Infrastructure woes laid bare as roads become gridlocked
Tourists from across Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka once again thronged The Nilgiris on Saturday and Sunday during the Deepavali weekend, once again leading to infrastructure problems associated with the steep increase in traffic into the district. Due to the lack of parking spaces, most vehicles visiting the Doddabetta Peak and the Ooty Boat House were forced to stop by the sides of the road, leading to traffic snarls and gridlocking in many places. The problems were most pronounced on the road from Khandal to the Ooty Boat House, where traffic came to a grinding halt from around 11.30 a.m. till late afternoon. Furthermore, there were only a few policemen on the route regulating traffic, further exacerbating the problem. V. Prabhakar, Udhagamandalam Municipality Health Officer (Commissioner in-charge) and Special Officer, acknowledged that the infrastructure problems exist, but said that the Tourism Development Board held charge over the boat house and the district police were tasked with traffic regulation. “The District Police, Municipality and Revenue Department understand that traffic problems exist and plan to conduct drives to prevent traffic violations in the future,” Mr. Prabhakar said. The Nilgiris Superintendent of Police, Murali Rambha, said that during peak seasons, the police stop private buses on the city outskirts, and run TNSTC buses that ferry the tourists to popular locations. Aaron Rodgers Jersey
Gadkari urges private ports to cater to cruise tourism
Union shipping minister Nitin Gadkari on Saturday urged private port operators to create necessary arrangements for catering to passengers, pointing out to the prospects of cruise tourism in the country. “We have taken a decision to have passenger terminals at all major ports to cater to cruise tourists. There are over 200 private and minor ports in the country and I would also request them to have such facilities,” Gadkari said at the Mumbai Port Trust. He said the government is very keen to push cruise tourism, given its benefit to the local economy and wants the city port to become among the five best cruise tourism hubs in the world. The government is investing over ?200 crore to build a modern international cruise terminal at one of the oldest ports in the country, the minister informed. A bulk of the ports built in the last 25 years since the country embarked on the liberalisation journey have been privately owned or operated. All of them typically cater to the high-volume and revenue accretive trade segment, handling container, bulk and liquid cargos. A slew of names, including Adanis, Essar, Larsen and Toubro, etc have entered the port segment in the last few years. Referring to the port redevelopment plan, Gadkari said there is a plan to make the city port better than those in Dubai and Singapore as well. The minister was quick to point out that while carrying out such projects, jobs will be protected and there will in fact be a growth in employment through such initiatives. Mumbai Port Trust (MbPT) chairman Sanjay Bhatia said catering to domestic tourists can also be a lucrative business opportunity and the ministry has appointed an international consultant to study the same both on the coastal and inland waterways front. The MbPT, which has a dedicated berth for cruise tourism, hosted its largest passenger ship yet on Saturday. Genting Dream anchored at the berth in her maiden voyage and will be carrying 1,900 passengers from the city till Singapore, via Colombo. A senior official from the shipping company said it has been serving the market for the last decade and saw a 36 per cent growth in Indian tourists in the last fiscal 2015-16 to over 1.25 lakh. Jessie Bates III Authentic Jersey
GSTN to borrow ₹800 cr to meet infra building cost
GSTN, the company that is building the world’s biggest and most complex tax system, will borrow ?800 crore from banks to fund infrastructure costs to support Goods and Services Tax rollout from April 1 next year. The Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN), a not-for-profit, non-government, private limited company promoted by the Central and State governments, is borrowing ?250 crore for working capital needs and another ?550 crore as long-term loan from domestic lenders, its chairman Navin Kumar told PTI here. The Centre has 24.5 per cent stake in GSTN and the state governments an equal share. The remaining 51 per cent is with private financial institutions. “The total authorised and paid-up capital is ?10 crore. So, ?4.90 crore has come from Central and State governments and ?5.10 crore from private institutions,” he said. Kumar said the cost of infrastructure to support the GST will be ?1,380 crore. “We will be borrowing ?550 crore for infrastructure. We have also sought some working capital limit, that we will see if there is any default in payment,” he said. Since its incorporation on March 28, 2013, the GSTN had used ?64 crore towards payments to its vendors and employees out of the central government’s sanctioned grant of ?315 crore for the first three years. “The government has released ?120 crore from the grant, and we have used ?64 crore, rest of the money we have to refund to the government,” he said, adding this year the entire expenses would be met through borrowing. Kumar said after receiving Letter of Guarantee from the government, the GSTN will raise a five-year term loan of ?550 crore from various Indian banks. “We have also requested for a ?250-crore working capital loan. So, if there is any delay by any government in making payment, then we will borrow money. We have selected the banks,” he said. Explaining how the working capital and term loans would work, he said the working capital loan works like a credit and at the end of the year the borrower has to square up the loans. But the payment of term loan has to be made every month. GSTN is a non-government, private limited company promoted by the central and state governments with the specific mandate to build the IT infrastructure and the services required for implementing Goods and Services Tax (GST). Zay Jones Authentic Jersey
KG-D6 gas dispute may cost Reliance Ind over $1.2 billion
Reliance Industries Ltd and one of its partners in the KG-D6 block — Niko Resources — may end up paying the government about $1.25 billion as compensation for benefits they derived from the natural gas that allegedly migrated from ONGC’s adjacent fields in the Krishna-Godavari Basin off the Andhra Pradesh coast. Officials remain tight-lipped about the monetary compensation payable by RIL. However, the buzz is that Mukesh Ambani’s company and its partner in the block may be asked to pay compsnation of that magnitude. Sources said the Directorate-General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) had, in its first draft, given the indicative number of $1.25 billion to the Ministry for Petroleum and Natural Gas. The DGH has been working on the monetary compensation based on the recommendations and model suggested by the single-member Justice AP Shah Committee. Indications are that the figures have been derived based on calculations in respect of gas price and volume done on a monthly basis, and after deducting the royalty, cess and profit petroleum that the contractors have paid the government on the produce so far. A tough call Sources told BusinessLine that the government will not find it easy to determine the precise amount of compensation, which in any case will be open to challenge by the contractors. For instance, between April 2009 and March 2015, the royalty calculations rose from 5 per cent to 10 per cent; the variance could influence the determination of the compensation. Second, it’s not clear what the gas price will be taken as. The prevailing gas price — $4.2/unit (gas is measured in million British thermal units) — is in dispute. Whether the government will work within the terms of the production sharing contract (PSC) or outside it is not known, sources said. Devil in the details Both Reliance Industries and ONGC will want to read the fine print of any government formulation before respoding to it. ONGC believes that the Shah panel has been unfair to it. Confirming the continuity of reservoirs, the committee had said that independent consultant DeGoyler & MacNaughton’s report must form the basis for the migration of gas up till 2015, and that migration of gas post-2015 has to be inquired into by the government. Quantifying the migration It had quantified the amount of gas that migrated from Godavari PML and D1 discovery area of ONGC’s KG-DWN-98/2 to RIL’s Block of KG D6 from April 2009 to March 2015. It also quantified the amount of gas that is likely to further migrate from April 2015 to March 2019. The D&M report found that up to 15 per cent of the gas could belong to ONGC. It calculated that from April 2009 till March 2015, about 7.009 billion cubic metres and 4.116 billion cubic metres of gas had migrated from the Godavari PML and D1 discovery of ONGC’s acreage to RIL’s block. Of this, 5.968 billion cubic metres and 3.015 billion cubic metres, respectively, were produced. The reserves in the D-1 and D-3 fields of the Reliance-BP-Niko KG D6 block total 2.9 trillion cubic feet, of which 2.1 trillion cubic feet or more have been extracted. Brandon Marshall Womens Jersey
Target of 25,000km road project awards unlikely to be met in FY17
The target of awarding 25,000km of road projects in the current fiscal year is unlikely to be met going by the data of the first half, analysts say. The target, set by the ministry of road transport and highways and the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), was announced in April. It was seen as ambitious goal from the very start, given that the central government is already building roads at the fastest pace ever. The Nitin Gadkari-led ministry is also taking several other measures to make it easier for companies to win and execute these projects. Last fiscal year, the government awarded 10,000km of projects. The execution record in the first half of this fiscal year makes achieving the 25,000km target appear unlikely, Jefferies India Pvt. Ltd analyst Ankit Fitkariwala wrote in a 24 October report. “Looking at current pipeline of projects, we expect that previous year awards of 10,000km would probably be repeated for full year FY17 as well. We do not expect overall FY17 awards to be anywhere close to 25,000km that the ministry was expecting at the beginning of the year,” Fitkariwala wrote. While the September quarter is typically weak for road projects in terms of execution and traffic, a stronger-than-expected monsoon this year has also likely impacted execution of road projects. According to the NHAI website, it had awarded 764km of projects from April to July. It is yet to report data for August and September. India awards road projects under three models: engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC); build, operate, and transfer (BOT); and the hybrid annuity model (HAM). NHAI, the road ministry and states together have likely awarded projects of about 6,000km in the first half of the year across the three models, according to Devam Modi, an analyst at Equirus Securities Pvt. Ltd. While he does not expect the current fiscal’s target to be met, he expects awards to be significantly higher than the 10,000km achieved last fiscal year. Projects of about 2,200km each have been awarded by NHAI and the ministry up to September this fiscal, totalling to about 4,500km, according to Jefferies. Another brokerage analyst expects the ministry and NHAI to award 12,000-15,000km in total this fiscal. He asked not to be named as he is not authorized to speak to reporters. NHAI alone has active tenders of 1,200km to be bid out over the next month, largely based on the EPC and HAM models, according to a report last week by ICICI Securities. India has the world’s second largest road network, running to about 4.8 million km, but major highways constitute a small percentage of that. Gadkari has set a long-term target of building 100km of roads a day, as against last year’s target of 30km. India currently constructs roads and highways at a rate of 21km per day. Road companies including PNC Infratech Ltd, Sadbhav Engineering Ltd, IRB Infrastructure Developers Ltd and Ashoka Buildcon Ltd have been benefiting from the increased pace of awards. Victor Antipin Womens Jersey
AirAsia India reports 42 per cent increase in passenger traffic
Budget carrier AirAsia India (AAI) flew 5.89 lakh passengers in three months ended September, 2016, a 42 per cent increase from the number of passengers who flew in the airline in the year-ago period. The airline during the quarter added three new destinations in its route network while capacity (number of total seats flown) increased by 23 per cent to 6.72 lakh, AirAsia said in a statement today. The number of passengers carried (by AirAsia India) increased 42 per cent YoY to 0.59 million (5.89 lakh), while the capacity increased by 23 per cent in July-September quarter of the current year, AirAsia said. In AAI, while Tata Sons and Malaysian no-frills airline AirAsia Berhad each holds 49 per cent stake, two of the airline’s directors, S Ramadorai and R Venkataramanan, hold 2 per cent stake. Three new routes –Bengaluru-Guwahati, Bengaluru-Hyderabad and Hyderabad-Goa were added in the flight network during the quarter while frequencies were scaled up on the Bengaluru-Goa route. The airline also increased its seat factor by 12 per cent to 88 per cent from 76 per cent recorded in the quarter ended September 2015, it said. As on September 30, AirAsia India had eight Airbus A32O aircraft in its fleet against five in Q3 2015, it added. Significantly ousted Tata group chairman Cyrus Mistry, in a letter written a day after his abrupt removal had raised “ethical concerns” in Tata group’s jv with AirAsia and alleged that forensic investigation revealed fraudulent transactions of Rs 22 crore involving non-existent entities in India and Singapore. “Board members and trustees are also aware that in the case of AirAsia, ethical concerns have been raised with respect to certain transactions as well as overall prevailing culture within the organisation. “A recent forensic investigation revealed fraudulent transactions of Rs 22 crore involving non-existent parties in India and Singapore,” Mistry said in the letter. The Government has already said that “all issues (regarding AirAsia India) would be looked into and law of the land will have to be followed in case of any violation.” Madison Bumgarner Authentic Jersey
Civil Aviation Ministry awaits Home Ministry inputs on drones policy
After stakeholder consultations, the Civil Aviation Ministry is now awaiting final inputs from the Home Ministry for deciding the regulations on commercial use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), including drones. Aviation regulator DGCA banned the use of UAVs for commercial purposes in October 2014 amid concerns over security. In April 2016, the watchdog came out with draft norms for public consultations but there is yet to be a final decision the issue. Recently, officials from the Civil Aviation Ministry held discussions with their counterparts in the Home Ministry about the proposed regulations for UAVs, including drones and others. A senior official said views from the Home Ministry are awaited on the matter. “We had a meeting with the Home Ministry officials. We have requested for inputs on our proposed policy on drones and expedite the matter. As soon as we get their inputs, we will be putting out the policy on drones,” he said. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) in its draft regulations had proposed that drone users would have to secure a permit and a unique identification number for their operations. In the wake of technological advancements in UAVs over the years and their increased use, it has become necessary to develop guidance material to regulate their activities, according to officials. There have been growing instances of drones and other UAVs coming into the flight paths of aircraft, especially near busy airports, leading some of these countries to formulate rules to regulate these operations. “Civilian use of UAS (unmanned aircraft system) includes damage assessment of property and life in areas affected with natural calamities, surveys; critical infrastructure monitoring, among others… “UA (unmanned aircraft) operations present problems to the regulator in terms of ensuring safety of other users of airspace and persons on the ground,” it had said. In October 2014, the government had banned the use of UAVs by any non-government agency, organisation or an individual. Clint Boling Jersey
DGCA asks airlines to put in place electronic cigarette policy
Domestic airlines have been asked by the civil aviation regulator to formulate a policy on handling of electronic cigarettes, and display warnings inside lavatories and passenger briefing cards as part of the cabin safety measures. Under the new cabin safety circular, effective tomorrow, the operators would have to develop procedures to “ensure passengers are advised to remove electronic cigarettes (valet/ sky check) or in cases where excess carry on baggage must be placed in the hold”. Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems (ENDS), popularly known as e-cigarettes, produce an aerosolised mixture containing flavoured liquids and nicotine that is inhaled by the user. The system is powered by lithium batteries. “Electronic, simulated smoking materials (cigarettes, pipes, cigars) are prohibited from use by both passengers and crew at all times. Operators should not permit the use of any item which could insinuate that smoking is permitted on board aircraft,” said a circular issued by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). These products are not yet regulated nor approved for smoking cessation by the US Food and Drug Administration and the long-term health effects to users and bystanders are still unknown, it noted. The DGCA said that since e-cigarettes are a potential health hazard with safety implications, airlines need to develop policy and procedures to ensure their non-usage as well as proper stowage onboard an aircraft. “Airlines should develop inflight procedures by way of placards/warnings inside the lavatories, safety announcements, passenger briefing cards etc.,” the circular said. The operators have also been asked to communicate their electronic cigarette policy to passengers by various means including through website and during ticket purchase. The circular would be applicable to all Indian operators, which are into scheduled and non-scheduled commercial air transport, as well as state government plane and general aviation aircraft. Apart from known as e-cigarettes, ENDS are also called personal vaporisers, vape pens, e-hookah or vaping devices. According to the watchdog, e-cigarettes can be accepted on board in the passengers carry on baggage provided they remain stowed and unused at all times. Riley Reiff Jersey
Get realistic; have professional consultants vet your wish list: Aviation ministry to industry
The civil aviation ministry is unlikely to seek tax concessions from the government in the budget for 2017-18, a change of stance that officials said has been prompted by reasoning that realistic demands are more likely to be accepted by the finance ministry. The ministry has for the first time asked the industry to get professional consultants to vet its wish list, in line with an idea mooted by the minister of state for civil aviation Jayant Sinha, who had called a meeting of all industry representatives to discuss Budget demands last week. “It was discussed in the meeting that instead of sending a list of demands to the finance ministry that is never accepted, the industry should compile a list of doable things which the finance ministry can accept or look into,” an official present at the meeting said on condition of anonymity. It was also decided that the Budget wish list should focus on items that do not lead to revenue decline for the government, he said. “The demands are likely be items that do not lead to a revenue loss to the exchequer since such demands are unlikely to be accepted,” the official said. SpiceJet chairman Ajay Singh has been given the responsibility to submit the list of demands by November 20, after getting them vetted by consultants. The ministry has called the next meeting on November 25 to discuss the demands.A few requests discussed in the meeting included demands to slash high tax on fuel and reduce excise duty on fuel that was hiked in the budget for 2016-17. Malcolm Jenkins Womens Jersey
Optimal utilisation runways: Govt ropes in global firm
IGI Airport may be India’s busiest airport but “poor” utilisation of its three runways is causing concern. A worried government has asked a leading global air traffic control (ATC) agency to see how the hourly aircraft handling capacity of IGI’s runways can be increased. “Delhi International Airport Pvt Ltd (DIAL) has asked UK-based NATS (one of the best known air traffic control and airport performance firms globally) to do a study for optimising use of runways at the behest of the aviation ministry…. there has to be further improvement. The available space can be redesigned to increase the number of aircraft movement per hour. Our air navigation services are also trying to find ways of doing that,” said Airports Authority of India chairman Guruprasad Mohapatra . With two cross runways, the Mumbai Airport handles 45 flights an hour. But the Delhi airport, which has two parallel and a third merging runway, falls way behind—relatively speaking—with 67 aircraft movement an hour. Of these, 62 are for commercial flights and five are for VVIP, defence and charter aircraft. Michael Del Zotto Jersey