- Tuesday, March 04, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
Here are news related to Indian economy and business for Tuesday, January 17, 2023:
Agreements for investment commitments worth Rs 88,420 crore (£8.8 billion) in the western Indian state of Maharashtra have been signed so far at the ongoing World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos in Switzerland, the state’s chief minister’s office (CMO) said on Tuesday, PTI reported. Investment agreements worth Rs 42,520 crore (£4.25 billion) were signed on Tuesday, the second day of the meeting in the Swiss Alpine town, said a statement from the CMO. Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde is in Davos to attend the annual meeting of WEF, the gathering of top political and business leaders which is being held from January 16 to 20. Giving a break-up of the Rs 42,520-crore investments finalized on Tuesday, the statement said an MoU (memorandum of understanding) with US-based firm New Era Cleantech Solutions was signed to establish a coal gasification project worth Rs 20,000 crore (£2 billion) with a capacity to generate 15,000 jobs in Chandrapur district.
India’s state-run Damodar Valley Corp (DVC) on Tuesday invited power distribution utilities and industries to buy power from five brownfield coal-fired units it is expanding, Reuters reported. DVC seeks to expand capacity of five coal-fired units in two states by 54.4 per cent to 3.72 gigawatts, with the expanded capacity coming online between March 2027 and 2029, it said in a newspaper advertisement seeking buyers for the electricity it would generate from these units.
Adani Enterprises (AEL), part of the diversified Adani portfolio of companies, on Tuesday signed an agreement to launch a pilot project to develop a hydrogen fuel cell electric truck (FCET) for mining logistics and transportation with homegrown Ashok Leyland and Ballard Power of Canada, ANI reported. The FCET is scheduled to be launched in India this year. A release from Adani Enterprises said the demonstration project would be led by AEL, a company focused on both mining operations and developing green hydrogen projects for sourcing, transporting, and building out hydrogen refueling infrastructure. Adani Enterprises is the first in Asia and among the first in the world to adopt hydrogen fuel cell-operated trucks for mining.
Kerala finance minister KN Balagopal on Tuesday said the state’s chief minister, Pinarayi Vijayan, will announce restructuring of the state GST department on January 19, ANI reported. He told the media, “There is a restructuring of the GST department. Now three sections are there: Tax payer service, audit and Intelligence.” He added, “More promotions for deputy commissioner, more posts and restructuring in the department. People can be appointed as data analyst and intelligence officers.” In the earlier system, the minister said a lot of systemic issues were there and added that the government is studying that.
India’s fight against the Covid crisis has set a positive global example, said Mark Suzman, CEO of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, adding that it can be a model for others on how it addressed the manufacturing and distribution of vaccines at such a scale. “We were proud to be able to help work with the Indian government and with partners like the Serum Institute of India, to help manufacture some of the vaccines and to help with some of the primary health care facilities to help with distribution and in some of the states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar where we work closely, but it really is a model both because of the direct COVID response, but also because the infrastructure that’s been put in place has lots of positive effects by other forms of healthcare,” Suzman told ANI in an exclusive interview.
Reliance Jio on Monday announced the launch of its True 5G services in 16 more cities across India. The total number of cities to have this service is 134 now, ANI reported. Jio users in these cities would be invited to the Jio Welcome Offer, to enjoy unlimited data at over 1 Gbps speeds at no additional cost starting today, a company release said. In Andhra Pradesh, Kakinada and Kurnool now have access to Jio True 5G services whereas Davanagere, Shivamogga, Bidar, Hospet and Gadag-Betageri in Karnataka also now have access to the services. In Kerala, Malappuram, Palakkad, Kottayam and Kannur are the new cities to get access to True 5G while the services are also live in Silchar in Assam. Jio has also launched its 5G services at Tiruppur in Tamil Nadu.
India’s probe agency Central Bureau of Investigation (SBI) on Tuesday filed a first-information report (FIR) against Ashok Saloman of the Chintels Group and took over investigation into the partial collapse of Chintels Paradiso apartment complex in Gurugram in the northern state of Haryana last year in which two women were killed, officials said, PTI reported. The Haryana government had transferred the case to the CBI on July 18, 2022 which was forwarded to the CBI by the Centre on December 29 last year, they said. According to the procedure, the CBI took over the investigation in the FIR registered by the Haryana Police.
