Finance ministry asks departments, PSUs to expedite capital expenditure

Current Affairs

As part of the Modi government’s bid to boost economic activity and pump in liquidity into the infrastructure sector, senior finance ministry officials are meeting officials from other departments, as well as state-owned firms. The PSUs are being told to boost capital expenditure (capex), while the departments, especially those related to infrastructure sectors, are being told to expedite spending of allocated sums and release outstanding payments to contractors.
Economic Affairs Secretary Atanu Chakraborty and Expenditure Secretary Girish Chandra Murmu on Thursday met officials from the ministries of road transport & highways, railways, telecom, and housing & urban affairs to review their capex programme.The two secretaries, it is learnt, are expected to meet representatives of other infrastructure-related departments, as well as managing directors and senior officers of PSUs, on Friday.
“The departments are being told to clear pending payments to contractors, especially those in the micro, small & medium enterprises (MSMEs) sector. They will be directed to front-load their capex allocations, while PSUs are also being told to boost capex. The idea is to create more liquidity in the infrastructure sector,” said an official.
These capex reviews come just a day after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman met representatives of the infrastructure sector — the latest of the many sectoral meetings she has had in the past one month.

The meetings came against the backdrop of India’s gross domestic product growth slumping to a six-year low of 5 per cent in the April-June quarter. Experts have pointed out that a capex boost focused on infrastructure by the private sector and the government is a way out of the slowdown as the Centre looks to create jobs...Read More

Govt's new move to revive discoms: Install 300 mn smart meters in 3 years

Company News

India is considering a plan to install smart meters in every home and business as part of its ongoing effort to turn around the country’s ailing power sector, according to officials with knowledge of the situation.The plan under consideration would require 300 million smart meters over three years, said the people, who asked not to be identified as the information isn’t public. The federal power ministry has begun discussions with manufacturers on supplying the meters, which improve efficiency by monitoring and transmitting power use data.
As part of the plan, the federal government is mulling providing subsidies to partially cover the costs, one of the officials said. Preliminary estimates by the government put the cost for the meters at about Rs 2,000 ($29) apiece, or $8.7 billion in total, according to one of the officials. That’s partly based on an expectation that prices would be lower than a smaller government tender for 5 million smart meters in 2017 at Rs 2,503.
The power ministry wasn’t immediately able to respond to requests for comment.Widespread use of smart meters could be a gamechanger for ailing Indian distribution utilities. These distributors lose nearly one-fifth of their revenue through various technical and commercial reasons including power theft or inefficient billing and collecting, according to the power ministry.
Their poor financial health prevents them from supplying uninterrupted power countrywide, which is needed to fulfill Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s power-for-all goal. Other efforts to revive the distributors and spread access to power include promoting energy-efficient LED lighting, solar-power irrigation pumps and using insulated wiring to prevent theft.

 Some efforts to help have been slow achieving intended results. For instance, the combined losses of state distributors participating in a federal aid plan jumped 62% to about Rs 240 billion in the first nine months of the fiscal year to March.

Govt warning: Twitter execs may get 7 years in jail if it doesn't comply

Economy & Policy:

Top Twitter executives could not only face financial penalties but also face upto seven years in jail if they fail to remove content and accounts that are 'objectionable and inflammatory," Times of India reported quoting an unnamed official from the ministry of information technology.

Twitter has been asked to comply with the provisions under the Indian IT Act or else it would face action under Section 69A of the IT Act which gives the government power to seek the blocking of content or accounts that carry information seen as detrimental to the sovereignty and integrity of the country, or has potential to create public disorder.

The warning from the IT ministry comes just as the micro-blogging site faced the heat from a parliamentary standing committee over perceived biases in blocking accounts ahead of elections.
As India heads for national elections, social media giants like Facebook and Twitter have been asked to not undermine or influence the political process. In fact earlier this week, Twitter went live with its 'Ads Transparency Centre' for India, that would allow people to view details of political advertisements in the country, including advertiser spends and impressions data.

A parliamentary panel last month asked micro-blogging site Twitter to engage more with the Election Commission of India (ECI) ahead of general elections and address issues on a "real-time" basis.
The Twitter officials were told that there should not be any "international interference" in the Lok Sabha polls.


 Twitter had last month announced that it would provide details including advertising spends and impressions data of tweets from political entities to users in India, as it sought to bring in greater transparency on its platform by tightening norms for political advertisements...Read More

Will be unconstitutional for govt to present full Budget: Yashwant Sinha

Interim Budget 2019:

Former finance minister Yashwant Sinha it would be "entirely improper and unconstitutional" if the Modi government presents a full budget ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, as he asked it to stick to the convention of outgoing dispensations presenting an interim budget.

A strong critic of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government, Sinha also accused it of "dressing up" economic figures despite the country facing an "unprecedented" agrarian distress, employment not picking up and the huge non-performing asset (NPA) problem being not tackled the way it should have been.

Interacting with reporters at an event in Indian Women's Press Corps, he said Priyanka Gandhi's entry into active politics will have a positive impact and strengthen the Congress.
Taking a swipe at the government over present economic conditions, he said it would now claim by "tweaking" figures ahead of the general election that "river of milk" is flowing in the country and people were never happier.

Amid speculation that the government may present a full budget on February 1, Sinha said there is no precedence of an outgoing government doing so.


 "It would be entirely improper and unconstitutional on the part of this government to present a full budget," he said, adding that it should neither table the economy survey, which is generally presented a day before the budget is tabled, not present the Finance Bill.

Interim Budget 2019 to be dedicated to farmers: Agri Min Radha Mohan Singh

Interim Budget 2019:

Union Minister Radha Mohan Singh on Wednesday said the Budget will be dedicated to farmers in the country as part of the government efforts to double their income by 2022.

"It was a matter of pride that due to the implementation of various farm schemes, India has become among the leading economies in the agriculture sector," he said at a conference organised by the Crop Care Federation of India (CCFI) here on 'Government, Industry and Farmer can work together to make farming more profitable'.

He said the government's decision to boost investment in agriculture had brought transformation in the sector and the upcoming Budget will be dedicated to farmers.


 While the budgetary outlay of the Agriculture Ministry was Rs 1.21 lakh crore during 2009-2014 of the previous government, the Modi government had increased it to Rs 2.11 crore during 2014-19, he said.