MONEY MATT ER S “We are in the process of selecting CEO of NIIF. The CEO will be drawn from the market... We have received 70 applications.” — Shaktikanta Das, Economic Affairs Secy
Signposts
Prime Minister was speaking at the inauguration of Indian Oil Corp’s Rs 34,555-crore refinery BY KK SHANKAR
Rs 140 cr for sports, infrastructure The Power Ministry has pledged to spend around Rs 140 crore through public sector undertakings under its administration to prepare 100 sports persons for the Olympics in the next 10 years. The government wants to create good athletes, hockey players, gymnasts, swimmers, etc.
I-T dept to speed up overseas requests With the current financial year coming to a close soon, CBDT has asked the Income Tax (I-T) department of India to speed up select black money and tax evasion probe cases which require cooperation from foreign agencies. The CBDT has asked the taxman to send across to it all such cases.
FEBRUARY 13, 2016
PUNE
“I am happy that we have been able to bring the fiscal deficit down. I am happy results of sincere commitments of the government are slowly becoming visible.” — Mukul Sangma, Meghalaya Chief Minister
Complete projects before time: Modi Sharply criticising project delays of the past that led to huge cost overruns, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said a new work culture of conceiving and completing projects before time is needed to boost economic growth. Rejecting opposition Congress’ charge that projects he has been inaugurating in recent months were all started during their time, he said as Prime Minister he would have been happy if the projects were completed 15 years back and led to creation of jobs. Dedicating to the nation Indian Oil Corp’s Rs 34,555-crore refinery, Modi said the government is targeting reduction in oil import dependence by 10 per cent by 2022 by creating policy environment that supports raising domestic output as well as by mixing bio-fuels like ethanol in auto fuels. “It is very natural that I am happy to inaugurate projects. But as Prime Minister of a country, I don’t feel happy at all. I would have been happy if these works would have been completed 15 years back, when lakhs of people here would have got jobs,” he said. He added that projects in the country face obstructions in the form of court proceedings, tender process and sometimes agitations, making them very costly. “For the development of the country, we all - citizens, bureaucracy,
THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY
Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Paradip Refinery in Odisha on Sunday. Governor of Odisha SC Jamir (left) and MoS for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan are also seen. Modi said projects in the country face obstructions in the form of court proceedings, tender process and sometimes agitations, making them very costly
industry and policy makers, have to give birth to such a culture where projects start on time, progress within the scheduled time, and finish within the pre-decided time so that country gets the benefit, the benefit comes before scheduled time,” he said. The government, he added, was “trying to bring in this change so that there is no serious loss to the exchequer because of delay.” Initiatives have to be futuristic and completed before the designated time period. “Delays shouldn’t occur,” he said, adding that in the past, ideas originated 50 years back, would take 10 years to put them on paper and conceived, a similar number of years to lay foundation stone and many more years before it is completed. . Modi said the Paradip refinery, whose foundation stone was laid by the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2000, will create
lakhs of jobs as it will manufacture raw material for several industries, including plastics. The government is promoting skill development, providing finances to youth under the MUDRA scheme and giving incentives under ‘Start Up India, Stand Up India’ initiative. “We do not want youths to become job seekers. We want youths to become job creators,” he said, adding that under the MUDRA scheme. Micro Units Development and Refinance Agency Ltd (MUDRA) is a new institution set up by the government to provide funding to the non-corporate, non-farm sector income generating activities of micro and small enterprises whose credit needs are below Rs 10 lakh. With the country dependent on imports to meet 79 per cent of its oil needs, Modi said oil imports have to be reduced. PTI
Make in India and hate in India cannot go together: Tharoor BY LALIT K JHA Taking a jibe at the Modi government, former minister and Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has said policies like ‘Make in India’ and hatred cannot go together as he asserted that “outrageous” statements against minorities by ruling party members only undermine the country’s soft power. To attract foreign direct investment, which is key to the construction and modernisation of the infrastructure sector and manufacturing, the Congress MP stressed on the need to maintain the pluralistic character of the country. Before India tries to leverage its soft power to increase its standing in the world, Tharoor said first there is need to fix the problem at the domestic front. “For us to be credible as a nation that enjoys and wields soft power, we have to fix our domestic problems first. The truth is that we have to do enough to keep our people, healthy, well and secure not just from jihadi terrorism. Progress is being made
but not enough to reach everyone,” Tharoor said in his keynote address to the Harvard University’s annual Indian convention 2016. “If on one hand, we go around saying Make in India, Startup India and Digital India and want to attract foreign investors, we can’t do so if we are condoning hatred in India at the same time,” Tharoor said in reference to the f lagship schemes launched by the Narendra Modi-led government. “It is not good when people in the ruling party make outrageous statements against minorities. These are not good because they undermine the soft power of India,” Tharoor told the students in the packed Harvard Business School auditorium. In order to maintain India’s soft power, the larger idea of India needs to be sustained. “An India that celebrates the common space of every identity, it would be a secure to be a Muslim, secure to be a kayastha... whatever you define yourself. Because all of those identities are made secure under the Indian identity,” he said. PTI
Indian students at Harvard Business School throng Shashi Tharoor in large numbers for a selfie after he delivered a key note address at the Annual India Conference
‘Help make India India enjoying robust growth: IMF open defecation free’
30-50 countries are in a transition phase of not too rich, not too poor, and not too closed to foreign capital
Noting that close to 50 per cent of rural population does not have access to toilet, the Centre asked banks and microfinance institutions to enhance their credit disbursal for sanitation to achieve the goal of Swachh Bharat Mission of making India free from open defecation by 2019. Addressing a conference on ‘Innovative Financing for Clean India’ here, Rural Development and Drinking Water and Sanitation Minister Birender Singh said the Finance Ministry has included water and sanitation as new fields for priority sector lending by
commercial banks but this “monumental policy change must translate from intent to action”. He said there is incentive of Rs 12,000 for construction of a toilet for BPL families but to achieve universal coverage, there is need for easy financing by banks and other financial institutions. The conference also laid emphasis on the need for creating strong synergy between self-help groups and Swachh Bharat Mission. Since October 2, 2014, more than 14.7 million toilets have been constructed in rural areas. PTI
BY LALIT K JHA
Observing that countries like India and Mexico are enjoying a robust growth, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said a new economic reality has slowly emerged as nations have developed and grown richer. “A new economic reality has slowly emerged as countries have developed and grown richer. And now that some of these countries experience difficulties after many years of strong growth, we are affected by it, too,” Lagarde said
in her address at University of Maryland. “This is not something to fear, but it does require us to be aware and think a bit differently, a bit more multilaterally,” she said. Sharing her views on the growing importance of emerging market economies, she said it is a group of about 30-50 countries that are in a transition phase of not too rich, not too poor, and not too closed to foreign capital, with regulatory and financial systems that have yet to fully mature. “These countries are incredibly diverse culturally, geographically,
and even economically. Right now, for example, Brazil and Russia are in recession, while India and Mexico are enjoying robust growth. So it would be a mistake to think of these countries as a homogenous bloc,” Lagarde said. “At the same time, all these countries are eager to catch up with their richer peers. As I explained, however, the current difficult economic context makes catching up much harder which brings me to the key challenges,” she said. China, she said, has embarked on an ambitious rebalancing of its
economy from industry to services, from exports to domestic markets, and from investment to consumption. It is also moving towards a more market-oriented financial system. “These reforms are a necessary process that, in the long run, will lead to more sustainable growth and benefit both China and the world. In the short run, however, it will lead to slower growth, and this slowdown creates spillover effects through trade and lower demand for commodities, and amplified by financial markets,” she added. PTI
Need for greater MSME thrust for Make in India success India has to shine for all and economic growth has to become more inclusive BY KR SUDHAMAN The recent Bihar assembly elections have taught us one important lesson, that is one cannot ignore the aspirations of rural India, where majority of the country’s population live. India has to shine for all and economic growth has to become more inclusive. Politicians can no longer ignore this reality. This of course has several challenges. Past experiences show that the answer lay in modernisation of Indian agriculture and step up development of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, which not only have the capacity to absorb surplus farm labour but as well as growing educated youth in rural areas. This also prevents migration of youth to cities in search of greener pasture. Small and Medium enterprises are concentrated in 8-10 sectors in India for which technology is available. Also they are labour intensive and hence create much needed jobs. Ten to 12 million people enter job market in the
country every year. SMEs require less capital and every rupee spent creates four times more jobs than large capital intensive companies. The 8-10 sectors in which MSME is concentrated included textiles, construction and leather. Another area where one finds large number of MSMEs is ancillary industries. Public sector companies and some large private industries in backward areas had helped in setting up of ancillary industries. But for SMEs growth in various clusters required infrastructure. In case of ancillary industries, the basic infrastructure is created by the large companies as in industrial townships like Bokaro, Bhillai, Sindri, Ranipet, Trichi. But there are SME clusters that have come up on their own as in Ludhiana, Moradabad, Tirupur and so on. These clusters have come up where there is already good road and rail network or close to ports as in Gujarat and other coastal states. If Make in
Public sector companies and some large private industries in backward areas had helped in setting up of ancillary industries
India campaign has to be successful, we need to give greater thrust to MSME, which accounted for 40 per cent of India’s manufacturing and 45 per cent of the exports. So how do we go about? The golden quadrilateral and two diagonals connecting Kashmir to Kanya Kumari and Silchar to Somnath also offered great potential to set up
industrial clusters that could provide job opportunity to local people around those areas. The Delhi-Mumbai and Ludhiana-Kolkata rail freight corridors. Four more that are proposed connecting four metropolises in the country would also help in setting up SME clusters. Along with Make in India and skill India campaign, it is worth exploring
what has come to be known as diamond corridor, that is setting up industrial clusters dotting the highways and the high speed rail freight corridors in the length and breadth of the country. The industrial clusters should be chosen in a manner that utilises local talents. Skill development programmes should be tailor made to suit the requirement of the local area. Funding may be a problem for SMEs, the bigger problem for SME is availability of skilled manpower. In fact SMEs have been constantly training raw hands, who in turn get absorbed in large companies. This results in SME entrepreneurs always being engaged in training and thereby getting very little time for management and production. So SMEs performance invariably is less than its potential. In cluster development there is yet another problem, that is poaching by fellow SMEs before they are absorbed
by larger companies. At the moment, Skill India programme should address the skilling problem of large industries. The SMEs do not have a voice and their recruitment is invariably localised and they therefore do not get the attention of the government that it deserves. Along with industrial clusters, government should set up institutes for skill development for those dominant SME industries in those respective areas to ensure that there is a continuous flow of skilled manpower to them. As SMEs are less capital intensive and has much less gestation period, industrialisation of rural and backward regions could be rapid. Large industries take years to set up whereas small and medium industries could be set up in 6-8 months in areas where basic infrastructure already existed. PTI
MSME accounted for 40 per cent of mfg and 45 per cent of India’s exports