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The latest news and developments

Covid-19 causing disruptions but compliance a 'critical pathway'

Standing crops like wheat, paddy, mustard, chana, chillies, pulses etc, are ready for harvest in many parts of India but the lockdown and restrictions have created a situation where harvesting, transport and marketing is curtailed.

By front-loading PM-Kisan, the Centre has transferred Rs 13,855 crore as the first instalment of Rs 2,000 to each of the 6.93 crore farmers as on Friday, the finance ministry tweeted.

The transfer of around Rs 17,400 crore under the PM-Kisan is being front-loaded. However, most of these interventions will benefit the rural poor more than their urban counterparts, according to analysts.

In its status report submitted earlier, the Centre had said that all the steps were being taken for the welfare and benefit of migrant workers.

The letter has urged, mainly for wage subsidy to large employers, on the lines of the Netherlands and Australia .

The three states are among the top five electricity users (other two being Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan) and fall in power consumption in these places dragged down the country’s annual demand growth to a six-year low of 1.3%.

Currently, only an ad-hoc framework for valuation professionals is in place, which is basically governed by the Companies Act, and the government has designated the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) as the authority to implement the new regime of registered valuers.

Kerala has the country's highest Covid-19 recovery rate with218 out of the 387 coronavirus positive cases recovering . The state has also decided to increase the number and extent of testing, chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan told mediapersons.

The Lasalgaon APMC officials said that another reason for imposing restrictions is the drop in demand of onions. According to officials, the demand has reduced to a great extent in domestic markets.

Even while the government and Reserve Bank of India (RBI) have provided some stimulus, further support may be required to help real estate and for the economy to stay afloat during the crisis.

Banks have been facing difficulty due to the shutdown following COVID-19 pandemic and a cut in LCR requirement is likely to manage their liquidity effectively.

The measure has been taken by the RBI to meet sectoral credit needs at a time when the institutions are facing difficulty in tapping the market.

Prior to RBI’s announcement on Friday, three-month moratorium was limited to accounts whose installments were falling due after March 1, 2020.

According to sector experts, NBFCs' outstanding credit to the commercial real estate stood at Rs 1.29 lakh crore as on September 30, 2019.

A banking analyst told FE: “As of now, the directive is about retaining profits, but if it is extended beyond September, there could be a stock impact.”

The need of the hour is to promote remote working and expand gig economy, speakers at a Niti Aaayog-organised Webinar said.

The move comes after renewable companies made representations to the government to allow a blanket extension for six months to overcome supply-side disruptions in completing the projects.

She also encouraged the NDB to take appropriate steps to join the G-20 forum, along with the multilateral development banks and international financial institutions.

Among the possibilities, the government could garner some revenues from sale of the BPCL’s 61% stake sale in Numaligarh Refinery, which will be sold to state-run firms.

Now that the GOI has fixed the base price of sugar and most of the mills have set up distilleries too, to augment their business, the scenario has changed.

The ministry of home affairs (MHA) had on April 19 issued a detailed standard operating procedure while allowing suitable deployment of their skills. As per Census, 2001, the total number of internal migrants in India was 309.385 million.

Since 2009-10, the SMP has been replaced with fair and remunerative price (FRP) and some states like Uttar Pradesh continue to announce state-advised prices which are higher than FRPs.

RBI notified that it will buy long-dated bonds maturing in 2026, 2028, 2029 and 2030 while it will sell short-dated securities maturing between June 2020 and April 2021. Both the purchase and sale will be worth Rs 10,000 crore each.

The association also said hundreds of crores of unclaimed provident fund and employees state insurance corporation contribution lie in banks attracting interest.

In view of the massive disruption to economic activity due to Covid-19 impact and likely huge shortfall in revenues, the council felt that fiscal response to the crisis should be much more nuanced.

The government has taken measures to contain expenditure, like freeze on its employees’ dearness allowance; it has also announced a relief package to support the vulnerable and disadvantaged sections.

Besides, the state government will create new bank accounts for some 56 lakh farmers and issue 1.12 crore credit/debit cards to them by the next kharif season to enable them to avail crop loans and other government benefits.

India has firmly established itself as a net steel exporter in FY20 with total steel exports at 11.183 MT (31 % growth over last year) exceeding the total steel imports at 7.164 MT by 4.02 MT.

Delhi’s Azadpur mandi, the country’s largest market yard for these items, saw arrivals of onion, tomato and potato drop by 14-31% during April 16-30 from the previous fortnight.

The central government will likely ramp up market borrowing in the second half of this fiscal, but may be forced to stick to its target for the first half at the moment.

The Centre’s bid to arrogate to itself the power to fix the wage floor for inter-state migrant workers in the name of uniformity across the country has hit a hurdle.

The Odisha government’s direct benefit transfer (DBT) scheme for farmers, Kalia, which was announced a few months before the Assembly elections last year, may be curtailed and subsumed in the PM-Kisan scheme run by the Centre.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a crucial meeting with home minister Amit Shah and finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman to firm up strategies for the financial sector in the aftermath of the Covid-19 outbreak.

With the countrywide lockdown set to continue for two more weeks, banks have urged the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to extend the three-month moratorium on loans by another three months beyond May 31.

Microfinance institutions (MFIs) believe the industry will bounce back in no time as they see demand for microcredit rising soon because of emergency loan requirements of their customers to restart businesses.

Indian manufacturing saw its worst contraction in April, as a nation-wide lock-down hit fresh orders and businesses cut staff at a record pace.

The government is considering a raft of relief measures, including setting up a Rs one lakh crore fund to expedite clearances of dues owed to MSMEs, guarantee on the enhanced limit of loans (up to 20%) and a mechanism to help them pay salaries to their employees.

The Hybrid Annuity Model (HAM) for highway projects that insulates private developers from virtually any commercial risks, is putting stress on the highly-leveraged balance sheet of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), and should therefore be ‘downplayed’.