Odisha:Ball for Electricity Duty Act tweak starts rolling
The State Government is all set to promulgate an ordinance to amend the Odisha Electricity (Duty) Act, 1961 to bring clarity in certain provisions and revise the duty structure for certain category of consumers. The Energy Department has sent a Cabinet memorandum to the State Government along with a draft of the ordinance for approval. Justifying the need for immediate amendments in the Act, the department said the State Government is incurring huge losses due to the ceiling on electricity duty levied on ad valorem basis (at percentage of energy charges). As per Odisha Electricity Duty (OED) Act, there is a ceiling on electricity duty. As a result, the State Government is losing out on revenue front. “As electricity duty (ED) is now collected on ad valorem basis, the ED for some of the industrial consumers is limited to 40 paise per unit though it comes to around 63 paise per unit,” said the Cabinet memorandum. Stating that the Odisha Electricity Regulatory Commission is amending the power tariff in each financial year which automatically enhances the electricity duty, the memorandum said collection of ED is restricted to 40 paise per unit despite the fact that tax should be higher in view of the enhanced tariff. Besides, the proposed amendment in the OED Act will enable the Energy Department to collect arrear ED which has been estimated to the tune of `2.5 crore. Under the existing Act, there is no provision for levying ED on electricity consumed through open access system by consumers of the State. The tax loss on this account is estimated at `3.33 crore every month. This could be saved after the proposed amendment, sources in the department said. As the existing provisions for recovery of ED through certificate case is very cumbersome, the department proposed a special mode of recovery in line with Section 51 of the Value Added Tax Act, 2004. “It is necessary to take immediate steps for bringing such amendments as the Assembly is not in session,” the memorandum said. Earlier, the State Cabinet had approved the memorandum for amendment of OED Act on September 29, 2015 and March 11, 2016. Accordingly, an amendment Bill was placed in the Assembly during the Budget session. But this could not be passed as the House was prorogued. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has also given his consent to bring this proposal to the Cabinet. Tavon Young Womens Jersey
Defaulter firms may be barred from bidding for power generation and transmission projects
Companies that have defaulted in setting up any government infrastructure project are likely to be barred from bidding for power sector generation and transmission projects, a senior government official said. The proposal has been incorporated in the bid documents for ultra mega power projects (UMPPs) that are likely to be taken up for discussion by the Union Cabinet soon. It is also likely to be replicated in the new bidding format for power transmission projects, the official said. The clause that bars companies from securing more than three UMPPs has been retained. An expert committee formed to review bid rules for power transmission projects has recommended insertion of the debarring clause to the power ministry. “There was no debarring clause in the existing bidding framework and standard bidding documents (SBD) with regard to the parties who have earlier defaulted,” says the recommendations of the committee, uploaded on the power ministry’s website. “The committee was of the view that parties who have earlier defaulted on similar projects must not be allowed to participate in further projects. It was also discussed that such a clause has been proposed in the new UMPP document, which has been developed after detailed deliberation and stakeholder consultations by the expert committee constituted for revision of the SBD for location specific power generation projects.” Of all the mega transmission projects for which tariff-based competitive bidding was held, only two projects could not be implemented. The project developer, Reliance Infrastructure, had claimed that regulatory clearances led to delay in implementing the projects secured in 2009. The debarring clause bars those companies from participating in the auction whose managerial personnel have been charge sheeted or convicted on matters relating to security and integrity of the country. Firms convicted by any court or against whom adverse orders have been passed by any regulatory authority casting doubt on their ability to undertake project are also likely to be restrained from bidding. The prospective bidders will have to submit details of all investigations pending against them and their key managerial people. The power ministry and state-run auctioneer MSTC will soon launch a bidding platform to shift from the present manual auction process to determine the lowest bidder for power transmission projects. Jimmy Garoppolo Womens Jersey
International airport to be set up in Hisar: Hayana Finance Minister
Haryana Finance Minister Capt Abhimanyu on Friday said the state government has decided to establish an international airport in Hisar. This will ensure development of the area alongwith nearby areas and provide employment opportunities to youth. This was stated by the Finance Minister while addressing a public meeting in village Pali in Narnaund Assembly Constituency, said an official release. He said in this year’s budget, a provision of Rs 75 crore has been made for Civil Aviation Department and Rs 50 crore has been allocated especially for development of airport in Hisar. He said a consultant has been appointed to prepare a detailed report. It would soon submit its report. Darcy Tucker Womens Jersey
Himachal’s 1st instrumental landing tech at Kangra airport
Kangra Airport is set to become the first in Himachal Pradesh to have an instrument landing system. Airports Authority of India has approved the installation of devices which will reduce minimum visible runway length for any plane landing at the airport from 5,000 to 2,400 metres. he Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has fixed the minimum visible runway length for any plane landing at Kangra airport at 5,000 metres, due to which many flights could not land during monsoon, as the weather remains misty in this season. The equipment is also expected to reduce the cancellation of flights to the tourist destination considerably. Kangra airport manager Parwinder Tiwari told TOI that the device — Doppler Very High Frequency Omni Range (DVOR) — has been sanctioned for this airport, and the process to install the device has started. “The length of the runway is 1,372 metres, and the width is 30 metres. This airport falls in category II (c). Two types of aircraft — ATR-72 and Q-400 — at present are connecting this airport with the national capital. But earlier, we could allow them to land only if the runway is visible to them from at least 5,000 metres,” said Tiwari. However, the Himachal government had imposed a 5% entry tax on the equipment being brought here for reducing landing visibility criteria. But now, the government has decided to waive the entry tax on the equipment. In the absence of the said system, navigation authorities had made some modifications at the manual end to cope with bad weather. “We used to inform the Delhi sector for flight take-off only when reports were for clear weather and visibility. It has reduced cancellations, but delay in flights was normal during the monsoons,” he said. Sammy Watkins Jersey
Airport’s trump card for security
In a bid to deal with identity-related security breaches, Airport Authority of India is planning to introduce biometric access control and badging systems at the Chennai Airport. The airport director Deepak Shastri told City Express that biometrics system would be introduced by next year. The system would regulate employee access throughout the airport and help keep unathorised people out of restricted areas. The airport is now being manned by Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel, who manually check staff’s identity cards. It is learnt that the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security is planning to do away with these manual checks and provide its personnel with a secure contactless card, which will have a biometric template for multi-factor authentication. This system can use eye pupils or fingerprints for biometric access. The contactless card will be fool-proof and impossible to replicate, thereby putting in place a mechanism to monitor or control movements of personnel and vehicles into the airport. The doors and access points can be accessed only by authorised personnel after they have been identified by the system. The authentication of the cardholder will take place at the backend access control system. All successful or unsuccessful attempts will be recorded in the database server. Erik Karlsson Jersey
Dedicated import cargo storage area coming up at Tiruchi airport
Amid slight improvement in international import freight, a dedicated import cargo storage area is being established at the Tiruchi international airport. Civil works are apace at the new import cargo area that is coming up adjoining the export freight terminal. The need for such a facility was warranted as the existing place has been converted into an exclusive international courier terminal, poised for commissioning soon. Airport sources said that the new import cargo area is being set up at a cost of around Rs. 9 lakh with facilities such as examination area and storage room. Nearly 60 per cent of the works had been completed at the new area. Consequent to the setting up of the new import cargo area, the entry to the operations area at the airport would be shifted. Unlike export cargo which showed a robust growth over the years, international import freight did not show any appreciable rise despite a steady rise in overseas flight operations. Orlando Pace Womens Jersey
Raju to look at improving air connectivity to Surat
Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju today said he plans to convene a meeting with airlines to discuss ways to improve air connectivity to Surat. “Delighted to meet delegations from Surat, a city with a lot of potential. Have asked for a meeting with airlines to improve connectivity,” Raju said in a tweet. In May, Air India decided to run daily services from the national capital to Surat, almost five months after it had curtailed operations to the diamond city due to paucity of aircraft. T.J. Green Authentic Jersey
IndianOil: Fuelling growth
Indian Oil, the country’s largest public sector oil refiner and marketer, had a good 2015-16 fiscal year. The company’s consolidated profit more than doubled year-on-year to ?112.19 billion despite a 21 per cent dip in revenue to about ?3540 billion. The strong profit growth was thanks to a few factors. The fuel pricing reforms — diesel decontrol and direct bank transfer of LPG subsidy — along with the rout of crude oil over the past two years slashed the under-recoveries of the oil marketing companies. Indian Oil’s net subsidy burden in 2015-16 was just ?90 million compared with ?12 billion in 2014-15. Its borrowings continued to reduce and interest cost dipped 13 per cent last year. A favourable refining market environment helped too; the company’s gross refining margin (GRM) — the difference between price of its product basket and the cost of crude oil — rose to $5.06 a barrel in 2015-16 from $0.27 a barrel in 2014-15. The GRM would have been higher, but for the heavy inventory loss booked by the company when crude oil was touching new lows last year. Indian Oil’s inventory loss was higher than that of peers BPCL and HPCL, since many of its refineries are located away from the coast; this entails more transport time and higher levels of stock keeping. Promising outlook The Indian Oil stock, which has rallied sharply over the past two to three years, has lagged its peers. There still seems good upside potential in the stock. At ?468, it trades at about 10 times its trailing 12-month earnings, lower than the average 14 times in the past three years. Also, the company’s prospects look promising, thanks to a favourable pricing environment and recent big ticket expansions expected to pay off in the coming years. Besides, the company’s plans to expand refinery and petrochemicals capacity should improve margins and aid earnings growth. Investors with a long-term perspective can buy the stock. In the near term, the rise in crude oil price since January should mean inventory gains for Indian Oil. This should help offset the recent weakness in the refining margins, which are inherently cyclical. While it is tough to predict crude oil prices, they are expected to be in the range of $45-$60 a barrel, given the global demand-supply dynamics. This is a comfortable level for the oil marketing companies with less risk from inventory loss and under-recoveries. Better volumes Demand for petroleum products in the country is expected to grow at a healthy pace. Over the medium to long term, Indian Oil’s recently commissioned 15 million tons (mt) Paradip refinery is expected to ramp up to full capacity by 2017-18. This high complexity refinery should improve the company’s volumes and profitability. Besides, the company’s plans to expand and upgrade its existing refineries to raise total capacity to over 100 mt by 2022 from about 80 mt currently should help. So should the aggressive investments in petrochemicals over the next few years; the business contributes about a third of the company’s operating profit and provides a hedge against volatile oil prices and refining margins. Besides this, the company is adding to its formidable pipeline network and has 45 per cent stake in the upcoming 5 mtpa gas regasification plant in Ennore, Tamil Nadu. It is also adding to its small presence in the upstream business by making use of low prices to acquire stakes in hydrocarbon assets abroad. With a comfortable financial position (debt-to-equity ratio at 0.7 times), funding is not a constraint. Thomas Chabot Jersey
Oil and ‘Outsiders’: Outrage in Assam Over the BJP’s Decision to Privatise Oil Fields
Back in 1980, Dulal Sarma, a leader of the All Assam Students Union (AASU), slashed open his chest with a blade to write these Assamese words with blood on a road in Guwahati – thus creating one of the most enduring images of the six-year-long students’ agitation Assam saw against “outsiders”. The words, which meant “We shall give our blood, not oil”, became one of the most popular slogans of the agitation which helped fuel a widespread assertion of Jatiotabadi or a sense of strong sub-nationalism in the state. When the leaders raised that slogan in protest marches, masses responded with approval, “We shall spill our blood but shall never part with the oil which we own.” The Numaligarh and Guwahati oil refineries are the products of the sentiments this slogan evoked in the 1980s. Assam’s newly elected chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal also shouted this slogan at the time. It defined the then conspicuous ‘us versus them’ battle line. ‘Them’ meant the central government, widely looked at in the state as a colonial force akin to the British, interested only in plundering its natural resources. Sonowal in those days was a leader of AASU, which spearheaded the agitation against undocumented Bangladeshi immigrants along with the All Assam Jatiotabadi Yuva Satra Parishad (AJYCP). Much has changed since. He is now the face of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the state, a party whose government at the Centre has recently taken the decision to auction 12 of Assam’s oil fields to private players – in other words, to “outsiders”. Over the years, Sonowal may have shifted his base from AASU to the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) and then to the BJP, but it turns out that the traces of the strong sub-nationalism seen in the 1980s around tel (oil) has remained intact. Indications of this have appeared repeatedly in the last two weeks – in local newspaper headlines, heated debates on Guwahati-based TV channels, protests by students’ organisations like AASU, AJYCP and the Tai Ahom Yuva Parishad (TAYP) and various trade unions, and also in conversations on social media and elsewhere. Since Union petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan said at a press meet in Guwahati on June 25 that 12 small oil fields of the state are among the 67 fields across the country which the Centre would let open for international bidders on July 15, all the political parties, including coalition partners of the Sonowal government – the Bodo People’s Front (BPF) and the AGP – have been raising questions. Those opposed to the move are accusing the government of “selling the state’s resources to outsiders” in the name of bringing poriborton (change), a term the BJP and its coalition partners extensively used to defeat the 15-year-old Congress government in the April assembly elections. Firebrand RTI activist and farmers’ leader Akhil Gogoi was the first to protest the move. On June 25, the general secretary of Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS), with more than 400 supporters in tow, flashed banners and raised slogans outside a five-star hotel in Guwahati where Pradhan was meeting 200 potential private bidders. One of the banners said, “Tez dim, tel nidiu”. The same day, in the upper Assam town of Duliajan, which has the headquarters of the public sector unit Oil India Limited (OIL), AASU members burnt effigies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Pradhan and Sonowal, demanding the Centre roll back its decision. It also called for a 12-hour Assam bandh. On July 13, it plans a protest march in Nazira, an oil-rich district of the state. TAYP also called for a bandh on July 3. From July 4 to 8, the AJYCP joined the agitation with a series of protests across the state including yet another Assam bandh and blocking the National Highway 31 and train services. It threatened to intensify its agitation if the Centre didn’t withdraw its decision. The petroleum minister said, “These 12 oilfields, which have a resource potential worth Rs 170 billion, would not only help roll about Rs 40 billion in Assam’s economy, but will also create jobs and add to the state’s revenue from oil royalty”. Not only that, the Centre also has the plan to turn “Assam into the oil hub of southeast Asia“. The Centre, the minister said, in its Hydrocrabon Vision 2030 for the northeast, has envisaged investing Rs 1300 billion in the petroleum sector in the region in the next 14 years, of which Rs 800 billion will be invested in Assam alone. “In the current financial year, we are investing about Rs 60 billion in Assam,” he said. The numbers quoted are impressive. So is the hope for job opportunities for local youth and a potential jump in the state’s earnings from oil royalty, both crucial for the betterment of the state. Yet, not too many seem to accept Pradhan’s argument. “This is nothing but an attempt to sell our natural resources to multinationals,” Akhil Gogoi told local media. He said, “The BJP had promised to protect jati, mati, bheti (ethnicity, land and resources) of the people of Assam in its campaign for the assembly elections based on which people voted for it. But within just one month of coming to power in the state, it has put up 12 oilfields for sale to private companies.” In a letter addressed to the prime minister, KMSS said, “Assam’s petroleum resources have served little the interests of the region earlier and this must change. Earnings from these resources must be carefully invested in Assam to allow her to prosper economically. The decision to allow Foreign Direct Investment and thus handing over these oilfields to the private economic concerns will further ensure that Assam will again be deprived of her rightful claim to petroleum.” It is a sentiment shared by many in the state. Speaking to The Wire, AASU president Dipanka Kumar Nath said, “Privatisation of oil fields would take away the people’s right over the state’s resources. In Gujarat, the Centre handed over the oil
Russia offers Indian firms stake in Yamal LNG project
Russia has offered Indian oil companies a stake in the second phase of Yamal LNG, the biggest project to produce liquefied natural gas in the Arctic. The offer of stake in JSC Yamal LNG was made when Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan visited St. Petersburg last month, sources privy to the development said. Petronet LNG, India’s biggest natural gas importer, is studying the offer, they said adding other state-owned firms like Indian Oil Corp (IOC) may join in later. Novatek OJSC, Russia’s second-biggest natural gas producer, had in 2013 offered a 9 per cent stake in the USD 27 billion Phase-I of Yamal LNG project to a consortium of Petronet, IOC and ONGC Videsh Ltd. But later, OVL, the overseas arm of state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC), did not find the offer attractive and the Indian consortium backed off. Novatek stitched a consortium with CNPC of China (20 per cent), Total of France (20 per cent) and China’s Silk Road Fund (9.9 per cent). The Russian firm holds 50.1 per cent stake in the project that comprises development of the South-Tambeyskoye field with proven deposits of 1.3 trillion cubic meters of natural gas and the construction of natural gas liquefaction plant (LNG) for producing 16.5 million tons of LNG a year by 2017. Now the company is planning a second phase and is offering a stake to Indian firms, sources said. Sources said OVL was previously interested in getting into the upstream part of the project, i.e gas field development. Petronet was keen to offtake LNG. OVL, they said, may envisage interest if the stake is accompanied by some say in upstream part. OVL-IOC-Petronet were originally interested in taking up to 15 per cent stake in Yamal project, which also requires construction of an airport and port on the Arctic Ocean. But a smaller 9 per cent stake was offered to them after Novatek in September 2013 sold a 20 per cent stake in the project to CNPC. Total SA had in March 2011 bought 12 per cent stake in the project for about USD 4 billion. Since then, it has raised the stake to 20 per cent. Sources said Petronet, which operates two LNG import facilities in Gujarat and Kerala, has been offered the stake in the phase-II as it offers a ready buyer of gas. In Petronet, Russia seeks a buyer who can take at least 5 million tons a year of LNG from the Arctic project. Cody Ceci Womens Jersey