Laying the groundwork for smart cities… : SEBI has approved rules to facilitate setting up of International Financial Services Centres and bond issuance by municipalities. The bonds would add to instruments where provident funds, pension funds and insurance companies can put their money.
Tweet: Municipal Bond Market set to take off as SEBI announces guidelines that make them tradable on stock exchanges. Big fillip to ‘smart cities.’
…and creating a fund for urban renewal: A government panel has approved the funds needed to develop 100 smart cities and upgrade civic infrastructure in 500 others over a period of ten years.
Tweet: ExpFin Comm clears R2.73 lac cr for Smart Cities & civic infra upgradation. Fear that scheme is increasingly beginning to look like JNNURM.
Waterways get a boost: Integration of 101 inland rivers into the national waterways network and creation of a special purpose vehicle will allow the Centre to play a proactive role in what is otherwise a predominantly state subject.
Tweet: Cabinet clearance for 101 National Waterways opens up opportunities
for dredging, barge operations, terminal construction, storage & cruises.
Land ordinance to be repromulgated: The government has decided to prorogue the Rajya Sabha in a bid to facilitate repromulgation of the Land Ordinance which lapses on April 5. The move indicates that the government is keen to push ahead despite the stiff opposition it faces.
Tweets: Re-promulgated Land Ordinance would incorporate the 9 amendments made by Lok Sabha. Would also give time to Govt to mould opinion favouring.
Govt signalling that it will not accommodate political populism on Land Bill amendment as it jeopardises its commitment to accelerate growth.
A bailout plan for stranded gas plants: With nearly 14,305 MW of gas-based power capacity in distress, the government is setting up a system to enable stranded plants to operate at 30% plant load factor subject to a tariff cap of R5.50 per unit. The deal is that plants taking the lowest support from the government’s Power System Development Fund (PSDF) to maintain the subsidised tariff will be assured of imported gas.
Tweets: Reverse Auction for Gas-based power plants means winner is party asking for least tariff subsidy from Power System Dev Fund, at 30% PLF.
It can be argued that a half-baked plan for allowing stranded gas plants to operate at 30% capacity is possibly better than no plan at all.
No evidence of cartelisation in coal block bids: The Delhi High Court observed that there was “absolutely no evidence of cartelisation in the bidding process” and pulled up the government for cancelling the auction of two blocks on the grounds that the final bid price did not reflect a fair price.
Tweet: Delhi Court not in resonance with cancellation of specific coal auction outcomes. Transparent process cannot have a non-transparent outcome.
Windfall for coal-bearing states: Finances of coal-rich states are set to improve dramatically, thanks to the coal auctions. A sum of R3.35 trillion will be credited to the six states from the proceeds of the sale of 66 blocks. Another 138 blocks are to be auctioned in the next fiscal.
Tweet: True Federalism! Coal rich states get huge financial bonanza from coal auction proceeds whilst Centre (that did all the work) gets nothing.
– Vinayak Chatterjee is Chairman of Feedback Infra
His Twitter handle: @Infra_VinayakCh
A weekly compilation of the author’s tweets— with a brief backgrounder—in the infra space, by Adite Banerjie