FSSAI wants action against unlicensed water packaging units
Food regulator FSSAI has asked state authorities to crack down on mineral water packaging units that are operating without its licence. As many as 75 per cent of the packaging units, owned by various firms, including Pepsico and Bisleri, are said to be operating without an FSSAI licence. These units are operating under a BIS certification. The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), however, feels there is no safety or quality concern over the bottled water supplied by these units. Out of total 5,842 registered water packaging units, 1,495 units have both BIS and FSSAI licences, while 4,347 units have only BIS certification. “FSSAI regulations require mandatory BIS certification on packaged water. However there is a need for such businesses to obtain FSSAI certification. For which we have already written to the state food commissioners,” FSSAI CEO Pawan Agarwal said. When asked about the quality of the bottled water which are sold without FSSAI licence, he said: “BIS has robust system of ensuring quality of packaged water. There is no issue of safety of packaged water at all, if the packaged water businesses have obtained BIS certification.” Most of the companies have no issues in obtaining FSSAI licence as per the feedback received by the regulator, he added. Stating that many of the bottlers are not abiding by the law, Agarwal said: “Out of close to 6,000 registered packaged water units in the country, more than 4,300 don’t have FSSAI licence, which also include some reputed names, where some of their units may not have food regulator’s approval.” According to the regulator data, the units which do not have FSSAI licence include units of Hindustan Coca-cola, Pepsico and Bisleri, among others. Pepsico sells its packaged water under the brand name Aquafina, Coca-cola sells under the name Kinley, while Bisleri sells under its own name. When contacted, Pepsico India and Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages said that they manufacture packaged drinking water under valid licences. Andrew Hammond Authentic Jersey
‘Direct selling market in Delhi to reach Rs 15-20 billion by 2025’
The market size of the direct selling industry in the national capital could reach Rs 15-20 billion by 2025 on account of increasing income of middle class households, a report said today. The FICCI-KPMG India report said that the direct selling industry in India is currently reckoned at Rs 75 billion, recording double digit growth of more than 16 per cent over the past four years. It has attracted a large number of Indian and foreign direct selling companies, it said. “This industry has the potential to reach a size of Rs 15-20 billion by 2025, driven by the swelling share of middle income households, growth in consumer markets and an increase in the penetration of direct selling to globally comparable levels,” it said. The report titled ‘Direct Selling: Delhi – A Global Industry, Empowering Millions’ also suggested that realising this potential is contingent on creating an enabling environment for the industry and mitigating some of the regulatory challenges of the sector. Quoting S Chandralekha Malviya, Principal Advisor, Ministry for Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution, it said the ministry has prepared the guidelines for the industry and it is in the final stage of approval and will be released “very soon”. The report further said that the national capital has witnessed a continuous growth in the number of direct sellers in 2013-14 and over 2.5-3 lakh direct sellers were estimated to be engaged with the industry. It has been observed that with the rising costs of living, the direct selling business is gaining popularity among men too who are looking at it as a supplementary earning opportunity, it added. The sector will provide self-employment opportunities to 4-5 lakh people by 2025, it said. Further, it said considering market potential and future growth of the industry, the contribution to the government revenue in the form of indirect taxes is expected to be at Rs 1,500-2,000 million by 2025. Mentioning about the challenges, it said there is no systematic and standard policy on direct selling and lack of definition and separate provisions for the industry too adversely affects the industry. “To provide a conducive and sustainable operating environment, a series of reforms are required such as framing state-level rules and standard operating procedures for law enforcement agencies to long term measures including enacting a specific governing legislation for the sector,” it added. Chad Williams Jersey
Delhi-NCR is the most funded city in 2016
Delhi NCR has emerged as the most funded city in 2016, according to a report by startup analyses firm Tracxn. In the first six months of 2016, Indian startups raised a total of $1.8 billion, out of which Delhi NCR received $917 million. This was helped by the massive $250 million and $200 million funding rounds raised in February by Gurgaon-based Ibibo Group and Delhi-based Snapdeal respectively. Bengaluru was the second most funded with $489 million, followed by Mumbai with $296 million. Pune and Hyderabad took the fourth and fifth spots, with $59 million and $4.6 million respectively. The country’s capital also led in the number of deals, with 155. The average ticket size was $5.8 million. This mirrors last year’s results for the same period, when Delhi NCR had been the most funded city, having raised $1.1 billion with an average ticket size of $10 million. Bengaluru and Mumbai had followed with total funding of $951 million and $490 million respectively. The funding amount has significantly reduced this year. The total funding raised in the first six months of 2015 by startups in the top five cities was $2.68 billion, a billion more than this year’s figure. Out of the top 10 funding rounds this year, six were raised by e-commerce companies, four of which were based out of Bengaluru. “Delhi-NCR has a disproportionate number of e-commerce startups. E-commerce is a mature sector and most of these companies were raising later stage funding rounds,” said Tracxn co-founder Neha Singh. “The other cities have more technology-centric startups.” However, the number of funding deals saw an increase to 402, from last year’s figure of 324. This signifies that the space is seeing a correction in the investment size and not in the general attractiveness of Indian startups. Nitin Sharma, Principal at venture fund Lightbox Ventures, said that this was a good sign for the ecosystem since the angel, seed, pre-series A round funding flow is still healthy. “A correction was bound to happen since the funding had expanded almost eight to nine times between 2013 and 2015, faster than what the ecosystem could absorb efficiently and sustainably. It’s a good time to invest. Valuations aside, startups being built right now are more lean and mean, and hopefully more product/UX (user experience) focused than discount-dependent. Of course, the near-term challenge has to do with later-stage rounds,” he said. In June, Lightbox Ventures had participated in a $30 million funding round for Gurgaon-based used car marketplace Droom. The study finds that Ahmedabad, Chennai, and Jaipur are emerging as new startup hubs. The three cities raised $34 million and accounted for 30 deals this year. Jordan Evans Jersey
Amazon’s cloud business plans pop-up loft in Bengaluru for growth lift-off
Amazon.com Inc’s cloud business, Amazon Web Services, plans to set up one of its ‘pop-up lofts’ in Bengaluru as it looks to accelerate growth in India, a top company executive said. The lofts, which offer everything from open workspaces to consulting to networking services, are essentially hubs for entrepreneurs. “We are looking closely at Bengaluru to set up a loft. Obviously because of the startups, it is one of the places we are looking at very hard,” Andy Jassy, chief executive officer at Amazon Web Services, told ET. Some of the lofts are temporary like those in London and Tel Aviv but the ones in New York and San Francisco are permanent. Jassy, who was appointed CEO of infrastructure-as-a-service business in April, said 89 of the top 100 startups in India were already on AWS. Public cloud providers like Google and Microsoft Azure have been aggressively wooing startups with credits to use their platforms. The infrastructure-as-a-service division of Amazon.com was started 10 years ago. It is now on track to being a $10 billion annual business this year and has an operating margin of over 24%. On Tuesday, the company launched an AWS cloud region in Mumbai by opening data centres, allowing it to target Indian companies that are required to hold their data in the country. “In our conversations with our customers, it was clear that they wanted a region in the country either for reasons of lower latency or for data sovereignty. We think having a region in the country will significantly accelerate our growth,” Jassy said. An AWS region can have multiple data centres, or what the company calls availability zones. The Mumbai data centres will likely boost the amount of work AWS can do with banking and the healthcare sectors. Jassy said the company would also look to work with the government on its ‘Digital India’ initiatives. In addition to startups, the company counts large corporates such as Tata Motors and Axis Bank among those that use its cloud platform. In total, 75,000 out of AWS’ 1million active customers are in India, Jassy added. AWS, which is the dominant player in the public cloud market, is just the latest company to set up data centres in the country. Microsoft has already set up data centres that will be used by its Azure public cloud market, so has IBM for its Softlayer public cloud offering. Google does not yet have data centres in the country. “The opening of AWS’ data centre will make it harder for Microsoft and IBM. They already had a good base and even some financial services clients without a data centre here, they will become more competitive,” a technology analyst present at the Mumbai launch event told ET. After AWS announced the launch, Microsoft issued a press release saying it was “accelerating the adoption of public cloud in India” with the three data centres that it opened last year. Since its inception, AWS has also drastically cut the cost of its own offering. The company has lowered prices 51 times in the last 10 years and often tells customers how they could cut their spending on its services. “We have saved two million customers about $350 million that would have been spent on AWS. Which technology company do you know that would do that and hurt their revenue? I don’t think there are any,” Jassy said. AWS was an innovator rather than an acquirer, he said. “Technology companies have lost their will to innovate. They tend to acquire new technologies by buying other companies. Amazon has always been pioneering and we are focused on the long term,” Jassy said. Sean Lee Womens Jersey
Air India to fly unconfirmed first AC passengers of Rajdhani
State-run Air India will now flyun confirmed passengers of Rajdhani trains at the fares matching with the AC first class ticket prices under a special scheme for a limited period. Rajdhani Express passengers who remain wait-listed can now book the tickets four hours prior to the flight departure at a fare which is equivalent to the ticket price IA class of these trains, Air India said on June 28. Under the ‘Super Saver’ scheme, Air India offers an all-inclusive economy class one way fare on its select domestic routes, starting June 26 till September 30, it said. Currently 21 Rajdhani Express trains run across the Indian Railways network and close to 20,000 passengers travel in these train everyday. As on date, 1A Rajdhani fares for Mumbai and Chennai stood at Rs 4,755 and Rs 6,335, respectively. Similarly, the first AC fares for these trains to Kolkata and Guwahati were Rs 4,815 and Rs 5,990, respectively. Calvin Ridley Authentic Jersey
Many airports without passengers: will the new aviation policy make a difference?
The recently unveiled National Civil Aviation policy aims to transform the aviation map of India by reviving numerous airports and airstrips that are either not operational or witness little activity. Boosting regional air connectivity is a highlight of the policy – a task that may prove challenging given the present domestic passenger traffic trends at our airports. The country is dotted with as many as 450 airports and airstrips but only 75 have scheduled operations, the policy document says. A number of these belong to Defence establishments while some others belong to State governments or private entities. Many of these airports or airstrips are not operational or have fallen into disuse. They also include newly constructed airports that have not taken off, for various reasons. The large Metro airports account for the bulk of the domestic traffic. The data released by the Airports Authority of India (AAI) for April 2016, relating to 82 airports (international and domestic airports, apart from ones owned by state governments and private parties), reveals that nearly 65 per cent of the domestic passenger traffic totalling nearly 1.6 crores was handled by just six airports – Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata and Hyderabad. And just 26 airports had recorded traffic exceeding one lakh domestic passengers that month. And between them, these airports accounted for over 90 per cent of the total domestic traffic handled. Some of these airports have also witnessed a dramatic growth in passenger traffic year over year – over 50 per cent in the case of Varanasi, Mangalore and Visakhapatnam. Six other airports have recorded a growth of 25 to 50 per cent. The majority of the remaining airports have handled less than 50,000 domestic passengers. Some of the small airports have recorded a big surge in traffic but the total number of passengers they have handed are relatively small. Among the airports which have accounted for more than 50,000 domestic passengers, Udaipur, Dehradun and Madurai have seen a growth of more than 50 per cent, while Imphal and Vadodara have recorded a surge of 25 to 50 per cent. The Regional Connectivity Scheme, to be implemented from the second quarter of 2016-17, aims to revive the fortunes of un-served or under-served airports and routes. The government offered several incentives to promote these underserved locations. Kevin Labanc Jersey
Will heads roll at Air India after Venkaiah Naidu’s public berating?
Sarkari airline Air India had yet another flight delay this afternoon. Only this time, an important Union Minister was among the passengers and chose to fume about his experience on social media. Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu lashed out at Air India after his Delhi-Hyderabad flight got delayed, saying he missed an “important” meeting because of the delay. Delays are part and parcel of flying, should the minister have made such a big deal about it? It turns out that in a peer-to-peer comparison, Air India is decidedly the least reliable in terms of on-time performance. Whether it be domestic flights or international ones. Air India tweeted its apology to the minister while clarifying that the commander of the said aircraft was held up in a traffic jam. Commanders are required to report at least an hour before the flight so this seems to be a curious case of indiscipline. Will some heads roll now, after the public rebuke by a Union minister and an equally public assertion by the Minister of Civil Aviation A Gajapathi Raju and his deputy that a thorough inquiry would be conducted into this instance of delay? Any strict action seems unlikely against errant Air India staff, as previous such promises of inquiries show. Which would be a pity, since this instance could serve as an opportunity for concerned officials to pull up their socks. De’Vondre Campbell Authentic Jersey
Rickety Juhu hangar will be 30 air traffic controllers’ new home
In an inhuman move, the Central government-run Airports Authority of India (AAI) has asked 30 air traffic controllers to vacate their staff quarters in Juhu and Vile Parle to make way for new transfers and move to a run-down aircraft hangar in the Juhu airport. It’s not a temporary arrangement. The abandoned, dilapidated ‘Shobha Singh’ hangar will be the new residential address of about 40 AAI officials, including 30 air traffic controllers. Inside the hangar, covering about 4,000 sq ft area, the AAI has rigged up two rows of twin-sharing plastic cubicles, each about 100 sq ft, said a source. Each cubicle has two cots and an overhead fan. What is worse, every monsoon, the Juhu airport gets inundated and so does Shobha Singh hangar. “It’s worse than a prison cell. It’s shocking and demoralising,” said an airport source. “The hangar is not conducive for human habitation. It is located barely 10m from Indamer hangar and so there is a constant deafening noise as engine run-ups of helicopters are carried out even at night. It’s not possible to get decent sleep there.” This move is likely to also affect air safety as controllers carry out the critical job of giving navigational instructions to the pilots to ensure smooth and safe flow of aircraft. “This move will surely affect air traffic control job functions. There is already an acute shortage of staff and this will add to the stress,” the official added. “It’s no place to send an official whose job demands split-second decisions that impact air safety.” Randy White Womens Jersey
Mukesh Ambani’s pvt firms hit slow lane
Net worth of Reliance Gas erodes by Rs 19 billion; port, power companies report lower profits. Mukesh Ambani’s private companies, operating in the gas transport, power and port sectors, moved into the slow lane in financial year 2015-16 (FY16). This was mainly because of a slowdown in gas production in the Krishna Godavari (KG) basin, and increased provisions for redemption of preference shares and debentures. According to statistics submitted to stock exchanges, Reliance Gas Transportation Infrastructure (RGTIL) reported a loss of Rs 5.38 billion in FY16 compared to a loss of Rs 4.36 billion a year ago. The company had received a loan restructuring package from banks under the 5/25 scheme last year for its debt worth Rs 160 billion. Under the scheme, banks are allowed to extend the repayment schedule of loans to 25 years with an option to refinance them at the end of five years. Falling gas production from the KG basin eroded the company’s net worth by Rs 18.91 billion. It earned five per cent less revenue in the FY16 at Rs 12.95 billion. When contacted, an official spokesperson of Reliance Industries (RIL) declined to comment. RGTIL expects better performance in the long run because of the commissioning of liquefied natural gas terminals and an increase in gas production, it informed bondholders. The Ambanis have promised to invest more equity in the company, which constructed a 1,386-km gas pipeline from the east coast of India to Gujarat to supply industries based in west coast. However, sales and profit fell in line with RIL’s gas production. The company’s finance costs fell to Rs 5.71 billion from Rs 6.57 billion as on March 2015, thanks to the 5/25 scheme. At present, RGTIL charges its customers according to the tariff fixed by the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB) and has made provisions for Rs 25.15 billion of revenues for the period April 1, 2009 to March 31, 2015, which is the difference between the provisional tariff and final tariff that is yet to be cleared by PNGRB. This will be recovered from future bills of gas transport from its customers after PNGRB clears the tariff, the company said. However, as they had to make provisions for redemption of preference shares and debentures, both companies reported lower profits. Reliance Ports and Terminals made a profit of Rs 550 million as compared to a profit of Rs 4.72 billion in FY15. The company reported revenues of Rs 37.92 billion in FY16 as compared to Rs 36.53 billion in FY15. Reliance Power and Utilities made a profit of Rs 310 million, down 16 per cent compared to the previous year. Its revenues were Rs 17.41 billion, up 7.5 per cent as compared to Rs 16.20 billion in FY15. Both Reliance port and power companies cater to the demand of RIL’s Jamnagar refinery. Rod Gilbert Jersey
Congress opposes Centre’s decision to auction Assam’s 12 small oil fields
The Centre has identified 67 small oil and gas fields across the country, including 12 from Assam, to put on auction from next month onwards through competitive global bidding Assam’s main opposition party, the Congress party, has opposed the Centre’s decision to auction 12 of the state’s small oil fields; starting July 15. The party has cast doubt on the intention of the Centre and said such move might be aimed at benefiting “some private industrialists” having good relation with the central government. In a letter addressed to the state’s chief minister, leader of the opposition of Assam assembly and also Congress party member, Debabrata Saikia, said though a draft policy was prepared under the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government and Veerappa Moily as the then petroleum minister to transfer small and marginal oil fields under New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP) bids, the UPA government however kept the decision in abeyance keeping in view the “sensitivity on the Assamese people and energy security”. The Centre has identified 67 small oil and gas fields across the country, including 12 from Assam, to put on auction from next month onwards through competitive global bidding. All these 67 fields were discovered some 20-30 years back and had been lying undeveloped with either the Oil India Limited (OIL) or Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC). The move to auction these fields is aimed at monetising the vast resources lying untapped in these fields and partly meet the country’s energy demand. These fields altogether hold in-place oil and oil equivalent gas volumes of 86 MMT, which amounts to around Rs. 700 billion of reserves. Union petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan said exploiting these small fields required micro-level management and specific technologies, making it unattractive for the two public sector oil giants to invest in. Hence, these fields had been lying unexploited over the years. The estimated capital expenditure required to fully exploit these fields would be around Rs 40 billion. “In case the government thinks that OIL and ONGC cannot operate these small fields profitably, some other public sector companies like GAIL India Limited, Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) and Hindustan Petrleum Corporation Limited (HPCL), who are new entrants in the exploration business may form joint venture companies with stake of state level public sector companies (PSUs) already formed by the Assam government like Assam Gas Company, Assam Hydrocarbon Limited etc.,” said Saikia. The Congress party said the Assam government must ask the Centre to reconsider its decision of the Centre to hand-over small oil fields to “private operators through NELP”.