Auditors and company executives told that higher provisioning may be necessary as the pandemic-induced sharp dip would have increased difficulties for these businesses already hit by the ongoing slowdown. In many cases, auditors have asked companies to provide up to 50%.

Reliance, Paytm & BSE are among those interested in securing licences to run an entity with powers like NPCI.

In addition to the Rs 1,600 crore liquidity position, the company said it has undrawn sanctions of Rs 900 crore as on March 31, 2020. The Gurugram-headquartered micro lender also said that it will offer moratorium to all the existing borrowers across India.

For India Inc, disaster planning for business continuity and survival has emerged as the top priority.

Top fintech companies are, therefore, rushing to tap into this new consumer trend, with several of them offering digital solutions to small merchants. These range from instant loans to digital billing to even geotagging, as companies believe the merchant digitisation business will boom when the lockdown eases.

Indians may borrow more against their stash of gold as the world’s biggest lockdown raises financial stress .

As per convention, the government releases GST revenue collection number on the basis of cash collection in a particular month. However, with the situation arising out of COVID-19, the government has decided to wait till the extended deadline for filing returns before release of the collection figure.

Microfinance institutions and non-bank lenders are set to resume full-fledged operations in green and orange zones, or areas designated as safe from the Covid-19 virus outbreak, after the government announced lifting of several restrictions.

Para banks have requested that this window be established through MUDRA, Small Industries Development Bank of India, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development and National Housing Bank. They are also requesting a special purpose vehicle that would be allowed to leverage about 4 times to provide a funding of ₹50,000 crore to small and medium-sized NBFCs.

Gold loans for business purposes are mostly used by small businesses as short-term working capital for stocking. With gold prices hovering around Rs 47,000 per 10 gm, small businesses will need to take loans to resume operations, said industry executives.

The bank which was under RBI's administration since 2014, failed to come up with a satisfactory revival plan, after which the banking regulator cancelled its license. Majority of the bank's depositors now get 100 per cent of their money back. The government hiked the minimum deposit insurance cover from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 5 lakh in its budget announcement in February.

A day after suggesting that Indian economy is "poised to recover" as indicated by high levels of loan sanctions by banks over last two months, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday pointed out that banks are leaving no stone unturned to ensure that the current coronavirus situation does not result in liquidity crisis for businesses.

There is slight difference in Skymet’s estimation and the government’s second advance estimates, which was released in February this year. According to government’s second advance estimate, the out of wheat is likely to be 106.21 million tonnes while that of gram would be 11.22 million tonnes.

State Innovation & Transformation Aayog (SITA), Assam, is working on a Strategy Paper for the state government by engaging Ernst & Young (EY) on tea industry. Tea industry has suffered immensely during the lockdown .

Giving detailed information about this, Chief Minister Manohar Lal said that the dark zone, depleting level of groundwater and its excessive exploitation has become a challenge for us and we have started to solve these challenges for the coming generations.

Even though much of the stubble of wheat is used as animal fodder but farmers resort to open field burning to get rid of the leftover stalk. Around 11400 incidents of open field burning were recorded as per satellite imagery in Punjab and 7500 in Haryana last year post kharif harvest.

Tamil Nadu's farm-to-table initiative has come to fruition rather unexpectedly, owing to the outbreak of Covid-19.

Major importers like Germany & Japan, which have been buyers of first flush teas from Darjeeling for decades, first want to check the quality before placing order. Iran, which had bought, around 54 million kg of teas in 2019 has also started placing good orders with the tea exporters which has resulted in orthodox tea prices moving up by Rs 30 -40 per kg in comparison to last year.

Punjab Agriculture Secretary Kahan Singh Pannu said that 50% subsidy would be provided to women, scheduled castes and 40% to other farmers. The secretary further said that farmers had been asked to submit their applications to avail the benefit of subsidy on machinery required for paddy and maize cultivation till 10 May.

The lockdown has curbed movement of the cereal from neighbouring states to mandis in Haryana and Punjab.

Corona lockdown has put entire mango trade in West Bengal under deep uncertainty. The debacle is bound to cause severe economic crisis in the Mango zone of the state. West Bengal is one of the largest contributors to India's national mango output that constitutes around 40% of global yield.

The government has allowed export of 60 lakh tonnes of sugar under Maximum Admissible Export Quota (MAEQ) during 2019-20 marketing year to liquidate surplus sugar in global markets. The country had exported 38 lakh tonnes of sugar during 2018-19 marketing year.

With around 6 lakh ton annual production in almost 20,000 ha land, Bidhannagar in the foothills of northern West Bengal contributes around 80% to the state output that is near half of India's total 20 lakh Metric Ton (MT) yield. India is the fifth largest contributor to the global production of around 275 lakh MT.

“Framing of rules is in final stages. As per the proposed guidelines, biostimulants will have to be first registered with government and have to prove efficacy before hitting in the market. Proper labelling will have to be done including name of manufacturers, ingredients and expiry date,” said a senior agriculture ministry official.

The government is mulling incentives for reviving old pharmaceutical ingredient units.

"We are ensuring that exports come back on the track. The export data for March is an indicator; the impact of the present crisis could be seen from the export data of March and that for April would also be similar," a Ficci statement said.

Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said that Invest India and the Department for Promotion of Investment and Internal Trade are working to create a genuine single window for setting up factories and manufacturing units.

The minister said India gives the most importance to "the fair dealing and the reciprocity" while signing any multilateral agreements. He said it was not there because of which India did not participate in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).

Under the 15-year agreement that ends in July, India is committed to buy 2 million tonnes urea every year from the plant at an agreed price. "Now that agreement will be over, we may not enter into any further commitment if Omifco doesn’t offer a good price,” said a senior fertiliser ministry official.

Members of the trade bloc urged India to convey its initial response to the package by May 15 as the Indo-Pacific region braces for a post-Covid-19 economic order, ET has learnt.

In a notification, the ministry's investigation arm Directorate General of Trade Remedies (DGTR) has said there is a "positive" evidence of likelihood of dumping of Sodium Citrate and injury to the domestic industry if the existing anti-dumping duty would be removed.

Highlighting that network capacity and higher bandwidth services have proved to be crucial, not only during the pandemic itself, but also for e-commerce and economic inclusion in general, it said in an information note: “What can WTO members do to improve communications networks and services?”

The Minister for MSME and Road Transport and Highways said a policy on import substitution is being thought of in the wake of the economic situation created by the COVID-19 pandemic. Gadkari said the industry may not be shut for a long time, and several relaxations could be given by the end of May.

India’s concern is real because China has been involved in dumping of steel in the past and the same allegation has been made by other countries when it comes to automobiles and electronics. Given China’s superior economic position today amidst good valuations from an investors’ standpoint, leveraging the same makes business sense.

Italy, the largest buyer of Indian coffee, started relaxing the restrictions from Monday much to the relief of the Indian coffee industry. However, the exporters fear intense price pressure from Brazil which is expecting a normal crop.

Trump’s move to blame China for the Covid-19 outbreak is expected to worsen global trade ties.

At present, SEZs are also not able to sell their products in the domestic market, as payment of customs duty as per Section 30 of SEZ Act, 2005, is making their products uncompetitive, the Export Promotion Council for EOUs and SEZs (EPCES) said in a letter to commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal.

Rice exports to Bangladesh through West Bengal will likely begin soon as the ministry of home affairs (MHA) has taken a tough stand against the state government for not allowing border trade with India's eastern neighbour.

The fund house wrote down its entire holding in Dewan Housing Finance and Avantha holdings from earlier levels of 75%.

The NAV of Franklin India Dynamic Asset Allocation FOFs (fell 16.6%), Franklin India Multi-Asset Solution (fell 22.42%), Franklin India Life Stage FOFs-20 (fell 6.59%), Franklin India Life Stage FOFs-30 (13.51%), Franklin India Life Stage FOFs-40 ( fell 17.81%) and Franklin India Life Stage FOFs-50 Plus (fell 0.52%).

The scheme is available from today, that is, April 27. It will be available until May 11 or up to utilization of the allocated amount, whichever is earlier. The Reserve Bank will review the timeline and amount, depending upon market conditions.

"We are committed to doing all we can to return monies in the schemes that are wound up at the earliest to investors, and to regain your trust in our brand," Franklin Templeton Asset Management (India) President Sanjay Sapre said in a note to investors.

Rs 50,000 crore Special Liquidity Facility by the RBI to ease redemption pressure on Mutual Funds (MF) in the face of Covid-19 crisis would not only restore confidence in the MF industry but also ensure financial stability in the country.

The regulator has also eased compliance norms with regards to grandfathering of the existing unlisted NCDs, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) said in a circular.

The joint venture will focus on expansion of fund offerings and long term wealth creation.

The banks claiming the regulatory benefits would be required to submit a weekly statement, the central bank said in its release.

According to an analysis of the data made public by mutual funds, the CEO salary given by the top 12 fund houses in terms of assets under management increased in the range of 2-132 per cent in 2019-20 from the preceding fiscal year.

The decrease in redemptions has happened post RBI's announcement of special liquidity measure of INR 50K crores for the mutual fund Industry, said a press release issued by Association of Mutual Funds in India o Amfi.

A study of the portfolios of five out of the six debt schemes which were wound up by Franklin shows all these products had features of credit risk funds — which predominantly invest in lower-rated debt securities — but they were being sold under different labels.

The fund's global CEO had blamed regulatory changes for its decision to shut 6 schemes.