of Rs.2,950 cr and Central assistance of Rs.844 cr.
Bengaluru has been sanctioned 8,291 houses, Bellary-1,613, Shivamogga-1,500, Chennapatna-1,450, Hubbali-1,300, Dharwar-1,292, Challakere-1,127, Kanakpur-1,163 and Sira-1,008.
For the first time, Andaman & Nicobar Islands has been sanctioned 609 houses for Port Blair with an investment of Rs.54 cr and central assistance of Rs.9.00 cr.
With these latest approvals, the total number of affordable houses approved for construction under PMAY(Urban) has increased to 20,95,718.

Govt to launch National Data Repository on June 28

New Delhi: The government will next week launch India's maiden National Data Repository (NDR) that will assimilate, preserve and upkeep country's vast sedimentary data for future use in oil and gas exploration and production.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan will on June 28 launch the NDR, which will aid India to switch over to an open acreage licensing regime where companies can choose areas they want to explore.
At present, the government selects and demarcates areas it feels can be offered for bidding in an exploration licensing round.
Under the open acreage licensing (OAL), companies can visit NDR and look at vast seismic data of currently producing fields and explored areas as also those of unexplored areas, official sources said.
From the areas that are not under any licensee, they can then carve out an area suitable to them and evince interest in doing exploration and production.
Once an area is selected, the government will put it up for bidding and any firm offering the maximum share of oil or gas produced from the area would be awarded the block.
Sources said already a vast amount of data has been populated - over 9.3 lakh line kilometres of 2D seismic, 2.8 lakh square km of 3D seismic and 1,717 well data.
The NDR will be wholly funded by the government of India and housed with the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH).
It will have the ability to store data online, near line and offline, and provide independent web-based access.
The DGH, they said, has already begun sale of geophysical data of speculative surveys in east and west coast of India in 2005 and 2008.
The mammoth volume of data collected by E&P companies and other agencies over more than six decades of activities was hitherto lying scattered at different work centres of ONGC, Oil India and DGH or held by the operating companies.
This necessitated an establishment of a system at national level that could assimilate, preserve and upkeep the vast amount of data which could be organised and regulated for use in future exploration and development, besides use by R&D and other educational Institutes.
With this objective, the government initiated the establishment of the NDR.
The NDR is a government sponsored project with state-of- the-art facilities and infrastructure to create E&P data bank for preservation, upkeep and dissemination of data so as to enable its systematic use for future exploration and development.
The DGH being the agency of the central government will be responsible for creation, setting up and operation of the NDR.
Sources said the OAL will be beginning of a new era in oil and gas exploration and production.
Till now, the government has awarded 254 exploration blocks under nine rounds of bidding between 2000 and 2012.
Prior to that, 29 discovered fields were awarded to private and foreign companies.
Of the 254 blocks awarded under the New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP) between 2000 and 2012, 156 have already been relinquished due to poor prospectivity.