- Thursday, March 06, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
Here are news in brief related to Indian economy and business for Tuesday, December 20, 2022:
Fitch Ratings expects India’s power demand to be about 8 per cent in the financial year ending March 2023 (FY23), against 8.2 per cent in FY22, ANI reported. In a report — India Power Watch 1HFY23, Fitch said it expects demand growth to moderate in the second half of 2022-23 (H2FY23) as the strong 18.5 per cent year-on-year growth in the first quarter of fiscal 2022-23 (Q1FY23) was from a low base a year earlier when demand dived due to a resurgence of Covid-19 infections. Fitch said it expects the average thermal power plant load factor (PLF) to remain above 60 per cent (H1FY23: 64.5 per cent), supported by power demand and improved local coal supply. Thermal PLF was 69.5 per cent in Q1FY23 on a surge in power demand, but there was also a high power deficit in the quarter due to inadequate domestic coal supply despite a rise in domestic output with high seaborne coal prices limiting imports, according to Fitch.
Singapore-based Princeton Digital Group (PDG), which recently opened a data centre in Navi Mumbai with an investment of $300 million (£247 million), is exploring opportunities to expand its footprints to other Indian cities, PTI reported. Last week, PDG unveiled a data centre in Navi Mumbai with 48 MW capacity in two buildings spread over a 6-acre. India’s current operating capacity of data centres is over 650 megawatt. “India is a key market for us, and with our Navi Mumbai data centre becoming operational, we are exploring to expand to (other) cities, including Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Pune. Each of these data centres will be of 48 MW capacity with over $300 million investment,” PDG managing director, India, Vipin Shirsat told PTI, without disclosing the timeline.
NXT Digital (NDL) on Tuesday said the merger of its digital media and communication business into Hinduja Global Solutions (HGSL) had been successfully completed, including the allotment of shares by HGSL to the eligible shareholders of NDL, ANI reported. The company in a statement said in continuation with the business reorganisation process initiated by the company which includes the proposed merger of the Hinduja Leyland Finance into NXT Digital, the board of directors at their meeting on Monday had noted that “all steps and compliances relating to the demerger of the digital media and communication business undertaking into Hinduja Global Solutions Limited have been successfully completed.” The company statement said the shares which have been allotted in accordance with the swap ratio are eligible for trading on stock exchanges.
The Indian flexi staffing industry added 78,000 jobs in July-September 2022, up six per cent as compared to the previous quarter, on account of rise in demand across all sectors, a report said, according to PTI. “Buoyed by a strong festive season and rising demand across sectors, the Indian Staffing Federation (ISF) members added 78,000 new jobs in July-September quarter, a 6 per cent rise in new jobs over previous April-June quarter,” said ISF’s Flexi Staffing Employment Growth report. The new jobs in July-September are a combination of new jobs in general staffing and IT staffing, it stated. ISF is the apex industry body representing formal staffing, facility management and security services companies.
Three projects worth Rs 1,564 crore of state-run SAIL have been delayed due to reasons like slow progress in work, delay in obtaining clearances among others, the Indian parliament was informed, PTI reported. “Three projects i.e. installation of new sinter plant and rebuilding of COB (coke oven battery) 8 at Bokaro Steel Plant, and modification in washing circuit of CSW plant at Dalli mines have been delayed primarily due to slow progress of work by contractor, impact of Covid, delay in obtaining requisite clearance etc,” minister of state (MoS) for steel Faggan Singh Kulaste said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha or Upper House of the Indian parliament. According to the minister, installation of a new sinter plant is being done at an investment of Rs 1,111 crore (£110.5 million), while rebuilding of COB 8 is being carried out for an investment of Rs 285 crore (28.3 million) at SAIL’s steel plant in Bokaro, Jharkhand.
Google, the world’s most popular search engine, is working on making text and voice internet search available in over 100 Indian languages, its India-born CEO Sundar Pichai said on Monday (19), PTI reported. Pichai, who is visiting India, said the pace of technological change in the country had been extraordinary and Google was supporting small businesses and start-ups, investing in cybersecurity, providing education and skills training, and applying AI (Artificial Intelligence) in sectors like agriculture and healthcare. “I’m here to see progress being made from our $10 billion (£8.22 bilion), 10-year India Digitization Fund (IDF), and share new ways. We’re helping to advance India’s digital future at our Google for India event. That includes our efforts to build a single, unified AI model that will be capable of handling over 100 Indian languages across speech and text – part of our global effort to bring the world’s 1,000 most-spoken languages online, and to help people access knowledge and information in their preferred language,” he wrote in a blog.
