- Thursday, February 27, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
HERE are news in brief related to Indian economy and business for Tuesday, August 29, 2023:
On Tuesday, Maruti Suzuki India, the country’s top automaker, restated its intention to amplify car production to four million, requiring an investment of Rs 450 billion (£4.3 billion) in the next eight years, Reuters reported. The expenses of doubling the production capacity might exceed depending on inflation, chairman RC Bhargava said at the company’s annual general meeting. The company also named Schneider Electric executive Arnab Roy as its chief financial officer (CFO), effective January 1 next year. Roy will succeed Ajay Seth, who is retiring on December 31 after serving as the CFO since 2005. Seth will remain a member of the executive board.
The Indian government on Tuesday decided to slash prices of cooking gas for households by about 18 per cent to tame inflation ahead of elections in some states in the country later this year and the general elections next year. The government brought down the price by Rs 200 (£2) on a 14.2-kilogram cooking gas cylinder sold to 330 million households, the country’s information minister Anurag Thakur told reporters. The move is expected to impact about 100 million low-income families who constitute a key voter base and have been hit by rising food prices over the last few months, as the south Asian nation’s annual retail inflation touched a 15-month high in July.
Yogi Adityanath, chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, has said that his state is on track to become the country’s second-largest economy among all states. Addressing the National Executive Committee Meeting of industry body Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry in Lucknow on Tuesday, the CM further emphasised on Uttar Pradesh’s industrial ambitions. Uttar Pradesh is not just progressing; it is advancing rapidly to become a revenue-surplus state, said Yogi Adityanath, as per a FICCI release. He emphasised that the once-stigmatized ‘BIMARU’ image of UP is changing as the state transitions into an economic powerhouse.
India’s stock market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), along with intelligence and law enforcement agencies such as the Enforcement Directorate, are on alert following a report that the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) funded and steered by George Soros and Rockefeller Brothers Fund is said to be planning another attack on an Indian corporate house. Sources told Asian News International that stock market regulator SEBI is keeping a close watch on investment patterns in various companies to ensure that the money put in by genuine investors remains safe and is not impacted by those with dubious intent.
Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC), India’s top explorer, has planned to invest Rs 2 trillion (£19.1 billion) on clean energy projects in order to meet its 2038 net-zero carbon emissions goal, chairman Arun Kumar Singh said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The company, which accounts for about two-thirds of the country’s oil production and about 58 per cent of gas, is eyeing to boost its hydrocarbon output while making its presence in the clean energy sector robust, the report added. ONGC would invest Rs 1 trillion (£9.59 billion) by 2030, when it hopes to own a 10 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity, Singh said.
Prathyusha Agarwal, chief business officer of India’s embattled ed-tech start-up Byju’s, has resigned along with two other senior executives as the company restructures its business and operations, a spokesperson of the company revealed on Tuesday. Agarwal had joined Byju’s in February last year from Zee Entertainment Enterprises. The two other business heads — Himanshu Bajaj and Mukut Deepak — have also exited. “As BYJU’S continues to chart its path to profitability and sustainable growth, we have undertaken a restructuring of businesses and verticals including the consolidation of four verticals into two key verticals – K-10 and Exam Prep,” the spokesperson said, according to Reuters. Indian news website Moneycontrol reported news of the departures earlier in the day.
(With agency inputs)
