- Monday, February 24, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
HERE are news on Indian economy and business for Tuesday, March 12, 2024:
Prime minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday virtually inaugurated India’s first automobile in-plant railway siding project at Maruti Suzuki’s (MSIL) plant in Hansalpur in Mehsana district of the western state of Gujarat which he visited the same day. He flagged off the project from the city of Ahmedabad. He also launched railway projects worth Rs 85,000 crore (£8 billion), including the introduction of 10 new Vande Bharat trains, from Ahmedabad’s Sabarmati area after visiting the Dedicated Freight Corridor’s Operation Control Centre. The in-plant railway siding project at MSIL was developed under the Indian government’s PM Gati Shakti mission in collaboration with the Gujarat government, Indian Railways, and MSIL, at a cost of Rs 976 crore (£92.2 million), according to Rahul Bharti, MSIL’s executive officer of corporate affairs.
India’s markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has directed the country’s mining group Vedanta to pay Rs 776 million (£7.3 million) to Cairn UK Holdings for delayed dividends, Reuters reported. Failure to comply within 45 days will result in further action, it said. SEBI also imposed a two-month ban on Vedanta directors, including vice-chairman Navin Agarwal, from India’s securities markets. The regulator found Vedanta, formerly Cairn India, in violation of Indian law for withholding dividends owed to the British company between January 2014 and June 2017. Vedanta previously cited asset restrictions due to a demand from India’s tax department behind the failure to pay dividends. The restrictions expired in March 2016.
Prime minister Narendra Modi will join a program on Wednesday via video-conferencing to commemorate the nationwide initiative for credit assistance to marginalized sections. The prime minister’s office stated that he will inaugurate the Pradhan Mantri Samajik Utthan and Rozgar Adharit Jankalyan (PM-SURAJ) national portal and provide credit support to 100,000 entrepreneurs from disadvantaged backgrounds. He will also engage with beneficiaries of various government schemes and deliver an address to the audience. The portal reflects Modi’s dedication to prioritize the underprivileged and represents a transformative effort, aimed at uplifting the society’s most marginalized segments, the statement added.
India’s headline retail inflation rate remained nearly unchanged at 5.09 per cent in February, as per data from the ministry of statistics and programme implementation released on Tuesday. The figure mirrors January’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation of 5.10 percent. Economists, in line with expectations, predicted a slight uptick to 5.1 per cent year-on-year, according to a Moneycontrol survey. The CPI inflation has now stayed within the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) two to six per cent tolerance range for six consecutive months but has surpassed the medium-term target of four per cent for 53 consecutive months. The latest inflation data are revealed weeks before the central bank’s Monetary Policy Committee meets again on April 3-5.
British multinational British American Tobacco (BAT) PLC on Tuesday unveiled plans to sell up to a 3.5 per cent stake in India’s ITC Ltd through a block trade to institutional investors. The company said its wholly owned subsidiary, Tobacco Manufacturers (India) Ltd, aims to sell around 43.68 billion ordinary shares in ITC via an accelerated bookbuild process, subject to closing conditions. At Tuesday’s closing price of Rs 404.25 (£3.82) per share, the total value of the ITC shares to be sold amounts to approximately Rs 17,659.72 crore (£1.66 billion). Following the transaction, BAT will retain a significant 25.5 per cent stake in ITC. The companies have a longstanding relationship dating back to the early 1900s.
The Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) under India’s department of telecommunications (DoT), ministry of communications, has inked a tripartite memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Prasar Bharati, the national public service broadcaster, and the Open Network for Digital Commerce, a Digital Public Infrastructure initiative of the department for promotion of industry and internal trade under the ministry of commerce and industry. According to a press release from the ministry, the objective of the strategic alliance is to extend affordable and accessible digital services throughout the country, leveraging the BharatNet infrastructure under USOF. The move is also aligned with the vision of prime minister Narendra Modi, emphasizing digital innovation to empower rural India.
(Agencies)
