Delhi Lost Over INR 9 Cr Because Of Waterlogged Roads And Crawling Traffic In The Past Two Days
Rain is a much romanticised idea in poems and films – a poet writes about his/her longing for thunderous showers and directors shoot scenes of lovers embracing under pouring water. Unfortunately the reality of monsoons, at least in India, brings out rather unromantic emotions in most people, and especially so in those living in urban cities. This year, India has received generous amounts of rain. And this year, like all others, the monsoon was covered extensively by the media and spoken about in copious amounts on social media. And finally, this year, like previous years again, urban Indian cities broke down leading to endless hours of bumper-to-bumper traffic. John Kerry, who was in the country recently, had to cancel three trips to religious sites in Delhi because of rain-delaying-traffic. Chairman of Centre for Public Policy Research, D.Dhanuraj said, “Traffic jams deteriorate quality of life, lead to loss of fuel, lend to pollution, and create environmental and health problems.” Daily commuters face stress on a daily basis because of poor road conditions in urban cities which include Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata and Chennai. The root of all problems On the last day of August, Delhi-NCR woke up to pouring rain. All was good when you were standing in your balcony with a cup of tea in hand and soaking in the wondrous sight of water – until the woes of traffic began creeping in. On Wednesday, August 31, Delhi’s Dhaula Kuan area and the Ring Road were absolutely packed, and it took people at least three hours to find their way home or to work. It was while sitting in traffic, left foot on the clutch and right on the brake that I began wondering about how much was at stake with every minute wasted in traffic. Here’s the Math Let’s begin with money, because money, after all, is what causes all seven sins to surface. Maruti Suzuki’s ubiquitous Wagon R is one of the most economical cars and gives 20kmpl in mileage. We’re using this car to assume that you’re travelling 40km every day in Delhi’s crawling traffic. In this case, you’re spending an extra 0.4 litres of fuel and an extra Rs. 25.4 than on a normal traffic day. According to Delhi Traffic Police, there are 96,34,976 cars in Delhi. Assuming that nearly 40% of these cars run on petrol, means that the capital is losing Rs. 9.78 crores everyday because of bumper-to-bumper traffic. There are also diesel and CNG cars which make up the other three quarters of vehicles in Delhi, and they also add to monetary losses incurred in Delhi. Even companies lose money for every employee stuck in traffic for hours on hours. If you’re earning INR 20,000/month, which translates to Rs.645 a day and to Rs.27 an hour, then the company is losing Rs.27 for every hour you are stuck in traffic. It was reported by TOI that India loses INR 60,000 crores a year due to traffic congestion – that’s a whopping amount of money lost purely by spending futile time moving a centimeter a minute. Dhanuraj also told Indiatimes, “Metropolitan cities are very dense and no new cities are coming up. There are only a few cities to migrate to and they are no longer empowered to absorb more people.” Is there a solution? The Centre for Science and Environment talked about the health implications of congestion and said “a large number of studies are now available that show exposure to vehicle exhaust causes significant increase in respiratory symptoms and lung function impairment, cancer and other ailments. “And congestion further aggravates emissions. Low average speed due to traffic congestion increases the emissions due to the stop-and-go pattern of traffic flow in congested condition.” Paramita Dey, Senior Research Officer and Team Leader at the National Institute of Urban Affairs, told us, “One of the major causes of traffic jams in our cities during monsoon is because of problems associated with the drainage cities. Many of our cities don’t have proper drainage systems, and those that do are either choked with solid waste or not cleaned at all.” She also said that constantly shifting gears and driving at a low speed wastes fuel but “air pollution is less during the monsoon as rain settles particles” but water pollution is increased. These problems, Dey added, can be solved if the management in charge cleans the drains before the onset of the monsoon season. The solution to solving India’s yearly problem that comes hand in hand with the monsoon is not only to fix pot-holed roads but also the drainage system. Dhanuraj said that currently there are multiple authorities managing Indian roads that are “breathing corruption”, hence the roads remain unfixed and the drains clogged.
CESC begins power distribution in Rajasthan at Kota
The Rs. 17,000 crore RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group, on Thursday said, it has begun its electricity distribution operation at Kota in Rajasthan. Aniruddha Basu, managing director at The Calcutta Electric Supply Corporation (CESC) said in Kota, two wholly-owned subsidiaries of CESC Rajasthan Limited have been formed for electricity distribution in Kota and Bharatpur for a period of 20 years. According to A.N. Singh, CEO of CESC Rajasthan, the Kota distribution franchise is spread over 150 square kilometres and has 1.76 lakh registered consumers which grew seven per cent during 2014-15 as compared to the previous fiscal year. “At Kota we will follow CESC’s customer-centric initiatives to provide best-in-class services to power consumers by developing and modernising the city’s distribution systems”, Basu said in a statement. He said that citizens of Kota will be provided with immediate new connections and they will benefit from the proactive complaint management from CESC which currently has more than 3 million consumers in its licensed area in Kolkata and adjacent area. Shaun Livingston Jersey
Benefits under Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana extended to people of all Hilly States including North-East States by treating them as ‘Priority States’
Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas has decided to extend the benefits under Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana to the people of all Hilly States including North-East States by treating them as ‘Priority States’ and release LPG connections to the eligible beneficiaries. This step of the Ministry will effectively address the difficulty faced by poor people residing in the States of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, Assam, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya and Tripura in accessing LPG for cooking purposes. Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana is being implemented with an objective to provide deposit free LPG connections to BPL households as a clean fuel solution. So far, more than 50 lakh connections have been released to the beneficiaries. Brice McCain Jersey
India to touch 15 GW solar power production by March 2017
India is expected to add 6 GW of solar production this fiscal to take the total solar power generation capacity to 15 GW by March 2017, said a senior official of solar energy equipment association. Speaking to the journalists in Hyderabad on Thursday, Surender Pal Singh Saluja, president of Solar Energy Equipment Manufacturers Association of Telangana (SEEMAT) and chairman of Premier Solar Systems, said, “We currently have an installed capacity of 8-9 GW and will be adding another 6 GW to take the total to 15 GW by March 2017. This is in line with the government’s ambitious National Solar Mission to attain a solar power generation of 100MW by 2022.” He was speaking on the sidelines of announcement of UBM’s Renewable Energy India 2016 in Noida to be held from September 7-9. India is also likely to double its module and cells manufacturing capacity to 10,000 MW and 2,000 MW in the next couple of years. However, “lack of easy and cheap funding, expectations of a high GST rate and increasing cheap imports from China and Taiwan is hurting the domestic industry,” said Singh. While the industry, after a lot of tax exemptions, on an average pays 5% tax, the Goods and Services Tax is likely to be over 18 per cent that could sound the death knell for the domes and render it uncompetitive, said another industry representative, who did not want to be named. “We have also been approaching the government for exempting solar from GST ambit,” said Singh.
Oil glut to ease by 2017, clean energy investment to rise – IEA’s Birol
The International Energy Agency (IEA) expects oil markets to reach a balance between supply and demand in 2017 as the current oil glut slowly eases, IEA chief Fatih Birol said during meetings in South Korea. The head of the Paris-based agency also exchanged views with energy minister Joo Hyung-hwan on the direction of the world’s energy markets in the wake of the renewed commitment to tackle climate change after last year’s Paris climate talks, South Korea’s Energy Ministry said in a statement on Thursday. The IEA forecast in its August report that oil markets will slowly tighten in the second half of 2016 as global demand growth declines and non-OPEC supplies rebound. “Oversupply of oil markets will gradually be eased and (oil markets) will find a balance between supply and demand in 2017,” Birol said in the statement. In a separate interview with Reuters after the statement was released, Birol said he saw two drivers for the rebalancing of the oil market. The first is a drop in production from countries outside of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) of about 900,000 barrels per day (bpd), especially in the United States in 2016. The second is “demand that is growing in a healthy way” and that the IEA expects to climb by 1.4 million bpd this year. “We may be on a higher side compared to others (forecasts), this is mainly because we’re more upbeat when it comes to Europe and emerging Asia demand in demand growth,” he said. In the statement, Birol also said there is concern that a decline in upstream oil and gas investments because of the prolonged low oil prices could increase oil price volatility. The statement added that Birol believes the start of the new climate regime after Paris would spur research and development investments on clean energy technology, with fast growth expected from the solar, wind power and electric car sectors. Birol noted in the interview that solar energy costs have dropped by 80 percent over the last five years and wind power costs have declined by 35 percent which means more countries can afford them. “Several years ago renewables were considered to be a romantic story but now it’s becoming a business,” he said. Birol also commented in the interview on how changes in the global liquefied natural gas (LNG) markets could affect South Korea, the world’s second-largest LNG buyer, and other countries, particularly regarding destination clauses that restrict LNG sales to the country of delivery. “A lot of gas is coming to markets … and this creates a historic opportunity to push for flexibility in gas contracts, especially destination clauses,” he said. Jimmy Howard Jersey
Petroleum sector could face over Rs 2.4 lakh crore impact of project delays
hat could be the total size of the price paid by the petroleum sector due to unwanted delays in implementation of oil and gas projects? The price could be a staggering over Rs 2.4 lakh crore through 2040, according to a study by Project Management Institute (PMI), a research and education institution. The Mumbai-based institute said in a report on project management practices in the oil and gas sector the country faces the humongous cost overruns and additional investment outlay over 2015-40 period if the existing project implementation scenario in the petroleum sector continues to prevail. The report was based on a survey of industry professionals. “With the new trend of fast growth, a lot of project managers are being assigned cases without on field experience. Becoming a project manager in the oil and gas sector requires in-depth knowledge about the Industry as opposed to other sectors that require only good people management skills,” said Partha Purkayastha, Managing Director, Amec Foster, speaking at a conference organized by PMI today in Delhi. The oil and gas sector has witnessed an average delay of 1.5 years in implementation of projects with average cost escalation of 6.2 per cent in the past, according to the PMI report. An average of 15-month delay has been noticed in projects worth Rs 100-999 crore each while the delay increases to 18 months in projects worth Rs 1,000 crore and more. Also, an average cost overrun of 6.9 per cent has been noted in projects worth Rs 1,000 or more across all PSU petroleum projects. Delays in petroleum projects occur at two stages — The Planning Stage and The Execution Stage. At the planning stage delays occur due to lack of detailed planning, poor risk management and lack of flexibility. Issues like change of scope of work, procurement delays and manpower allocation occur at the execution stage, the report stated. The report said only 25 per cent of the surveyed oil and gas companies had a dedicated independent risk management vertical and only 28 per cent of the respondents mentioned about organizational practice of drawing detailed response plan for each of the major identified risks. The report, released today, also talks about cost overruns occurring due to lack of planning, or continuous growth in a project’s scope and lack of management skill. “The Oil and Gas sector is expected to create a huge investment opportunity of $542 billion by 2040. We believe this can be achieved by improving the project management practices, identifying the gaps in organizational structure, practices, skill sets etc,” said Raj Kalady, Managing Director at PMI. He added there is a need to look at ways to bridge the gaps in project management through better organizational planning and manpower capability building. India is the 4th largest consumer of oil and petroleum products in the world with 216 million metric tonnes per annum (MMTPA) of refining capacity. Jerome Murphy Authentic Jersey
Japan may invest $10 bln in Russian oil firm Rosneft – Nikkei
Japan will propose a broad cooperation in the energy sector with Russia that could include a nearly $10 billion investment in Russian state-owned oil giant Rosneft, the Nikkei newspaper reported on Friday. The report comes as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe plans to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of a two-day business conference beginning Friday in Vladivostok. The two are expected to discuss closer cooperation in such areas as energy and technology, with Japan hoping to strengthen economic ties and create a breakthrough in a decades-long territorial dispute. The Nikkei said the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) is considering investing as much as 1 trillion yen ($9.7 billion) to buy 10 percent of Rosneft through the government-backed Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corp, or Jogmec. In addition, Japan will consider joint surveys for oil and gas projects in Eastern Siberia and the Russian Far East. It will also seek technical cooperation in decommissioning the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, the site of the 2011 nuclear disaster, the paper said. METI was not immediately available for comment. Rashard Robinson Womens Jersey
Pradhan hopes to spread cheer with Centre’s LPG scheme
The Narendra Modi government’s thrust on subsidised LPG to women in rural households has helped the oil ministry shed its image of a profit-making wing into a social welfare one, Union petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan said here on Thursday. “LPG has been so far seen as a commercial product in India and never considered as a catalyst for social change earlier,” Pradhan said adding that his government hopes to change this, bringing clean fuel to millions of households in the country. The minister was speaking at the inaugural session of a two-day international conference on ‘LPG: a catalyst for social change’, which commenced here on Thursday. Experts from over 10 countries discussed the best practices on accelerating access to LPG and evolved strategies to create a thriving market for the clean fuel. Quoting a WHO report, Pradhan said 15 lakh people die every year in the world due to indoor air pollution, with five lakh of them in India alone. “Indoor air pollution is responsible for significant number of acute respiratory diseases in young children. Traditional sources of cooking are causing indoor household pollution leading to serious health implications particularly on women and children. During the course of collection of these fuels, they face inclement weather, snakebite, bad terrain and backache. LPG is going to change all that,” the minister said. Around 4 crore new households got LPG connections after the Modi government took over in 2014, raising the total number of families using LPG to 17.4 crore, a whopping 26 per cent, Pradhan said while talking about his ministry’s social welfare scheme Ujjwala, one of the Modi government’s biggest political initiatives. The oil ministry is also preparing itself to create a SAARC grid by providing LPG to neighbouring countries. “Now we are providing LPG to Nepal and Bhutan. We are engaged in talks with Sri Lanka and Bangladesh for supplying LPG. Slowly we are trying to connect the living standards of the neighbourhood with the LPG movement,” Pradhan added. Several African countries have already evinced interest in replicating India’s models of Pahal, Sahaj and Ujjwala, the minister claimed. Jharkhand governor Droupadi Murmu recounted her own troubled experience as a teenager as her village did not have access to LPG connection. Tom Compton Jersey
Moody’s downgrades credit rating of DIAL
Moody’s Investors Service today cut the credit rating of DIAL, which operates the international airport here, citing concerns over “cash flow generation” level. DIAL’s (Delhi International Airport Pvt Ltd) corporate family rating as well as senior secured ratings have been revised downwards to ‘Ba2’ from ‘Ba1’ while the outlook is stable. ‘Ba’ indicates substantial credit risk. Cash flow squeeze Moody’s vice-president and senior analyst Abhishek Tyagi said, “The downgrade reflects continued concerns about the level of cash flow generation.” This follows regulator AERA’s previous tariff order, “which will see regulated revenues reduced materially over the 2015-19 regulatory period to levels that were not incorporated in our previous expectation,” he said in a release. The rating downgrade has also taken into account DIAL’s new expansion programme that is planned over the next 3–5 years, which according to Moody’s will “further pressure financial metrics.” Announced in December last year, the tariff order by the Airports Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA) will be applicable on DIAL over 2016–19. It will lead to a substantial decrease in annual aeronautical revenue by around ?2,000 crore, or about 70 per cent, from 2018 fiscal year, Tyagi noted. “This will also alter the revenue mix, with the proportion of higher risk non-aeronautical revenues increasing to a higher level than previously anticipated,” he added. The Airports Economic Regulatory Authority Appellate Tribunal (AERAAT) is reviewing the previous tariff order (covering the period 2010 to 2014). Adequate liquidity Moody’s said the stable outlook reflects DIAL’s adequate liquidity. Upward rating movement is unlikely in the near term, given the planned expansion programme and the uncertainty associated with the regulatory process, it added. DIAL is a three-way joint venture between GMR group, which is the majority stakeholder, the state-owned Airports Authority of India (AAI) and Germany’s Fraport Mike Adams Jersey
Biodiesel producers seek legislation to tap used cooking oil from restaurants
Biodiesel producers are seeking policy that will give them more access to used cooking oil from the food processing industry. Used cooking oil can be processed to make biodiesel, which is derived from renewable bio-mass resources. In India, cooking oil accounts for 20% of the total output of biodiesel. “A legislation to ensure supply of used cooking oil from food processing industry and restaurants would boost biodiesel output by 3-4 million litres,” said Sandeep Chaturvedi, president of Biodiesel Association of India. Such a move will also check used oil from coming back for human consumption, he said. “Biodiesel is less polluting than fossil fuel-based diesel and more conducive for automobiles due to higher lubrication and calorific strength,” Chaturvedi said. In 2015-16, domestic production of biodiesel increased to 110 million litres, mainly due to favourable government policy. It was 8-9 million litres in 2014-15. “Already the output is around 8-9 million litres this fiscal,” he said. Biodiesel manufacturers attribute the increase in production to the Centre’s decision to allow up to 5% biodiesel in diesel used by the railways. The decision to remove excise duty on inputs for making biodiesel is another factor. Biodiesel manufacturers say all states needs to come on board to promote biodiesel by allowing a favourable VAT policy. At present, VAT levy on biodiesel is at par with fossil fuel-based diesel and ranges between 24% and 26% in states, according to the association. “It is a major deterrent as it makes biodiesel blending a revenue-losing proposition for oil marketing companies,” said Chaturvedi. The association welcomed the Haryana government’s recent announcement to reduce VAT by 5 % on biodiesel. “Such decisions need to be implemented sincerely and other states needs to follow,” manufacturers said. Austin Hedges Authentic Jersey