Business News at 10:00 am on 26th February, 2024

Let’s begin – With about a year to go for the commercial launch of the Navi Mumbai airport in March 2025, Adani Airport Holdings is finding it difficult to get major airlines to shift operations from Mumbai. A year ago, the Adani Enterprises subsidiary, the country’s largest airport operator, wanted to shift at least one large carrier to the Navi Mumbai airport, even offering it prime slots. In a presentation titled ‘Airports Day’ released in October 2022, Adani Airport Holdings had said, “Mumbai has two major airlines with domestic as well as international operations, IndiGo and Air India. One airline can be shifted to Navi Mumbai airport, which will release gridlock at Mumbai airport.”

“Up next, Even though officials maintain that they will push for an end to the moratorium on imposing customs duty on cross-border electronic transmissions at the World Trade Organization ministerial scheduled to begin on Monday, India’s formal proposal communicated to the WTO on e-commerce makes no mention of it. This leaves only South Africa seeking an end to the moratorium. In its proposal, India has just sought intensification of the work programme on e-commerce, particularly in line with the development dimension.The work programme on e-commerce aims to examine trade-related issues associated with e-commerce. These include the protection of privacy and public morals and prevention of fraud, access to and use of public telecommunications transport networks and services among others.

Moving on – The Ministry of housing and Urban Affairs is close to finalising the bidders for the supply of 3,600 electric buses under the PM e-bus Sewa Scheme. “We are doing the final evaluation, and the decision will be taken in a day or two. The idea is to give the contract before the model code of conduct kicks in,” said a source at MoHUA. Though the tender value is not known, it could be in the Rs 7,000-7,500 crore range, given the average price of a low-entry electric bus is around Rs 2 crore. The big players in the e-bus space include Tata Motors, Ashok Leyland, Olectra Greentech, and JBM Group.

Moving ahead, amid concerns over wheat stocks plummeting to a seven-year-low, the government expects the current rabi crop to be robust, and promising an all-time output of 114 million tonne is anticipated. Wheat prices have remained elevated for more than a year now, although in the last few months due to a series of steps taken by the government, including aggressive open market sales, and imposition of stock limits, prices on year have fallen sharply. “There have been no reports of yellow rust disease in crops and conducive weather conditions so far, the standing wheat crops at present looks ‘promising’, Gyanendra Singh, Director, Indian Institute of Wheat and Barley Research told FE.
“In other news – Proceeds from the Centre’s asset monetisation drive are expected to reach an all-time high in FY25. With three years of experience behind them and the build-up of pipelines, the state-run agencies will likely exceed the FY25 target of Rs 1.67 trillion by a substantial margin, a senior official said. That would help achievements reach close to the Rs 6 trillion target by way of revenues accrued to various central/state government agencies and private investments during the four years through FY25. Railways, which has been lagging in asset monetisation, will likely see an accelerated action to redevelop some key railway stations in the public-private partnership model in FY25, adding heft to the programme, the official said.

Meanwhile – To prevent price manipulations by traders, the government is considering a proposal to impose a minimum import price for tur dal, a chunk of it is imported from Myanmar and a few African countries. An official said as the country sources the pulses variety from a few countries, some importers taking advantage of situations are pushing prices up causing a spike in domestic prices. “We are considering a proposal to impose MIP on tur dal imports so that price manipulations by the traders could be stopped,” an official told FE adding that an MIP in the range of $ 900 to $ 1000/tonne is being discussed as it would give signal to traders against jacking up prices.

Lastly, GIFT Nifty indicated that Indian equity indices BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50 may see a positive opening on Monday. Stocks in Focus: GIFT Nifty traded up by 41 points or 0.18% at 22,290 indicating a positive opening for domestic indices NSE Nifty 50 and BSE Sensex on Monday. Previously, on Friday, the NSE Nifty 50 ended down by just 4.75 points or 0.02% to settle at 22,212.70, while the BSE Sensex dropped only 15.44 points or 0.02% to 73,142.80. The key stocks to watch in trade are Kotak Mahindra Bank, Housing and Urban Development, Zee Entertainment, HDFC Bank, Union Bank of India and Paytm among others.