Tweet: India rose to 35 rank from earlier 54 in WorldBanks’s Logistics Performnc Report. Why? Better infra, use of tracking IT, & skilled mgrs.
Breakthrough in logistics performance
India has improved its performance in the World Bank’s rankings of global logistics. This speaks volumes for the progress made in better movement of goods for international trade.
Tweet: Likelihood of touching 800 km road construction in June indeed very heartening. That brings the month’s rate to 27 km/day. Impressive!
Road construction hits a new milestone
Highways ministry has estimated road construction has scaled a new record of 800 km in June. In May, the total construction was 677 km against 468 km in April.
Tweet: Pay Comm impact of R1 lac cr+: Analysts draw positive chain ~ sconsumption = sproduction/offtake = scapacities reqd = sinvestment.
A big boost for consumer demand
The Cabinet’s decision, to clear the recommendations of the 7th Pay Commission of a 23.5% increase in salaries, allowances and pensions of government employees, is expected to give a major boost to consumer demand and resuscitate economic growth, including an investment uptick.
Tweet: With the formal announcement of Sujoy Bose as the first CEO of NIIF, stage is well set operationally for a new wave of infra financing.
NIIF gets a chief executive officer
Sujoy Bose, currently a director at Infrastructure and Natural Resources, International Finance Corporation, will take over the reins of the National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) as CEO. An initial budgetary allocation of R4,000 crore has been made available for NIIF to kick-start operations.
Tweet: Stressed assets ambulance-chasing: Bankruptcy Act opens new business prospect. Already 12 applications to setup Asset Reconstruction Cos.
New hope for stressed assets
The Bankruptcy Act has triggered demand for licences to set up asset reconstruction companies. Once the Tribunals are activated, lenders will be able to recover their dues in a time-bound manner and some of them will be able to sell assets at a valuation that would enable them to make profits.
Tweet: Assocham-India Ratings Report: (1) Bank bad debts= R6 lac cr (2) ARCs can address only 10% (3) balance 40-70% may have to be written off.
Writing on the wall
According to the Assocham-India Ratings study, commercial banks will need to write off their losses between 40% and 70% in at least 240 companies, which are under heavy debt. These are mostly in sectors such as steel, construction, power, textiles and infrastructure.
Tweet: Scan of underserved & unserved airports suggests that Regional Air Connectivity policy may be better off with a modified Air Taxi scheme.
Regional connectivity to take off?
In a bid to give a boost to regional connectivity, the government has proposed operations of at least three subsidised flights a week at underserved airports. Regional flights will be incentivised through tax breaks by the Centre and states.
Tweet: Lack of power demand leads to financial stress > unutilised capacity of 1000 MW leads to a financial loss of R1,200 cr to R1,500 cr pa.
Problem of plenty
Additional power capacities are facing financial stress as demand for power is not keeping pace at the same rate at which they were created in the last 5 years. Per capita availability of power at an all-India level has jumped by 13.6% from 793kWh in March 2014 to 901kWh in March 2016.
Tweet: Next big innovation after d electric/driverless car is the Personal Drone~ crafted to fly a single passenger with minimum pilot training.
Personal drones: Fly to your workplace!
The world of passenger travel is set for yet another technological change. A personal drone developed by a Chinese start-up, the Ehang 184, can carry a single passenger at 62 miles per hour for 23 minutes.
– Vinayak Chatterjee is Chairman of Feedback Infra
His Twitter handle: @Infra_VinayakCh
A weekly selection of the author’s tweets—
with a brief backgrounder—in the infra space, by Adite Banerjie