The latest news and developments

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

'Necessary' for sustainable recovery after Covid-19 pandemic

The latest news and developments this week

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.

While four of the MPC members voted in favour of the eventual 75-basis point (bps) cut, external members Chetan Ghate and Pami Dua argued for a 50-bps cut, the minutes, released on Monday, showed.

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 .

Out of 230 lakh tonne annual consumption, only a third of it is met via domestic production. Edible oils prices have gone up as the country’s 600 refineries, 500 solvent plants and 10,000 crushing mills have reduced output by half compared to pre-Covid levels, industry experts said.

Further, the Board said that it was processing an additional 1.75 lakh refund claims, which would be credited directly to the taxpayer bank account in 5-7 business days from issuance.

Job guarantee programme (MGNREGA) works are allowed with strict implementation of social distancing and face mask.

At the same time, long term FPI investment limits in G-secs have been brought down to Rs 1.03 lakh crore from the prevailing limit of Rs 1.15 lakh crore  a reduction of almost $1.5 billion.

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%.

A majority of sugar companies decided to make hand sanitisers to supply to hospitals by using a part of the ethanol/ENA production, thereby ensuring that the country does not face any shortage of good quality hand sanitisers.

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.

The agricultural output in the economy grew by 3.5% in the third quarter (Q3) of FY20, against 3.1% in Q2 of FY20.

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.

According to the June 7, 2019, circular of the RBI, banks had to make additional 20% provisioning for the cases where resolution could not be reached over a period of 210 days, after signing the inter-creditor agreement.

Meanwhile, the UP government had, on Thursday, issued an order allowing nine types of industries to run conditionally with essential services.

As per data from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the total reserves stood at $476.475 billion at the end of the week.

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.”

With the increased WMA limit, state governments are expected to plan their market borrowings in a better way rather than bunch up their borrowings, leading to oversupply issues.

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

The stock of products with retailers currently is just about sufficient and distributors have been directed to supply them with quantities that will last for about four days or so.

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.

Ginning units are not keen on buying cotton since most of the workers have left for their villages and they do not have the capital to buy cotton and other processing units are also shut.

The unprecedented situation created by Covid–19 pandemic and lockdown announced by both the Union and state governments from March 24 has led to severe disruptions affecting the economy and impacting people at large and the MSME spinning mills.

The Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) will not be granting permission to restart operations till May 3. Their online and offline permission system has been stopped.

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.

After the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) cut its policy repo rate by 75 basis points (bps) on March 27, a number of banks and non-banking finance companies (NBFCs) followed by cutting their lending rates.

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.

Pawar’s letter to Modi dated April 25 echoed similar demands raised by many states including Kerala and Punjab, and underlined the notion that cutting spending was hardly an option for states at this juncture.

The decline was led by container volumes which fell sharply by 12% y-o-y (in TEU terms; 9% y-o-y in tonnage terms).

Though rabi rice procurement continues till the end of September, the maximum procurement happens by July 15 before monsoon covers the entire country.

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.

Tamil Nadu chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami on Monday requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi for ad-hoc grant of Rs 1,000 crore from National Disaster Relief Fund (NDRF).