Business News at 10:00 am on 2nd January, 2024

Let’s begin. GST officers have been given more time to issue demand notices for discrepancies in annual returns for 2018-19 and 2019-20 financial years. On Thursday, the government extended the deadline in this regard for 2018-19 fiscal to April 30, 2024 and for 2019-20 fiscal to August 31, 2024. A notification has been issued by the finance ministry in this regard. Currently, the deadline is March 31, 2024 and June 30, 2024, for 2018-19 and 2019-20 financial years, respectively. AMRG & Associates Senior Partner Rajat Mohan said the extension pertains to issuance of orders for the recovery of tax liabilities, whether due to non-payment, underpayment, or erroneous claim of input tax credit, for the financial years 2018-19 and 2019-20.

Meanwhile, State-owned Power Grid Corporation board on Friday approved raising of Rs 2,200 crore through bonds. The company’s committee of directors for bonds, in their meeting on July 29, 2023, approved the raising of up to Rs 5,700 crore in FY 23-24 in multiple tranches to part finance its capex requirement, for providing inter corporate loan(s) to wholly owned subsidiaries/JVs and for general corporate purposes, according to a regulatory filing. Further, it stated that the committee of director for bonds in their meeting on Friday approved the raising of up to Rs 2,200 crore towards the third tranche of bonds. The base issue size is Rs 500 crore with a greenshoe option of Rs 1,700 crore, the the filing added.

On to the crypto world. India clamped down on overseas crypto exchanges like Binance that it says are operating illegally there, moving to block local access to their websites. The Financial Intelligence Unit issued so-called compliance show-cause notices to several platforms including Binance, Kraken, KuCoin and Huobi. It also asked the information ministry to block the URLs of the nine entities, according to a statement. India’s government this year imposed money-laundering provisions on the crypto sector as it tightens oversight of digital assets along with other countries. In 2022, authorities delivered a major blow to local crypto exchanges by introducing a tax on transactions that caused trading volumes to plummet. Binance has come under increased pressure from regulators around the world in the past year.

Over to industry. Softbank-backed Meesho on Friday said it became the first e-commerce unicorn to post consolidated profit after tax in the second quarter ended September 2023. The company did not disclose the amount of profit it earned in the July-September period. During the first-half period of the current financial year, the company reported narrowing of losses to Rs 141 crore and an increase in revenue by 37 per cent on a year-over-year basis to Rs 3,521 crore. A Meesho spokesperson said, quote, “Meesho recorded its first-ever full-quarter profitability in the second quarter of financial year 2024 and continues to remain so. This is an impressive feat as Meesho became the first horizontal e-commerce company to turn profitable in India,” unquote.

In some more industry news, Techno Electric & Engineering Company on Friday said it bagged new orders related to smart metering and transmission projects worth Rs 1,750 crore. One of the orders worth Rs 1,041 crore is for advance metering infrastructure (AMI) from RECPDCL (REC Power Development and Consultancy Limited) for 7.27 lakh smart meters in Kashmir on DBFOOT (Design-Build Finance-Own-Operate-Transfer) basis, the company said in a regulatory filing. Besides, the company also received transmission (projects) orders worth Rs 709 crore.

Next up, technology. Realme has started teasing its next phone launch in India, just days before archrival Xiaomi is set to unveil its much-awaited Redmi Note 13 series in the country. The Realme phone, whatever it turns out to be, will be the first after the Realme X3 SuperZoom from 2020 to launch in India with a periscope telephoto camera. Realme has launched a phone called the Realme GT 5 Pro with a periscope camera in China recently but that is highly unlikely to launch elsewhere going by the history of these phones. For those unaware, the Realme X3 SuperZoom was launched in India in 2020 with a periscope-style lens camera setup with 5x optical zoom capability at a starting price of Rs 27,999.

Lastly, the market. Benchmark equity indices ended Friday’s trading session in the negative territory. The NSE Nifty 50 dropped 47.30 points or 0.22% to settle at 21,731.40, while the BSE Sensex loses 170.13 points or 0.24% to 72,240.26. The broader indices ended in red, with fall led by Largecap stocks. Bank Nifty index dropped by 216.30 points or 0.45% to settle at 48,292.25. Oil and Gas and PSU Banks shed whereas FMCG and Realty stocks outperformed. Tata Consumers, Tata Motors, Bajaj Auto, Nestle India, and Adani Enterprises, were the top gainers on the NSE Nifty 50, while the laggards included BPCL, State Bank Of India, ONGC, Infosys, and Coal India.