Business News at 09:30 am on 27th October 2023

Let’s begin. As Air India prepares to induct its first wide-body plane, to be powered by Rolls-Royce engines, the British company is weighing options for an MRO (maintenance, repair and overhaul) centre in the country. While no concrete decision has been taken, a senior official of Rolls-Royce’s India subsidiary said it would depend on the orders that Indian airlines place for wide-bodies. Speaking to FE, Kishore Jayaraman, president – India and South Asia, Rolls-Royce India, said, the company was open to the idea of MRO, but added it was a question of volume and scale. He said, quote, “These are very expensive propositions and it is not like you put up an MRO in every country,” unquote.

In some more aviation news, Amid a spurt in consumer grievances against airlines, the government has called a meeting of these companies and online travel aggregators on November 8. The national consumer helpline managed by the department of consumer affairs received thousands of complaints on several issues including delay in refund settlement after cancellation of tickets, denial of boarding despite having valid tickets and practise of misleading claims such as showing seats as ‘paid’ despite offering free mandatory web check-in services. According to the official data, out of the more than 10,000 complaints received in the last one year against various airlines and travel facilitation portals, 41% were relating to ‘tickets being cancelled, but no refunds received from airlines.”

Meanwhile, A total of 74.1 million income tax returns have been filed for assessment year (AY) 2023-24 till date, which includes 5.3 million first-time filers, the CBDT said in a release on Thursday. CBDT in a release said, quote, “This is an indication of the widening of tax base subsequent to various reform measures put in place by the department. In fact, while the overall number of returns of individual taxpayers has shown an increase over the years, there is also an increase in number of returns filed by individual taxpayers across various ranges of gross total income,” unquote. As per the time series data by CBDT, the returns filed by individual taxpayers have increased from 33.6 million in AY 2013-14 to 63.7 million in AY 2021-22.

Moving on. State-run ONGC Videsh Ltd may incorporate a subsidiary in the GIFT International Financial Services Centre in Gujarat soon to hold its Russian oil assets. The move follows the inability of OVL’s Singapore holding arm to receive dividends from the oil assets due to the sanctions on Russia. Including Russia, OVL owns Participating Interests in 32 oil and gas assets in 15 countries. OVL did not respond to email queries sent to the company. The outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war last year created a fresh round of headwinds for OVL, which a section of the government feels has not been able to reap the benefits of its substantial holdings in oil assets overseas.

On to economy. India on Thursday launched its first reference fuel in collaboration with state-run Indian Oil Corporation, becoming the third country to do so. The domestic production is likely to reduce India’s import dependency. Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Hardeep Singh Puri, said quote, “We used to import 1,000 kilolitre (of reference fuel), our consumption is just 150 kilolitre. Soon we will look at stopping the import and also becoming a major exporter,” unquote. The reference fuel will be produced by Indian Oil’s Paradip and Panipat refineries. Reference fuels are used for calibration and testing of vehicles by automobile manufacturers and testing agencies. The imported reference fuel costs at Rs 800-850 a litre.

Indus Towers, the country’s largest mobile tower company, on Thursday said the company expects one of its largest customers – Vodafone Idea – to continue clearing its monthly bills. Without naming Vodafone Idea, the towers company said it is engaging with the telecom operator to chalk out a ‘time-bound’ plan to clear past dues as well. Prachur Sah, MD and CEO, Indus Towers, at the July-September earnings call, said ,quote, “While the customer (Vodafone Idea) had some challenges during the quarter, we received the monthly payment in October. Our expectation is that the monthly payment will continue and we will continue to charge as per the MSA (master services agreement) rates,” unquote.

Lastly, let’s know which are the stocks that you need to watch out today. These include RIL, Colgate-Palmolive, Axis Bank, and Lemon Tree Hotels among others. Reliance Industries, India’s largest company, by market capitalisation is scheduled to report its earnings for the second quarter of FY24 today. Colgate-Palmolive posted profit for the second quarter of FY24 at Rs 340.05 crore, up 22.3% in comparison to Rs 278.02 crore during the same period last year, surpassing estimates. It posted revenue from operations at Rs 1471.09 crore, up 6% as against Rs 1387.48 crore during the second quarter of FY23.