How oil crash, failing job market are ruining India’s Gulf stream of cash
The government plans to evacuate thousands of Indian workers who have lost their jobs in Saudi Arabia and cannot afford to pay for a flight home. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said Monday the government is trying to arrange exit documents for those workers who wish to return to India. The workers were mostly employed by Saudi construction companies and were laid off amid a slowdown in the industry caused by low global oil prices. About 10,000 Indian workers in Saudi Arabia have lost their jobs. The plight of the laid-off workers was raised by lawmakers in India’s Parliament on Monday. Indians are among millions of poor Asians working in the Gulf states, where human rights groups say many suffer exploitation and abuses including non-payment of wages, with no channels for redress. In March, a special report in Hindustan Times had warned that the Gulf dream was becoming a nightmare for thousands of Indians who work in the region or are dependent on remittances. A recap of our report: Falling oil prices and a flood of cheap labour from other countries is turning sour the dreams of millions of Indians in the oil-rich Gulf and threatening to choke the stream of remittances their families depend on. Money or dignity: The dilemma of Indians in the Gulf Fewer Indian workers are travelling to the Gulf, stung by practices such as nitaqat (employing local people), cheap migrant labour from countries such as Bangladesh, stricter crackdown on illegal workers and a slump in the once-booming construction sector. Raging conflict in neighbouring countries such as Yemen, Libya, and Iraq is also contributing to the problem. And the worst may not be over yet for the seven-million strong Indian diaspora and their families in states such as Kerala that draw a major chunk of revenue from remittances, say experts. Devon Kennard Womens Jersey
Price of subsidised LPG cylinder hiked by Rs 2
State-run oil companies raised the price of subsidised cooking gas by Rs 2 per cylinder, the second such increase in a month. The step will further cut subsidy that has already shrunk sharply due to lower oil prices. Raising LPG prices by small amounts in quick succession follows the government’s recent move to allow oil companies to raise the price of kerosene by 25 paise every month for 10 months, another bid at reducing the subsidy burden on the government. Oil price collapse has brought down total fuel subsidy to Rs 27,571 crore in 2015-16 from Rs 76,285 crore in 2014-15. Subsidised cooking gas prices have crawled up at a time when price of commercial LPG has fallen, reducing the gap between the two to about Rs 64 per cylinder. In Delhi, a subsidised 14.2-kg cylinder will now cost Rs 423.09, compared with Rs 487 for non-subsidised LPG. Pernell McPhee Jersey
Oil consumption growth likely to spike this fiscal year
Oil consumption growth in the current fiscal year will likely exceed 10.9% of the previous year, if the current consumption trend continues, an oil ministry arm has said. A 7.8% jump in the consumption of petroleum products in the country in April-June, compared to 5.2% in the year-ago period, has prompted this prediction from the Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell (PPAC). “Typically, April-June is sluggish in performance than the rest of the year. Going by the trend, it’s likely petroleum products consumption growth for 2016-17 could be better than that of last year,” the PPAC said in its monthly review. A higher fuel consumption signifies faster clip of economic growth for the country, currently growing at 7.6% annually. In April-June, the biggest consumption growth was recorded in petrol (10%), liquefied petroleum gas (7.8%), fuel oil (22.9%), bitumen (13.9%) and aviation turbine fuel (12.1%). For diesel, the most consumed petrol product in India, it rose 4.7%. Kerosene dived 7.7% following a general shift towards cooking gas and increased power availability. In June, diesel consumption grew 1.5%, the slowest month-on-month pace since July 2015, mainly because people anticipated favourable prices in May and July and shifted some offtake away from June, according to PPAC. Domestic prices follow international trends and are revised fortnightly, prompting dealers to temper order sizes on price change anticipation. Higher power availability and good monsoon, that affects road transport and lowers diesel consumption for farm pumps too contributed to lower diesel figures, the PPAC said. In June, petrol sales rose 4.4%, much lower than quarterly growth of 10%, primarily due to shifting of offtake as buyers anticipated lower prices in May and July, PPAC said. Growth in consumption of petrol was higher than diesel mainly due to increasing consumer preference for petrol-driven vehicles as the price differential has waned and policy thrust on scrapping older diesel vehicles gotten louder, PPAC said. Brad Marchand Authentic Jersey
SpiceJet, Jet Airways top India’s Most Reputed Domestic Private Airlines list: BlueBytes
When it comes to flying high in Reputation in Indian Aviation, national carrier Air India ranks first. SpiceJet leads in Domestic Private Airlines followed by Jet Airways with a 34% lower Brand Rep Score. While Indigo Airlines trails Jet with a Brand Rep Score 9% lower. In the International Private Airlines segment Singapore Airlines leads the way followed by Etihad with a Brand Rep Score 19% below the category leader. Emirates Brand Rep Score was 27% lower than Etihad. BlueBytes in association with TRA Research (both part of the Comniscient Group), released ‘India’s Most Reputed Aviation Brands 2016′ – the first in the Reputed series, and is set to launch a monthly report hereon on different sectors. The study evaluates brand’s Reputation with a two-pronged approach of media analysis and a survey of consumer influencers. “Reputation is a measure of the effectiveness of transmitted belief about attitudes showcasing Respect. In an industry where most players provide very similar services and the differentiators are barely a handful, having a good reputation becomes essential. A solid Reputation alone can be the distinguishing feature for Indian Aviation players to stand out from the clutter of the competition,” said Pooja Kaura, Chief Spokesperson for India’s Most Reputed Brands. The study was conducted within the Aviation industry – 21 airline brands that have measurable media coverage in India were selected for the study. BlueBytes tracked all the brands’ news in all the major English and Hindi print media (newspapers and magazines) across 9 cities as a representative of the news across all publications. A total of more than 30,000 articles related to different Aviation brands were captured in the period between June 15, 2015, and June 16, 2016. In addition to media analysis, the consumer’s perception was also studied. Devan Dubnyk Authentic Jersey
Air India’s hidden subsidy shows that the govt uses the company merely as a political tool
In spite of having the most bloated personnel structure in the industry, Air India continues to provide the worst service in the skies. Just recently, its on-time performance was shown to be much lower than other carriers that employ far less people per aircraft. In short, Air India does less work through more personnel. And all this colossal waste is funded by public money, that is, money hard earned and produced by you and me. That Air India still continues to be funded by public money with its very high employee per aircraft number and low on time performance is a matter of shame. Any matter of shame, on the part of who are not shameless, would have provoked some action. However, the government seems to be in no mood to stop funding Air India and stop haemorrhaging of public money. Thus, in an age of republicanism and democracy, the expensive Maharajah burns public money like all maharajahs have done in the past. The turbaned Maharajah icon of Air India is now a cruel, cruel joke. The amount of subsidy that has been injected into Air India by the people of the various states of the Indian Union is huge. Since the Union government extracts this money directly from states and puts them in a common pool, this element of states is not apparent. I will discuss later how and why this matters. Since April 2012, the Union government has pumped in more than Rs 22,280 crore to Air India’s core equity as part of its turnaround plan. This is part of the Rs 30,000 crore committed to Air India by Union government as part of its turnaround plan. Let’s realise what this subsidy is for. This is for passenger air services — a service that less than 5% of the population will ever avail and that too is the top 5% earning group of the population. However, the subsidy for this would come from the people of the states at large and hence, this is the worst form of regressive subsidy where the poor are subsidising a company that provides services to the rich. That this scandal continues is broad daylight is probably a huge sign of the classist nature of public discourse and policy making in the Indian Union. But there is a huge, huge hidden subsidy that no one talks about and that does not seem to matter. Let me explain by example. I am employed in a government-funded institution. One would think that public funds or government funds, since they are funds of the people, should be held to the highest level of thrift and value-for-money when spending and should not be wasted one bit since I am spending money given in trust by the public. The standards of responsibility would have to be high. Marlon Humphrey Jersey
State asks Centre to improve interstate air connectivity
The state government has urged the Centre to improve both interstate and intrastate air connectivity as part of the regional connectivity scheme (RCS). It has put forth a proposal of four routes to be declared as RCS ones in Odisha. It has also proposed to improve connectivity with major cities in the neighbouring states to the ministry of aviation. At present, Odisha has 20 operational airstrips. This includes the Biju Patnaik International Airport. “People living in the western, northern and southern parts of the state will be immensely benefited if air connectivity increases,” said state tourism minister Ashok Chandra Panda. The proposed routes include Bhubaneswar-Berhampur-Jeypore, Bhubaneswar-Utkela-Jeypore, Bhubaneswar-Sambalpur-Rourkela and Bhubaneswar-Angul-Rourkela. The minister also requested that these be declared as interstate routes connecting Bhubaneswar airport to important cities like Raipur in Chhattisgarh, Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, Ranchi in Jharkhand and Kolkata in West Bengal. Larry Warford Authentic Jersey
Government may leverage Air India to operationalise regional connectivity scheme
With no commitment coming from private carriers to join the ambitious regional connectivity scheme (RCS), the National Democratic Alliance government may bring in Air India Regional to operationalise the scheme aimed at bringing air travel to remote areas. Started as Alliance Air in 1996, the carrier was a low-cost arm of the erstwhile Indian Airlines and became a wholly owned subsidiary of Air India following the historic merger of the two state-run airlines. A senior official from the ministry of civil aviation, requesting anonymity, said that Air India would be asked to operate small ATR planes on some of the RCS routes in the initial stage to create demand. The official explained that similar steps were taken in the past and private airlines had followed where Air India had been the sole carrier. “We expect private airlines to join sooner or later once Air India flies to those smaller airports. It would create demand in the adjoining areas or even in other parts, if the national carrier is able to make it to just one of the destinations in a particular state,” the official said. The state-run carrier could also be asked to dry-lease more small aircraft for the regional push as private carriers in India don’t have too many of these machines in their respective fleets, he added. Under a dry lease, only aircraft is provided by the lessor. However, if crew is also provided by the lessor, then it is called a wet lease. J.R. Sweezy Authentic Jersey