- Thursday, April 18, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
Here are news in brief related to Indian economy and businesses for Thursday, August 11, 2022:
Indian finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday slammed Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal over the so-called ‘freebie culture’, saying health and education have “never been called freebies”. “The Delhi chief minister has given a perverse twist to the debate on freebies,” Sitharaman told reporters in New Delhi. “By classifying education and health as freebies, Kejriwal is trying to bring in a sense of worry and fear in minds of the poor,” the finance minister added.
While India saw a large number of unicorns or start-up companies valued at $1 billion (£818 million) created during the Covid-19 pandemic, the slowdown in the start-up ecosystem could leave an adverse impact on these show-stoppers, the Hindu BusinessLine reported. Five start-ups — PayTM Mall, Snapdeal, Hike, Shopclues and Quikr — are no longer unicorns, with their valuation falling below $1 billion and the total number of unicorns may have therefore reduced to 103 now.
The Narendra Modi government is yet to decide whether the free foodgrain scheme, the ‘Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana’ (PM-GKAY), will be extended beyond September, a senior government official has said, Moneycontrol News reported. “The availability of fiscal room was not a consideration when the government announced the scheme in 2020 and extended it in 2021,” the official said on August 11 on the condition of anonymity. “If it (some scheme) is necessary, we have to find (fiscal) room for it,” the source was cited as adding.
The Aditya Birla Group company Hindalco Industries has made an agreement with Greenko Energies, an Indian energy transition company to establish a renewable energy project to supply 100 MW round-the-clock carbon free power to Aditya Aluminium smelter in the eastern coastal state of Odisha, the Hindu BusinessLine reported.
India’s Adani Enterprises led by billionaire Gautam Adani is planning to make an alumina refinery in the eastern coastal state of Odisha with an investment of $5.2 billion (£4.2 billion), Bloomberg reported. The company has reportedly received a nod from the government of Odisha to set up the refinery and a captive power plant in Rayagada worth an investment of Rs 41,653 crore (£4.28 billion). According to Bloomberg which cited a statement from the state’s government, the refinery will have an annual capacity of four million tonnes.
The Indian ministry of heavy industries on Thursday launched automated online data transfer for capturing critical data related to domestic value addition in the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme for the auto sector, Asian News International reported. The new system will capture data from PLI applicant’s ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system to PLI auto portal. All approved applicants of the PLI Scheme have their own ERP system. ERP is a type of software that organisations use to manage business activities. The IT-enabled system has been devised to enable smooth transfer of data from the applicant’s existing ERP system to the PLI auto portal of the ministry in a safe environment.
JSPL Foundation, the CSR wing of Jindal Steel and Power (JSP), supported scholarships to 508 meritorious girls from weaker sections of the society in Indian states such as Odisha and Chhattisgarh to support their vocational training and higher education under its ‘Jindal Swayam Sampanna Nari’ programme. Shallu Jindal, chairperson of JSPL Foundation, inaugurated the programme and distributed the scholarship letters to the selected girls in a hybrid ceremony held on Tuesday (9), ANI/Jindal Steel and Power Ltd reported.
