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News Brief

The country's largestsoftware services firm TataConsultancy Services (TCS)reported a 14.9 per cent risein consolidated net profit toRs9,246 crore for the March2021 quarter.

This is against a net profitof Rs8,049 crore in theyear-ago period, TCS said ina regulatory filing.

The revenue of the ITmajor grew 9.4 per cent inthe quarter under review toRs43,705 crore fromRs39,946 crore a year ago,it added.

Our investments overthe last decade in buildingnewer capabilities, and inresearch and innovation,position us well for themulti-year technology ser-vices opportunity ahead.While we continue to domi-nate in our traditional areasof strength, we are makinggood progress in gainingshare in the growth andtransformation opportunity,TCS Chief Executive Officerand Managing DirectorRajesh Gopinathan said.

TCS Q4 net profit soars by 14.9% to Rs9,246 crThe firm's focus going

into FY22 will be to engagewith clients in their growthagenda, propelled by inno-vation and leverage of col-lective knowledge, headded.

The net profit for the fis-cal ended March 2021 wasup at Rs33,388 crore (ex-cluding legal claim provi-sions), from Rs32,340 crorein the previous financialyear.

Its net profit on a re-ported basis stood atRs32,430 crore for FY21.

TCS had providedRs1,218 crore (USD 165million) towards a legalcase (relating to Epic Sys-tems Corporation) in its con-solidated of profit and lossfor the year ended March31, 2021.

The revenue washigher by 4.6 per cent toRs1,64,177 crore in FY21from Rs1,56,949 crore inthe preceding financialyear, the filing said.

The Board of Directorshas proposed a final divi-

dend of Rs15 per equityshare.

V Ramakrishnan, ChiefFinancial Officer at TCS, saidthe company's perfor-mance in the fourth quar-ter caps three-quarters ofconsistently robust perfor-mance in a pandemic year,and gives us a strong exitfrom FY21.

Our Q4 margins are avalidation of our strong be-lief that it is possible to winmega-deals, post industry-leading growth, continue toinvest in our people and innewer capabilities, and stilldeliver industry-leadingprofitability, he added.

Ramakrishnan furthersaid that all the investmentsmade by the company overthe years have positionedit strongly to expand its foot-print in the large growthand transformationopportunity.The fourth-quarter order book at USD9.2 billion is the highest-ever TCV (total contractvalue) in a quarter. The FY21order book was at USD 31.6

billion, up 17.1 per centyear-on-year, the filing said.

TCS announced its re-sults after market hours. Itsscrip closed at Rs3,241.45apiece, down 2.43 per centfrom its previous close onthe BSE.

Its rivals Infosys andWipro will announce theirMarch quarter and FY21numbers on April 14 andApril 15, respectively.In thefourth quarter, TCS added19,388 employees to itsrolls on a net basis, its high-est ever net addition in aquarter, taking the totalheadcount to 4,88,649. ITservices attrition rate (LTM)was at 7.2 per cent.

With the second waveof the pandemic upon us,our top priority is onceagain to secure the healthand personal wellbeing ofour workforce across theworld. We are looking atways to expedite vaccina-tions for eligible TCSerswherever local regulationsallow it, TCS Chief HR Of-ficer Milind Lakkad said.

Mumbai: With demandfor housing loans picking upduring the last two quartersof fiscal 2020-21, housingfinance companies (HFCs)are likely to witness agrowth rate of 6-8 per centduring the year and 8-10 percent in FY2021-22, says areport.

The on-book portfolio

HFCs likely to witness growth of 8-10% in FY22: Reportgrowth moderated forHFCs in the first ninemonths of FY2021 (com-pared to March 2020) to 4.3per cent (excluding theportfolio of one largeplayer, which had sizeablewrite-offs) from portfoliogrowth of 6 per cent (Y-o-Y) in FY2020.

Icra Ratings in a report

said with revival in demandfor housing credit in the in-dustry in the last two quar-ters, most of the HFCs havealready reached near pre-Covid level disbursementsand are targeting to achievefurther higher disburse-ments in Q4 FY2021.

This is expected to pushup the growth rate forFY2021 to 6-8 per cent.Thereafter, we estimate thegrowth of 8-10 per cent foron-book portfolio of HFCsin FY2022.

According to Icra's vicepresident and sector headSachin Sachdeva, given thecash flow stress faced bythe borrowers, theoverdues of HFCs have in-creased in the first ninemonths of FY2021 as re-flected by proforma GNPAs

of around 2.7 per cent ason December 31, 2020 ascompared to reportedGNPA of 2.4 per cent as onMarch 31, 2020.

The asset quality indica-tors could be further im-pacted in Q4 FY2021, hesaid.

He sees GNPAs of HFCsfor FY2021 to be higher by50-100 basis points, com-pared to FY2020, and thesame to remain elevated inFY2022 as well.

Notwithstanding theimprovement in business inthe last two quarters ofFY2021, relatively lowerbusiness growth than theearlier years, and asset qual-ity pressures would moder-ate the profitability for theHFCs in FY2021, Sachdevasaid.

India’s net indirect taxreceipts, including Goodsand Services Tax (GST ),jumped 12% at Rs10.71lakh crore in 2020-21 com-pared to the previous finan-cial year, which is over 8%more than the revised esti-mate (RE) of Rs9.89 lakhcrore for FY-21, as per theofficial data released.

The Centre’s net directtax collections, mainlycomprising corporate andindividual income-tax, al-ready surpassed the RE by4.42% at Rs9.45 lakh crorein 2020-21.

Giving provisional de-tails of indirect tax collec-tions, a finance ministry said

Centre’s net indirect tax collections in FY-21 jumped 12% at Rs10.71 lakh crore

that net customs duty re-ceipts in 2020-21 saw a21% year-on-year growthat Rs1.32 lakh crore and netcentral excise and servicetax (arrears) mop up in thefinancial year ended March31, 2021 was Rs3.91 lakhcrore, a 59% jump overRs2.45 lakh crore collectedin 2019-20.

The Uniongovernment’s net Goodsand Services Tax (GST) re-ceipts Central GST (CGST),Integrated GST (IGST) andCompensation Cess in2020-21 was Rs5.48 lakhcrore as compared toRs5.99 lakh crore in the pre-vious financial year, a fall of

8.5%. GST is one of the keyindirect tax and aweathervane of consump-tion. Revised estimates ofnet GST collection, includ-ing CGST and Compensa-tion Cess, for FY 2020-21was Rs. 5.15 lakh crore.

Sebi norms on reportingformats for mutual fundsNew Delhi: Capital markets watchdog Sebi came out

with fresh guidelines on reporting formats for mutualfunds.

The formats for the reports to be submitted by assetmanagement companies (AMCs) to trustees, by AMCs toSebi and by trustees to the regulator have been revisedon the basis of consultation from the industry.

Sebi said the compliance certificate to be submittedby an AMC to the trustees on a bi-monthly basis and half-yearly basis would be discontinued.

The contents of both these reports have been incor-porated in the quarterly report by AMC to trustees, it added.

With regard to quarterly report on activities of mutualfunds, Sebi said such report must contain details of num-ber of live schemes as on last day of the quarter-end,schemes launched during the period including schemeswhich were launched but could not be constituted, de-tails of existing schemes matured or wound up as wellschemes merged during the quarter. For schemes whichhave been wound up, Sebi said details of payout shouldbe provided during each quarter till the last payout forsuch schemes.

DCGI approval for COVID-19 vaccine Sputnikfor restricted emergency use: Dr Reddy's

Bangalore: Drug majorDr Reddy's Laboratoriessaid it has received ap-proval from Indian drugregulator for restrictedemergency use of COVID-19 vaccine Sputnik in thecountry.

The company has re-ceived the permission fromthe Drug Controller Gen-eral of India (DCGI) to im-port the Sputnik vaccineinto India for restricted usein emergency situations asper the provisions of the

New Drug and Clinical Tri-als rules, 2019 under theDrugs and Cosmetics Act,Dr Reddy's said in a regula-tory filing.

In September 2020, DrReddy's had partnered withthe Russian Direct Invest-ment Fund (RDIF) to con-duct the clinical trials ofSputnik V and distributethe vaccine in India.

In addition to the trialsconducted in Russia byRDIF, phase II/III clinical tri-als of the vaccine were car-

ried out by Dr Reddy's inIndia.

Dr Reddy's LaboratoriesCo-chairman and manag-ing director GV Prasad saidthat the rising cases in In-dia, vaccination is the mosteffective tool in our battleagainst COVID-19. This willenable us to contribute toour nation's effort of vacci-nating a significant propor-tion of our population.

Dr Reddy's said SputnikV is now approved for usein 60 countries around the

world.It ranks second among

coronavirus vaccines glo-bally in terms of the num-ber of approvals issued bygovernment regulators.

Sputnik V uses two dif-ferent vectors for the twoshots in a course of vacci-nation. The efficacy of Sput-nik V was determined tobe 91.6 per cent as per apublished article in the Lan-cet, one of the world's old-est and most respectedmedical journals.

Dr Reddy'sshares jump 5per cent

New Delhi: Shares ofDr Reddy's Laboratoriesjumped 5 per cent afteran expert panel approvedemergency use ofRussia's Covid-19 vaccineSputnik V in India, withcertain conditions.

In September last year,the company hadpartnered with the Rus-sian Direct InvestmentFund (RDIF) to conductclinical trials of Sputnik Vand for its distributionrights in India.

The stock gained4.83 per cent to close atRs 4,989.20 on the BSE.During the day, it zoomed7.57 per cent to Rs5,119.90.

On the National StockExchange (NSE), it rose4.97 per cent to close atRs 4,996.95. It was thebiggest gainer on boththe indices.

China opens 5Gsignal stationat world'shighest radarlocation nearTibet border

Beijing: China hasopened a 5G signal baseat the Ganbala radar sta-tion in the remote Hima-layan region of Tibetwhich is the world's high-est manually operated ra-dar station at an elevationof 5,374 meters, the Chi-nese military's officialwebsite reported.

The mountain is lo-cated in Nagarze Countyin Tibet which is in the vi-cinity of borders with In-dia and Bhutan.

At the end of last year,the People's LiberationArmy started to coordi-nate with civilian enter-prises to launch 5G basestation construction inGanbala to solve the diffi-culty of network accessfor the border defencetroops, the website said.

Flipkart, Adanijoin hands toset up datacentre,warehouse

Flipkart has partneredwith infrastructure firmAdani Group to set up adata centre in Chennaiand a large fulfilmentcentre in Kalyan, nearMumbai.

The e-commercecompany said it will workwith Adani Logistics Ltd,which provides end-to-end logistics services, andis a subsidiary of AdaniPorts and Special Eco-nomic Zone Ltd (APSEZ),to strengthen its supplychain and serve its grow-ing customer base.

As part of this, AdaniLogistics will construct a534,000 sq. ft fulfilmentcentre at its forthcominglogistics hub in NRCComplex at Mohone-Thane in Kalyan. This willbe leased out to Flipkartto help meet its increas-ing demand in westernIndia and support accessto several thousands ofsellers.

Kalyan is a futuristicand offbeat warehousinglocation, and Flipkart willhave a first-mover advan-tage, property consultantssaid. Adani owns nearly300 acres there and moreactivity is expected in thecoming months.

The warehousing fa-cility is expected to beoperational in the secondhalf of 2022 and will havethe capacity to house 10million units of sellers’ in-ventory at any point intime. It has the potentialto create 2,500 direct andthousands of indirectjobs. Walmart-ownedFlipkart, which has twodata centres in Hyderabadand Chennai, will set upits third data centre at theChennai facility ofAdaniConneX Pvt. Ltd, anew joint venture be-tween EdgeConneX andAdani Enterprises Ltd.

Mumbai: Technologysector saw a massive rise inweightage in FY21 to 11.9per cent (up 300 bps YoY).The sector is now the sec-ond in terms of sectoral al-location by MFs, said aMotilal Oswal Financial Ser-vices Report. A year ago, itwas in the third position.

In terms of value in-crease on a month-on-month increase in March,three of the top five stockswere from technology -Infosys (up Rs 7,000 crore),TCS (up Rs 3,960 crore), andHCL Tech (up Rs 1,690crore).

Stocks that saw a maxi-mum decline in value MoMwere of Reliance Industries,SBI, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank,Axis Bank, Bharti Airtel, Coal

Tech stocks turn attractive formutual funds amid pandemic

India, HDFC, Vedanta, andInfo Edge.

The Fund Folio reportalso said that the year saw anotable change in the sec-tor and stock allocation offunds. The weightage ofdomestic cyclicals in-creased by 160 basis pointsto 58 per cent, led by an in-crease in the weightage ofautomobiles, NBFCs, ce-ment, real estate, chemicals,and infrastructure.

Weightage of defen-sive stocks decreased 100basis points to 32.5 per cent,led by consumer, utilities,and telecom. Globalcyclicals’ weightage, too, fell60 basis points to 9.5 percent.

The consumer sectorslipped to fourth place from

second place a year ago,with a 240 bps decreasedin weightage to 7.4 percent.

Metals improved itsposition to 14 from 16 ayear ago, with theweightage increasing by80 bps to 2.6 per cent.

Assets under manage-ment (AUM) of the mutualfund industry witnessed agrowth of 41 per cent inthe last financial year totouch a new high of Rs31.4 lakh crore. Thegrowth was primarily ledby an increase in AUM ofequity funds (Rs 4.09 lakhcrore), income funds (Rs2.39 trillion) and other ETFs(Rs 1.29 lakh crore), thereport said.Equity AUM,including ELSS and index

funds, of domestic mutualfunds reached new highsof Rs 10.2 lakh crore (up67 per cent YoY) in FY21,led by a rise in market in-dices.

VOL. 54 * NO. 278* AHMEDABAD MONDAY* 26/4/2021

Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren inspecting various Oxygen Cylinderfactories for the requirement of COVID-19 patients in various hospitals of the statein Ranchi, Jharkhand.

Visitors leaving for their destinations amid Security force personnel enforcingstrick restrictions in Srinagar as authorities imposed COVD-19 weekend lock downto contain the increasing trend of pandemic in Union Territory of Jammu andKashmir.

Deserted look during lockdown announced by the government to curve thespread of COVID-19 virus in Shimla.

People should avoid misinformation on Covid, says PM ModiNew Delhi,

Prime MinisterNarendra Modi at 11am onSunday addressed the na-tion through his monthly'Mann Ki Baat' radioprogramme. This was the76th episode of theprogramme and the fourththis year. The previous three'Man Ki Baat' episodes of2021 took place on Janu-ary 31, February 28 andMarch 28.

Sunday's episode cameat a time the nation is reel-ing in the deadly secondwave of the coronavirus dis-ease (Covid-19) with morethan 300,000 daily casesand over 2,000 related

deaths being recorded perday, according to the Unionministry of health and fam-ily welfare (MoHFW). Indiais currently seeing moredaily cases than any othercountry, and is the secondworst-hit after the UnitedStates, and is ahead of Bra-zil. Several hospitals in vari-ous cities across the coun-try have also reported acuteshortage of medical oxy-gen.

On Sunday, the healthministry reported that in theprevious 24 hours, therewere 349,691 cases and2717 related fatalities . Thecountry's Covid-19 tally cur-rently stands at 16,960, 172

including 192,311 deaths.Recoveries and active cases,meanwhile, are at14,085,110 and 2,682,751respectively.

The first episode ofMaan Ki Baat was aired onOctober 3, 2014.

Country's corporatesector can also participatein vaccine drive by gettingtheir employees vacci-nated. Govt of India's freevaccination program willcontinue in future too. I re-quest states to ensure ben-efits of this free vaccinationprogram reaches as manypeople as possible: PMModi "I urge people to notfall prey to any rumour

about vaccine. You all mustbe aware that Govt of Indiahas sent free vaccine to allState Govts. All peopleabove 45 years of age canbenefit from this. From May1st, vaccines will be avail-able for every person above18 years of age," says PMModi.The government ofIndia is dedicated to takingforward the efforts of thestate governments to tacklethe current Covi19 situa-tion, says PM Narendra Modiin Mann Ki Baat.PM Modiurges citizens to seek infor-mation on Covid-19 onlythrough genuine sources,not to fall pray to misinfor-mation

2FromEditor’sDesk.......

Economy alert

IFC proposes $50mn debt financefor Thar Surya solar power project

Chennai: InternationalFinance Corporation (IFC)plans to debt finance theconstruction of Thar SuryaPvt Ltd.’s 300 MW solarpower project in Bikaner,Rajasthan by $50 million.

Apart from lending $50million, IFC will alsomobilise $100 million debtthrough parallel lenders.

According to IFC, thetotal solar power projectcost is estimated at $200million.

The solar power projectis sponsored by Enel GreenPower India, one of thestep-down subsidiaries ofEnel Green Power S.p.A., an

existing IFC client.Enel Green Power is

one of the largest renew-able energy developer inthe world with 49 GW in-stalled capacity acrosswind, solar, geothermal andhydropower projects, andwith presence in 28 coun-tries. Enel Green Power is asubsidiary of Enel S.p.A.,Italy. The solar power gen-eration project wasawarded by Solar EnergyCorporation of India (SECI).

The power generatedby Thar Surya will be sold toSECI under 25 year PowerPurchase Agreement(PPA).Rewa: A view of the

Ultra Mega Solar Powerproject in Madhya Pradesh’sRewa that was inauguratedby Prime Minister NarendraModi from New Delhi viavideo conferencing on July10, 2020. Union PowerMinister RK Singh andMadhya Pradesh Chief Min-ister Shivraj Singh Chouhanwere among the dignitar-ies present on the occa-sion.

The 750-MW solarproject is said to be Asia’sbiggest. The Rs 4,000-croreproject has three units of250 MW each at a solar parkspread over 1,500 hectaresdeveloped by Rewa Ultr.

Mid and small caps best performers,gold slumps in 1st quarter

New Delhi: Mid andsmall cap stocks are thebest performing asset classfor the quarter endingMarch 2021 while gold isthe worst performer.

Mid and small capstocks delivered returns of14 per cent in the quarterwhile gold under-per-formed with negative 11per cent returns. Gold is thebiggest under-performerfor the first three monthsof 2021 vs. The other assetclasses. Gold prices aredown by 11 per cent in ru-pees and 10 per cent in USDollar in the last threemonths. Apart from ‘Risk on’trade, rising bond yields arenow short term negativefor the gold prices.

As per Axis Securities,gold proved to be one ofthe best performing assetclasses in 2020. In the last10 years, Nifty outper-formed the Emerging mar-ket in five years and devel-oped market in four years.

The performance ofsmallcaps is highly volatileversus other asset classes.Small-cap ranked at thebottom in 2018 and 2019and recovered sharply in2020, outperforming theother asset classes in thefirst quarter of 2021.

NIFTY50 delivered ahealthy 15 per cent returnwhich was significantlybetter than the 2019 return

of 12 per cent. While NIFTYMidcap 100 and NiftySmallcap 100 delivered 22per cent and 21 per centreturns respectively in2020, the returns for midand small-cap indices werenegative in 2019.

We expect the broad-based rally of 2020 to con-tinue well into 2021 alreadyvisible in Q12021 as webelieve a strong earningsrevival across the board ison the cards. A lower inter-est rate environment andhigher fiscal spending willcontinue to support theequity markets, Axis Secu-rities said.

It said that asset alloca-tion and sector rotation willbe key to generate out-performance in 2021. Anequity market is likely to bethe best performing assetclass for the next one totwo years.

It said that trading at a10 per cent premium tolarge caps From a valuationperspective, the midcapslook attractive vs. large caps.

Historically, during thebull phase of 2017, midcapswere trading at a 45 percent premium to large caps.The recent spate of IPOsand their success clearlyindicates the appetite formid and small-cap stocks,the report said.

Since November 2020,small and midcaps are pick-

ing up steam and theyshould deliver solid returnsin 2021 as economic uncer-tainties will reduce andvolatility will decline.

The report said that top10 stocks domination isdwindling in the market.Since December 2017,Nifty has delivered a returnof 40 per cent. Out ofwhich, the top 10 stocks byfree-float market cap havedelivered a stellar return of58 per cent while the re-maining 40 stocks had de-livered only 17 per cent.This divergence has startednarrowing in recentmonths. Based on the top10 stocks, the adjusted Niftyvalue works out to 16,647while the remaining 40would lead NIFTY to just12,354.

This indicates Nifty isbetter valued beyond thetop 10 names. Long termrisk rewards are better inthe next 40 names vs. thetop 10, the report said.

Broader rally since No-vember and broad-basedmarket performance wasseen in the month of Marchdespite higher volatility sig-nifying intact overall riskappetite towards mid andsmall stocks. Stocks rankingfrom 101-200 rallied by 2per cent in March, and 98per cent in the last yearwhich is superior to thelarge-cap performance.

Stronger FII flows sinceNovember continue todrive the momentum FIIsare net buyers; FIIs haveadded $7.8 billion whileDIIs have pulled out $3.1billion from the Indian eq-uity market in the last 3months.

Since Jan 2020, FIIshave bought a massiveamount of $30.9 billionwhile the DIIs have sold$8.6 billion from the Indianequity market.

Highest ever FII inflowsseen in the current finan-cial year: $37 billion, higherthan FY10/11/13 levels. Thefiscal year ended on astrong note for the equitymarkets with all the sectorsdelivering positive returns.

The report said metalsand IT registered the stron-gest gains while FMCGgrew the slowest. Autosand Realty also deliveredsolid returns during the fis-cal.

While FY21 was strongwhich was aided by cheapvaluations and a low base,March performance was amixed bag. The high betasectors such as BFSI wit-nessed a profit bookingwhile defensives such asFMCG and Pharma regis-tered marginal gains.

The report said now theinvestors are betting higheron riskier assets like equity.Sentiments.

E-comm to accelerate India’sauto sector growth: ReportNew Delhi: Strong ac-

ceptance of e-commerceand digitisation is ex-pected to accelerate thegrowth of India’s auto sec-tor, advisory firm GrantThornton Bharat said.

Accordingly, India’s au-tomobile market is esti-mated to grow more thanRs2.3X’ from $222 billioncurrently to $512 billionby 2026.

Notably, the analysis byAllied Market Research,Market Line, Reserve Bankof India and GrantThornton Bharat showedthat e-commerce portalsfocused on tsparency, digi-tal real-timhe automobilemarket, such as Droom,Cardekho, and Olx haveput consumers and theuser experience in thespotlight helping themanufacturers attractmore users.

Besides, the growingbase of internet andsmartphone users will fur-ther boost the digital trans-formation, and lead to anincrease in expanding themarket size of the e-com-merce portals.

The strong emergenceand acceptance of the on-line channel have pro-vided an impetus to seam-less solutions, price dis-covery, transparency, digi-tal real-time paymentsalong with certification onthe quality of the vehiclefor the consumers in the

auto sector,” said RahulKapur, Partner, Growth atGrant Thornton Bharat.

According to theanalysis report, since lastyear, Maruti Suzuki saw afive-fold increase in salesthrough digital meanswhich now stand at 20 percent of their total sales.

These changes inconsumer’s buying and re-search preferences signala shift for the auto sector,as Covid19 played a bigpart in the on-line chan-nel gaining traction.

Technology-enabledinnovations like securedigital psparency, digitalreal-timayments, hyper-logical logistics, analytics-driven customer engage-ment, increasing con-sumer awareness and digi-tal advertisements arelikely to support thegrowth going forward.

As per the report, otherfactors such as risingmiddle class and youngpopulatiosparency, digitalreal-timn with increasingdisposable incomes willcontribute towards grow-ing the sector.

Furthermore, ease ofowning a vehicle throughthe availability of multiplefinancing options as wellas reduction in vehicleownership tenure due toregulatory rules in somestates, cited the report asother growth inducingfactors.

Washington: India,which is projected to growat an impressive rate of12.5 per cent this year,needs to grow at a muchfaster pace to make up forthe unprecedented con-traction of eight per centthat it clocked during theCOVID-19 pandemic in2020, according to a seniorIMF official.

The International Mon-etary Fund Deputy ChiefEconomist, Petya KoevaBrooks, also made a strongcase for an additional eco-nomic stimulus to addressthe impact of the pandemicon the country's economy.

When it comes to Indiathere was a major collapseof output last fiscal year andthe number as you men-tioned is eight.

So, we are very glad tosee the strong rebound thisyear with projected growthof 12.5 for fiscal year 21-22and we are seeing also highfrequency indicators in-cluding PMI (PurchasingManagers' Index), and tradeand more mobility indica-tors which give us a sensethat there is continued re-covery in the first quarterof this year, she said.

That said, there aresome recent emergenciesof the new variants in thelocalized lockdowns thatare seen as one of thethreats to this recovery,Brooks noted.

On the recovery itself,when it comes to level interms of the level of out-put, we are expecting thatlevel to return to the pre-crisis one from 2019 to thisfiscal year. That is what we

India needs to grow faster to make up forcontraction during COVID-19 pandemic: IMF

have in our projections.However, if you look at

a concept of scarring,which just compares whatthe level of output wouldhave been hadn't there notbeen a crisis in 2024, whichis the measure which weare using. Then at and com-pare where our currentgrowth trajectory is for In-dia that gap is much larger,Brooks said.

The gap, she said, whichis eight per cent of GDP issignificantly larger thanwhat it is for the world as awhole.

For the world as awhole it's about three (percent), which is another wayof saying that even thoughin the near term we havethis real rebound, there'sstill scope in the comingyears to see higher growthwhich would reduce andhopefully, eliminate thatscarring, which we are cur-rently expecting, the topIMF official said.

If we were to just thinkabout the level of outputthat it was prior to being apandemic then that catchhappens this year, which isnot surprising also giventhe very high level of theunderlying high level ofgrowth which India has. Butagain, if we compare it tothe path of what it wouldhave been without the pan-demic then we are gettingtoo many larger gaps there,she said.

Noting that the Indiangovernment took severalsteps to address theCOVID-19 crisis, Brookssaid, We have seen policyresponses, which have

been coordinated and inseveral areas. We have seenthat the fiscal support, themonetary easing as well asthe liquidity and regulatorymeasures that were taken.

What makes sense is tomaintain the focus on hav-ing that coordinated policyresponse because this iswhat's going to prevent thelong-term damage to theeconomy. Providing thatsupport to small and me-dium-sized firms as well asvulnerable houses wouldbe particularly important,she said.

Brooks said the IMF verymuch welcomes the mea-sures that were announcedby India during its budget.It is particularly supportiveof maintaining the accom-modative fiscal stance andalso emphasizing expendi-tures on health and infra-structure.

We estimate that thepositive impact of the mea-sures for this fiscal year isgoing to be of the order ofpoint six percentage pointson growth,” she said, add-ing that several measuresannounced in the budgetwere in line of the IMF's ad-vice.

Prominent amongthem are that there wouldnot be a withdrawal of fis-cal stimulus at the generalgovernment level and alsothat state governmentswould be given the tempo-rary flexibility to go overtheir budget ceilings. Andlast, but not least, the factthat some of the other bud-get items on food subsidieswere actually brought intothe budget. Overall.

Centre could have net-ted more in pandemic year,if refunds had not risen bya steep Rs 78k crore. TheCentre has recently an-nounced that it will borrowRs 7.24 lakh crore from themarket in the first half ofFY22, or just over 60% ofthe budgeted full-year tar-get.

The Centre collected anet amount of Rs 9.45 lakhcrore as direct taxes in2020-21, up Rs 40,000crore or 4.4% from the re-vised estimate (RE) pre-sented in the Budget onFebruary 1, thanks to im-proved collections in thesecond half of the year, es-pecially in the fourth quar-ter. Had the governmentnot been liberal with re-funds up Rs 78,000 crore or42% on year at Rs 2.61 lakhcrore the net collectionswould have been evenhigher.

This, coupled with rev-enue from ‘Union exciseduties’ likely being higherthan the respective RE byRs 30,000 crore, wouldlikely allow the Centre torein in the fiscal deficit at alevel slightly lower than theRE of 9.5% (RE) of the GDP,at the RE levels of expendi-ture and other revenuestreams. The National Sta-tistical Office in the secondadvance estimate pre-dicted a narrower contrac-tion in nominal GDP of 3.8%in FY21, against a 4.2% fallestimated earlier; if thisholds true, it would have afurther salutary effect onthe fiscal numbers. Robust

FY2020-21: Direct tax receiptsup Rs 40,000 cr over RE

GST collections in recentmonths have brightenedthe prospects of the Cen-tral GST collections beinghigher than the RE.

Power transmissionIndia's power consumptiongrows nearly 47% in firstweek of April GST, goodsand services tax, tax, worldbank. No backdate entries,recovery cases, more returnfiling, others help tax offic-ers to up GST collection

Given the spurt in taxcollections, the Centre hasalready released an extraamount to state as taxtransfers and cancelled a

planned Rs 20,000-croreborrowing which wasscheduled for the secondhalf of March.

The Centre released an‘additional’ Rs 45,000 croreas tax devolution to stategovernments in FY21, thefinance ministry said a fewdays earlier. The devolutionwas 8.2% higher than therespective RE, at Rs 5.95 lakhcrore. Of course, the Cen-tre had cut devolution tar-get by Rs 2.34 lakh crore or30% from the budget esti-mate of Rs 7.84 lakh crorefor 2020-21.

According to provi-sional figures of direct taxcollections for the financialyear 2020-21 released bythe finance ministry net(post-refunds) corporationtax collections stood at Rs4.57 lakh crore and per-sonal income tax, includingsecurity transaction tax, atRs 4.88 lakh crore.

The break-up of thepre-refund direct tax mop-up is as follows: “AdvanceTax of Rs 4.95 lakh crore; taxdeducted at source (includ-ing Central TDS) of Rs 5.45lakh crore; self-assessmenttax of Rs 1.07 lakh crore;regular assessment tax ofRs 42,372 crore; dividenddistribution tax of Rs13,237 crore and tax underother minor heads of Rs2,612 crore.

Despite an extremelychallenging year, the Ad-vance Tax collections forFY2020-21 stand at Rs 4.95lakh crore which shows agrowth of approximately6.7% over the Advance Taxcollections.

Strong bounceback witnessedfor toll roadassets: ICRA

New Delhi: India’s tollroads are likely to witness a14-15 per cent growth incollections in FY22, ratingsagency ICRA said in a re-port. Accordingly, thisgrowth will be achieved ona low base following an es-timated de-growth of 5-7per cent in FY21.

Road traffic has wit-nessed a marked improve-ment in H2 FY2021 aftersubdued traffic witnessedin the initial months, postresumption of tolling fromApril 20, 2020.

This has been driven byincreased movement ofboth - passenger and com-mercial vehicles, resultingin growth of around 10 percent on a YoY basis.

JioMart activity scaling upNew Delhi: JioMart activity is scaling up as per a re-

port by JP Morgan research which found brisk on-lineactivity across stores and formats it visited in Mumbai inthe last week of March that could have been nudgedfurther by rising Covid-19 cases.

We found the delivery infrastructure to be a mix ofbike-based delivery executives, similar to e-commerce/food O2O, and van-based batched delivery that peers usee.g., Bigbasket, DMart, Grofers. Our conversations suggestthat there has been an evolution from bikes to largelyvans at several stores, reflecting higher value, and heavierand more complex orders delivered with greater effi-ciency. Bike-based delivery ensures short turnaround timesfor lighter, low-value orders, improving customer experi-ence, JP Morgan said.

The note said most delivery staff identified themselvesas being from JioMart or Grab a delivery firm acquired byJio in 2018, although few wore JioMart or Grab branding,and the vans and drivers were largely outsourced.

This is unlike the branded fleets maintained by peersBigbasket, DMart Ready, Swiggy that provide free public-ity.

The report notes that the current infrastructure cansupport $8-11 billion in annual gross merchandise value(GMV).

VIT-AP inks Academic &Research MoU with CSIR-IICT

The signing ceremony of the Memorandum of Un-derstanding (MoU) between the School of Advanced Sci-ences, VIT-AP University and CSIR-IICT was held at IICT,Hyderabad.

Dr. S V Kota Reddy, Vice-Chancellor, VIT-AP Universityafter signing the MoU with CSIR- IICT, told that this col-laboration will help faculty and students to get an oppor-tunity to conduct research in advanced thrust areas inscience and technology. This collaboration can bring forthproject proposals in areas of mutual interest of facultyand students can be submitted to various Agencies / In-dustries for funding.

The expertise and technical support that this collabo-ration brings would lead into conducting Faculty Devel-opment Programmes (FDPs), National, International Con-ferences / Seminars / Symposium / Workshops etc. VIT-AP along with IICT, Hyderabad look forward to workingon areas that would be beneficial to the academia whichin turn would reflect on to the society we live in.

India’s OEMs accelerating shifttowards EVs: HDFC Securities

New Delhi: India’s automobile OEMs are acceleratingtheir shift towards EVs by investing in start-ups and en-hancing collaborations, HDFC Securities said.

The developing electric products in-house, OEMs areopen to collaborations, to reduce the speed-to-market aswell as maintain capital efficiency, HDFC Securities said.

Part suppliers are attempting to be segment agnostic,developing components for ICE, hybrid and EV products.

Apple likely to use 120Hz ProMotiondisplay in 'iPhone 13' lineup

San Francisco: The next-gen iPhone 13 Pro lineupwill reportedly come with 120Hz ProMotion display forthe first time. According to AppleInsider, low-tempera-ture polycrystalline oxide (LTPO) displays have beenrumoured for the iPhone for about two years.

However, the report claims that the displays will fi-nally arrive on the iPhone, granting the device a 120Hzrefresh display for the first time. Citing industry sources,supply chain monitor DigiTimes claims that Samsung andLG are converting iPhone-only production lines to LTPOtech production.

The report claims that this migration will end shortly,allowing both to provide the screens to Apple in time foruse in 2021. Apple is said to be using the displays in itshigher-end iPhone 13, likely in the so-called iPhone 13Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max. Display panel orders for lower-end iPhone 13 models are expected to be filled by OLEDsuppliers LG Display and BOE.

AHMEDABAD MONDAY 26/4/2021

The Union Minister for Defence, Shri Rajnath Singh virtually chairing a meetingto review the preparedness of the Ministry of Defence & Armed Forces amid spikein COVID-19 cases, in New Delhi

The Member (Health), NITI Aayog, Dr. Vinod K. Paul along with the Secretary,Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Shri Rajesh Bhushan addressing a press confer-ence on COVID-19, in New Delhi on April 21, 2021. The Principal Director General(M&C), Press Information Bureau, Shri Jaideep Bhatnagar and the DG, ICMR, Dr.Balram Bhargava are also seen.

The Union Minister for Health & Family Welfare, Science & Technology and EarthSciences, Dr. Harsh Vardhan chairing a high level meeting to review COVID-19 man-agement preparedness of Central Government Hospitals and AIIMS, through videoconferencing from Nirman Bhawan, in New Delhi

The impact of Covid surge on theeconomy depends on howeffectively key supply gaps areplugged

The relentless surge in Covid-19 cases over the pastfew weeks has created considerable uncertainty overthe state of the Indian economy. Several states have, inresponse to the spurt in cases, begun to impose restric-tions on economic activities. While the restrictions be-ing imposed are, as of now, less severe than those im-posed last year, their impact has begun to be felt in thebroader economy. Nomura’s India Business ResumptionIndex fell to 83.8 in the week ending April 18, downfrom 99.3 a month ago. To put this fall in perspective,the index was at 83.3 in the week ending October 25,2020, implying that the economy is currently operatingat levels last seen around end October 2020. Analystshave already begun paring their once ebullient growthestimates for the year. Care Ratings has lowered its ex-pectations of growth this year to 10.2 per cent, from10.7-10.9 per cent earlier, while economists at SBI toohave scaled down their projections from 11 per cent to10.4 per cent. While the economic data may still lookbetter, this is simply an optical illusion. The year-on-yearestimates will look good because of a low base effect— the sequential quarter-on-quarter improvement maynot materialise along expected lines. With the pace atwhich cases are rising, the worry is that governmentsmay end up imposing even stricter and extended re-strictions on activities to curb the spread of the virus.This will further depress economic activities and causedisruptions in supply chains, which coupled with highercommodity prices, will exert upward pressure on infla-tion, complicating the task before the Monetary PolicyCommittee. Governments will also find themselves in achallenging situation. To address the economic stress —reports of migrants leaving cities have already started tosurface signalling the extent of uncertainty and the un-derlying distress — governments may have to respondby providing greater support to the economy than hasbeen visible so far. But slower than expected growthwill also dampen their revenues, forcing them to bor-row more, putting further pressure on bond yields. Rat-ings agency, Fitch, which recently affirmed India’s “BBB-” sovereign rating, has warned that the outlook is nega-tive, as there continues to be uncertainty over thecountry’s debt trajectory following the deterioration inpublic finances.

3

Hyundai Alcazar is athree-row SUV that is basedon the Creta but has alonger overall footprint. It isbased on the same sensu-ous sportiness design lan-guage and shares a lot ofdesign cues with the com-pact SUV. The front of theAlcazar is dominated by alarge grille studded withchrome elements. Theheadlamps look similar tothe ones found in Creta buthave additional lights be-tween the top and bottomunit. The fog lamp housingis also bigger and thebumper has a sharper de-sign. On the side, you willfind diamond-cut alloyswhich get a new design aswell. There is a step-plateon the side and it will allowfor easier ingress andegress. Alcazar is longerthan the Creta and one cansee a rear quarter glass be-

Hyundai Alcazar revealed: Morepowerful engine than Creta and more

hind the B-pillar. Sharperlines run through the entirelength of the SUV, giving ita more muscular look. Thetaillamps are also chunkierthan the ones seen on Cretaand the boot has a cleanerand more elegant look.

Through the use of 4th-gen robots on the shopfloor, the engine room, B-pillar and D-pillar are madeusing a ring structure to en-hance the rigidity of thevehicle and counter the in-crease in length. Alongwith this, the company hasalso made the Alcazar with75.6 per cent advanced andhigh strength steel. Hotstamping of parts will makethe SUV safer in case of afrontal or side impact. Apartfrom this, we expect theAlcazar to be loaded withother safety features like 6-airbags, vehicle stabilitymanagement, electronic

stability control, surround-view cameras and more.

The interior of theAlcazar is based on theWing-Surround architec-ture and a lot of focus hasbeen put on creating a pre-mium and rich environ-ment. A dual-tone dash-board and a 10.25-inchtouchscreen infotainmentsystem could be offered inthe vehicle. Features likeBlueLink connected cartechnology, wirelesscharger, panoramic sunroof,digital MID, electronic park-ing brake and ventilatedfront seats are expected tobe present as well. The 6-seater version comes withtwo captain seats in the sec-ond row and has a floor-mounted console betweenthem. This console acts as astorage unit as well. The 7-seater version comes witha bench that can seat 3

people. The second-rowseats can be slid to createmore space and enhancecomfort. There will be indi-vidual AC vents for all threerows too.

Hyundai has also takena number of steps to keepthe NVH levels in check andto make the ride pleasant.The driveshaft has beendampened and the flooremploys adhesive andfoam. All of these measuresshould result in a more iso-lated and peaceful cabinexperience. Hyundai is alsoemploying a hydraulic re-bound stopper in the frontsuspension to provide aplusher ride over bumpysurfaces. This is similar towhat we saw on the moreexpensive and recentlylaunched Citroen C5Aircross. According to theKoren manufacturer, theAlcazar has been tested

over various terrains andconditions.

While the Alcazar willget the 1.5-litre U2 CRDidiesel engine from theCreta, it will not come withany petrol options from thesame. Instead, it will get amore powerful 3rd-gen NU2.0-litre petrol engine. Bothengine options will comewith the choice of either a6-seed manual or a 6-speed automatic transmis-sion. The manual transmis-sion found in the dieselmodel has been tweakedfor the Alcazar. The 1.5-litrediesel engine is capable ofproducing 113hp and250Nm of torque. Thepetrol engine can generatea peak power of 156.8hpand peak torque of191.2Nm. The Alcazar willalso come with three driv-ing modes Eco, City andSport.

New Delhi: A spurt involumes on a low base,coupled with improve-ment in realisations ridingon higher commodityprices, are expected to liftcorporate revenue by 15-17 per cent year-on-yearto Rs 6.9 lakh crore in thefourth quarter of fiscal2021, a Crisil Research re-port said.

As per the estimates,the double-digit growthcomes after eight quartersof either decline or singledigit growth.

The estimates arebased on an analysis of300 companies, which ac-count for 55-60 per centof the marketcapitalisation excludingfinancial services and oilcompanies of the Na-tional Stock Exchange.

Crisil Research Direc-tor Hetal Gandhi said:“ The robust revenuegrowth rides on a low baseof the correspondingyear-ago quarter, besideshigher government capi-tal expenditure, andhigher realisations amid acommodity upcycle,among others.

A closer look at the

India Inc. revenue may rise by 17% in Q4: Crisilrevenue breakup indi-cates 50 per cent of therecovery is contributed bythree key verticals - auto-mobiles, IT services andconstruction.

The report cited thatconstruction-linked sec-tors such as steel and ce-ment are estimated tohave seen revenue rise45-50 per cent and 17- 18per cent on-year, respec-tively, buoyed by higherrealisations and volumes.

However, the reportsaid that a cloud of uncer-tainty continues to loomover consumer discretion-ary services.

Revenue for players insectors such as airline ser-vices is estimated to drop30 per cent on-year amidsocial distancing and cutin discretionary expenses,especially travel budgets.

Similarly, revenue forplayers in media and en-tertainment is also ex-pected to drop 10 percent on-year due to loweradvertisement spends andsuscriptions. That said, ators in the top 300 sectoralmix has muted the impact.Besides, an increase incommodity prices should

result in contraction ofmargins across key sec-tors, it warned.

Margins in steel, ce-ment and pharmaceuti-cals sectors, which to-gether account for 30 percent of aggregate Ebitdaprofits, are expected tocontract by 380 bps, 230bps and 160 bps, respec-tively, on a sequential ba-sis.

Despite this, fiscal2021 would see Ebitdaprofiles rise 12-13 percent on-year over flat rev-enues. Ebitda marginswould reach a decadehigh of 22.2 per cent ledby low commodity pricesin the first half and fixedcost-reduction initiativesacross companies for theyear.

In addition, the reportsaid that due to the sec-ond wave, states are likelyto mount partiallockdowns, keeping de-mand recovery uncertainin the near term.

Newer strains of thevirus, scale of vaccinationsand subsequent revival indemand would be amongthe key monitorables forfiscal 2022.

Mumbai: Mahindra andMahindra, after announcingtheir CERO initiative alongwith the government of In-dia, has now revealed newplans. The company hassigned an MoU with CEROto introduce a one-stop so-lution for vehicle scrappage.The move comes after amonth of the new scrap-page policy announced bythe GoI. Through this, cus-tomers can directly bring intheir old vehicles (of anymake) which can be either15-years or more in termsof age to a Mahindra deal-ership. Here, they can getthe vehicle scrapped andgo ahead and buy a new carfrom Mahindra. If they in-tend to just scrap the ve-hicle, they can do the sameand get a certificate fromCERO. Post producing thiscertificate, they are eligiblefor some discounts on theirnext vehicle purchase.

If the customer’s car isunfit to be brought to thedealership, then the per-

Mahindra introduces one-stop vehicle scrappagesolution: Exchange 15-year car, buy new

sonnel will come to thehome of the prospect. Theywill inspect the vehicle,give an evaluation and thenget it towed to the nearestauthorised scrapyard. TheCertificate of Destruction(CoD) will then be issued.De-registering the car isalso something that theCERO authorities willhandle, thereby givingpeace of mind to the cus-tomer. The recovered rawmaterials from the cars/buses/motorcycle will besupplied back to compa-nies that can make use ofthem. These materials arealso tested for stringentquality and sustainability re-quirements. It is said thatautomotive steel is one ofthe best available. This is sobecause it can be easilymelted and remade thushelping the case of the cir-cular economy.

Renault India has alsocome out with a similarplan with CERO. It is calledas R.E.L.I.V.E. The same

policy applies and custom-ers in major metros likeBengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi-NCR, Pune and Chennai canbring in their old vehiclesto the dealership. There theauthorised personnel willquote the evaluation of thevehicle, provide a CoD cer-tificate along with an addi-tional guaranteed scrapbenefit over the existingmonthly offers fromRenault. If you have a oldtwo-wheeler, Renault willstill take it and also provideyou with a 7.99 per centrate of interest on buying anew car from them.

A few days ago, we hadcarried a report on how theconfusion regarding scrap-page policy can be cleared.It had stated the end-to-endsolution as one of the mainrequirements. Thankfullyenough, this seems to havebeen conveyed to the autocompanies and we expectmore such automakers tocome forward and offertheir services to the public.

New Delhi: AmazonIndia on Sunday an-nounced the launch of its'Mentor Connect'programme, which isaimed at accelerating thegrowth of startups andemerging brand ownersenrolled under its AmazonLaunchpad initiative.

Through theprogramme, startups andemerging brands will gainaccess to guidance fromventure capital firms, indus-try veterans and Amazonleaders through expertknowledge sharing ses-sions, networking eventsand 1:1 mentorship ses-sions.

Mentors from educa-tional institutions and VCfirms like Fireside Ventures,DSG Consumer Partners, El-evation Capital, capital havealready signed up for theprogramme to contributeto the Indian startup growthstory, it added.

Startups and emergingbrands enrolled in theAmazon Launchpadprogramme can accessguidance from these men-tors through various ways.This includes one-to-onementorship with chosenmentors over a three-month period, ongoingnetworking opportunitieswith a wider pool of indus-try experts, or knowledgesharing sessions betweenthese experts and otherLaunchpad brands.

This offers entrepre-neurs a platform to engage,learn and showcase theirstartups to the industry'sleading subject matter ex-

Amazon India launches mentorprogramme for startups

perts to help tackle strate-gic and functional chal-lenges, it added.

The Amazon MentorConnect programme is notlimited to startups andemerging brand ownersenrolled in the AmazonLaunchpad programme,but will also be extendedto the winners of the Ama-zon Smbhav Entrepreneur-ship challenge in the up-coming Amazon Smbhavsummit.

The first cohort ofstartups to receive the ben-efits associated with theAmazon Mentor Connectprogramme, itadded.Amazon Launchpadcurrently showcases over 2lakh products offered bymore than 800 emergingbrands across 30 differentproduct categories. Popularsectors catered to by thesebrands include health andpersonal care, beauty andgrooming, grocery andhome products.

The second edition of'Amazon Smbhav' will behosted from April 15-18,2021.India has a largestartup ecosystem that iskey to disruptive innovationand accelerating India'sprogress towards anAatmanirbhar Bharat. Mostof these startups are led byfirst time entrepreneurswho have the passion todrive a change, but do nothave the experience to dealwith the breadth of chal-lenges they face along theway, Amazon India DirectorMSME and Selling PartnerExperience Pranav Bhasinsaid.

Mumbai: Renownedeconomist and Nobel lau-reate Abjijit VinayakBanerjee has trashed theideology that calls for lesseror limited government in-terventions towards uplift-ing the poor arguing thatsuch freebies make thepoor lazy, saying there is noevidence whatsoever prov-ing so.

He said his own re-search on the subjectacross diverse economiesin Asia, Africa and LatinAmerica in the past decadeand more does not supportthis ideology, rather itproves that those who havebenefited from public andnon-governmental inter-ventions wherein theywere given free assets didin fact became more pro-ductive and creative.

The 20th foundationday of Bandhan Bank, thenon-profit-turned-MFI-turned-small finance bank,on Sunday, Banerjee saidthere is no data and noempirical evidence any-where to establish the ide-ology that getting freebiesor getting free assets makethe poor people lazy.

This ideology has beenpushing successive govern-ments to give less to thepoor so that they don't be-come lazy. But we haveseen no evidence to thiseffect anywhere, not evenin India, instead we haveseen everywhere improve-ments, he said.

The economist alsopartly blamed those peoplehawking this ideology forthe large number of thepoor here and elsewhereas this had successive gov-ernments leaving povertyreduction and other socio-economic impactful mea-sures to non-profits and pri-vate sector till about themiddle of the first decadeof the new millennium

Nobel laureate trashes theory of limitedGovt intervention to uplift poor

when Manmohan Singh-led government unveiledthe rural jobs guaranteescheme.

This and many other af-firmative actions has liftedearly tens of millions out ofpoverty in five years afterthe implementation.

He said an analysis of adecadal data from Bandhanwhen it was an NGO, clearlyestablished the impact ofits work on the poor whohave seen on average 25per cent income growthhelping them consume 18per cent more.

This is a great data-driven lesson, gained fromhis randomised control tri-als, in fighting poverty overa long period, Banerjeesaid, adding the first lessonin this is that when the poorbecome better off, theybecome more creative ingenerating more wealth

and leading better lives in-cluding by sending theirkids to better schools faraway from their villages.

Data from myrandomised control trialsclearly showed that they'rethose people who ben-efited from public/non-government help haveseen income increasing by25 per cent leading to an18 per cent jump in con-sumption he said.

While calling for moreglobalisation and free trade,he however admitted thatfight against poverty hasbecome more complicatedin a globalised world asglobalisation has creatednew forms of risks the nowraging pandemic is one ofthe best examples of suchnew risks especially for thepoor as they suffered themost from the lockdownsacross the world.

India’s fuel consumption contracts9.1 pc in FY21; first since 1998-99

New Delhi: India’s fuel demand contracted by a mas-sive 9.1 per cent in the financial year ended March 31, thefirst in more than two decades, as a stringent lockdownimposed to curb the spread of the pandemic pummelledeconomic activity, government data said.

India consumed 194.63 million tonnes of petroleumproducts in 2020-21 as compared with 214.12 milliontonnes demand in the previous year, according to thelatest data released by the oil ministry’s Petroleum Plan-ning and Analysis Cell (PPAC).

This the first time that the fuel consumption has con-tracted since 1998-99, the most historical year for whichgovernment data is available.

The demand contraction was led by diesel, the most-consumed fuel in the country. Diesel consumption fell 12per cent to 72.72 million tonnes while petrol demandshrank 6.7 per cent to 27.95 million tonnes.

The government imposed a nationwide lockdown atthe end-March of last year, shutting down factories andbusinesses, halting most road transport, canceling flightsand stopping trains. The lockdown was lifted in stagesbeginning June. The GDP is estimated to have contractedby 7-8 per cent in 2020-21 after economic activity showedsigns of recovery in last quarter of 2020.

Mumbai: The growth ofe-commerce volumes intier 2 and 3 cities in India isoutpacing that in tier-1 cit-ies, according to a recentreport. Smaller Indian citiesare now accounting for abigger volume of e-com-merce sales. E-commercegrowth in tier 2 and tier 3cities in India is outpacingthat of tier 1 cities, said anICICI Securities report. Vol-ume share of these smallercities in India's e-com-merce market increased to46 per cent in Q4CY20from 32 per cent YoY. Also,online spending per cus-tomer in tier 2 and tier 3cities has also improved asthese cities held a 43 percent share of the e-com-merce sales value last quar-ter, up from 26 per cent YoY.

This has raised hopes ofa sustainable last mile de-livery economics emergingfor the industry - yethyperlocal last mile smallparcel deliveries remaineconomically as challeng-ing as ever, it said.

We continue to see

‘E-commerce growth in tier-2, 3cities outpace tier-1 Indian cities'

emergence of end-to-endlogistics contracts with BajajElectricals and Flipkart withMahindra Logistics, it said,adding that the trend, whileaccreting value to the ser-vice provider, also gains cur-rency as emergence ofmultiple channels is in-creasing supply chain chal-lenge and risks.

This, in a way, is also aug-menting demand fororganised warehousing,the report said.

It noted that post GSTimplementation, a gradualmove towards organisedlarge format 'grade A+/grade A++' warehousing isleading to significant busi-ness opportunities for sec-tor participants.

ICICI Securities, how-ever, sees challenges withasset heavy road transpor-tation players and it saidthat many transportationmodels are at the risk of notreinventing, especially asSME business environmentrecovers and new star-tupecosystem starts to aggres-sively target the same.

Coimbatore: With thesecond wave of Covid-19sweeping across variousparts of Tamil Nadu, someof the industrialists in theState are apprehensive ofmigrant workers leavingfor their hometowns con-sidering the health condi-tions.

The industries recov-ered from the jolt of thefirst wave of coronaviruswhen over one lakh mi-grant workers from bothCoimbatore and Tirupurindustries rushed back totheir home towns in Bihar,

Some industrialists fear anotherexodus of migrant workers

Uttar Pradesh and Odishaby special trains.

Even as the businessstarted picking up, the 30per cent increase in theraw materials has affectedthe industries, sourcesfrom different industrial as-sociations said.

A few workers report-edly left for their nativesearly last week as theyfeared the availability oftransport like trains toreach their towns.

However, there was nomajor exodus from the in-dustries as the workers

working on weekly pay-ment basis had taken theirwages, the sources said.

Coimbatore andTirupur reported increasedinfection cases and a cor-rect picture of workers re-turning would emergeonly after another week,they said.

No worker left the citynearby Tirupur, a major hubof knitwear garmentswhere 80 per cent of overthree lakh workers hailedfrom the North, saidsources in the Tirupur Ex-porters Association.

Mumbai: Good newsfor home loan borrowerslooking for the lowesthome loan interest rate inthe market. Close on theheels of the State Bank ofIndia (SBI) revising its homeloan interest rate from6.70% to 6.95% effectiveApril 1, 2021, KotakMahindra Bank Ltd (KMBL)today announced thathome loan borrowers willcontinue to enjoy its spe-cial interest rate of 6.65%per annum. This incrediblylow interest rate is appli-cable across all loanamounts.

Both fresh home loanapplicants and balancetransfer cases are eligible

Kotak Mahindra Bank now offerslowest home loan interest rate

for interest rates beginningat 6.65% per annum. Inter-est rates, however, arelinked to borrowers’ creditscore and the Loan to Value(LTV) ratio.

Commenting on thesame, Ambuj Chandna,President Consumer As-sets, Kotak Mahindra Bank,said, “Buoyed by the con-vergence of a number offactors, not the least ofwhich was a steep drop inhome loan interest rates,the industry has witnesseda healthy growth in homesales in recent months. Weexpect this trend to con-tinue with consumers keento purchase and live & work

in their own homes. Wewould like to assure homebuyers that Kotak stands bythem and our home loanrate continues unchangedat 6.65% p.a. We also seethis as a great opportunityto build a quality home loanbook.

Features of Kotak HomeLoans:

-Starting at 6.65% p.a.on Home Loans and Bal-ance Transfer Loans

- 6.65% p.a. interest rateis applicable on all loanamounts

- Attractive rates forboth the salaried and self-employed customer seg-ments

CAIT urges PM for staggered working time fordifferent sectors to control Covid-19

New Delhi: Domestic traders' body CAIT on Sundayurged Prime Minister Narendra Modi not to impose nightcurfew or lockdown amid rising Covid-19 in the countryand instead adopt staggered working time for differentsectors. In a communication to the prime minister, theConfederation of All India Traders (CAIT) said it would bemore appropriate if alternate measures may be adoptedat district levels all over the country.

Instead of night curfew or lockdown which have notproved a worthy step so far to combat escalation of COVID-19, it would be more appropriate if alternate easy mea-sures may be adopted at district levels and staggeredworking time for different sectors, it said.

CAIT Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal said thata closer analysis of the COVID-19 statistics over the lastone week have made it ample clear that night curfewand lockdown in different states have not brought thedesired results of bringing down the cases.

It suggested that working hours of different verticalsof trade and commerce should be revised.

We suggest that government offices, private officesand other all kinds of offices may work whereas the mar-kets and shops may be allowed to work, it said.

AHMEDABAD MONDAY 26/4/2021

The Union Minister for Health & Family Welfare, Science & Technology and EarthSciences, Dr. Harsh Vardhan inspecting the addition of 500 Oxygenated Beds at theSardar Patel COVID Care Centre & Hospital, in Chhatarpur, New Delhi

The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi addresses on the occasion of theNational Panchayati Raj Day 2021, through video conferencing, in New Delhi

The Minister of State for Culture and Tourism (Independent Charge), Shri PrahladSingh Patel inaugurates the online exhibition on Ramayana, the Epic by MaharishiValmiki, at a webinar “India’s Heritage: Powering Tourism” organised by Ministry ofTourism, on the occasion of the World Heritage Day 2021, in New Delhi

4 Monday MontageAHMEDABAD MONDAY 26/4/2021

Katie Price to reveal all about hercosmetic surgeries in documentary

Los Angeles, Singer Katie Price is working on a new

documentary about cosmetic surgery. Shewill open up about her experiences withgoing under the knife for the upcomingshort film, which will feature on the show"Stephs Packed Lunch" next week.

"Katie is known for having cosmeticsurgery and she'll be an open book for thedocumentary. She is keen to speak out onevery little detail, including the ops thatwent wrong, and the ones that shethought were successful," an insider toldThe Sun, according to femalefirst.co.uk.

The insider added: "Katie will be talk-ing to surgeons and other people whohave had cosmetic surgery, too, as well as

discussing body image and how socialmedia like Instagram has made people'sself-confidence worse. Katie will also re-flect on why she chose to get surgery inthe first place way back in the '90s!"

"She filmed the scenes this week andthe doc will air during 'Steph's PackedLunch' next week," the source added.

Price first went under the knife in 1998and has had 12 breast augmentation sur-geries over the years. In 2015, she re-moved all of her implants and returned toher natural breast size for the first time in16 years.

She had earlier vowed never to havefacial surgery again following an opera-tion to fix a botched face lift.

Mumbai,Television actor Manish Goplani, who has been seen in shows such as Bepannah

Pyaar and Detective Didi, is sharing the screen with actress Saba Khan in the musicvideo Jatt Yamla.

It is a romantic dance track that was recently shot in Punjab by director Amit Kumar.Talking about the project, Manish says that it's important today to be part of differentplatforms. "Well, nowadays as we all know, a lot of platforms are coming up. So it's agood opportunity for all of us to be a part of, whether it's a series or a song. Getting toshowcase your craft in any medium gives you joy, be it a serial, a film or a music video.Jatt Yamla is your go-to dance song that will get your foot tapping to its beat," he toldIANS. Meanwhile, TV shoots have been stalled in Mumbai due to the Covid outbreakand Manish says that this is bound to take a toll on the industry.

"It's not just about the television, all the mediums are suffering due to this Covidsituation. But, in television, we need a huge number of people on set as it takes a largeteam, which is not safe nowadays. And, in television, we shoot on a daily basis. Youcan't take all the precautions and get 20-minutes footage in such a critical condition,"he says. He adds: "So it's getting hard for the producers as they have to ensure thesafety of every member on the set. It's better to fight with this deadly virus by stayingat home and make the situation better."

Jatt Yamla has been sung by Alia Khan and produced by PhotoFit Music Company.

Manish Goplani features in music video 'Jatt Yamla'

Amit Sadh : There isnothing like a flop

Mumbai,Bollywood actor Amit Sadh says that there is

always an audience for your film. The actor addsthat a film is a culmination of team work and agood concept.

"Someone very important in my life taught methere is nothing like a flop. People will continuewatching (the film) at some point in time. A film isa collective creative expression of the people in-volved, right from spot boy, technician, art direc-tors, stylists, designers, actors, producers, directors,assistants and more. So with strong content, a filmwill need strong backing from all these people. Ifpeople resonate with the work, then good, elsewe have another time to come back with some-thing worthwhile," he told IANS.

As far as he is concerned, Amit says that he hasnever felt that he is a celebrity and has alwaysfocused on his work. "I do not bucket work basedon what platform the work is getting released on.I am still working, learning so many things on thego so I do not associate myself with the celebritytag. I associate myself with the tag of an actor inIndian cinema," he says.

The actor has been seen in films such as "KaiPo Che", "Guddu Rangeela" as well as OTT projectssuch as "Breathe" and "7 Kadam".

Mumbai,Singer Armaan Malik on

Sunday took to Twitter to ex-press his respect for the Sikhcommunity fororganising foodand oxygenlangars duringthe ongoingsecond wave ofthe Covid-19pandemic.

"Utmost re-spect for theSikh communityfor organising the covid langars(food and oxygen) across thenation. In times of need theyalways come forward and helpeveryone around them,"Armaan tweeted on Sunday.

With the lack of availabilityof beds in hospitals coupledwith a shortage of oxygen dur-ing a raging second wave ofthe pandemic in India, an Oxy-gen Langar service has beenstarted by a gurdwara in theNational Capital Region for pa-tients who need oxygen.Gurdwara Sri Guru Singh Sabhaat Indirapuram in the Ghaziabaddistrict has started the serviceof Oxygen Langar for Covid pa-tients. The Gurdwara facilityprovides oxygen cylinders in-side the cars of persons in-fected with Covid-19.

Armaan MalikUtmost respect

for Sikhcommunity for

organisingCovid langars

Devi Sri Prasad: Have recreated 'SeetiMaar' to suit Salman Khan's image

Mumbai,Music composer Devi Sri

Prasad has recreated his song SeetiMaar for actor Salman Khan'sRadhe: Your Most Wanted Bhai. Thecomposer, who is popularly knownas Rockstar DSP, had composed theoriginal song for Allu Arjun starrerDuvvada Jagannadham in 2017.Talking about the recreated ver-sion, he says that it has been donekeeping in mind the image thatSalman enjoys in Bollywood. "Ihave recreated the entire song tosuit Salman's image whilst retain-ing its soul. He called me andshared his feedback on how thesong sounds terrific," he says.

The composer hopes that thesong is appreciated by the audi-

ence as well. "We hope that theaudiences enjoy the number asmuch as we enjoyed making it. Itis a fun song that will keep yougrooving," he says. Salman and DSPalso collaborated for the songDhinka Chika from the film Ready.

Mumbai,Veteran actor Kabir Bedi on

Sunday took to social media toremind netizens about the im-portance of washing their handsat a time when India is battling araging second wave of theCovid-19 pandemic.

Bedi also requested netizensto get vaccinated as soon as pos-sible.

"Let's fight Covid together.Mask. Distance. Wash your hands.GET VACCINATED ASAP.

PLS DON'T FORGET TO WASHYOUR HANDS WHEN YOU COMEHOME, if you have to go out. Orelse, all else may come tonought.

It's the ONE thing that youdo WRONG that gets you, evenif you do all the rest RIGHT. STAYSAFE AND HEALTHY. Keep yourfamily safe. #covid #covid_19#covidindia," Kabir Bedi postedon Instagram on Sunday.

Reminding everyone aboutnew mutations of the viruswhich are spreading rapidly, healso tweeted: "India is sufferingits worst health crisis. New mu-tations of the #COVID19 virusare spreading like wildfire. Nohealthcare system in the worldcan cope with 2 million newcases a week. But our doctors arefighting it valiantly. Each one ofus must join this fight to end it."

Kabir Bedi remindsof the necessity towash hands amid2nd Covid wave

By Yashika MathurHyderabad,

Actor Naveen Polishetty's new Telugu film "Jathi Ratnalu"has received good reception since its release on OTT, but theactor has bigger plans for his pan-India following. Naveen,who made his Bollywood debut playing 'Acid' in the 2019Sushant Singh Rajput-starrer "Chhichhore", says he wants todeliver good films in as many languages as he can.

"The idea is to be part of films across the country, wher-ever there is a story I find exciting and wherever there is afilmmaker who wants to cast me. I just want to be the Googletranslator actor, function in multiple languages. I want to bethe 'Google translator actor', where the director says, 'okay,speak in Hindi now' or 'okay, deliver dialogues in Telugu orTamil now', and I can switch and be able to do it," Naveentells IANS.

The actor gained immense popularity with his 2019Telugu release, "Agent Sai Srinivasa Athreya", so much so thatfans had started addressing him as Agent. He feels that thesuccess of his films have opened doors for good stories.

"What 'Jathi Ratnalu', 'Chhichhore' and 'Agent...' have doneis basically open doors for so many interesting stories acrossindustries," he says.

After its theatrical release, "Jathi Ratnalu' released digi-tally. "'Jathi Ratnalu' is being seen by filmmakers, audiencesacross India, thanks to Amazon. That divide has been broken.So now if you are a great actor, you can be part of a film fromanywhere in India. That's a great space to be in where audi-ences are also consuming content from everywhere. A greatstory can come from any film industry," says Naveen.

"That's the beauty of our country that we have such cre-ative minds all across. We are going through the golden ageof cinema that creative people can make a great film in anylanguage and with people from any part of the world," saysNaveen, dropping hint that he'll soon be seen in a Hindi filmthat is expected to go on floors later this year.

Naveen Polishetty : A great storycan come from any film industry

Mumbai,Nushrratt Bharuccha rose to fame with her roles in the "Pyaar

Ka Punchnama" franchise and "Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety". Movingaway from glamorous avatars, she has also portrayed de-glamroles in "Chhalaang" and "Ajeeb Daastaans".

Nushrratt says there is no conscious effort to switch over fromroles she may have played before, by taking up characters that aredifferent.

"(There is) No conscious choice or effort in anything. Honestly,I know I have been doing a certain kind of films but I don't look atthem that way. I take them as different characters, and I have to dothe same kind of hard work to make them different from the filmsbefore, which is even more challenging because the genre andthe premise is the same but your thinking is to make it different,"she told IANS. The segment in "Ajeeb Daastaans" featuringNushrratt is titled "Khilauna", and it co-stars Abhishek Banerjeeand child star Inayat Verma. "Khilauna" is directed by Raj Mehta.She plays a househelp in the short.

"Doing something different in a similar kind of thing is diffi-cult. You don't have to do it but as an actor you think let's dosomething new. Like the diction in 'Chhalaang' was interesting.So, I learnt the diction just to add more realism to the character. Idid the same in 'Khilauna'," Nushrratt added. "Ajeeb Daastaans"has four segments, with the other stories directed by ShashankKhaitan, Neeraj Ghaywan, and Kayoze Irani.

Nushrratt BharucchaNo conscious effort to move

away from glam roles

Mumbai,Bollywood actress Daisy Shah has been encouraging her

fans to get vaccinated for Covid-19 infection as soon aspossible. The actress says that the vaccinations will go a longway in helping people fight the virus.

"Vaccines as a concept are introduced for the citizens tofight the virus and given Covid, it is the only option we mustresort to, to be safe. People can be infected by the virus ingeneral so taking the vaccination surelydiminishes the effect and the chancesof someone contracting the virus. It isour best shot at eliminating Covid-19and we must promote the vaccinationdrives across the globe," she told IANS.The actress says that it is important to spread as much aware-ness as possible about Covid-19 so that people can be care-ful.

"The more we talk about Covid-19 and the situation out-side or how it is harming us as a country; the more we willcreate awareness and educate people. Through this aware-ness, people will be more thoughtful while stepping out ofthe house, taking care of themselves following all the pre-cautionary measures, etc. Once they start taking care of them-selves, they automatically take care of their loved ones andthe people around them," she says. The times are tough andtalking about how she is coping up with the stress, the ac-tress says, "One needs to understand that it is not time thatdefines you. It is you that defines time. No matter how toughthe situation is outside, always remember that you aretougher than any situation that erupts.

Vaccination is our best shot at eliminating Covid

Daisy Shah

5India will come out of COVID crisis with

flying colours: Deloitte CEO Punit RenjenWashington: India will

come out of the COVID-19crisis that has impacted theentire world with flyingcolours, Deloitte CEO PunitRenjen has said, assertingthat the 21st century isIndia's century.

Renjen said the Indiangovernment has per-formed well in addressingthe challenges posed bythe COVID-19 pandemic.

This is India's centuryand I'm convinced about it,”the 60-year-old prominentIndian-American businessleader told PTI in an inter-view.

I am certainly a little bi-ased given my (Indian) heri-tage but I'm actually con-vinced that this is India'scentury because of just theraw talent that exists in In-dia, the number of peoplethat comprise India, thedemocratic tradition thathas been around for 75years,” he said.

Observing that the pan-demic impacted everyone,Renjen said the pandemicimpacted India very hard,given the lockdown thatthe government had to putin place, given the size ofthe population and whatthe virus potentially coulddo to India.

The Rohtak-born In-dian-American CEO, who

has been heading Deloittesince 2015, described as“remarkable” a recent re-port from the InternationalMonetary Fund which pro-jected 12.5 per centgrowth rate for the coun-try.

Nobody can say withprecision, but I really be-lieve that India is going tocome out of this pandemicgrowing at the fastest rate;definitely the fastest largeeconomy, he said.

I think the recovery isgoing to be very strong. Thefundamentals of Indianeconomy are there and I'mvery bullish as is Deloitte onIndia, said Renjen, also amember of the DeloitteGlobal Board of Directors.

This was a very unpre-dictable virus. India is acountry of 1.3 billionpeople and there are com-munities in India likeDharavi in Mumbai that arehighly congested areas,which are really prime ar-eas for the virus to spread,he said.

I believe that the Indianeconomy, the Indianpeople have weatheredthis as well as they possiblycould,” he said, adding that,however, there have beendifficult times but that is notjust unique to India.

It has been very difficult

here in the United States.It's been difficult in West-ern countries. I'm confidentand optimistic there withthe vaccines in place, someof the learnings that we'vehad in the last year that wecan actually see a light atthe end of the tunnel,Renjen said.

When asked about theforeign direct investmentin India, he said the foreigninvestors look at a numberof parameters.

First that look at stablegovernance. India certainlyhas that. They look at demo-cratic traditions in the ruleof law. India has that. Theylook at a large consumerbase. 1.3 billion people as-piring to come out and bein the middle class orabove, India has that indroves. Then it looks at thecore comparative advan-tage. India's comparativeadvantage of highly tal-ented individuals is secondto none, he said.

Deloitte, which pro-vides industry-leading au-dit, consulting, tax and ad-visory services to many ofthe world's most admiredbrands, operates in morethan 150 countries, with ap-proximately 300,000 pro-fessionals. It has 50,000 in-dividuals in India at variouscenters.I have committed

that over the next fewyears, we will hire 75,000additional individuals. Andthe reason why Deloitte asan entity is looking at India,is because the talent thatexists in India. With all ofthat, I believe that all themakings are there for thisto be India century, he said.

Renjen said India needsto ensure that the meansof doing business in thecountry are open, that thereis an attraction for foreigninvestment coming to Indiato invest in sectors that areimportant not only for In-dia but also for India beingthe base to serve the restof the world.

India dominates interms of vaccine produc-tion and there is no rea-son why the country can-not be the pharmaceuti-cal engine for the rest ofthe world. India domi-nates in technology someiconic Indian companiesthat really operate glo-bally. There's no reasonwhy that can't be ex-panded, he said.

And why some of thenew things that havecome out of the pan-demic, the silver liningsthat have come out of thepandemic - digitization,cloud, the technology-en-abled secular growth -

why India canot drivethose areas? I think this isa great opportunity.

Renjen was born andraised in India. He movedto the United States afterreceiving a Rotary Foun-dation Scholarship toWillamette University. Hehas served on the boardof trustees of WillametteUniversity and was namedamong the 100 most in-fluential business leaderswho have graduated fromthe schools accredited bythe Association to Ad-vance Collegiate Schoolsof Business International.In 2019, Willamette Uni-versity conferred uponhim an honorary doctor-ate.

Considered to be oneof the highly influentialCEOs, Renjen is a memberof The BusinessRoundtable, The Interna-tional Business Council ofthe World Economic Fo-rum, and serves as themember of several not-for-profit boards includingat the United Way World-wide (chairman) and theUS-India StrategicPartnerchairman. He wasnamed an honoree to2012, 2013 and 2014 Na-tional Association of Cor-porate Directors (NACD)Directorship 100.

New Delhi: Severalbanks, including State Bankof India (SBI), have beenimposing excessivecharges on certain servicesprovided to poor personshaving zero-balance or Ba-sic Savings Bank DepositAccounts (BSBDA), a studyby the IIT-Bombay has re-vealed.

The study observedthat the SBI's decision tolevy a charge of Rs 17.70for every debit transactionbeyond four by the BSBDAaccount holders cannot beconsidered as reasonable.

It highlighted that theimposition of servicecharges resulted in unduecollections to the tune ofover Rs 300 crore fromamong nearly 12 crore Ba-sic Savings Bank DepositAccount (BSBDA) holdersof SBI during the period2015-20.

India's second-largestpublic sector lender PunjabNational Bank, which has3.9 crore BSBD accounts,collected Rs 9.9 crore dur-ing the same period.

There had been sys-tematic breach in the RBIregulations on BSBDAs byfew banks, most notably bythe SBI that hosts the maxi-mum number of BSBDAs,when it charged @ Rs 17.70for every debit transactioneven via digital means be-

SBI collects Rs 300 cr fromzero balance a/cs: Study

yond four a month.This imposition of ser-

vice charges resulted inundue collections to thetune of over Rs 300 crorefrom among nearly 12crore BSBDA holders of SBIduring the period 2015-20,of which the period 2018-19 alone saw a collectionof Rs 72 crore and the pe-riod 2019-20, Rs 158 crore,the study by IIT Bombayprofessor Ashish Dasstated.

Levying of charges onBSBDA is guided by Sep-tember 2013 RBI guide-lines. As per the directionthese accounts holders are‘allowed more than fourwithdrawals' in a month, atthe bank's discretion pro-vided the bank does notcharge for the same.

While defining the fea-tures of a BSBDA, the regu-latory requirements madeit amply clear that in addi-tion to mandatory freebanking services that in-cluded four withdrawalsper month, as long as thesavings deposit account isa BSBDA, banks cannot im-pose any charge even forvalue-added banking ser-vices that a bank may liketo offer at their discretion,the study said.

The RBI considers awithdrawal, beyond four amonth, a value-added ser-

vice, it said.We assess the derelic-

tion in SBI's duty towardsthe PMJDY when theBSBDA users were undulyand against the extantregulations forced to partwith such high charges fortheir day-to-day (noncash)digital debit transactionsthat the bank allowed in aBSBDA.

SBI, in breach of RBIregulations set forth as earlyas 2013, had been charg-ing the BSBDA holders forevery debit transaction be-yond four a month, it said,adding, the charges were ashigh as

Rs 17.70 even for digi-tal transactions like NEFT,IMPS, UPI, BHIM-UPI anddebit cards for merchantpayments. On the onehand, the country stronglypromoted digital means ofpayments, while on theother hand, SBI discouragedthese very people, to trans-act digitally for their day-to-day expenditures, bycharging an exploitative Rs17.70 per digital transac-tion. This dwarfed the spiritof financial inclusion.

The RBI's nonchalant at-titude to supervise its ownregulations encouragedother banks to become un-reasonable towardscharges beyond four deb-its a month, it said.

Bitcoin neared an all-time high as bullish senti-ment gathered steamahead of a listing by the larg-est US cryptocurrency ex-change.

The token rose as muchas 2.6% to $61,229, thehighest in nearly a month,before falling back to tradelittle changed. On March 13,Bitcoin reached a record of$61,742. Thecryptocurrency is up almostninefold in the past year, areturn that towers abovethat of more familiar assetslike equities or bullion.

Against the backdrop ofWall Street’s growing em-brace of crypto, the directlisting of digital-token ex-change Coinbase GlobalInc. is fanning interest.Coinbase is due to go pub-lic on the Nasdaq on April14, the first listing of its kind

Bitcoin rises by 2.6% to $61,229for a major cryptocurrencycompany and a test of in-vestor appetite for otherstart-ups in the sector.

A crypto company mov-ing to IPO is a big mile-stone,” said Nick Jones, CEOand co-founder atcryptocurrency walletZumo. “It’s moves like thisthat make consumers feelsafer with crypto and ulti-mately boost confidence inthe space.”

A growing list of com-panies are looking at oreven investing in Bitcoin,drawn by client demand,price momentum and argu-ments that it can hedgerisks such as faster inflation.Tesla Inc. earlier this yeardisclosed a $1.5 billion in-vestment in Bitcoin andmore recently started ac-cepting it as payment forelectric cars.

Elsewhere, GoldmanSachs Group Inc. has said it’sclose to offering invest-ment vehicles for Bitcoinand other digital assets toprivate wealth clients. Mor-gan Stanley plans to giverich clients access to threefunds that will enablecrypto ownership. The deckof exchange-traded fundstracking the token is ex-panding, while Paypal Inc.and Visa Inc. have begunusing cryptocurrencies aspart of the payments pro-cess.

A study by Dutch assetmanager Robeco suggeststhat despite its high volatil-ity, a 1% allocation toBitcoin in a diversified multi-asset portfolio could bebeneficial given.

Retail inflation rises to 5.52% in MarchRetail inflation rose to 5.52 per cent in March, mainly

on account of higher food prices, government data said.The consumer price index (CPI) based retail inflation stoodat 5.03 per cent in February. The rate of price rise in thefood basket accelerated to 4.94 per cent in March, asagainst 3.87 per cent in the preceding month, as per datareleased by the National Statistical Office (NSO).

Inflation in ‘fuel and light’ category was 4.50 per centduring the month vis-a-vis 3.53 per cent in February. Ear-lier this month, the Reserve Bank of India had projectedthe retail inflation at 5 per cent in the January-March quar-ter of 2020-21 and 5.2 per cent in the first two quarters ofthe current fiscal.

After breaching the upper tolerance threshold of 6per cent for six consecutive months (June-November2020), CPI inflation fell in December 2020 and easedfurther in January 2021 to 4.1 per cent on the back of asharp correction in vegetable prices and softening of ce-real prices. However, it rebounded to 5 per cent in Febru-ary, driven primarily by base effects.

The Reserve Bank, which mainly factors in the retailinflation while arriving at its monetary policy, has beenasked to keep CPI inflation at 4 per cent with a margin of2 per cent on either side.

Showing sluggishnessin the economy amid thepandemic, industrial pro-duction contracted for thesecond straight month by3.6 per cent in Februarydue to poor performanceof manufacturing and min-ing sectors, official datasaid.

The manufacturing sec-tor which constitutes 77.63per cent of the index of in-dustrial production (IIP) de-clined by 3.7 per cent inFebruary 2021, as per thedata released by the Na-tional Statistical Office(NSO).

The mining sector out-put declined by 5.5 percent in February 2021.However, power genera-tion grew marginally by 0.1per cent in the month un-der review.

The index had grownby 5.2 per cent in February2020.

The industrial produc-tion had plunged 18.7 percent in March last year fol-lowing the COVID-19 out-break and remained in thenegative zone till August2020.

With the resumption ofeconomic activities, factoryoutput posted a rise of oneper cent in September. TheIIP had grown by 4.5 percent in October. In Novem-ber 2020, the factory out-

Industrial production contracts 3.6% in Februaryput fell 1.6 per cent, whileit again entered the posi-tive territory by growing 1.6per cent in December2020.

The IIP data for January2021 has been revised to0.9 per cent contractionfrom a 1.6 per cent decline,as per the provisional datareleased in March 2021.

The government hadimposed a lockdown tocontain the spread ofCOVID-19 infections onMarch 25, 2020.With the

gradual relaxation of re-strictions, there has been arelative improvement inthe economic activities byvarying degrees as well asin data reporting, the Min-istry of Statistics andProgramme Implementa-tion had said.

The ministry had alsogiven a disclaimer that itmay not be appropriate tocompare the IIP in the post-pandemic months with thedata for the months preced-ing the COVID-19 out-

break.The manufacturing sec-

tor had recorded a growthof 3.8 per cent in February2020.

Mining sector outputtoo increased by 9.6 percent in the same month lastyear. The electricity genera-tion also grew at 11.5 percent in February 2020.

The output of capitalgoods, which is a barometerof investment, slipped 4.2per cent in February 2021,as against a contraction of

9.6 per cent a year ago.Consumer durables

output grew by 6.3 per centin the month under review,compared to a 6.2 per centdecline in February 2020.

Consumer non-durablegoods production fell 3.8per cent the month, com-pared to a contraction of 0.3per cent a year ago.

During April-February,the IIP contracted by 11.3 percent compared to one percent growth in the corre-sponding period of 2019-20.

Mumbai: The ReserveBank of India (RBI) an-nounced that the Real-Time Gross Settlement(RTGS) service will not beavailable for 14 hours onApril 18 (Sunday) due to atechnical upgrade. Thecentral bank also noted thatthe National ElectronicFund Transfer (NEFT) ser-vices will continue to re-main operational duringthis period.

A technical upgrade ofRTGS, targeted to enhancethe resilience and to fur-ther improve the DisasterRecovery Time of the RTGSsystem, is scheduled after

RTGS services won’t be available for 14 hourson April 18 due to technical upgrade: RBI

the close of business ofApril 17, 2021. Accordingly,RTGS service will not beavailable from 00:00 hrs to14.00 hrs on Sunday, April18, 2021. The NEFT systemwill continue to be opera-tional as usual during thisperiod, RBI said.

RBI also asked themember banks to notify thecustomers, asking them toplan their transactions ac-cordingly. Member banksmay inform their custom-ers to plan their paymentoperations accordingly.RTGS Members will con-tinue to receive eventupdate(s) through system

broadcasts.On April 7, the central

bank allowed for the directmembership of non-bankpayment system operatorsin the Centralised PaymentSystems (CPS). Until then,RTGS and NEFT were al-lowed only for banks andspecialised entities likeclearing corporations andselect development finan-cial institutions. However,after the announcement,non-bank entities like Pre-paid Payment Instrument(PPI) issuers, Card Net-works, White Label ATM(WLA) operators, Trade Re-ceivables Discounting Sys-tem ( TReDS) platforms

would also be enabled totake direct membership inCPS.

The move is intendedto encourage the participa-tion of non-banks acrosspayment systems, RBI said.

This facility is expectedto minimise settlement riskin the financial system andenhance the reach of digi-tal financial services to alluser segments. These enti-ties will, however, not beeligible for any liquidity fa-cility from the ReserveBank to facilitate settlementof their transactions in theseCPSs. Necessary instruc-tions will be issued sepa-rately.

Mumbai: RBI GovernorShaktikanta Das askedbanks to remain watchfulof the evolving situationand emphasised the im-portance of credit flow tosustain the nascent eco-nomic recovery amid ris-ing coronavirus cases.

MD/CEOs of public sec-tor banks and select pri-vate sector lenders, Dasalso highlighted the recent

Remain watchful of evolvingsituation: RBI Guv to banks

policy measures taken byRBI to further support theongoing recovery whilepreserving financial stabil-ity, the central bank said.

Das touched upon theimportance of credit flowsin sustaining the nascenteconomic recovery andadvised banks to remainwatchful of the evolvingsituation and continue tak-ing measures proactively

for maintaining their busi-ness continuity, sharpeningbusiness strategies andraising adequate capital forstrengthening balancesheets.

He also emphasisedthe need for banks tomaintain a close vigil onthe payments and other ITsystems operated by banksand fortifying those forenhanced efficiency andresilience so as to offerseamless and uninter-rupted customer service,RBI said.

Among other matters,progress in the implemen-tation of COVID ResolutionFramework, outlook onstresses assets and capitalaugmentation came up fordiscussion.

The liquidity scenarioand monetary transmis-sion, and credit flows todifferent sectors, includingMSMEs, and retail, werealso discussed during themeeting held throughvideo-conferencing.

Deputy Governors M KJain, M Rajeswar Rao and afew other senior officialsof RBI also attended themeetings.

There are concernsthat surging coronaviruscases and resultinglocalised restrictionsmight hamper cash flowand result in stressed as-sets.

The government hasproposed a detailed actionplan to boost the dwindlingoil and gas production ofstate-run Oil and NaturalGas Corporation (ONGC)that includes hiving off non-core businesses into sepa-rate companies, monetisingexisting infrastructure,decentralisation of deci-sion-making on operationalmatters and partnershipswith private energy majors,two officials familiar withthe matter said.

In lines with theAtmanirbhar Bharat (Self-reliant India) policy, thegovernment has decided toreduce India’s over-relianceon imported oil. It has setproduction targets of 40million metric tonnes(MMT) of crude oil, and 50billion cubic meters (BCM)

Govt readies action plan to boost ONGC’s productionof gas by 2023-24 whereONGC is tasked to contrib-ute 70%, the officials saidrequesting anonymity. Indiaimported over 89% ofcrude oil it processed in2019-20.

India’s domestic crudeoil production is constantlyon a decline. It is mainlybecause ONGC, which con-tributes about 70% of thedomestic output, is unableto ramp up production fromexisting fields and couldnot add new fields underproduction. Hence, the ac-tion plan,” one official said.While ONGC’s crude oiloutput fell to 20.71 MMT in2019-20 from 21.11 MMTin 2018-19, natural gas pro-duction declined to 23.85BCM in 2019-20 comparedto 24.75 BCM in previousyear.

ONGC is given a targetto achieve 28 MMT of oil and35 BCM of gas productionby March 31, 2024, a sec-ond official said. Therefore,there is an urgent need torestructure and revampONGC to enable it to func-tion as an engine of explo-ration of production [E&P]growth in lndia, he said.

According to a note giv-ing details of the restructur-ing proposal, ONGC isasked to hive off its non-core businesses into sepa-rate companies. Given itsexperience in every sphereof E&P, ONGC may explorecreating separate entitiesfor drilling, well services,logging, work-over servicesand data processing enti-ties through various modes,such as start-ups, invest-ment trusts, societies and

companies, it said. HT re-viewed the note.

ONGC is also asked toforge partnerships withglobal players in blocks withdifficult play, but highprospectivity such as itsKrishna-Godavari basinblock called KG-DWN-98/2.

It proposed that ONGCcould bring in technicallysound private partners forabout 66 major fields thatcontribute over 95% of thedomestic production.“ONGC has not identifiedfields for inviting partner-ships even as the govern-ment asked it to do so inFebruary 2019.

The restructuring pro-posal also asked ONGCboard of directors to em-power asset managers. “As-sets may be empowered toact like a small companies.

AHMEDABAD MONDAY 26/4/2021

Hiring to grow by 7% in Apr-June: ReportMumbai: The intent to

hire in the current quarteris likely to rise by 7 per centover the previous threemonths if furtherlockdowns and workplaceoperating rules are not en-forced, mainly driven bydemand in healthcare,pharmaceuticals, educa-tional services, ecommerceand technology start-upsand IT, according to a report.

In fact, out of the 21sectors reviewed, morethan 8 sectors will witnessa 9-11 per cent rise in theirintent to hire in the currentquarter, TeamLease Em-ployment Outlook Reporthas revealed.

Indian economy hasbeen regaining the lostground and the same wasreflecting in hiring as well.Be it the IMF, OECD or Fitch,all have been positive andthis was bolstering the busi-

ness sentiment and the in-tent to hire. However, if weresort to lockdowns it willderail and further delay therecovery.

In fact, it will impact thescope of growth in employ-ment negatively. If we con-tinue with our efforts andnot opt for lockdown, thebusiness optimism will re-main intact and so the hir-ing.

The intent to hire willgrow from 27 per centpoint in January-March to34 per cent in the currentquarter,” TeamLease Ser-vices co-founder and ex-ecutive vice presidentRituparna Chakraborty said.

The report is based on asurvey among 712 small,medium and large compa-nies across the 21 sectorspan-India from January toJune.

The report further re-

vealed that healthcare,pharmaceuticals, educa-tional services,ecommerce and technol-ogy start-ups and informa-tion technology are thekey sectors, who are likelyto ramp up their talentpool.

In fact, more than 58per cent of the corporatesin healthcare and pharma-ceuticals sectors, which isnearly 11 per cent higherthan the January-Marchperiod, are keen on hiringtalent.

Educational services,ecommerce and technol-ogy start-ups and IT havealso indicated similar en-thusiasm with 55 percent, 51 per cent and 50per cent the companies,respectively, expressingintent to hire.

Mumbai: The whole-sale price-based inflationshot up to over 8-year highof 7.39 per cent in Marchon rising crude oil andmetal prices. Also, the lowbase of March last year,when the data was com-puted with a low responserate due to the nationwidelockdown, contributed to aspike in inflation in March2021.

The WPI inflation was4.17 per cent in Februaryand 0.42 per cent in March2020. This is the thirdstraight month of up-tickseen in the wholesale priceindex (WPI) based inflationin the fuel and power bas-ket was 10.25 per cent inMarch, against 0.58 percent in February, mainly on

WPI inflation spikes to over 8-year high of 7.39% in March

account of rising prices ofpetrol and diesel.

The annual rate of infla-tion stood at 7.39 per cent(provisional) for the monthof March 2021 over March2020,” the Commerce andIndustry Ministry said. Sucha high level of WPI was lastrecorded in October 2012,when inflation was 7.4 percent.Inflation in food ar-ticles in March was 3.24 percent as prices of pulses,fruits and paddy hardened.In vegetables, the rate ofprice rise was (-) 5.19 percent, compared to (-) 2.90per cent in the previousmonth. Inflation in pulseswas 13.14 per cent inMarch, while in fruits it was16.33 per cent.

Inflation in the fuel and

power basket was 10.25per cent in March, against0.58 per cent in February,mainly on account of risingprices of petrol and diesel.

The prices of crude oil,petroleum products andbasic metal substantially in-creased in March 2021 ascompared to the corre-sponding month of last year.Also, due to nationwidelockdown, the WPI indexfor the month of March2020 was computed witha relatively low responserate,” the commerce min-istry said while releasingthe data. Retail inflation, asper data released earlierthis week, rose to a 4-monthhigh of 5.52 per cent inMarch.

Mumbai: Reliance In-dustries Ltd. (RIL) was thetop laggard for mutual fundhouses in the month ofMarch, with the value ofholdings dropping by Rs3,060 crore. The share priceof RIL, fell 2.6% duringMarch while stock marketsended with marginal gains.This resulted in fund man-agers selling 90 lakh sharesof the company throughthe month. Investors comeback to mutual funds inMarch as AMFI data showednet inflows for the first timein eight months.

Mutual fund housesowned 25.58 crore equityshares of Reliance Indus-tries at the end of February.The number of shares atthe end of March was downto 24.68 crore, a fall of 90

Reliance Industries top laggard for Mutual Funds inMarch; fund managers sell nearly 90 lakh shares

lakh shares, according tothe data sourced by Edel-weiss Research. In terms ofchange in value, ICICI Se-curities said the value dropwas Rs 3,060 crore or 5.8%from the previous month.Fund houses have contin-ued to trim stake in indexheavyweights over the lastfew months. In February,fund houses sold 72 lakh RILshares.

RIL was not the onlybig-name stock that wassold by fund houses. Edel-weiss highlights that theoil-to-telecom conglomer-ate was followed byHindustan Unilever, wherefund houses sold 63 lakhshares. The number ofshares sold was the high-est for Vedanta with mutualfunds selling 5 crore shares

of Anil Agarwal’s firm. ITCfollowed close behind withover 4 crore shares andICICI Bank with over 2 croreshares.

Funds were instead de-ployed towards the initialpublic offerings (IPO).March was an IPO Frenzymonth and Mutual Fundshouses collectively de-ployed Rs 1,600 crore in 9names, Edelweiss said.MTAR Tech IPO saw the larg-est inflows, totalling Rs 613crore, Craftsman Automa-tion inflows were at Rs 183crore, and Nazara Technolo-gies received Rs 180 crore,making them the threehighest bets made by fundhouses in the IPO arena.Easytrip Planners, SuryodaySmall Finance, Laxmi Or-ganic,

6 AHMEDABAD MONDAY 26/4/2021

DoT likely to issue guidelinesfor telecom PLI within week

New Delhi: The Depart-ment of Telecommunica-tions (DoT) is likely to issueguidelines on implementa-tion of production-linkedincentive (PLI) schemes formanufacturers in the sec-tor and start inviting appli-cations for the same inabout a week, according togovernment officials.

Telecom gear makersfirms such as Ericsson andNokia are keen to expandtheir operations in India,and global companies likeSamsung, Cisco, Ciena andFoxconn have shown inter-est to set up manufactur-ing bases in the country fortelecom and networkingproducts for domestic andexport markets.

Telecom PLI has alreadybeen approved by the gov-ernment. The DoT is readywith guidelines to imple-ment it, application format,incentive allocation, etc. Itshould be published on theDoT website within a week,

the official, who did notwish to be named.

The DoT notified thePLI scheme for telecomand networking productson February 24, 2021, witha financial outlay of Rs12,195 crore, over fiveyears.

The scheme fortelecom gear manufactur-ing in India which is ex-pected to encourage pro-duction of equipmentworth Rs 2.44 lakh croreand create direct and indi-rect employment for about40,000 people.

The investor can earnincentive for incrementalsales up to 20 times thecommitted investment en-abling them to reach glo-bal scales and utilise theirunused capacity and rampup production.

The scheme is ex-pected to bring an invest-ment of over Rs 3,000 croreand generate tax revenueof about Rs 17,000 crore.

Gasoline usage in India jumps inMarch as commuters prefer cars

New Delhi: Gasoline usage inIndia jumps in March as commut-ers prefer cars

Gasoline demand in India hita four month high in March as mil-lions of people favored cars overpublic transport, with the world’smost populous nation seeing aresurgence in virus cases.

Motor fuel demand rose to88,380 tons per day last month,the highest level since Novem-ber last year, according to officialdata. On the year, gasoline salessurged 27% versus last year whenlocal demand collapsed due tothe roll-out of strict lockdowns tostem the spread of Covid-19.

India’s daily overall consump-tion of oil products fell on themonth in March, as demand for

diesel, the most popular fuel, de-clined. While the pandemic hasprovided a shot in the arm forgasoline use more are opting forprivate transport over buses andtrains the roll-out of lockdownsas India suffers a second wave ofcoronavirus infections may leadto a halt in an oil demand recov-ery.

India Seeks Less Saudi Oil asVirus Resurgence Dents Demand

Government authorities arenow mulling a re-imposition ofstrict restrictions as the state ofMaharashtra faces a surge in in-fections and widespread vaccineshortages. India has prohibitedexports of the drug Remdesivir,used to treat Covid-19, while thestreets of Mumbai were deserted.

Industrial productioncontracts 3.6% in Feb

New Delhi: Showing sluggishnessin the economy amid the pandemic, in-dustrial production contracted for thesecond straight month by 3.6 per cent inFebruary due to poor performance ofmanufacturing and mining sectors, offi-cial data said.

The manufacturing sector which con-stitutes 77.63 per cent of the index ofindustrial production (IIP) declined by 3.7per cent in February 2021, as per the datareleased by the National Statistical Of-fice (NSO). The mining sector output de-clined by 5.5 per cent in February 2021.

However, power generation grewmarginally by 0.1 percent in the monthunder review.

The index hadgrown by 5.2 per centin February 2020. Theindustrial productionhad plunged 18.7 per cent in March lastyear following the COVID-19 outbreakand remained in the negative zone tillAugust 2020. With the resumption ofeconomic activities, factory outputposted a rise of one per cent in Septem-ber. The IIP had grown by 4.5 per cent inOctober. In November 2020, the factoryoutput fell 1.6 per cent, while it againentered the positive territory by grow-ing 1.6 per cent in December 2020.

India gold imports jump to neartwo-year high as demand revives

New Delhi: Gold im-ports by India surged inMarch to the highestmonthly total in nearly twoyears as a slump in pricesstoked demand for jewelryduring the ongoing wed-ding season.

Overseas purchases in-creased more than seven-fold to 98.6 tons last monthfrom 13 tons a year earlier,according to a person fa-miliar with the data, whoasked not to be identifiedas the information isn’tpublic. That would be thehighest since May 2019. Fi-nance Ministry spokesmanRajesh Malhotra didn’t im-mediately respond to callsto his mobile phone.

Imports during the firstthree months of 2021more than doubled in theworld’s second-biggestconsumer to almost 190tons, according toBloomberg calculations

based on the data.Benchmark gold fu-

tures in India havetumbled about 17% froma record in August last year,boosting demand duringthe wedding season andahead of Akshaya Tritiyanext month, the second-most auspicious day to buygold in the Hindu calendar.

Still, a resurgence in vi-

rus cases and restrictionson movement and busi-ness activity in some statesis worrying jewelers as itcould threaten the revivalin sales. In Maharashtra,which houses the biggestbullion market in the coun-try, non-essential busi-nesses have been asked tostay shuttered for the restof April as infections soar.

Flipkart, Adani joinhands to set up datacentre, warehouse

New Delhi:Flipkart haspartnered with infrastruc-ture firm Adani Group to setup a data centre in Chennaiand a large fulfilment cen-tre in Kalyan, near Mumbai.

The e-commerce com-pany said it will work withAdani Logistics Ltd, whichprovides end-to-end logis-tics services, and is a sub-sidiary of Adani Ports andSpecial Economic Zone Ltd(APSEZ), to strengthen itssupply chain and serve itsgrowing customer base.

As part of this, AdaniLogistics will construct a534,000 sq. ft fulfilmentcentre at its forthcominglogistics hub in NRC Com-plex at Mohone-Thane inKalyan. This will be leasedout to Flipkart to help meetits increasing demand inwestern India and supportaccess to several thousandsof sellers.

Kalyan is a futuristic andoffbeat warehousing loca-

tion, and Flipkart will havea first-mover advantage,property consultants said.Adani owns nearly 300acres there and more activ-ity is expected in the com-ing months.

The warehousing facil-ity is expected to be opera-tional in the second half of2022 and will have the ca-pacity to house 10 millionunits of sellers’ inventory atany point in time. It has thepotential to create 2,500direct and thousands of in-direct jobs.

W a l m a r t - o w n e dFlipkart, which has two datacentres in Hyderabad andChennai, will set up its thirddata centre at the Chennaifacility of AdaniConneX Pvt.

Global stocks follow Wall Sthigher after US inflation rises

Beijing: Global stock marketsand Wall Street futures rose aftertraders shrugged off higher US in-flation and a decline in Japanesemachinery orders.

London and Paris openedhigher while Shanghai, HongKong and Seoul rose. Tokyo wasoff less than 0.5%.

Wall Street ’s benchmarkS&P 500 index climbed 0.3%to a new high, propelled by techand consumer stocks on opti-mism the vaccine rollout will al-low business activity to return tonormal. Johnson & Johnsonfell 1.3% after US regulators sus-pended use of its single-dose vac-cine to investigate possibly dan-gerous blood clots.

The US government reportedconsumer prices increased by astronger-than-expected 0.6% inMarch, the fastest rate since2012. Higher inflation normallyfuels fears interest rates might beraised to keep prices stable, butthe Federal Reserve has said theeconomy will be allowed to “runhot” to ensure a recovery is in

place. Traders took the well-tele-graphed inflation pick-up’ instride, Stephen Innes of Axi saidin a report. Markets also are seem-ingly unfazed by the J&J suspen-sion.

In early trading, London’s FTSE100 was up less than 0.1% at6,896.64. Frankfurt ’s DAX de-clined less than 0.1% to

15,222.10 while the CAC 40 inParis gained 0.2% to 6,196.15. OnWall Street, the future for the S&P500 index was up less than 0.1%while that for the Dow Jones In-dustrial Average wasunchanged.The Dow, which in-cludes J&J, fell 0.2%. The Nasdaq,with more technology stocks,gained 1.1%.

Markets undeterred byCovid, fundraising increases

New Delhi: Despite theuncertainty prevailing in FY2020-21 owing to Covid-19 pandemic, fundraising inFY 2020-21 was better thanthat in FY 2019-20 for bothPublic Issues and Rights Is-sues, the finance ministrysaid.

During FY 2020-21, Rs46,029.71 crore and Rs64,058.61 crore wereraised through Public Issuesand Rights Issue respec-tively, as against Rs21,382.35 crore and Rs55,669.79 crore raised lastyear. This is an increase of115 per cent and 15 percent respectively in FY2020-21 as compared tolast year.

In FY21, in all 56 publicissues were launched, in-cluding 55 initial public of-fers (IPO) and only one fol-low on public offer (FPO).The number of rights issuewas also a high of 21.A fi-nance ministry tweet saidthat last year around 2003issues of Corporate Bondsfor an amount of Rs7,82,427.39 crore also hap-

pened, surpassing theamount raised (Rs6,89,686.19 crore) through1,821 issues for the fiscalyear 2019-20.Thus, whilethe number of issues in-creased by 10 per cent inFY 2020-21, the amountraised increased by 13.5per cent as compared tothe previous financial year.

With regard to mutualfunds, the finance ministrysaid that Indian capital mar-ket has shown its resilienceto withstand the ripplescaused by exogenousshocks like the pandemic.

Land value within 500 metre of upcoming metro corridors to rise 10-15%Mumbai: As several cities

add metro rail to their public trans-port facilities or extend their ex-isting networks, a JLL report saidthat land value within 500 metreof upcoming metro corridors is ex-pected to increase by 10-15 percent, according to a JLL report.

Noting that India was intro-duced to the metro rail as an al-ternative mode of transport threedecades, the report said: Sincethen, the advantages of themetro rail system have increasedmany-folds. Primarily it has beenthe enhanced connectivity to thesuburbs of the city, thus enablingdistribution of the city populationto a larger extent of land result-ing to congestion reduction in thecity.

Covering a total of 760.62 kmacross India with another 578.34km under construction, the pasttwo decades has seen a tremen-dous growth of the metro rail.

Cities including Kochi,Chennai, Bengaluru, Nagpur andNashik have seen significant ex-pansion of new metro lines,which was highlighted by the Fi-nance Minister in the Union Bud-

get hearing in January 2021.Further, two new technolo-

gies including MetroLite andMetroNeoare are being plannedto provide affordable connectiv-ity options in tier II cities and pe-ripheral parts of tier I cities.

The real estate market hasseen a steady growth along themetro corridors, owing to in-crease in developments along-side the routes. Furthermore, onan average, the land value within500 metre of metro corridors hasincreased by 15-20 per cent, es-pecially in residential and com-mercial areas, said A. Shankar,Head - Strategic Consulting andValuation Advisory, India, JLL.

He further said that it hasbeen observed that appreciationin land value has been on a riseafter the metro operation and in-crease by 2-5 per cent annuallyover other locations, comparedto the construction and planningphase.The deployment of metrocorridor directly impacts the realestate sector as it increases theland value, land use change anddensification alongside themetro corridor.

SIP collections drop to Rs 96,000 cr inFY21 amid pandemic-led disruptions

New Delhi: The Mutualfund industry saw its collec-tions through SIPs dropping4 per cent to Rs 96,000 crorein the 2020-21 fiscal, asCOVID-19 inducedlockdowns led to incomeuncertainty.

Going forward, successof the vaccination drive, bet-ter than expected economicscenario and higher incomescan be the factors that willhave an impact on system-atic investment plan or SIPflows, Gopal Kavalireddi,Head of research, FYERS, said.

While a few of the eco-nomic indicators like GSTcollections, auto and housingsales look positive, IIP andinflation data along with in-termittent lockdowns canaffect the economicprogress in the ongoing fis-cal, he added.

A total of Rs 96,080 crorewas collected through SIP injust concluded fiscal, lowerthan Rs 1,00,084 crore gar-nered in 2019-20, as per theAssociation of Mutual Fundsin India (AMFI).

Inflows into SIPs haveaveraged about Rs 8,000crore for the 12 months tillMarch this year.

Systematic investmentplans or SIPs have been thethe preferred route for retailinvestors to invest in mutualfunds as it helps them reducemarket timing risk.

The mutual fund SIP con-tribution has increasedsteadily over the years. FromRs 43,921 crore collected in2016-17, Rs 67,190 crore in2017-18, Rs 92,693 crore in2018-19, the SIP contribu-

tion hit the Rs 1 lakh croremark in 2019-20.

Quantum Mutual FundChief Executive Jimmy Patelattributed the decline in SIPnumbers to coronavirus-in-duced lockdown as severalinvestors chose to stop theirSIPs. With the coronaviruspandemic resulting inlockdowns in March 2020and raising income uncer-tainty, many investors optedto pause their SIPs. This wasevident from the decreasein SIP inflows post March2020.

There is need for positive regulatory frameworkfor internet cos : Facebook India head

New Delhi: Facebook India Head AjitMohan said there is a need for a “for-ward-looking and positive regulatoryframework” for internet companies, andthat organisations also need to be moretransparent about how they use cus-tomer data.

The executive noted that India hasseen an “explosive shift”in terms of access to theinternet and this ex-panded access gas-driventhe emergence of en-tirely new models, a featthat no other country hasmanaged to do so muchin such a short period oftime.

We absolutely do be-lieve that the internetneeds new rules, not justin India but around theworld. We operated for avery long time with notenough clarity on the traf-fic lights. And this is themoment when we shouldthink especially in democratic societies,think about how we navigate complexissues where there are competing trade-offs. I’m hoping that we can emerge witha very forward-looking and positive regu-latory framework,” he said at the RaisinaDialogue.

Mohan, Vice President and Manag-ing Director, Facebook India, said thatthere are a few areas that the regula-tions can focus on.

One is transparency mandates. Makeit the company’s to be more transparentabout how data is used. Second, there’sa lot of concern about algorithms, and

how machines are control-ling people’s lives. I thinkwe would be very keen tolean in and say how do weprotect user agency wherepeople have the opportu-nity to make explicitchoices that drive algo-rithms, he said.

Mohan added that a lotof the conversation hasbeen about how large techcompanies benefit fromlarge sets of data. I think wehave been very forward insaying we are open to cre-ating frameworks that stillprotect the interests of pri-vacy and safety when data

moves around, but make it easier for us-ers to move data between competingplatforms. I do believe that we are a part-ner in this. But I agree with the frame-work that we need rules and we hopethose will be forward-looking and posi-tive,” he said.

Indian economy mayclock double-digit growth

in 2021: Moody’sNew Delhi: The second wave of Covid-19 infec-

tions presents a risk to India’s growth forecast as thereimposition of measures to curb the spread of thevirus will hit economic activity, but a double-digit GDPgrowth is likely in 2021 given the low level of activitylast year, Moody’s said.

Moody’s expects that given the focus on ‘micro-containment zones’ to deal with the current wave ofinfections, as opposed to a nationwide lockdown, theimpact on economic activity would be less severe thanthat seen in 2020.

India’s very lowcoronavirus deathcount (only about1,70,179 deathshave been recordedas of April 12) andrelatively very youngpopulation also helpmitigate risks. GDP isstill likely to grow indouble digits in 2021

given the low level of activity in 2020,” Moody’s Inves-tors Service said.

In its commentary on India, Moody’s said the coun-termeasures to combat the second wave some of whichare due to remain in place at least until the end of Aprilrisk weakening the economic recovery.

However, the targeted nature of containment mea-sures and rapid progress on vaccinating the populationwill mitigate the credit-negative impact.

7

DisclaimerA d v e r s t i s e m e n tappeared in this NewsPaper have not beenverified factually and“WESTERNTIMES”does not standresponsible for thesales proposition.

BIZ NEWS IN NUTSHELL

A H M E D A B A D * M A R K E T * G U I D E

AHMEDABAD MONDAY 26/4/2021

New Delhi,Petrol and diesel prices

were unchanged across thefour metros for the 10th dayin a row.

In the national capital,petrol was sold for Rs 90.40per litre.

Price of the fuel inMumbai, Chennai andKolkata were Rs 96.83, Rs92.43 and Rs 90.62 per li-tre, respectively.

Similarly, price of dieselalso was unchanged for the10th straight day. In Delhi,Mumbai, Chennai andKolkata, the fuel was soldfor Rs 80.73, Rs 87.81, Rs85.75 and Rs 83.61 per li-tre, respectively.

Prices remained un-changed despite highcrude oil prices. Brentcrude prices are currentlyabove the $66-per-barrelmark.

The June contract ofBrent crude on the Inter-continental Exchange (ICE)is currently trading at$66.11 per barrel, higher by1.09 per cent from its pre-vious close.

OMCs keepfuel pricesunchangedfor 10thstraight day

Banking hours restricted to 2 p.m. in TN from MondayChennai,

With sudden surge in Covid-19 cases in Tamil Nadu and toprevent further spread, bank branches in Tamil Nadu will functionbetween 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. from April 26 to April 30.

The timing will be reviewed after April 30, based on the Covid-19 situation in the state.

The State Level Bankers' Committee-Tamil Nadu (SLBC-TN) onSaturday issued aseries of guidelinesto its memberbanks in the state.

In addition, theSLBC-TN has saidwherever possiblecluster based func-tioning of branchesin consultation withthe local adminis-tration shall beadopted.

Branches that are routinely facing huge crowds, shall seek thehelp of police for crowd management, by taking up through theLead District Manager.

There will be no change in the working hours of administra-tive/zonal/regional/back offices of the banks where the staff donot have direct contact with the public.

The other decisions are : Staff with co-morbidities conditions, pregnant women, visually

challenged may be given the option of work from home by therelevant authorities of the concerned banks;

SAadhar Enrolment Centre functions shall be suspended; SBranches functioning in the areas declared as Containment

Zones, if any, shall continue to be guided by the directions given bythe appropriate authorities;

SBanks to ensure that all alternate delivery channels such as bankATMs/cash deposit machines/Cash recyclers shall be functional;

SBusiness Correspondents services should be fully functional at alltimes;

SBank shall encourage all their eligible staff members to avail ofthe vaccination facility for themselves as well as for their familymembers;

SAll other procedures to contain the spread of Covid-19 like use offace mask, washing of hands at regular intervals, maintaining socialdistancing etc shall be strictly adhered to; and

SMember banks are requested to educate and encourage theircustomers to make use of alternate delivery channels/opt for digitaltransactions instead of visiting branches physically.

Srei Equipment Financereceives EoI for capital infusion

Kolkata,Srei Equipment Finance Limited (SEFL) has re-

ceived an Expression of Interest (EoI) for capitalinfusion from Cerberus Global Investments B.V.

In a regulatory filing, the company said that itsboard of directors along with that of Srei Infra-structure Finance Limited held meetings on Fri-day, April 23, 2021.

Established in 1992, Cerberus comprises oneof the world's leading private investment firmswith around $53 billion under management acrossmultiple strategies. Cerberus is headquartered inNew York City, USA, and has advisory offices inMumbai, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, Beijing,London, Dublin, Dubai, Madrid and Frankfurt,among others.

Ahmedabad, In view of rising

Covid-19 cases and re-strictions imposed in vari-ous parts of the country,HDFC Bank today an-nounced the availability ofMobile Automated TellerMachines (ATMs) acrossIndia to assist customersduring the lockdown. Atrestricted / sealed areas,the Mobile ATMs willeliminate the need forgeneral public to moveout of their locality towithdraw cash

During the lockdownlast year, HDFC Bank suc-cessfully deployed mobileATMs in over 50citiesandfacilitated lakhsof customers in availingcash to meet their exigen-cies. Customers can con-duct over 15 types oftransactions using the

HDFC Bank deploys MobileATMs across India

Mobile ATM, which will beoperational at each loca-tion for a specificperiod.The Mobile ATMwill cover 3-4 stops in aday.

All necessary precau-tions in terms of maintain-ing social distancing whilequeuing for the ATM andsanitization are beingtaken to ensure safety ofstaff and customers.

“We hope our mobileATM will provide a greatsupport for people whowant to avail basic finan-cial services without hav-ing to venture far fromtheir neighbourhood,”said Mr. S Sampathkumar,Group Head – LiabilityProducts, Third Party Prod-ucts and Non-ResidentBusiness at HDFCBank.“During this difficulttime, we want to do ourpart to help everyone#Stay Home and #Stay Safeas we stand together tocurb the spread ofCOVID19. This service willalso be of great help to allthe healthcare workers,and other essential ser-vice providers who havebeen working tirelessly tocombat the pandemic.”

Rome, Italy's coronavirus vac-

cine rollout hit a major mile-stone, though it appearedunlikely the country wouldreach its end-of-month tar-get for daily vaccinations.

The country's Ministryof Health reported on Sat-urday that five million Ital-ian residents had been fullyvaccinated, making Italy thethird European Union (EU)member state to reach thatmilestone, following Ger-many and France, Xinhuanews agency reported.

A total of 17.3 millionpeople in Italy have re-ceived at least the first doseof a vaccine, which meansthat around 28.5 per centof the country's populationis partially vaccinated.

The Italian vaccinerollout, which waslaunched on December 27,2020, had seen problemsso far, including a four-daypause in the distribution ofthe AstraZeneca vaccineamid worries about bloodclots in some patients.

Earlier this month, thedistribution of the Johnson& Johnson vaccine washalted before it was set to

Italy becomes 3rd EU state tofully vaccinate 5 mn people

start due to similar safetyworries. But the govern-ment started limited useof the Johnson & Johnsonvaccine Wednesday, withmore doses expected toarrive next week.

The Johnson &Johnson vaccine requiresjust one dose for full ef-fect. All the other vaccinesapproved for distributionin Italy -- the AstraZeneca,BioNTech/Pfizer andModerna -- require twodoses.

Italian GeneralFrancesco Paolo Figliuolo,the country's Covid-19Emergency Commis-sioner, set a goal earlier thismonth of administering atleast 500,000 jabs a day bythe end of April.

That target no longerappears feasible despiterecent developments, ac-cording to statisticianGiovanni Sebastiani, whowas quoted by the ANSAnews agency as saying thedaily vaccination rateshould reach 350,000 perday by the end of themonth, up from fewerthan 300,000 per day cur-rently.

In an interview withBloomberg, Fabrizio Curcio,head of the country's civildefence agency, admittedthe 500,000-vaccination-per-day goal was unlikely tobe met, though he said thetarget would be reached byearly May.

He said his main worrywas whether vaccine sup-plies would allow that levelto be sustained.

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Indirect tax mop-up exceedstarget

New Delhi: The net indirect tax collection in2020-21 grew 12.3 per cent annually to Rs 10.71lakh crore, thereby exceeding the target set in re-vised estimates, the Finance Ministry said.

The mop-up through indirect taxes, which includeGST, Customs and excise duties, was Rs 9.54 lakhcrore in 2019-20. In the Revised Estimates (RE) for2020-21, the target was set at Rs 9.89 lakh crore.

Net collections from Goods and Services Tax (GST)stood at Rs 5.48 lakh crore during 2020-21, an eightper cent drop compared to Rs 5.99 lakh crore in theprevious fiscal year.

This include revenues from Central GST, IntegratedGST and compensation cess.

Customs revenue during 2020-21 came in at Rs1.32 lakh crore, a 21 per cent growth over Rs 1.09lakh crore collected in 2019-20.

Net collections from central excise and servicetax (arrears) stood at Rs 3.91 lakh crore, up 59.2 percent over Rs 2.45 lakh crore mopped up in 2019-20.

The provisional figures for indirect tax collections(GST and non-GST) for Financial Year 2020-21 showthat net revenue collections are at Rs 10.71 lakh croreas compared to Rs 9.54 lakh crore for Financial Year2019-20, thereby registering a growth of 12.3 percent, a finance ministry said.

It said during the last fiscal year, GST collectionswere severely affected in the first half on account ofCOVID-19.

As eco recovers, 59% firms in Indiaplan salary hike: Survey

Mumbai: As the economy moves to a recoverypath after a sharp decline last year amid the pan-demic, a study has shown that 59% of companies inIndia are intending to give salary increments to theiremployees in 2021. According to staffing companyGenius Consultants ‘10th Hiring, Attrition and Com-pensation Trend 2021-22’, with this impressive growthrate, the market is expected to be stable, and thecompanies will also relook at their business continu-ity strategy along with strengthening the workforce.

This year, the increment scenario seems welcom-ing with 59% of companies saying that increment ison the cards, which will range between 5-10 percent whereas 20%thinks increment will be less than5% and around %thinks that there will be no pay risein 2021 too, as per the study.

Ordered probe of WhatsApp policyon competition aspect: CCI to HC

New Delhi: The new privacy policy of WhatsAppwould lead to excessive data collection and “stalk-ing” of consumers for targeted advertising to bringin more users and is therefore, an alleged abuse ofdominant position, competition regulator CCI toldthe Delhi High Court.

The submission was made before Justice NavinChawla by senior advocate Aman Lekhi on behalf ofthe Competition Commission of India (CCI) in de-fence of its order directing an investigation into thenew privacy policy of messaging platform WhatsApp.

The CCI was looking into the competition aspectand not the alleged violation of individuals’ privacywhich was being looked into by the Supreme Court,Lekhi said.

There is no question of jurisdictional error, he saidand added that WhatsApp and Facebook’s pleas chal-lenging the CCI’s decision were incompetent andmisconceived.

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AHMEDABAD MONDAY 26/4/2021

New Delhi: MSME Min-ister Nitin Gadkari under-scored the opportunityMSMEs in India have to plugthemselves into the globalsupply chains as countrieslook to diversify their sup-ply out of China. With glo-bal supply chain undergo-ing significant restructuringand countries looking to di-versify their supply out ofchina, our MSMEs have agreat opportunity of beingintegrated into these glo-bal supply chains, Gadkarisaid. According to a surveycovering over 150 compa-nies in India by FICCI andDhruva Advisors in Decem-ber 2020, 69 per cent ofthe respondents expectedglobal companies to exitChina and move to India.For instance, Japan hadadded India andBangladesh to its list of re-location destinations forenterprises moving theirmanufacturing sites fromChina to the Association ofSoutheast Asian Nations(ASEAN) countries, accord-ing to a report by Nikkeinewspaper in Septemberlast year.

Gadkari said during thepandemic, MSMEs wereable to adapt to the chang-ing circumstances and helpIndia get back on a growthtrajectory. We took some

Nitin Gadkari: Opportunity for Indian MSMEs ascountries look to diversify their supplies out of China

steps in coming up with re-lief packages to help re-view the MSME sector. Earlyon itself, we announced afinancial package of onelakh crore for revivingMSMEs that were affectedby the lockdown, the min-ister said during Amazon’sSmbhav event. Till March2021, an amount worth Rs2.46 lakh crore has beensanctioned under the Emer-gency Credit Line Guaran-tee Scheme, he added.Likewise, the governmentis setting up a Rs 10,000-crore Fund of Funds forMSMEs, which have goodturnover, GST, and incometax record, to be given a rat-ing for a 15 per cent equitysupport from the govern-ment on raising capitalfrom stock markets.

MSME invoice discount-ing platform M1xchangeraises $10M from Amazon'snew $250M Smbhav Fund,others Amazon announces$250M venture fund focus-ing on SMEs; aims to bring1M off-line retailers on-lineby 2025

The minister stressedon e-commerce playing adefinite role in helping In-dian MSMEs succeed. “Weneed to ensure that digitaltransformation takes placethat enables them to capit-alise on this current oppor-

tunity. In parallel, thereneeds to be a greater focuson capacity building forMSMEs. This includes help-ing them with right inputson design, manufacturing,maintaining product qual-ity and scaling their busi-ness.

Even as the governmentcontinues to encouragesmall businesses to lever-age the e-commerce routefor expansion, its own e-commerce marketplaceproject Bharat Craft is yetto take off despite morethan a year and a half afterthe MSME Ministry had an-nounced the portal. Thegovernment is looking tooutsource the project to aprivate entity. SME body In-dia SME Forum in Mumbailast month, Gadkari hadsaid, we had multiplerounds of meetings withGovernment eMarketplace(GeM) as well but now Ihave asked the portal to beoutsourced to a privateplayer.

The better the portalperforms, the better thecommission private playerwill get. Also, an agency willbe finalized, which will beresponsible to deliver theproject, because there aremultiple issues that occurwithin the governmentwhile rules are also difficult.

Mumbai: The RRA willengage internally as wellas externally with all regu-lated entities and otherstakeholders to facilitatethe process, the centralbank said.

The panel will recom-mend ways to make regu-latory and supervisory in-structions more effectiveby removing redundanciesand duplications.

The panel will recom-mend ways to make regu-latory and supervisory in-structions more effectiveby removing redundanciesand duplications.

The Reserve Bank setup the second RegulatoryReview Authority (RRA2.0) with a view to stream-lining regulations and re-ducing compliance burdenof regulated entities.

Reserve Bank of IndiaDeputy Governor MRajeshwar Rao has beenappointed as the Regula-tions Review Authority, thecentral bank said.

Trade deficit duringMarch 2021 widened toUSD 13.93 billion fromUSD 9.98 billion in March2020. Exports up 60.29 pcin March but decline by7.26 pc in FY21UBS esti-mates indicate that even

RBI sets up RRA to streamlineregulations and reduce compliance

if the gap between the twoseries interest rate andgrowth turned positive fora brief period in 2020-21,it will normalize in 2021-22. Elevated public debt inFY21 matter of concern:Report

The RBI had set up aRegulations Review Au-thority (RRA) initially for aperiod of one year fromApril 1, 1999, for review-ing regulations, circulars,reporting systems, basedon the feedback from pub-lic, banks and financial in-stitutions.

The recommendationsof the RRA enabled stream-lining and increasing theeffectiveness of severalprocedures, simplifyingregulatory prescriptions,paved the way for issuanceof master circular and re-duced reporting burden onregulated entities.

Considering the devel-opments in regulatoryfunctions of the ReserveBank over the past twodecades and evolution ofthe regulatory perimeter, itis proposed to undertake asimilar review of the Re-serve Bank’s regulationsand compliance proce-dures with a view tostreamlining/ rationalizing

them and making themmore effective, it said.

Accordingly, it decidedto set up RRA 2.0 to reviewthe regulatory prescrip-tions internally as well asby seeking suggestionsfrom the RBI-regulatedentities and other stake-holders on their simplifica-tion and ease of imple-mentation.

The RRA would be setup for a period of one yearfrom May 1, 2021, unlessits tenure is extended bythe Reserve Bank.

The RRA will engageinternally as well as exter-nally with all regulated en-tities and other stakehold-ers to facilitate the pro-cess,” the central banksaid.

The RRA 2.0 will focuson streamlining regulatoryinstructions, reduce com-pliance burden of the regu-lated entities by simplify-ing procedures and reducereporting requirements,wherever possible, itadded.

The panel will recom-mend ways to make regu-latory and supervisory in-structions more effectiveby removing redundanciesand duplications.

New Delhi: IT majorWipro posted a 27.7 percent jump in consolidatednet profit at Rs 2,972 crorefor the March 2021 quarter,and exuded confidence ofsustaining strong growthmomentum in the comingquarters.

Wipro had registered anet profit attributable toequity holders of Rs 2,326.1crore in the year-ago pe-riod, as per Indian Account-ing Standards (Ind-AS).

Its revenue from opera-tions rose by 3.4 per centto Rs 16,245.4 crore in thereported quarter from Rs15,711 crore in the sameperiod last fiscal.

Wipro which gets a bulkof its topline from IT ser-vices said it expects rev-enues from that unit to bein the range of USD 2,195to USD 2,238 million in theJune 2021 quarter. This

Wipro Q4 net profit up 27.7 pc to Rs 2,972 crtranslates into a sequentialgrowth of 2-4 per cent.

Wipro's IT services seg-ment revenue was at USD2,152.4 million in Marchquarter, a sequential growthof 3.9 per cent.

Our Q4 performancewas built on top of our mo-mentum that we saw in thelast quarter. We have re-ported a solid growth in rev-enue, healthy order book-ing and great execution,resulting in robust margins.

This truly sets the stagefor the next quarter and thenext financial year, WiproCEO and Managing Direc-tor Thierry Delaporte told.

He added that revenueof 3.9 per cent in reportedterms and 3 per cent inconstant currency terms isat the top quartile of itsguidance range.

This is the best fourthquarter results we have re-

ported in the last 10 years.This was truly led by a verygood volume growth.

Despite the steep de-cline in the first quarter ofthe fiscal year because ofthe pandemic, we nowbounced back to finish theyear with only a marginaldecline of 1.4 per cent y-o-y, Delaporte said.

He added that the ro-bust demand environmentis robust and the overallpipeline is healthy. IT ser-vices segment revenue forFY21 was at USD 8,136.5million, down 1.4 per centy-o-y.

We have guided for rev-enue growth of 2-4 percent outside of Capco andAmpion. This would trans-late into a year-on-yeardouble digit growth of 11-13 per cent. This guidancereflects the environmentwe are operating in,

A deserted view of the Bade Hanumanji temple during weekend lockdown im-posed in wake of rising COVID-19 cases in Prayagraj.