Infratweets: Reality check for realty sector

Real Estate Bill a major breakthrough
The approval of the Real Estate Regulation and Development Bill by the Rajya Sabha has come as a major breakthrough for the government. By putting a regulatory mechanism in place, the Bill mandates that builders deposit 70% of money in an escrow account in order to prevent the widespread diversion of funds to other projects.

Tweet: Rajya Sabha cleared Nat Waterways Bill. Historic devpt steered by Gadkari allowing centre to now develop a hitherto state subject.

Waterways get the right of way
Another landmark Bill was cleared by the Upper House of Parliament, setting the stage for the development of 106 rivers and creeks across India into transport waterways. Parliamentarians cutting across political lines appreciated the transport minister’s radical efforts to improve the transport mix.

Tweet: Green signal: Env Minister tells Lok Sabha ~ time taken for giving env clearances fallen from 600 days to 192 days. 900 projects cleared.

Fast-tracking environment clearance
Environment minister Prakash Javadekar stated that 900 projects worth R6 lakh crore have been provided environmental clearance in the past 20 months. Besides, the government has substantially reduced the number of days taken for completing the clearance process and further aims to bring it down to 100 days.

Tweet: RBI now clearly worried that hullaballoo about bad loans & wilful defaulters may lead banking system into dysfunctional “anti-lending” bias.

Bad news for banks and investors alike
At a recent meeting between the Board of Governors of RBI and the top brass of the finance ministry, loan defaults and wilful defaults by the industry were top of the agenda. According to RBI estimates, the total exposure of commercial banks in terms of gross NPAs, the rescheduled loans and write-offs was R9.5 lakh crore.

Tweet: Commendable: Govt to allow World Bank to independently rank states on ‘Ease of Doing Business’ henceforth without any sarkari involvement.

The government means business
Concerted efforts to improve business environment in the country and create healthy competition between states has helped India to move up in the World Bank’s Doing Business rankings from number 134 to 130. The government aims at bringing India’s ranking into the top-50 by promoting third-party inspection to boost the “ease of doing business” scores.

Tweet: Rural electrification going well: From April 2015, 6,156 of targeted 18,452 villages electrified. “All homesteads connected” in definition.

Lighting up rural India
Power ministers of all states have pledged to ensure universal electrification of villages by March 31, 2017, under the ambitious Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana (DDUGJY). Further, nine states—Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana—will replace 10% of existing agricultural water pumps with energy-efficient pumps, including solar, within one year.

Tweet: Out of box thinking: Rlys to save R2,000 crs per year by optimising diesel inventories. Will import crude oil & lease refining capacities.

Improving cost-optimisation
In a bid to optimise costs, the Indian Railways is planning to import crude oil and lease refining capacity from oil marketing companies. This would enable the transporter to reduce diesel inventories by a third to just five days. It also proposes to raise additional revenue by focusing on export of rolling stock, expanding the freight basket and monetising its vast databank.

—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