Govt goes digital to speed up land acquisition for highway projects
The process of acquiring land for highway projects is set to get shorter by at least six months. The entire process will go digital eliminating chances of mistakes and reducing the long time taken for verification of land titles. The highways ministry has undertaken a massive exercise of hosting digital details of the land of more than 6.45 lakh revenue villages across 668 districts on a portal named “Bhoomiraashi” or compensation for land acquisition. This will be the one-point platform for online processing of land acquisition and notifications as well. Quicker land acquisitions will accelerate road construction, which is one of the main focus areas of the Narendra Modi government for pushing infrastructure development and creating jobs as well. The ministry has already held workshops with officials of Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh to sensitise them about the new scheme of things aimed at expediting the process. At present, the completion of land acquisition takes at least one-and-half years. Delay in land acquisition is the key reason for stuck highway projects across the country. NHAI, road transport ministry and its new wing NHIDCL, (which undertaking works in north-east and Jammu and Kashmir) are the biggest land procurers. Just NHAI on its own undertakes process to acquire 8,000-9,000 hectares of land annually for road development and releases around Rs 20,000 crore every year as compensation to land owners. The speed of acqusition is likely to increase as the government plans to roll out another mega highway development programme named Bharat Mala. Officials said under the new process there will be no physical movement of files from the local land acquisition officer up to the minister. Similarly, the notifications will be issued on digital mode. “Since the land records are available digitally, there is no need for verification by legal officials, which is a time taking process. Similarly, there will be no scope for mistakes during different stages of the notification. Correcting such mistakes delays the process,” a government official said. Sources said the online system will also have a feature of sending SMS alerts to the affected land owners about the updates. For that, they have to provide their numbers to the local land acquisition official. The system software will also enable direct transfer of the compensation to the beneficiaries’ accounts from all the agencies under highways ministry. Natrell Jamerson Jersey
Power generation target for FY18 is 23m units: NLC India
NLC India’s (formerly Neyveli Lignite Corporation) Q4 earnings beat estimates on all parameters as power generation margins improved. Lignite margins however contracted in the quarter. In an interview to CNBC-TV18, SK Acharya, Chairman of NLC India spoke about the results and his outlook for the company. He said that production efficiency led to Q4 earnings performance. According to him, the current performance is sustainable. Speaking about targets, he said that the target for FY18 electricity generation is at 23 million units and lignite production will be around 273 million tonne. He expects lignite capacity to go up to 56 million tonne by 2020. He further said that they have not signed any new power purchase agreement (PPA) yet. Blake Comeau Authentic Jersey
Boeing, Airbus Face Probe in $10.6-Billion Deal With Air India
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered three cases and one preliminary inquiry under sections related to cheating and forgery of Indian Penal Code in the light of orders from the Supreme Court in January this year. The first case has been registered against unknown officials of Ministry of Civil Aviation (Government of India), Air India and unknown private persons to investigate the allegations relating to purchase of 111 aircraft for national airlines costing about Rs. 70,000 crore ($10.6 billion) to benefit foreign aircraft manufactures. Such a purchase caused an alleged financial loss to the already stressed national carriers,” a CBI statement said. The CBI has also said that it has registered case against government officials, Air India and private companies to investigate the allegations of leasing of large number of aircraft without due consideration, proper route study and marketing or price strategy. “It was also alleged that the aircrafts were leased even while aircraft acquisition program was going on,” CBI added. Air India is facing heavy losses and has a debt of approximately $7.8 billion. It is alleged that with the collusion of private players, officials had made arrangements in such a way that Air India flew its aircraft on loss-making routes. The CBI is also investigating the charges of giving up profit-making routes and profit-making timings of Air India in favor of national and international private airlines causing a huge loss to the national carrier. With 140 long-haul fleet, Air India controls 17% market share on international routes and 14.6% of domestic passenger market. Due to continuous losses, Indian government is considering to sell it to private players. “Today, what has happened is (Air India’s) market share is 14%. And the debt is $7.8 billion. Now there are private airlines that are flying — Indigo, GoAir, Spicejet, Jet Airways — there you don’t invest money. But to run Air India, you have invested $7.8 billion. That money is government’s money, that’s your money. It could have been used for school education. And if 86% of flying can be handled by private sector, so it can also handle 100%,” Indian finance minister Arun Jaitley said a few days back. Lance Stephenson Womens Jersey
Boosting renewable energy sources requires gas too -Con Edison
Shifting more U.S. energy production to renewable sources such as wind and solar power is doable but will require greater use of natural gas and overcoming opposition to building pipelines, a senior executive of a U.S. utility said on Thursday. Consolidated Edison Inc no longer defaults to the traditional utility solution of building more infrastructure to meet growing demand for power, said Craig Ivey, president of the company unit serving New York City and nearby suburbs. Con Edison believes in clean, low-carbon energy, but a balance must be found to satisfy environmental goals, he told an audience of New York real estate brokers. Boosting the production of wind, solar and other alternative sources to meet a goal of generating half of New York’s energy needs by 2030 cannot be done without natural gas, Ivey said. “It is simply not possible to provide all the energy we need for our residents and businesses with wind, solar, battery storage and other alternative methods,” Ivey said in a speech to the Real Estate Board of New York. Con Edison would need tens of billions of dollars in transmission and distribution system upgrades beyond the levels needed to meet the state’s Clean Energy Standard, Ivey said. The company has reduced its carbon footprint since 2005 by 48 percent and in the past six years, 6,600 large buildings in New York City have converted to natural gas. A debate has simmered in New York and New England about whether more pipelines are needed to enable natural gas to be the bridge fuel from coal and oil-fired power plants to cleaner renewable sources like wind and solar. Environmentalists and New York state have taken the position that new pipelines, like Williams Cos Inc’s proposed Constitution gas pipe from Pennsylvania to New York, are not needed. They would invest more in renewables and energy efficiency. The gas industry argues that more plants are needed to replace retiring coal and nuclear plants, such as Indian Point just north of New York City, before more wind and solar projects can be built. Indian Point will close in 2020 and 2021. Tyler Thornburg Jersey
Power sector lender PFC allays fears on stressed assets
Power Finance Corp (PFC) on Thursday tried to allay fears of rising stressed assets on its books, saying that it was caused by the lender’s decision to apply new central bank rules and not because of any sudden deterioration in asset quality. The company will expand into refinancing and launch special financial packages for power transmission projects won through competitive bidding, chairman Rajeev Sharma told ET. The state-run company, the largest financier of the power sector, posted a net loss for the fourth quarter and a sharp drop in fiscal 2017 profit as it made a huge retroactive provision against the stressed assets. Sharma, who is also PFC’s managing director, said it would have posted a profit comparable to the previous year of about Rs 6,240 crore in fiscal 2017 had it not made the provision, the impact of which was Rs 3,786 crore. PFC shares have fallen sharply since it announced a quarterly loss for the first time in history. On Monday the company reported a net loss of Rs 3,409.49 crore for the fourth quarter against a net profit of Rs 1,259.65 crore a year earlier. The scrip ended 2.17% down at Rs 130.60 Thursday on the Bombay Stock Exchange. The provisioning was against loans to power generation projects sanctioned before April 2015, Sharma said. PFC has been applying the guidelines spelt by the power ministry for treatment of loans sanctioned to electricity generation projects before April 2015. After a communication from the Reserve Bank last month, the company decided to align with the RBI’s loan restructuring rules with effect from April 2015, following which Rs 23,309 crore of additional assets were declared nonperforming and Rs 35,995 crore were classified as restructured, from the earlier classification as standard. PFC’s gross NPAs shot up to 12.5% of the loan assets at close of the last financial year from 3.15% the previous fiscal year. Sharma said all the additional assets classified as NPAs after the RBI directive belonged to state-run companies which have been servicing debt without default. “We do not see any stress in these loan assets of Rs 59,304 crore affected due to RBI norms as the borrowers have demonstrated 100% recovery rate; they are likely to turn standard over the next few years,” he said. As much as 58% of the restructured assets are commissioned and are expected to be reversed next fiscal year, he added. Had it not applied the RBI guidelines, the company’s NPA position would have improved to 3.01% with the upgrade of four stressed projects to the standard category, he said. PFC’s disbursements grew 35% in the past fiscal year to Rs 62,798 crore, while loan sanctions increased 55% to Rs 1,00,603 crore. The company will expand into refinancing and is developing small tenure loan products for transmission projects bid under tariff-based competitive bidding, Sharma said. Cassius Marsh Womens Jersey
Adani Power ‘not cooperating’ with Crisil for rating action
Rating company Crisil Ltd accused the Gautam Adani-led Adani Power Ltd (APL) of not providing it with details of operations while reaffirming its stable outlook and double B minus rating, three notches below investment grade, on Rs 6,559 crore of credit facilities. Crisil said investors shouldn’t take this at face value. The company has total debt of about Rs. 54,000 crore, which includes short and long-term loans. “The investors, lenders and all other market participants should exercise due caution while using the rating assigned/reviewed with the suffix ‘issuer not cooperating’,” Crisil said in a release late Thursday. “These ratings lack a forward-looking component as it is arrived at without any management interaction and is based on best available or limited or dated information on the company.” Repeated attempts to get data from the company did not elicit any response, Crisil said, adding. “The issuer continues to be non-cooperative.” Adani Power, which couldn’t immediately be reached for comment, reported a net loss of Rs 4,960.53 crore in the March quarter against a profit of Rs 1,012.19 crore in the year earlier. The Supreme Court recently turned down a proposal seeking compensatory tariff hikes for higher fuel prices, forcing the company to write off about Rs 3,620 crore in the March quarter. The court’s decision has been taken on board in the rating, Crisil said. “The reaffirmation factors in the order of the Supreme Court in April 2017, disallowing relief in the form of compensatory tariff due to change in Indonesian coal regulations, leading to continued under-recoveries in APL’s revenue,” Crisil said. In the past month, Adani Power’s stock has slumped by more than 17% compared with a 4.5% drop in the BSE Power index. It closed at Rs 26.95 on the BSE Thursday, down 2.5%. With a stable outlook, APL will continue to benefit from the support it receives from the promoter group, the rating company said. Crisil’s mention of non-cooperation has led some market participants to believe it could be the prelude to a downgrade. In the past two weeks, rating companies have issued a string of downgrades, citing weak financials, on Reliance Communications, IDBI Bank and Oriental Bank of Commerce. That has in turn spooked investors, sending their stocks lower amid a bull run. APL’s performance is expected to improve with commencement of the 440MW PPA at Tirora, better coal supplies at Kawai and an uptick in the Udupi’s plant load factor, according to a Edelweiss research report. “However, given the company’s high leverage, revival of cash flows is critical, which is not in sight and a key monitorable,” said the report, recommending a ‘hold’ call on Adani Power shares. Robinson Chirinos Authentic Jersey