UAE, India share thriving aviation market in region
The UAE and India share a thriving aviation sector with carriers from both sides consistently recording significant annual upswing in passenger traffic on the back of a vibrant travel demand from the 2.8 million NRIs in the Emirates apart from fast growing two-way tourist traffic. The latest data released by Dubai International Airport, or DXB, the world’s busiest airport for international passengers, exemplify the fast growing air connectivity between the two countries. DXB, which is targetting a traffic of 89 million in 2017, announced on Tuesday that it recorded capacity increases and witnessed the launch of new services by Spice Jet, Jet Airways, Air India and other carriers in 2016 as India continued to lead as Dubai’s single largest destination country. Both countries’ aviation sectors are expected to get a further fillip following the second visit to the New Delhi by His Highness Shaikh Mohammed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, to India aimed at elevating all-round bilateral ties to a new level. The UAE and India had signed several aviation accords, including various seat quota agreements inked by New Delhi with Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah and Ras Al Khaimah over the years to keep with the continuous surge in traffic demand. Vince Williams Womens Jersey
Russia and India Negotiating Su-30 Combat Jet Support Deal
Russia and India are close to signing a long-term support agreement for the fleet of Sukhoi Su-30MKI combat aircraft operated by the Indian Air Force (IAF). It includes an improved schedule for the delivery of spares from Russia, local manufacturing of some spares and the creation of logistics hub for the aircraft at the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) production facility in Bangalore. India has contracted for the delivery of more than 300 of these aircraft. The Su-30MKI is a specialized variant of the Su-30MK-model series and was developed and built at the Irkut factory in Russia. It features several modifications that differentiate it from the original Su-30 design. These include a set of canard foreplanes and a thrust vector control (TVC) module coupled to the aircraft’s fly-by-wire flight control system; the N011M passive electronically scanning array (PESA) radar set produced by the NIIP design bureau in Moscow; and a mix of Israeli, French and Indian-produced avionics. It is this unique configuration of this aircraft, which is different from the other Su-30MK variants sold for export, that complicates the logistics chain for this aircraft, say Russian aerospace specialists familiar with the program. Indian officials had previously expressed dissatisfaction with the declining availability rates for the Su-30MKI, but have seen improvements in those numbers recently. “Sukhoi availability, which had slipped to 46 percent, is today above 63 percent,” said the Indian defense minister, Manohar Parrikar, in a statement to Indian news outlets. “Our status with Russia is much better than two years back. We have signed many of the support contracts this year. Very few are left. We are working on long-term arrangements, including manufacturing some of the [Su-30MKI] spares in India. Earlier, there were some problems due to the need to change their [Russian] laws.” Mel Blount Authentic Jersey
AERA allows new airports to adopt hybrid model for tariffs
Regulator AERA has allowed upcoming airports to follow a hybrid model for determining tariffs that may lead to fliers shelling out more as airlines may pass on the additional burden to them. Under the ‘Hybrid Till’ model only up to 30 per cent of the non-aeronautical revenues, which include segments like retail, food & beverages and parking, would be used for cross-subsidisation of aeronautical charges. Aeronautical charges include those related to route and terminal navigation services. Currently, most of the airports follow ‘Single Till’ model whereby non-aeronautical revenues are completely used to cross subsidise aeronautical charges. With the new model, only up to 30 per cent of the non- aeronautical revenues would be used for cross subsidisation. Such a tariff mechanism could push the expenses higher for fliers as airport operators might hike the user development charges. The new national civil aviation policy, unveiled in June last year, had recommended ‘Hybrid Till’ model. In a six-page order, dated January 23, AERA (Airports Economic Regulatory Authority) said that in the future tariffs at major airports would be determined under “Hybrid Till wherein 30 per cent of non-aeronautical revenues will be used to cross-subsidise aeronautical charges”. A.J. Derby Womens Jersey
Navi Mumbai airport bids extended yet again to Feb 13
The dogged Navi Mumbai airport plan further delayed with the implementing agency Cidco for the second time today extending the deadline for submitting bids to February 13 as it received only one bid from the GVK-led Mumbai International Airport. The second extension comes after the authority deferred the deadline for receiving bids for RFQ (request for qualification) for two weeks on January 9. “Today we received only a single bid from GVK (which anyway has the first right of refusal being the operator of the Mumbai airport). Therefore, we have given a further extension to all the three bidders to submit their bids till February 13. This is the last extension,” a Cidco official told PTI. The airport project has been in the work for over a decade but has not moved ahead even now. The main hurdles being the land acquisition, which has been completed only half needed for the crucial aeronautical activities. The City and Industrial Development Corporation (Cidco), which is the nodal agency for the over Rs 16,000- crore international airport project, had short-listed four consortia — GMR, GVK, Hiranandani groups and Tata Reality. Devin Harris Womens Jersey
Indian Civil Aviation Driven By Low Cost Domestic Market
Domestic and international Indian air traffic has increased and would have been higher if fuel prices had been lower, a top industry consultant said. Kapil Kaul, CEO – India and Middle East for consultancy firm Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA) said domestic air traffic grew faster than international. For the first time in years, Indian carriers saw modest profit of $122 million, mostly owing to low fuel prices. “The impact of fuel price on profitability is estimated at about 12 per cent,” Kaul said at the NewsX – Sunday Guardian Defence and Aerospace Summit in New Delhi on Wednesday. “Amongst the top 20 LCCs (low-cost carriers) in the world, IndiGo was the fastest growing over the last 12 months with seat capacity up almost 28 per cent year on year,” he said. IndiGo is leading CAGR among the local LCCs. From FY 2002 – FY 2017 this rate was 48.2 per cent. “This is something to be proud of as Indians,” Kaul said. Jet Airways was the only airline to see lower costs, all others saw an increase. Last 10 year’s traffic growth has been more than the growth achieved in last 50 years. Isaiah Oliver Authentic Jersey
Narendra Modi’s electricity push fails to light rural India
Screams alerted Dadasaheb Vidhate to the fire trapping three of his children in the family’s thatched-roof hut in rural India. “Neighbours rushed to help douse the fire, but we couldn’t save anyone,” Vidhate, 45, said of the blaze four years ago, which he blames on an overturned kerosene lamp. “My children were burned alive before my eyes.” With no electricity, the one-room mud shelter on a farm 240 kilometers (150 miles) east of Mumbai had only the lamp for light — common in India, where power remains unaffordable, inadequate or simply non-existent for 240 million people. If their hut had been connected to the power grid, Vidhate believes it may never have caught fire, killing Aakash, 15, Manisha, 13, and 11-year-old Vikas, he said. When Prime Minister Narendra Modi pledged to bring reliable power to all citizens during the campaign that propelled him into office in 2014, the same year the World Bank pegged India as home to the world’s largest un-electrified population. While his government has made progress meeting its 2019 deadline, many families are still missing out, holding back some of India’s poorest, most-vulnerable citizens and preventing the country from achieving its development ambitions. In the year after Modi’s election, an audit identified 18,452 villages without electricity. Since then, that number has fallen by a third, leaving only 1 percent of the country’s total villages to be electrified, the data show. But a closer look at what constitutes “electrified” reveals how much further India has to go. About 250 kilometers east of New Delhi in the village of Fateh Nagla in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most-populated state and one of its poorest, the dairy shop runs on a combination of solar power and a led battery, while its three flour mills use diesel generators. In the afternoons, men wait their turn to charge their mobile phones off a wire rigged up to an electric water pump, according to village head Susheel Kumar. Though only 15 of its roughly 170 homes are connected to the power grid, the government lists Fateh Nagla as electrified, Kumar said. That’s because the village barely meets the central government’s definition: the basic infrastructure is in place; power is being supplied to schools, health centers and other public places; and at least 10 per cent of households are receiving electricity. In winter, when the sun sets at around 5:30 p.m., only a few solar-powered lights or kerosene lamps break the darkness. And even homes with a power connection are bereft of light as it switches on only after 10 p.m. and back off early in the morning, according to Kumar. That makes it difficult for children to do their homework, stunting education in a village where about 90 percent drop out of school by eighth grade, he said. Throughout Uttar Pradesh and neighboring Bihar — with combined populations approaching the size of the U.S.—fewer than half of rural households have power connections, according to data from the central government. But, by its definition of electrified, the same data as of Monday showed only 13 villages in Uttar Pradesh and 598 in Bihar lacked power. “The government’s definition of an electrified village doesn’t make sense,” said Aruna Kumarakandath, who leads renewable energy research at New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment, a non-profit public advocacy organization. “How can we say a village is electrified if 90 percent of homes don’t get power?” The power ministry’s top bureaucrat, Pradeep Kumar Pujari, sees building infrastructure to power villages as just the first step toward full electrification. “By creating the infrastructure, we are creating demand from rural households,” Pujari, the secretary of the ministry, said this week. “There are challenges involved in this and this will not happen overnight. But it will happen slowly.” Modi’s political fortunes ride on reaching his “power for all” goal, said Sandeep Shastri, a political scientist and pro-vice chancellor at Jain University in Bengaluru. “It addresses the under-privileged sections of society and defies accusations that his government works only for the rich,” Shastri said. “The success of the program can have a big, positive impact on Modi’s political fortunes, while a failure can boomerang badly and bolster allegations that this government’s promises are more of rhetoric and less of action.” Power shortages cost India the equivalent of about 7 per cent of gross domestic product, the World Bank said in 2010, when the country witnessed supply deficits of almost 15 per cent. The government said the gap narrowed to less than 1 per cent as of November, although that deficit only measures supplies to customers already connected to the grid. The power problems in India, which in 2012 suffered one of the worst blackouts in history and still has some 50 million rural households without electricity, are hardly about building more power plants or access to fuel. The country uses only half its generation capacity and its state-run coal miner is the world’s largest. Power plants, as well as installing poles and wires for distribution, is only a small part of the challenge ensuring reliable supply to poor households, said Ashwini Chitnis, a senior research associate at Prayas, a non-profit advocacy group that focuses on energy, health and education. “While efforts toward putting in place infrastructure for electrification are absolutely necessary, they are not sufficient,” Chitnis said. Some state-run power retailers consider supplying rural homes as an unattractive business proposition because of thin usage and below-cost tariffs, according to Dinesh Arora, chief executive officer at REC Power Distribution Co., a unit of state-run Rural Electrification Corp., which oversees the village electrification efforts. Power distributed to farmers and households under the poverty line is sold at below-market rates, the subsidies for which state governments are slow to repay. In addition, electricity retailers lose about one-quarter of the electricity they have for sale through technical and commercial losses—the industry term for power theft. A federal government-led program aims to lower that to an average of 15 percent by 2019 with technology that tracks theft and
Nawaz Sharif, World Bank CEO discuss Indus Waters, India’s power plants
World Bank Chief Executive Officer Kristalina Georgieva called on Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in Islamabad on Thursday to discuss implementation of the Indus Waters Treaty and the dispute between Pakistan and India over the construction of two hydropower projects by New Delhi. India is constructing two hydropower projects on the Chenab river. Pakistan has objected to the construction of the 850 MW Ratle and 330 MW Kishanganga hydropower schemes, saying that both projects would have adverse impact on the flow of the Chenab and Neelum rivers. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif expressed hope that the World Bank would take the lead in dispute resolution through the Court of Arbitration, a statement issued by the Prime Minister’s House said. Both countries initiated separate processes in the World Bank under the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), with India requesting the organisation for appointment of a “Neutral Expert”, and Pakistan calling for the appointment of the chairman of the Court of Arbitration. The World Bank had, in December, announced a pause in arbitration between Islamabad and New Delhi on the two dams being constructed by India, calling on both countries “to consider alternative ways to resolve their disagreements”. Georgieva in a video statement shared by the Prime Minister’s Office said she was “very impressed by the positive change that has happened” in Pakistan since her last visit to the country in 2011. She was pleased with the visible improvement in Pakistan’s infrastructure. “The benefits of development are directed to those who need it the most,” she added. The WB’s investment — which can go up to $1.5 billion a year — has contributed to the economic prosperity and development of the country, Georgieva said. Matthew Stafford Authentic Jersey
Power generator NTPC Ltd raises 500 million euros via overseas bonds sale
NTPC, India’s biggest power producer, has raised 500 million euros through overseas bonds sale that perhaps may be the first longest tenor eurodenominated issuance by an Indian company. NTPC got bids for $2.4 billion, or nearly five times the targeted size, through euro-denominated bonds sale with 10-year maturity, the longest in the currency. Securities have been priced at 200 basis points over Euro Treasury. “The 10-year bond has been issued at a coupon of 2.75% with a yield of 2.814%,“ the company said in a statement. The proceeds of the bonds issue would be used for capex. This is the first ever 10-year Euro denominated bond ssuance by an Asian utility issuer and also the first ever 10-year EUR transaction by an Indian Issuer. NTPC said the issue saw participation from more than 125 investors from across the globe. This, it said, is the first “10-year EURO bond for BBBIssuer from Asia-ex Japan“ and the “longest tenor achieved by a BBBIssuer from Emerging Markets since 2005.“ Also, it is the first 10-year EURO bond by an Indian issuer, the statement said. Earl Thomas III Womens Jersey
1.28 million Renewable Energy Certificates traded in January, says IEX
Power exchange IEX today said that a total of 12.88 lakh renewable energy certificates (RECs) were traded in January. “A total of 12.88 lakh RECs were traded in the REC trading session held on January 25, 2017 at IEX,” it said in a statement. Power distribution companies as well as open access and captive consumers are under obligation to buy RECs from renewable energy producers under RPO mandated by central/state regulatory commissions. RECs are aimed at providing an easier avenue for various entities, including power distribution companies, to meet their green energy obligations. Two power exchanges — Indian Energy Exchange (IEX) and Power Exchange India Limited (PXIL), approved by the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission — hold auction of RECs on the last Wednesday of every month. “With trade of 12.48 lakh RECs, the market has set an all-time high record predominantly on purchase by discoms followed by Open Access Consumers and Captive Consumers,” the statement said. Since the beginning of this fiscal (April-January), IEX has traded about 31 lakh RECs. REC volume trade saw an increase of over 412 per cent over 2.51 lakh RECs traded in the previous month of the same fiscal. A total of 1,399 participants traded at IEX with 870 participants in non-solar segment and 529 participants in the solar segment. Overall, a total of 3,418 participants are registered in the REC segment at IEX. Of this, 864 are Eligible Entities (RE Generators) 2,535 are Obligated Entities (discoms, Open Access Consumers & Captive Generators) and 19 are registered as Voluntary Entities. IEX is country’s premier power trading platform. George Hill Authentic Jersey
Madhya Pradesh woos global investors with mega solar project
The world’s largest solar power plant, coming up in Madhya Pradesh, has caught the interest of clean energy companies from around the world. Twenty leading firms, including Italy’s Enel Green Power SpA, SoftBank-promoted SBG Cleantech Ltd, Canadian Solar Energy Holding, Singapore3 Pte Ltd and Green Infra Wind Power Project Ltd, promoted by Sembcorp Industries Ltd, have expressed interest. “The 20 firms will bid for three units of 250 megawatts (MW) each that make up the project in the second round of auctions to be held in about 10 days,” said a person with direct knowledge of the development, speaking on condition of anonymity. The first round of auctions was held earlier this month. The 750MW plant is being set up in Rewa district by Rewa Ultra Mega Power Ltd, a joint venture between Solar Energy Corporation of India Ltd and Madhya Pradesh Urja Vikas Nigam Ltd. In the second round, companies will compete on the tariff at which they can sell power. Shapoorji Pallonji Infrastructure Capital Co. Ltd, Torrent Power Ltd, Hero Future Energies Pvt. Ltd, ReNew Power Ventures Pvt. Ltd, Azure Power Global Ltd, Aditya Birla Renewables Ltd, Mahindra Renewables Pvt. Ltd and Orange Renewable Power Ltd are among the bidders. A spokesperson for Sembcorp India said renewable power projects in India that are large scale and offer adequate coverage of payment and development risks will be attractive for long-term investors. “India is one of Sembcorp’s key markets and an integral part of the company’s emerging market strategy. We are constantly on a lookout for suitable opportunities in the country. However as a policy, we do not comment on any specific opportunities,” the spokesperson said in response to an emailed query. India has over 8.5 gigawatts (GW) of solar power capacity and is targeting 100GW by 2022. Of this, 40GW will come from rooftop solar projects. With the renewable-power purchase obligations of power distribution utilities, falling prices of imported solar panels from China and concessional taxation on solar panels, the industry has been growing rapidly, resulting in falling tariffs and a boost for electrical equipment manufacturing and services. According to a report issued this month by clean energy research firm Mercom Capital Group, renewable energy project development has changed significantly over the last quarter largely due to Chinese module price declines. “The average selling prices of Chinese modules in India have declined about 10% since August and by about 30% over the last 12 months. This has provided a much-needed boost to developers which won projects at low bids and were struggling to make project economics work,” said the report. According to Ashish Khanna, executive director and chief executive of Tata Power Solar Systems Ltd, a stronger focus on solar panel and equipment manufacturing, better access to finance and streamlined import duties on panels and system components will go a long way in reaching the 100GW target. Tyler Higbee Authentic Jersey