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108

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RBI action in June hinges on Companies in a fix as CXO

livemint.com April inflation print uP1 hires back out abruptly uP1
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LIC IPO gets fully subscribed Services activity jumps to a

livemint.com on Day Two uP1 five-month high in April uP2
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livemint.com

mint primer QUICK EDIT

How India’s new Activism

VPN rules change overdone Law interpreters should ideally
the status quo not veer onto the turf of policy-
and law-makers, but India’s
Supreme Court (SC) often
BY PRASID BANERJEE accords itself an entry pass
On 28 April, the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (Cert- drawn from Article 142 of the
In) issued new directives, first reported by Mint, that require Virtual Constitution, which grants it the
Private Network (VPN) providers to store user data for five years. What right to pass a decree deemed
does that mean? Mint explains: “necessary for doing complete
justice in any cause or matter
How VPNs track users pending before it”. In the past, it
VPNs record user data through logging, which could mean maintaining the logs of has been invoked by our apex
users' browsing activity, online behaviour, connection timestamps, and more. court to scrap coal block alloca-
Type of logging tions, keep liquor vends away
Connection
timestamps (in %) from highways, turn Ayodhya’s
Originating disputed site over to a trust for
IP address Bandwidtch temple construction, and more.
46 usage logs
On Wednesday, it was even
cited in a taxation case.
Browsing From 1 April 2021, a revised
46 activity
tax law was expected to bar the
44
raking up of tax cases dating
back more than three years for
6 review. Yet, the first quarter of
Source: Top10VPN.com 2021-22 saw over 90,000 such
SARVESH KUMAR SHARMA/MINT
past-case notices issued on the
What does the What does this mean back of just a government noti-
1 directive say?
Under the new directions, VPN
2 for VPN providers?
VPNs basically obscure a person’s
fication. This dubious device
was challenged by thousands of
providers will need to store internet usage by jumping the bewildered taxpayers. The SC,
validated customer names, their signal off multiple servers. A log however, upheld those notices,
physical addresses, email ids, of these servers can easily lead law exercising its special authority
phone numbers, and the reason enforcement agencies back to the under Article 142 to do so, even
they are using the service, along original user. That is why most top as it expressed concern for the
with the dates they use it and VPN operators provide a “no
exchequer. This constitutes an
their “ownership pattern”. In logging” service—at least for
addition, Cert is also asking VPN paying users. This means they do awkward stretch of a provision
providers to keep a record of the not keep logs of the user’s usage meant for rare instances. For
IP and email addresses that the history or the IP addresses of the sake of checks and balances,
customer uses to register the servers involved. Such services the country must limit its use.
service, along with the could be in violation of Cert’s
timestamp of registration. Most rules by simply operating in India.
importantly, however, VPN That said, it is worth noting that
providers will have to store all IP ‘no logs’ does not mean zero logs.
addresses issued to a customer
and a list of IP addresses that its
VPN services still need to
maintain some logs to run their
MINT METRIC
customers generally use. service efficiently. by Bibek Debroy
ISTOCK

In Ludhiana, a flyover fell down.

3 Does this mean VPNs will
become useless?
No. The Indian government has not
Talk of the town
banned VPNs yet, so they can still be
Is rats used their teeth
used to access content that is blocked To gnaw the foundation beneath.
in an area, which is the most common
usage of these services. However,
Engineers greet the news with a frown.
journalists, activists, and others who
use such services to hide their internet
footprint will have to think twice
about them. QUOTE OF THE DAY
Apart from rural distress,
What kind of data do What does it mean
4 VPNs log?
Some VPNs log data required to
5 for users?
For law enforcement agencies, a
multiple price hikes coupled
with high fuel prices are
enforce device caps, measure how move like this will make it easier to
much data they have used, and track criminals who use VPNs to
keeping price-sensitive
monitor network performance. hide their internet footprint. But entry-level two-wheeler
However, many services log experts have pointed out that
browsing data, metadata about a governments and their agencies
customers away.
person’s usage, websites they have can easily misuse such a rule. They
visited, IP addresses involved, and also pointed out that this may
more. Some, such as Hola VPN, also actually drive such users towards
collect information on other apps the dark and deep web, which are VINKESH GULATI
installed on a person’s phone and much tougher to police than VPN PRESIDENT, FADA
when they register or sign-in to services. It is also unclear whether
social media, according to the firm’s the Centre will use this to take action
privacy policy. The name and email against users accessing content that
address of a user is available to is blocked in India using VPNs,
virtually any VPN service. such as the game PUBG Mobile.

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suits your current needs or maybe est brands—the kind that competes tions and more. Here is all the news
even avenues that globally and wins that will keep you
can fetch good divi- the battle hands well-informed
dends for your down? This weekly every morning. This
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 PLAIN FACTS

What WHO’s data on

excess deaths reveals
BY NANDITA VENKATESAN & TANAY SUKUMAR

O ver 31% of all “excess deaths” globally in the covid-19 years 2020 and 2021 took place in India, estimates released
by the World Health Organization (WHO) on Thursday show. The numbers offer a sobering reality check of the
upheaval the pandemic caused in Indian households in the last two years. Around 14.9 million excess deaths were
recorded globally in this period, of which a staggering 4.74 million were from India, the highest in the world, the WHO data
shows. However, India officially classifies only around 481,000 deaths in the period as “covid deaths”.

India had 4.7 million excess deaths

in 2020-21, the most in the world 1 Highest Toll
Countries with the highest number of excess deaths “EXCESS DEATHS” refers to the difference between deaths
in 2020 and 2021 (in million)
registered in a given period and the deaths registered in a
Middle Excess deaths in Excess deaths
similar period in a normal year. The difference can give a sense
income 2020 and 2021 per million
India 4.74 1,710 of the toll of a pandemic such as covid-19, both because of the
Russia 1.07 3,670
disease and because of non-covid patients missing out on timely
Indonesia 1.03
care as resources were diverted to tackling covid. With 1.1
1,870
million excess deaths, Russia is a distant second to India. While
Brazil 0.68 1,600
India had the highest toll, when adjusted for population, it was
Mexico 0.63 2,420
similar to numbers registered in high-income countries such as
High income US and Poland, despite their better healthcare systems.
US 0.93 1,400
Even before its release, the data from WHO had been
Germany 0.19 1,160
criticized by the Indian government, which reportedly tried to
Italy 0.16 1,330 delay its publication. New Delhi has questioned WHO’s
Poland 0.16 2,080 methodology and, on Thursday, “strongly objected” to the
UK 0.15 1,090 release, saying that WHO “chose to ignore” data submitted by
The numbers are midpoint estimates. Source: WHO
India and did not address the country’s concerns.

2 Gross Undercount India's scale of likely underreporting

of covid deaths was one of the biggest
INDIA’S EXCESS deaths in the two years, as estimated by Likely scale of under-reporting for each country (in times)
WHO, were at least 6.9 times the toll officially attributed to (excess deaths as a multiple of officially reported covid-19
deaths in 2020 and 2021, conservative estimate)
covid-19. Among countries with over 20,000 covid deaths, this
UK Russia
was the worst scale of under-reporting after Egypt. 0 2 3 4 5 0.9x 3.5x
Governments miss deaths during a pandemic such as covid- Canada
19. Not everyone is able to get a test, and defining a covid death 0.3x
is complicated. However, countries with far better healthcare Egypt
systems were able to minimize the scale of under-reporting. 10.3x
US Indonesia
“The data not only point to the impact of the pandemic but 1.1x India
5.2x
also to the need for all countries to invest in more resilient 6.9x
health systems that can sustain essential health services during Brazil
1.1x
crises,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, An under-reporting factor of 5 means the excess deaths were five times the officially
reported covid-19 deaths in the same period. However, excess deaths must not be
said. strictly attributed to covid-19 and should only be used as indicative of the
pandemic's direct and indirect toll. For some countries, the excess deaths may be
Tellingly, 20 countries (including India), which represent less than zero if fewer people died than usual. The under-reporting factor in the map
approximately half of the global population, account for over is based on the lower limit of WHO's excess deaths estimate, not the mean estimate.
Source: WHO, Our World in Data, Mint calculations
80% of the estimated global excess mortality, WHO said.

3 Age And Gender Elderly men were the most vulnerable

group during the two pandemic years
WHO ESTIMATES confirm the findings shared by Excess deaths as a % of population for each
researchers throughout the pandemic that the elderly group in India, 2020 and 2021
form the group most vulnerable to covid-19. Almost Age
one in four excess deaths in India was in the 80-plus Men 10.2
80+
age group in 2020 and 2021. This accounted for 8.7% Women 7.6
of the entire population in this age group. In each age Men 3.8
group, men were more prone to death from covid, and 70-79
Women 2.5
the risk went up drastically with age. The likelihood of
Men 1.7
dying was higher across age groups in 2021, the year of 60-69
the second wave in India, than in 2020. Globally, men Women 1.3
accounted for 57% (8.5 million) of the excess deaths. Men 0.7
50-59
All excess deaths should not be linked to covid-19, Women 0.4
and should only be used as an indicative measure of Men 0.2
the direct and indirect toll of the pandemic. The 40-49
Women 0.1
WHO’s baseline of deaths expected in a normal year
Source: WHO
was based on the mortality data from 2015–2019.

WHO's estimates are not too different

from the findings of other studies 4 Growing Consensus
Estimates of excess deaths in India since Jan 2020 (in millions) WHO ESTIMATES have put the Indian government on the
1 2 4 6 8 10 defensive over its methodology, but it is somewhat consistent
Malani et al
with other research by scientists and media organizations over
(till Aug 2021) the past year. At least six such studies compiled by Mint show
The Economist that the median estimate for excess deaths in India during the
(till 2 May 2022)
WHO
pandemic hovers around 4 million. The Economist puts its
(till Dec 2021) upper limit at 9.4 million with a midpoint estimate of 5.7
Anand et al million.
(till Jun 2021)
(shaded part shows
Several studies conclude that the second wave in the summer
The Lancet
(till Dec 2021) full range of estimate; of 2021 was particularly fatal and officially recorded deaths are
Jha et al* red dot shows several times lower. Like WHO, these studies used data from
(till Jul 2021) midpoint estimate) various sources, such as the government’s civil registration
Leffler CT et al
(till Aug 2021) system that records births and deaths, to government hospital
*This paper estimated deaths for the period starting June 2020. data and nationally-representative surveys such as the
Source: Mint compilation Consumer Pyramids Household Survey.

5 State-wise Toll In some states, excess deaths in mid-2021

far exceeded officially recorded deaths
INDIA HAS not officially released data on excess deaths at a Excess deaths reported in April and May 2021 in select states
national level. However, the signs of the under-reporting have Excess deaths Official covid deaths
been there all along, because of individual states’ data analyzed 0 20K 60K 100K 140K 180K
by journalists and researchers. The excess deaths based on state
data were several times higher than the official toll attributed to Madhya Pradesh
covid by authorities. Andhra Pradesh
Data compiled by news outlets and researchers for 12 states Bihar
during April-May 2021, at the peak of the second wave, show West Bengal
excess deaths were anywhere between 11 and 40 times the Tamil Nadu
official covid toll in some cases. Madhya Pradesh, for instance, Haryana
recorded excess deaths that were 42 times the official covid-19 Rajasthan
deaths between April and May 2021. Even states with more Kerala
robust health systems, such as Tamil Nadu and Kerala, saw Excess deaths should not necessarily be attributed to covid-19 and should only be
used as indicative of the pandemic's direct and indirect toll. They are computed by
undercounts during this period, indicating the strain on calculating the difference between the recorded deaths in April-May 2021 and the
average for the same period in 2018, 2019 and 2020.
overwhelmed health systems at a time the country saw grave
Source: Murad Banaji's compilation from data published by Scroll.in, NDTV, The Hindu.
shortages of medical oxygen, ambulance, and hospital beds.
nandita.venkatesan@livemint.com AHMED RAZA KHAN/MINT

PEANUTS by Charles M. Schulz

 NEW DELHI, MUMBAI, BENGALURU, KOLKATA, CHENNAI, AHMEDABAD, HYDERABAD, CHANDIGARH*, PUNE*
Friday, May 6, 2022
RBI action in June hinges
on April retail inflation
Another interest rate hike is likely next month if inflation in April stays high
Shayan Ghosh
shayan.g@livemint.com
MUMBAI
R
etail inflation data
for April will shape
the Reserve Bank of
India’s approach to
interest rate changes
in June, a person aware of the
development said.
The government’s National
Statistical Office will release retail
inflation data for April on 12 May.
RBI’s monetary policy com-
mittee (MPC), through its 40
basis point (bps) repo rate hike
on Wednesday, decided to
reverse the cut effected during
the pandemic in May 2020.
However, this does not mean
that the 75 bps reduction in
March 2020 will be reversed in
June, the person said on condi-
tion of anonymity. The MPC
lowered rates by an aggregate
of 115 bps in response to cov-
id-19. One basis point is 0.01%.
“Suppose the inflation num-
ber in April is benign, then the
central bank can just continue
with the liquidity withdrawal,”
the person said.
DON’T MISS
Dabur, Marico see weak rural sales
Packaged-goods firms Dabur and Marico
pointed to weak rural demand in the March
quarter as consumers downgraded to cheaper
packs and brands across categories.
LIC IPO gets fully Delhivery’s IPO
subscribed on Day 2 opens on 11 May
Swaraj Singh Dhanjal
swaraj.d@livemint.com
MUMBAI
T D
he initial public offering
of Life Insurance Corp.
of India got fully sub-
scribed on the second day of
the share sale, as the attractive
pricing and discounts to poli-
cyholders and retail investors
boosted demand.
On Wednesday, the first day
of the share sale, investors bid
for 67% of the shares on offer.
The LIC share sale is on till 9
May, longer than other IPOs,
which remain open for three
days. Subscriptions will also be
open on Saturday. LIC will list on
the stock exchanges on 17 May.
The price band for the share
sale has been fixed at ₹902-
949 apiece. Retail investors
and LIC employees get a dis-
Cos in a fix as CXO hires back out abruptly
Devina Sengupta
devina.sengupta@livemint.com
MUMBAI
T
op corporate hires are
increasingly backing out
of job offers at the last
minute, upsetting manage-
ment plans and forcing head-
hunters to restart search or
consider backup options.
According to executive search
companies, the common rea-
sons cited include counter-of-
fers by the current employer,
multiple job offers, and options
to work abroad.
CXO dropouts began rising in
the last two quarters of 2021, and
as long as the hiring frenzy is on,
search firms do not think the
trend will abate. In fact, those
recruiting candidates in levels
immediately below CXOs, too,
have noticed a similar pattern.
“The dropout rates are
reaching unprecedented levels
and doesn’t bode well for
Indian leaders. Most search
livemint.com
CAUSE AND EFFECT
OUT-OF-TURN RATE HIKE
SUDDEN rate hike WAITING till June
was meant to counter may have led to
high inflation chunkier hikes
Economists expect inflation
measured by the Consumer
Price Index (CPI) to be in the
range of 7.4-7.6% in April. If the
estimates are correct, another
interest rate hike is almost cer-
tain in June. In the April mone-
tary policy, the MPC projected
inflation at 6.3% in the first three
months of FY23 and the full fis-
Tata Motors rolls out first e-truck
Tata Motors on Thursday unveiled its first
electric truck, the Tata Ace EV, a spin on its
largest selling truck, Tata Ace. The vehicle will
>P5 come with a certified range of 154km. >P10
The portion reserved for
institutional investors was
subscribed 40%. AFP
count of ₹45 per share, while
policyholders get a discount of
₹60 per share.
To be sure, while the IPO
has been subscribed 100% on
the back of policyholder and
retail categories, it needs to
TURN TO PAGE 6
firms are grappling with this
issue, including keeping back-
ups of backups,” said Navnit
Singh, chairman and regional
managing director, Korn Ferry,
India.
Headhunters say they are
now asking clients to finalize job
offers quickly and shorten
notice periods. “We are also
pushing clients to negotiate and
close quickly and reduce joining
periods rather than longish
notice periods, as it’s an
employee’s market now,” said
Singh. The notice period for
C-suite executives can range
between three and four months,
while in some cases, like the
R&D units of pharma firms, it
may be as long as six months.
Sometimes, companies
introduce the chosen candi-
date to their teams and discuss
plans with them even before
formal joining, only to be disap-
pointed later. Nikhil Sikri,
co-founder and chief executive
officer of Zolo, said two candi-
THE off-cycle review
may indicate RBI wants
to space out the hikes
cal at 5.7%. Although the projec-
tions made in the February pol-
icy were revised in April, it still
was days before the March retail
inflation came in at 6.95%.
Retail inflation has stayed
above RBI’s flexible target in
January, February and March.
Under the monetary policy
framework, the central bank has
E-way bill generation falls in Apr
Generation of e-way bills, which are needed to
ship goods within and across states, eased in
April, suggesting GST collections this month
may be lower than the previous month.
Beena Parmar
beena.parmar@livemint.com
MUMBAI
elhivery, the SoftBank-
backed logistics uni-
corn, plans to raise
₹5,235 crore next week
through an initial public offer-
ing, a sign of IPO activity pick-
ing up after companies put the
brakes on their plans to avoid
a clash with Life Insurance
Corp. of India’s mega-IPO and
choppy markets.
The Delhivery IPO will
open for subscription on 11
May. The price band has been
set at ₹462-487 per share, val-
uing the company at ₹35,283
crore at the upper end of the
band.
However, the issue size has
been cut by a third from the
initial plan to raise ₹7,460
Headhunters say they are now
asking clients to finalize job
offers quickly and shorten
notice periods ISTOCKPHOTO
dates he had selected for the
role of chief technology officer
backed out from joining the
co-living platform.
“One was introduced to the
team; we waited three months
for him, and a couple of days
before joining, he dropped out.
Another dropped out within
weeks of accepting the offer. It
pushes back plans,” Sikri said.
VOL. 16 NO. 108 Rs 5.00 IN DELHI-NCR; Rs 6.00 OUTSIDE DELHI-NCR. PRICE WITH HINDUSTAN TIMES Rs 10.50 (FOR DELHI & NCR) 24 PAGES
Paradise polluted: Kashmir Russia steps up attacks on
lakes lose their sparkle uP14 Ukraine infrastructure uP12
to maintain retail inflation in the
2% to 6% range, with the median
target of 4%. Failing to meet the
target for three consecutive
quarters requires RBI to write to
the Union government, offering
reasons and remedial measures
to bring back inflation within the
targeted range.
According to the person cited
above, the out-of-turn rate hike
was meant to counter the sud-
den surge in inflation that could
have led to the central bank
missing its inflation target for
two consecutive quarters. The
person added that waiting for
June could have led to chunkier
hikes as the inflation situation
substantially worsened owing to
geopolitical tensions.
“The fact that the central bank
has decided to do an off-cycle
review only means that it wants to
spread out the rate hikes, to the
extent possible,” the person said.
A couple of things were
behind the out-of-turn rate
action on Wednesday that
spooked markets. First was the
unexpected March inflation
TURN TO PAGE 6
>P7
Logistics unicorn Delhivery
co-founder Sahil Barua. MINT
crore because of volatility in
equity markets.
Delhivery will be the first
major IPO after a brief lull in
activity as companies
TURN TO PAGE 6
“The one who dropped out a
few days before his joining date
extended his apology over
WhatsApp,” he added.
When CXO candidates back
out, search firms are affected,
too. Typically, headhunters
earn about a third of their fees
when the search starts, the next
third when candidates are
shortlisted and offers handed
out, and the final third when
the candidate joins. Fees can go
up to 30% of the CXO’s cost-to-
company, and therefore, the
search firm stands to lose the
final tranche unless they come
up with another suitable candi-
date soon.
“Reneging at the CXO level is
not a common occurrence, but
it has increased during the
Great Resignation. They
impact clients‘ hiring timelines,
thereby increasing the need to
stay closer to candidates and
keep backup plans,” said Pan-
TURN TO PAGE 6
02 FRIDAY, 6 MAY 2022
NEW DELHI NEWS LIVEMINT.COM

Services activity gets to

a 5-month high in April
Service providers passed on the higher costs to consumers by increasing prices
Dilasha Seth
dilasha.seth@livemint.com Strong rebound
BENGALURU The S&P Global PMI for
services rose to 53.6 in March

A
ctivity in India’s services sec- as firms recorded the fastest
tor recovered to a five-month growth in sales and business
high in April, signalling a activity since November.
strong rebound in orders as 60 57.9
pandemic-related disrup-
tions in Asia’s third-largest economy
50
eased, a survey showed on Thursday.
The S&P Global Purchasing Managers’
Index (PMI) for services rose to 57.9 points 40
in April from 53.6 points in March as firms
recorded the fastest growth in sales and
30
business activity since November. How-
ever, companies reported intensified
inflationary pressures because of the Rus- 20
sia-Ukraine war.
Service providers passed on the higher
10
costs to consumers by increasing prices in
April by the most in close to five years. The 5.4
survey showed that inflationary concerns 0
dampened business confidence in April, Apr 2020 Apr 2022
which slipped from the March levels and Source: S&P Global
was much lower than its long-run average.
PARAS JAIN/MINT
The 50-point mark separates expansion
from contraction. However, the PMI is a report showed. employment since last November. Those
month-over-month indicator, showing Nevertheless, new business inflows firms that took on extra staff linked the
improvement over the previous month and expanded further in April, taking the cur- rise to the ongoing growth of new busi-
not over the previous year. rent sequence of growth to nine months. ness, according to the report. Interna-
Service providers reported soaring Survey participants suggested that the lift- tional demand for Indian services wor-
operating expenses, having to bear higher ing of covid-19 restrictions led to greater sened in April, as new orders from abroad
costs for chemicals, food, fuel, labour, consumer footfall and a general improve- fell at a pace that was the quickest since
material, and retail. ment in demand. September.
“The latest results showed a Consumer services and
resurgence in price pressures WHAT SURVEY SAYS finance and insurance were
during April. Service providers the best-performing sub-sec-
reported having paid more for INFLATIONARY SERVICE providers NEW business tors in April, where the
food, fuel, and material, with concerns dampened
business confidence
are having to bear
higher costs for food,
inflows expanded in
April, taking the
growth of both new orders
some mentions of higher wage in April, which slipped fuel, labour, material, current sequence of and business activity rose
costs also pushing up overall from the March levels retail, chemicals. growth to 9 months substantially from March.
expenses. The overall rate of Real estate and business ser-
inflation quickened to the sec- vices was the only segment to
ond-highest in the survey history, leading “In isolation, the PMI data for the servi- record contractions in sales and output.
companies to hike their selling prices to the ces sector was mostly encouraging, as sur- Faster increases in both manufacturing
greatest extent in close to five years,” said ging demand underpinned quicker production and services activity contrib-
Pollyanna De Lima, economics associate increases in new business inflows and out- uted to a stronger expansion in private
director at S&P Global. Having accelerated put. Employment rose for the first time in sector output across India. The S&P
from March, the overall rate of inflation was five months,” De Lima said. Global India Composite PMI Output
sharp and the second-strongest since data Companies resumed their hiring in Index rose from 54.3 in March to a five-
collection started in December 2005, the April, as seen by the first increase in month high level of 57.6 in April.

‘We are working on new ways to design

infra for future risk, and not the past’
Swati Luthra coordinated way through the
swati.luthra@livemint.com national infrastructure pipe-
line. Finally, how to make the

I
ndia has embarked on a
major exercise to build dis-
aster-resilient infrastruc-
ture as climate change issues
get real, and unforeseen
events bring new challenges.
The Coalition for Disaster
Resilient Infrastructure
(CDRI), a partnership of gov-
ernments, UN agencies and
programmes, multilateral
development banks and pri-
vate sector, is working on
ways to design infrastructure
for future risks, Kamal Kis-
hore, member secretary,
National Disaster Manage-
ment Authority, India, said in
an interview. It is also work-
ing on power sector resilience and systems resilient to
in cyclone-prone areas and
making new hydrogen and
telecom infrastructure, par-
ticularly telecom towers,
resilient to disasters. Kishore,
the executive co-chair of
CDRI, also spoke about how
technology is helping create
resilient infrastructure and
the 2030 Agenda for Sustain-
changes we are unaware
of?
The first strategy, there are
already observed impacts of
climate. Certain things are
apparent, which means that
the way we assess risks of dis-
asters we have to update our
risk assessments continually.
The second is that there are so
infra green or low carbon.
There are several good exam-
ples of upgrade of standards
in the country. The dedicated
freight corridor is a sterling
example of low carbon cli-
mate resolution structure.
The country is really adopting
the best practices from the
world to work in this direc-
tion.
What role will human cen-
tred design play in build-
ing forward and building
back better?
When we have a human
centred design, we put people
at the centre. The whole focus
is on meeting the needs and
help determine how the demands articulated by peo-
structure is behaving as the ple themselves. So the focus is
load increases. You can get not on the asset for the sake of
early warning in time. You asset, but for improving lives
can actually monitor the and livelihoods. As such,
functioning of infrastructure there is much greater out-
systems in real time. Sensor- come orientation.
based technologies are really What projects are CDRI
advancing very quickly. The working on?
networks, computing, and all There is one project on
of that is increasing very rap- power sector resilience in

‘
able Development. Edited many things that can be done idly. You can use them in cyclone-prone areas.
excerpts: that are no-regret solutions, case of floods Another
such as establishing a better and in the looks at resil-
Climate change concerns and more efficient system of mountains. Where possible, ience of air-
are re-imagining our clearing storm water drains We can use we should look at ports across
future. How and de-silting drones for nature based the world and
is infrastruc-
ture develop-
m INTERVIEW them before
the monsoon to
mapping
areas after a solutions and
involves as
many as 150
ment transi- prevent urban disaster, for infrastructure as an airports.
tioning with this change? floods. The third is that we conveying integrated system There is a
Infrastructure systems and have to diversify our invest- information project that is
Kamal Kishore
infrastructure development ments and diversify our risks. to people. Member secretary, NDMA looking at
are changing in three funda- Wherever possible, we should How do we how we make
mental ways. First, we have to look at nature-based solutions focus on the new
design our infrastructure for and infrastructure as an inte- achieving the goals of the hydrogen infrastructure safe
future risks, not past risks. grated system. 2030 agenda for sustaina- from disasters. There is a
Second, we have to look at We are advancing techno- ble development? project that is looking at how
resilience of new infrastruc- logically every day. How Eleven of the 17 goals can- we make telecom infrastruc-
ture, which may be low or can we leverage the tech- not be achieved without good ture, particularly telecom
zero carbon. Finally, we have nology to create disaster- infrastructure. I think infra- towers, resilient to disasters.
to look at infrastructure in resilient infrastructure? structure is at the heart of sus- There are a number of these
integrated ways across sectors The technology is moving tainable development goals. sectoral initiatives. In addi-
because there are inter-de- at breakneck speed. Some- Only one goal explicitly talks tion to that, there are a num-
pendencies between them. times I feel that our practices about it, but the others also ber of cross-sector initiatives,
The climate change are lagging behind. For exam- cannot be achieved if we do which include global risk
impact that we are seeing ple, old bridges that can’t be not have good and resilient assessment and a fellowship
is unforeseen. How do we upgraded can have sensors infrastructure. Infrastructure programme for CDRI mem-
make our infrastructure installed on them that will planning in India is done in a ber-country researchers.
04 FRIDAY, 6 MAY 2022
NEW DELHI ECONOMY & POLICY LIVEMINT.COM

m MINT SHORTS
India plans to cut taxes on edible
Master developers to bear 70% Delimitation:
47 seats for
oils to cool the domestic market
New Delhi: India is planning to cut taxes on some edible oils to
cool the domestic market after the war in Ukraine and Indone-
sia’s ban on palm oil exports sent prices skyrocketing, according
of mega park cost: Textiles secy Kashmir, 43
for Jammu
to people familiar with the matter. India, the world’s top importer PTI
of vegetable oils, is looking to cut the agriculture infrastructure feedback@livemint.com
and development cess on crude palm oil imports from 5%, the
Availability of a real estate master developer would be a key condition for clearing proposals
R
people said, asking not to be identified as the information is edrawing the electoral
private. BLOOMBERG map of Jammu and Kash-
mir, a three-member
Ravi Dutta Mishra menting …all of these happen at differ- Delimitation Commission on
PM Modi and Macron discuss ravi.dutt@livemint.com ent places,” he pointed out. Thursday earmarked 47 assem-
Over the years, India’s share of bly seats for Kashmir division
bilateral ties, global issues NEW DELHI
exports of ready-made garments has and 43 for Jammu in its final

Paris: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President
Emmanuel Macron held extensive discussions on a range of
bilateral and pressing global issues, including the raging
conflict in Ukraine, the situation in the Indo-Pacific and ter-
rorism, as the two top leaders agreed on a blueprint to work
together in making the India-France strategic partnership
a force for global good. Modi, who arrived here on a brief
working visit from Denmark on the final leg of his three-na-
tion European tour, held one-on-one and delegation-level
talks with Macron at the Elysee Palace on Wednesday night
in their first meeting after the French leader was recently
re-elected in the presidential election.
Sharing of biometric information
is impermissible, says UIDAI
New Delhi: The Unique Identification Authority of India
(UIDAI)has opposed before the Delhi High Court a petition for
identification of an unknown accused by using the Aadhaar Data
bank and said that sharing of biometric information or use of bio-
metric information for any purpose other than the generation of
the Aadhaar number and its authentication is impermissible. PTI
P
PTI
rivate master developers will declined significantly. It slipped from order submitted just a day before
need to foot 70% of the cost 6% in FY2010 to 4.2% in FY2021, as its two-year tenure was to end. A
incurred in developing an Bangladesh and Vietnam emerged as gazette notification was issued
integrated value chain in a large textile exporters, according to a after the panel, headed by retired
mega textile park, according Morgan Stanley note. Supreme Court judge Ranjana
to Union textiles secretary Upendra India’s share of cotton yarn, fabrics, Prakash Desai, signed the final
Prasad Singh. and handloom products, however, order giving Jammu six addi-
The availability of a real estate mas- inched up from 3% in FY2010 to 3.9% in tional seats and one more to
ter developer would be a key condition FY2016, and then decelerated to 3.4% Kashmir.
for clearing proposals, the textiles sec- in FY2021, the report further said. Before the restructuring,
retary said. The PM-MITRA scheme was first which takes the total number of
The government has received pro- announced in Union Budget 2021 with assembly seats in the union terri-
posals from 17 states for the PM Mega the aim of making the textile industry tory to 90, Jammu had 37 assem-
Integrated Textile Region and Apparel globally competitive. Union finance bly constituencies and Kashmir
(PM MITRA) scheme, or the mega tex- The government has received proposals from 17 states for the PM Mega Integrated minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said 46. The Commission, also com-
tile park scheme, which has been allo- Textile Region and Apparel (PM MITRA) scheme. MINT the scheme will create world-class prising chief election commis-
cated ₹4,445 crore for seven years up to infrastructure with plug-and-play facil- sioner Sushil Chandra and
2027-28. Only seven states will be given by the Union government. A sha, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajast- ities and spawn global champions in Jammu and Kashmir Election
selected for the scheme. master developer will be a real estate han, Assam, Madhya Pradesh, and Tel- exports. Commissioner K K Sharma as
The textile sector has been among player rather than a textile player. The angana. PM-MITRA offers an opportunity to ex-officio members, has recom-
the top focus areas of the government shortlisting for the first phase will be The developers could choose to set create an integrated textiles value mended that the legislative
in the free trade agreements (FTA) that done shortly and the criteria for the up parks where the possibility of chain from spinning, weaving, process- assembly of the union territory
India is negotiating with returns is high. ing, dyeing and printing to garment have at least two members, one of
various countries. India SECTOR IN FOCUS The mega textile parks manufacturing at a single location. The them a woman, from the Kash-
PTI has negotiated zero duty scheme will help India value chain at a single location will miri migrant community.
access for textile exports PM MITRA scheme TEXTILE sector has THE developers bring scale and size and reduce the logistics cost of the industry. They should be at par with
in the trade deals with the has been allocated
₹4,445 crore
been among the top
focus areas of the
could choose to
set up parks where
reduce logistics costs, The scheme is intended to generate as nominated members of the Pud-
UAE and Australia, which for seven years government in the the possibility of which are very high at many as 1 lakh direct and 2 lakh indirect ucherry Assembly who have the
could help boost domes- up to 2027-28 present, Singh con- jobs per park. right to vote, the Commission
tic production. Similar
various FTAs returns is high.
tended. The textile ministry had also said said. The Commission has also
negotiations are going on “Even a smaller coun- that there is a provision for social infra- recommended to the govern-
with large markets such as the UK and second phase will be done on the basis try such as Bangladesh has size and structure, which will “ultimately ment to consider giving dis-
the EU. of the availability of the master devel- scale. Mega textile parks will also enhance the overall income and uplift placed persons from Pakistan-
“We prefer a private master devel- oper,” Singh said. reduce fragmentation. At present, our the quality of life of all textile workers occupied Jammu and Kashmir
oper who will put in 70% of the total Among the states that have shown textile value chain is very fragmented. who are associated with the PM MITRA some representation in the
investment. The other 30% will be interest are Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Odi- Spinning, weaving, processing and gar- Park”. assembly through nomination.

All indicators show that India

is on the growth path: Goyal
PTI
Wellness centres, like hotels PM chairs heatwave meeting
and resorts, liable to pay GST Swati Luthra &
Subhash Narayan
diverse forest ecosystems in the
country against fire hazards,
enhance the capabilities of for-
Subhash Narayan NEW DELHI est personnel and institutions
subhash.narayan@livemint.com for timely detection of a possi-

P
rime Minister Narendra ble fire and for fighting fires,

T
he Appellate Authority of
Advance Ruling (AAAR)
said that therapy offered
by health centres that are part of
a hotel or resort is not classified
New Delhi: All the key indicators such as jump in exports under health-care service and,
and high GST (goods and services tax) collection in April therefore, is taxable.
reflect that the country’s economy is on the growth path, The AAAR upheld the order
commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal said on of the Uttarakhand AAR which
Thursday. He said that goods and services exports have ruled that the centres are akin to
touched $675 billion in 2021-22, while the GST collection hotels and resorts, and their pri-
in April touched the highest ever level of about ₹1.68 tril- mary function is providing
lion, up 20% from the year-ago period. PTI accommodation and food.
In its order the AAAR ruled
wellness programmes and cen-
Delhi residents to get power subsidy tres where healthcare therapy is
offered strictly on a residential
if they opt for it from 1 Oct: Kejriwal basis but is ancillary to the busi-
New Delhi: From 1 October, the Delhi government will provide ness of running a resort is classi-
subsidy on electricity to consumers who opt for the scheme, chief fiable under specific Heading
minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Thursday. The Delhi consumers 9963 11 (room or unit accommo-
at present get “zero” power bill up to 200 units of electricity and dation services provided by
a subsidy of ₹800 on consuming 201 to 400 units of power per hotels, guest house, inn, club
month. PTI and the likes).
The order was passed in a mat-
ter involving the Corbett Nature
Penal provision in sedition law has Reserve in Ramnagar, Nainital,
which runs an independent unit,
to be retained, apex court told Aahana Naturopathy Centre,
New Delhi: Attorney General K. K. Venugopal on Thursday told that is registered under the Clini-
the Supreme Court that the penal provision on sedition needed cal Establishments Act, 2010, to
to be retained in the statute, and guidelines may be laid down to offer nature cure and other
prevent its misuse. PTI health care services like yoga
The order, which ruled that the primary function of the centres is
providing accommodation and food, was upheld. REPRESENTATIONAL
therapies. The appellant claimed
that they were offering health
care services, which is tax exempt
so the unit should not be liable to
pay tax.
While the order is specific to
the appellant, the precedent set
by it could be used in other simi-
lar cases for tax treatment of
w\ellness centres running as
part of a hotel or club facilities.
“…Appellant advertised and
marketed their accommodation
service as their main service and
naturapathy as an additional
service and, hence, the former
becomes ‘principal supply’
while the latter in addition to
other services, forms part of that
‘composite supply’,” AAAR said
in the order. The details were
released on Wednesday.
“Wellness centres where
healthcare therapy is offered on
a residential basis will be classi-
fied as “accommodation servi-
ces” and not “healthcare servi-
ces”. This ruling on the classifi-
cation of services would mean
that all wellness centres, includ-
ing residential yoga centres, res-
idential naturopathy centres,
residential acupuncture centre
or residential ayurveda centres
are required to pay a tax of 12%,
18% or 28% from July, 2017,
instead of zero tax applicable on
healthcare services,” Rajat
Mohan, senior partner, AMRG
and Associates, said.
Modi on Thursday called and to speed up recovery after a
for rapid response to inci- fire event,” he added.
dents of heatwave and fire as he Modi said that in view of the
chaired a meeting to review the upcoming monsoons, arrange-
country’s heatwave manage- ments for monitoring the qual-
ment and monsoon prepared- ity of drinking water need to be
ness. ensured to avoid contamina-
The review comes ahead of tion and spread of water-borne
the monsoon season that is cru- Prime Minister Narendra Modi diseases.
cial to maintaining a bumper called for rapid response to The prime minister also took
foodgrain harvest and reducing incidents of heatwave. REUTERS a separate meeting to review
the impact of crop damage due various aspects of wheat sup-
to intense early heat wave con- advised to develop deployment ply, stock and exports where he
ditions. plans in flood-affected states was given a detailed presenta-
Officials of the India Meteor- and make active use of social tion on the issues, particularly,
ological Department (IMD) and media for sensitisation of com- the impact of high tempera-
National Disaster Management munities. tures in March-April on crop
Authority (NDMA) briefed the Modi said there production.
PM about the persistence of is a need to take all PM Modi said The status of
high temperatures in March- possible measures there is a need to procurement and
May across the country. to avoid deaths take all possible export of wheat
States and Union Territories due to heatwaves measures to were also
were advised to prepare heat and fires. reviewed. Modi
avoid deaths
action plans (HAP) as a stan- “The response directed that all
dard response at the state, dis- time towards any due to heatwaves steps be taken to
trict and city levels. such incidents and fires ensure quality
For the southwest monsoon should be mini- norms and stan-
preparedness, all states have mal. In view of ris- dards so that India
been advised to prepare flood ing temperatures, regular hos- evolves into an assured source
preparedness plans and under- pital fire safety audits need to of foodgrain and other agricul-
take appropriate measures. be done. We also need to work tural products. He also asked
The National Disaster to substantially reduce the vul- officials to ensure maximum
Response Force (NDRF) was nerability of forests across the help to farmers.

India has no plans to join the WTO govt procurement agreement CORRECTIONS AND
CLARIFICATIONS
Mint welcomes comments,
Ravi Dutta Mishra & on frequently asked questions on inter-ministerial, stakeholder domestic firms. This was one of central government,” said the suggestions or complaints
Dilasha Seth the India-UAE Comprehensive consultations. In future agree- the bottlenecks in several key FAQs. about errors.
Economic Partnership Agree- ments, the GP chapter text may FTA negotiations, including Prof Arpita Mukherjee of
Readers can alert the
NEW DELHI ment (CEPA). Pacts under nego- become a template, and the the one with the EU. ICRIER said that the provision
newsroom to any errors in the
tiation include those with scope and coverage of the GP State-owned firms and the for a GP chapter is good as some paper by emailing us, with your

I
ndia has “no plans” to join the
government procurement
agreement grouping of the
World Trade Organization
(WTO), but is open to negotiat-
ing such agreements as part of
bilateral deals.
It already figures in the free
trade agreement signed with the
UAE, and while this may act as a
template for all future bilateral
free-trade agreements the scope
and coverage of the section may
vary, the ministry of commerce
and industry said in the section
Canada, the EU, Israel and the
UK.
The India-UAE agreement,
which came into effect on 1
May excludes government
procurement for several union
ministries. While this was the
first time India had included
government procurement in a
free-trade pact, it is only lim-
ited to a few central ministries
and excludes key sectors such
as construction, infrastructure
projects and health care,
including medical devices and
chapter may vary depending on
the ambition,” it added.
Under the pact, only govern-
ment procurement contracts
worth over ₹200 crore will be
allowed for UAE-based compa-
nies on the same terms as
The India-UAE agreement, which came into effect on 1 May Indian firms. Government pro-
excludes government procurement for many ministries. BLOOMBERG curement is open to 34 minis-
tries and departments, includ-
pharmaceutical products. to join the same,” the ministry ing power and education.
“India is an observer under added. “Since it is the first time Earlier, India never took up
WTO Agreement on govern- we are having a full text on GP, government procurement for
ment procurement since 2010 it has been carefully examined bilateral or multilateral trade
and, as of now, there is no plan and developed after wider agreements in order to protect
defence ministry are excluded
from GP.
“Only limited central gov-
ernment ministries are cov-
ered, that too with high thresh-
olds for procurement of goods,
services and construction servi-
ces… excluded are subordinate
entities of the central ministries
including departments and
attached bodies, autonomous
bodies, government-owned
firms, public sector enterprises,
regulators or any other entity,
wholly or partially, under the
Indian companies are also ask- full name and address to
ing for access to the GP market feedback@livemint.com.
in countries like the UK.
“Many of our trading part- It is our policy to promptly
respond to all complaints.
ners are already part of the Readers dissatisfied with the
WTO GPA. There are two core response or concerned about
issues. First, we do not have a Mint’s journalistic integrity may
comprehensive domestic regu- write directly to the editor by
lation. Second, many sectors sending an email to
especially healthcare in a pan- asktheeditor@livemint.com
demic situation is out of the Mint’s journalistic Code of
agreement. We also need to Conduct that governs our
review the depth and coverage newsroom is available at
of the agreement,” she said. www.livemint.com
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LIVEMINT.COM
Adani Power
Q4 net profit
increases to
₹4,645 crore
PTI
feedback@livemint.com
A
dani Power’s consoli-
dated net profit
jumped multi-fold to
₹4,645.47 crore in the March
quarter from ₹13.13 crore in
the year-ago period, mainly on
the back of higher revenues.
Total income of the com-
pany surged 93% to ₹13,308
crore in the March quarter,
from ₹6,902 crore in the same
period a year ago, a company
statement said on Thursday.
“Revenue for Q4 FY
2021-22 includes prior-period
revenue from operations of
₹2,946 crore, and prior-period
other income of ₹1,982 crore,”
the statement said.
The EBITDA for Q4 FY
2021-22 witnessed multi-fold
increase to ₹7,942 crore, as
compared to ₹2,143 crore in
Q4 FY 2020-21.
“EBITDA growth was aided
by prior-period income recog-
nition, greater shortfall claims
due to high import coal prices,
and higher merchant and
short-term tariffs and vol-
umes, as compared to Q4 FY
2020-21,” the statement
added.
The consolidated net profit
for 2021-22 climbed to
₹4,911.58 crore, from
₹1,269.98 crore in 2020-21.
Last fiscal, the company’s
total income increased to
₹31,686.47 crore, from
₹28,149.68 crore in the same
period a year ago.
The company said that elec-
tricity demand continues to
grow strongly in India, driven
both by economic growth and
heatwave in the north-western
parts of the country.
Moreover, the recent geo-
political events in Europe have
resulted in a sharp increase in
global fuel prices.
CORPORATE FRIDAY, 6 MAY 2022
NEW DELHI 05
Dabur, Marico point to weak m
MOVES
rural demand in Mar quarter A weekly list of C-Suiters who have moved up
the corporate ladder either within or outside
their companies.
Appointed as vice president
Abhishek
engineering at Byju's
Chawla
Amit Appointed as India region
Consumers downgrade to cheaper packs as surging inflation chips away at their spending power Patil
group head human
resources at ZF Group
Anuj Appointed as India investment
Suneera Tandon head at Rise Capital
Mehra
suneera.t@htlive.com
NEW DELHI Anupama Appointed as executive director
Sharma at IIFL Wealth Management
P
ackaged-goods companies
Dr Archana Appointed as head of public
Dabur India and Marico Ltd
policy at Google India
pointed to weak rural demand Gulati
in the March quarter as con-
Durgesh Appointed as senior director
sumers downgraded to market expansion at
cheaper packs and brands in categories Kaushik Coinbase
such as toothpaste to hair oil and sham-
Gautam Appointed as senior vice
poos as surging inflation chipped away president engineering at
at their spending power. Goenka Darwinbox
Dabur India’s chief executive Mohit
Malhotra said the company witnessed a
liquidity crunch in rural markets in the
March quarter. “We have seen a little
setback coming in from rural. For us, in
the past couple of quarters, our rural was
always firing ahead of urban. However,
what we found in this quarter is a liquid-
ity crunch and demand compression in
Jatin
Khanna
Joyeeta
Ghosal
Mukund
Seetharaman
m Appointed as chief executive
officer at Sarovar Hotels
Appointed as director brand
marketing at GoKwik
Appointed as chief operating
officer at Haptik
MOVES
rural India. Therefore, our credit (cycle)
has also gone up in rural India. Rural is The volumes of fast-moving consumer goods declined 4.1% in the March quarter, the companies said.. MINT Rahul Appointed as group chief
Gautam financial officer at Ixigo
the one which is not doing so well for us
at the moment,” he said. However, in an earnings presentation However, he said things could look up company said. “We will closely watch
The maker of Real drinks and Vatika on Wednesday, it said categories such as over the next six months as rural rural growth and are hopeful of a recov- Richa Appointed as chief financial
shampoo draws 47% of its domestic toothpaste, hair oil, and shampoo incomes improve and expectations of a ery in demand in light of the good har- Singh officer at Pernod Ricard India
business from the hinterland. reported an overall volume decline in normal monsoon help lift demand. “The vest season, normal monsoon forecast
On Wednesday, Dabur India reported the March quarter for the industry. rural economy will turn around. There and government spending,” it said. Appointed as chief executive
Sachin officer and managing director
a 7.7% growth in consolidated revenue Malhotra said higher food prices and is an immediate pressure we are seeing Both also flagged high inflationary Seth at BSE Ebix Insurance Broking
for the quarter ended 31 March. Net inflation were putting pressure on rural in the near term. The rural economy pressures that they said are unlikely to
profit for the period declined 22% to wallets. This was leading to consumers should recover in about six months,” he abate in the near term. Sahas Appointed as chief executive
₹294 crore. “Obviously, there will be input Malhotra officer at JioSaavn
Meanwhile, Parachute oil maker COST OF PRICE RISE cost pressure. Having said that, we
Marico’s domestic business will try to grow ahead of the market Shantanu Appointed as head of human
reported a 5% growth in March DABUR India saw MARICO’S domestic THE firms said the RURAL demand and also gain market share. Number Bhattacharya resources at Grab
quarter revenues, with 1% underly- aconsolidated
7.7% growth in business reported
revenue a 5% growth in
dip in volumes was
due to the high
was slightly behind
urban during the
two, I think as far copra is concerned
ing volume growth. Rural demand for the quarter March quarter prices of everything quarter, the that part, we are pretty reasonably Shiva Appointed as chief financial
was slightly behind urban during ended 31 March revenue from soaps to fuel companies said okay,” Gupta said during a post- officer at Interglobe Hotels
the quarter, the company said. earnings call on Wednesday. The
Kumar
FMCG volumes declined 4.1% in prices of copra, a key ingredient for
Sidhant Appointed as marketing head
the March quarter, companies said, cit- downgrading across categories. This said. its Parachute portfolio, were down 9% at Nike India
ing industry data. This, they said, was was true for both urban and rural On the same day, Saugata Gupta, sequentially and 31% year-on-year. Narayan
largely on account of the high prices of demand. managing director and CEO of Marico, Malhotra also said the company does Appointed as chief executive
everything from soaps to fuel. Rural “Be it shampoo or hair oil, our price said the stress factor in rural was “high”. not see any sign of inflation easing. The Yesh
officer wholesale lending at
demand has remained volatile since the points of ₹10, ₹5, and ₹20 are doing sig- In India, rising inflation levels, exacer- company will wait for the competition to Nadkarni Piramal Capital & Housing
September quarter. nificantly better than the larger packs bated by geopolitical tensions, contin- hike prices before taking any further Finance
Dabur reported year-on-year growth with the exception of e-commerce and ued to weigh on the overall consump- pricing actions. Malhotra warned of
across most categories it operates in. modern trade,” he said. tion sentiment and more so in rural, the near team pressure on margins. Source: Accord India, executive search worldwide
06 FRIDAY, 6 MAY 2022
NEW DELHI MARK TO MARKET LIVEMINT.COM

S&P BSE Sensex Nifty 50 Nifty 500 Nifty Next 50 Nifty 100 S&P BSE Mid-cap S&P BSE Small Cap
CLOSE PERCENT CHANGE CLOSE PERCENT CHANGE CLOSE PERCENT CHANGE CLOSE PERCENT CHANGE CLOSE PERCENT CHANGE CLOSE PERCENT CHANGE CLOSE PERCENT CHANGE

55,702.23 0.06 16,682.65 0.03 14,395.50 0.01 41,225.65 0.15 17,016.60 0.07 23,615.24 -0.21 27,673.97 -0.32
PREVIOUS CLOSE OPEN PREVIOUS CLOSE OPEN PREVIOUS CLOSE OPEN PREVIOUS CLOSE OPEN PREVIOUS CLOSE OPEN PREVIOUS CLOSE OPEN PREVIOUS CLOSE OPEN

55,669.03 56,255.07 16,677.60 16,854.75 14,393.35 14,542.15 41,162.35 41,603.70 17,004.05 17,186.35 23,665.32 23,945.44 27,762.59 27,954.22
HIGH LOW HIGH LOW HIGH LOW HIGH LOW HIGH LOW HIGH LOW HIGH LOW

56,566.80 55,613.82 16,945.70 16,651.85 14,606.05 14,365.55 41,728.00 41,071.90 17,270.60 16,978.65 23,963.36 23,538.21 28,057.90 27,654.26

m MINT SHORTS For equities drunk on Inadequate price hikes

Dollar slide spells brief rally for hit Havells’ Q4 margin
emerging market currencies
Developing Asian currencies rallied on Thursday as inves-
tors piled into riskier assets after the Federal Reserve
damped bets for a super-sized rate hike. Thailand’s baht
liquidity, party is over Vineetha Sampath
vineetha.s@livemint.com Steady growth
Havells India's revenue from
Harsha Jethmalani

H
surged as much as 1% to lead the gains, as the dollar tumbled avells India Ltd saw growth operations in the March quarter
after Fed Chair Jerome Powell dismissed the idea of a harsha.j@htlive.com Turning off the tap across all its businesses in the rose by 32.6% year-on-year backed
75-basis point increase to cool price pressures. Malaysia’s Starting June, the US Federal Reserve will reduce the size of its balance sheet, March quarter (Q4FY22) by growth across all segments.

A
ringgit rose 0.5%, while the Indian rupee and Philippine mid rising global tempera- thus withdrawing excess liquidity from the system. leading to a nearly 33% year-on-year Revenue from operations (in ₹ cr)
peso each climbed at least 0.3%. The moves mark a reprieve tures, it is pouring interest 10 (y-o-y) growth in standalone reve- 5,000
4,417
for regional currencies after expectations of aggressive US rate hikes. Equities face US Federal Reserve balance sheet (in $ trillion) -10 nues to ₹4,417 crore. The Lloyd con-
%C 4,000
rate increases fuelled a bout of strength in the greenback. troubled times ahead, espe- AG
R
sumer segment did particularly well
But, some analysts say the rally may soon fade as China’s cially as they are used to 8 with revenues rising by 62% to ₹959

GR
3,000

CA
covid curbs weigh on the global economy and the Fed easy access to cheap funds in the post- 7.09 crore, helped by the onset of the

%
45
presses ahead with more policy tightening. “This is an pandemic world. summer season and the pent-up 2,000
opportunistic time to reverse the recent weakness in Asian On 4 May, the Reserve Bank of India 6 demand. In the post-earnings call, 1,479
currencies,” said Kiyong Seong, an Asia rates strategist at (RBI) stunned us with unexpected repo -1.5% CAGR Havells said air conditioners (AC) 1,000
Societe Generale SA in Hong Kong. BLOOMBERG rate and cash reserve ratio (CRR) hikes of constituted about 80-85% of Lloyd’s
4 R
40 basis points (bps) to 4.40% and 50 bps CAG revenue in Q4. 0
26% Q1FY21 Q4FY22
to 4.5%, respectively. One basis point is However, the profitability of the Note: Standalone figures
0.01%. Recall that the repo rate was kept segment was a sore point. Lloyd’s Source: Company data
unchanged since May 2020. On the 2 contribution margin was low at 5.2%
PARAS JAIN/MINT
same day, the US Federal Reserve hiked compared with 13.3% in Q4FY21 as it
rates by 50 bps. This was the Fed’s big- was impacted by sustained competi- more, price hikes would not be
gest interest rate hike since 2000, but 0 tive intensity and the inability to pass required.
2007 2014 2019 2021 2023E
was lower than the feared 75 bps E is estimate; as of December end. CAGR is compound annual growth rate Source: Fred, Emkay Research estimates on the entire increase in commodity However, at current cost levels,
increase. The outcome: The US equity costs. The segment’s earnings before price hikes are needed in certain cat-
SARVESH KUMAR SHARMA/MINT
market closed higher on Wednesday interest and tax (Ebit) margin was egories such as air conditioners, fans,
and Asian equities saw a relief rally on inflation.“Lost in the noise, the Fed rowing cost. A simultaneous increase in negative. Price increases in the light- lighting, and appliances, the man-
Thursday. announced the start of QT. It will be the repo rate also means that the cost of ing and fixtures segment were also agement said. In FY22, the company
As equity market participants prepare interesting to see if we can avoid a ‘taper- borrowing for corporates would rise,” insufficient. hiked prices across segments. In the
for greater chances of more and faster tantrum’ this time. In 2013, the previous said Suvodeep Rakshit, senior econo- As such, all big segments saw Lloyd segment, price increases stood
rate hikes, analysts cautioned that the exercise was quickly halted as EM mist at Kotak Institutional Equities. “So, drops in Ebit margin except electri- at 10%.
withdrawal of liquidity could be a lot started to meltdown, and that was in a if everything else remains unchanged, it cal consumer durables (ECD), which Meanwhile, Havells’ shares gained
more challenging to digest. low inflationary environment,” said Jef- does hurt domestic business sentiment saw a 200 basis points (bps) y-o-y 25% in the past one year, but they are
Sales volume fell 16.8% from a year ago, the Census and “Historical evidence suggests that frey Halley, senior market analyst, Asia at the margin and could eventually lead rise. One basis point is 0.01%. down by nearly 11% so far in CY22.
Statistics Department said on Thursday. BLOOMBERG
when liquidity tightens in developed Pacific, at broking house Oanda. to some trimming of earnings estimates There was a renewed cost escala- Havells is likely to benefit from the
countries, it does impact emerging mar- In his note to clients on 5 May, Halley for listed corporates,” he said. tion in commodities shift in consumer pref-
ket (EM) equities. With the US starting to said that QT could have a far more CRR is the percentage of a bank’s total because of the Ukraine At current cost erence from unorgan-
reduce the size of its balance sheet, the important downstream impact on mar- deposits needed to maintain as liquid crisis. Overall, Havells’ levels, price hikes ized to organized in the
Hong Kong’s retail sales plunge benefit of lower cost of cap- cash reserve with RBI. Ebitda (earnings before near term.
are needed in
again in March on virus curbs ital that EM equities, TIDE IS TURNING Meanwhile, the MSCI interest, taxes, depreci- certain categories “We expect Havells to
Hong Kong’s retail sales plummeted 13.8% in March, the including India, saw from India index is trading at a ation, and amortization) report a strong uptick
such as
first back-to-back contraction in more than a year as strin- ultra-easy monetary policy AS US Fed shrinks its WITH that, cost of IN this context, one-year forward price-to- margin fell by 340 bps over the next three
gent virus restrictions weighed heavily on the economy and gush of liquidity balance sheet, borrowing could rise India’s expensive earnings multiple of 17 y-o-y to 11.8%. Pre-tax appliances, the years, led by a recovery
benefits of cheap for corporates, valuations are likely
and crushed consumer spending. The fall in sales value pumped in by global cen- liquidity will wane, leading to earnings to see further times, a premium to MSCI profit grew at a slower management said in consumer sentiment
from the prior year was worse than the median estimate of tral banks at the peak of the caution analysts downgrades moderation Asia Ex-Japan’s 11 times pace of 4.5% to ₹475 and government’s push
a 12.6% decline expected by economists in a Bloomberg sur- pandemic, would wane,” multiple, according to crore. for infrastructure devel-
vey, though it was less than the 14.6% drop in February. said Sanjay Mookim, head Bloomberg data. With the harsh summer season, opment,” said analysts at Reliance
Sales volume fell 16.8% from a year ago, the Census and of research at JP Morgan India. kets than Fed funds rate hikes. True, India’s valuation has cooled off Lloyd is likely to see good demand Securities in a first-cut note.
Statistics Department said Thursday, roughly in line with To combat inflation, the US Fed In India, the CRR hike would suck from highs, but a further moderation is for air conditioners. As volumes While the outlook for its segments
economist expectations. The February-March period was decided to reduce the size of its balance excess liquidity of ₹87,000 crore from on the cards now. grow, the product mix is expected to is healthy, there are offsetting fac-
the first time since the end of 2020-into-2021 that retail sheet, a process also known as quantita- the banking system. Some economists Mookim pointed out that the valua- dilute the overall margin profile of tors. “Key risks to the stock include
sales declined for two straight months, as the city imposed tive tightening (QT). From June, it will are now pencilling in a 100 bps increase tion of Indian equities is expensive and Havells as Lloyd’s margins are lower. inability to pass on rising costs in a
strict social curbs to contain a deadly covid outbreak.The start selling $47.5 billion of bonds and in CRR, expecting it to touch 5.5% in some stocks are trading at multiples However, the company expects timely manner which could impact
full impact of those restrictions is also likely not captured mortgage-backed securities a month, 2022. higher than their pre-pandemic levels. the overall margin to gravitate to margins and overall slowdown in
in the data, as the retail sales data covers consumer spend- and ramp it up to $95 billion a month by “When the central bank raises CRR, “With normalization of policy rates and normal levels eventually. demand impacting B2C categories
ing on goods but not services such as catering, medical care September. The US Fed has done this in banks have relatively lower funds to dis- tightening of liquidity conditions, valua- In the call, the management said such as ECD and durables,” said the
and entertainment, which account for over 50% of total the past, too, but what’s different this burse. So, banks may price their loans at tions of Indian stocks would correct that commodity costs have come results first-cut note by Jefferies
consumer spending. BLOOMBERG time is the uncertainty surrounding higher rates, thus pushing up the bor- sooner than later,” he cautioned. down a bit lately and if they drop India.

Mark to Market writers do not have positions in the companies they have discussed here

LIC IPO gets fully RBI interest rate action hinges on Apr inflation Cos in a fix as CXO
subscribed on Day 2
FROM PAGE 1
achieve a minimum subscrip-
tion of 90% in the institutional
investor category to close suc-
cessfully.
The portion of the share sale
reserved for institutional
investors was subscribed 40%
on the second day of bidding.
The policyholders’ portion
saw the most demand, getting
subscriptions for three times
the number of shares on offer.
The retail investor portion was
subscribed 93%, while the
shares reserved for high net-
worth individuals was sub-
scribed 45%, data from the
stock exchanges showed.
At the upper end of the price
band, the stock would trade at
around 1.1X market cap/
embedded value (H1 FY22
embedded value) as against
the industry average of around
3X, analysts at Axis Securities
said in a note to clients.
“Given the under-penetra-
tion of life insurance in India,
the higher protection gap, and
the improving financialization
of savings, we expect LIC to
maintain its market leadership
position adequately supported
by good business traction.
Furthermore, LIC intends to
increase its share of high-mar-
gin non-par products to
improve its margins which will
augur well for the company
over the long term. Addition-
ally, the company’s NBP/APE
(new business premium/
annual premium equivalent)
growth has seen a strong
rebound, enabling it to gain
market share in Q4FY22,” the
report added.
hires refuse to join
The policyholders’ portion saw
the most demand, getting
subscriptions for three times the
number of shares on offer. REUTERS
The government is offload-
ing a 3.5% stake in the share
sale for a total of ₹21,000
crore. Earlier on Monday, LIC
raised ₹5,627 crore by selling
shares to so-called anchor
investors.
The strong demand from
policyholders and retail inves-
tors is in line with the trend
witnessed in the anchor sub-
scription, where domestic
institutional investors came
out in strong support of LIC.
Domestic mutual funds sub-
scribed to 74% of the shares
offered to so-called anchor
investors, even as foreign
institutional investors largely
stayed away, subscribing to
just 17.7% of the anchor alloca-
tion.
The mutual fund subscrip-
tion was led by fund houses of
SBI Funds Management Ltd,
ICICI Prudential Asset Man-
agement Co. Ltd and HDFC
Asset Management Co. Ltd.
Among FIIs, the biggest inves-
tors included BNP Invest-
ments, Government Pension
Fund Global and the govern-
ment of Singapore.
FROM PAGE 1
data, released a few days after
the 8 April policy. Second, the
central bank, the person said,
has been tracking data from
the ministry of consumer
affairs, agricultural markets
and other sources to observe
that prices were on the rise,
even more than was earlier
expected.
Alarm bells also rang when
Indonesia suddenly decided to
ban palm oil exports, a decision
that directly affects India.
“The MPC meeting in May
was a way to ensure that the
rate changes are smooth and
are in small tranches, which
would not have been possible if
Delhivery’s ₹5,235 crore initial share sale opens on 11 May
FROM PAGE 1
scrapped plans to go public
after the Russian invasion of
Ukraine and to avoid a clash
with LIC’s ₹21,000 crore IPO,
India’s largest initial share
sale.
Investors’ reaction to the
Delhivery IPO may determine
whether other such startups
will brave the choppy markets
to go public.
Delhivery will raise ₹4,000
crore by selling new shares,
and the company’s early
investors will raise an addi-
tional ₹1,235 crore through an
offer for sale (OFS).
The bidding for so-called
anchor investors will open on
10 May, the company said. The
three-day IPO will close on 13
May. Gurugram-based Del-
Alarm bells also rang when Indonesia suddenly decided to ban
palm oil exports, a decision that directly affects India.
the central bank waited till the
scheduled meeting in June,”
the person said.
The central bank has been
indicating that the days of
easy money policy are all but
hivery will list on exchanges
on 24 May.
Of the total issue size, 75% of
the shares on sale will be avail-
able for allocation to qualified
institutional buyers (QIBs),
15% for non-institutional
investors and the balance 10%
for retail investors. Around
60% of the QIB portion is
reserved for anchor investors.
Proceeds from the issue will
fund the company’s acquisi-
tions and expansion plans,
with a focus on automation,
technology and other strate-
gies.
“Delhivery has appetite and
ability to make larger acquisi-
tions and integrate them
within the company. Delhiv-
ery has less than 0.5% share of
the $300 billion market
opportunity,” said Sandeep
oritize inflation over growth
as runaway commodity prices
threaten to upend its price
stability goal. FROM PAGE 1 Consultants.
Experts believe that the cen- Over the last three-four
tral bank will continue to hike kaj Arora, managing director, quarters as hiring picked up
rates in the coming meetings to Russell Reynolds Associates. after two years of covid-19,
reach pre-pandemic levels. “There is at companies have
“With the current hike of 40 least a 25% jump In the last three-four seen record attri-
bps in repo rate to 4.40%, it in dropouts for quarters, as hiring tion in IT, startup,
seems the rate cycle has made a candidates who picked up after two fintech and retail
U-turn (from the steep cuts are at a salary of years of covid, firms sectors. At junior
seen in early 2020), and the ₹70 lakh and levels, candidates
have seen record
AFP RBI would continue to increase above. It mirrors are sometimes
the rates going forward and the junior-level attrition across wooed by rivals
over as the war-induced fac- may reach the pre-pandemic hiring backouts, sectors with a 30-50%
tors push inflation up. On 8 level of 5.15% by end-March and in most cases, pay hike and in
April, the MPC indicated its 2023,” Soumya Kanti Ghosh, it is the employer some cases, more
intent to exit the “ultra-ac- group chief economic adviser, who is managing to retain the than 70% for a few years of
commodative” stance it took State Bank of India said in a employee,” said Shiv Agrawal, work experience in analytics,
during the pandemic and pri- note on Wednesday. managing director of ABC IT, machine learning and AI.
Barasia, chief business officer. Internet will sell up to ₹165 has a 1.79% stake. FY20. At the same time,
Under the offer for sale, its crore. Delhivery was founded in freight, handling and servic-
shareholders, including US In addition, Delhivery’s 2011 by Sahil Barua, Mohit ing cost has risen from ₹2,026
private equity firm Carlyle co-founders—Kapil Bharati Tandon, Bhavesh Manglani, crore in FY21 to ₹3,480 crore
Group, SoftBank, Fosun (its chief technology officer), Suraj Saharan, and Kapil in 9MFY22.
group-owned China Momen- Mohit Tandon and Suraj Saha- Bharati as a hyperlocal express “Through the last four
tum Fund and Times Internet, ran—will sell shares worth ₹5 logistics services firm. It years, unit economics have
will divest a part crore, ₹40 crore became a unicorn, touching a improved. Adjusted Ebitda
of their owner- The proceeds will and ₹6 crore, $1 billion valuation in 2019. It has grown from -11.3% to
ship in Delhiv- fund the firm’s respectively. had last raised $277 million in almost breakeven. If you just
ery. acquisitions and With a 22.78% May last year in a round, led by look at nine months, the sec-
Carlyle will sell expansion plans, stake, SoftBank is Boston-based investment firm ond two quarters of FY22 on a
shares worth the largest share- Fidelity, at a valuation of $3 combined basis were actually
with a focus on
₹454 crore, down holder in Delhiv- billion. profitable, vis-à-vis the first
from earlier automation, tech ery, while Nexus Delhivery claims to be the quarter of FY22. We are pretty
plans to sell ₹920 and other strategies Ventures and largest and fastest-growing much at breakeven,” said Amit
crore; SoftBank Carlyle hold fully-integrated logistics ser- Agarwal, chief financial offi-
will now sell a stakes of 9.23% vices company in India by rev- cer, Delhivery.
stake worth ₹365 crore, down and 7.42% respectively. enue as of FY21, covering Kotak Mahindra Capital Co.
from ₹750 crore. The company’s three 17,488 PIN (postal index num- Ltd, Morgan Stanley India Co.
Fosun will sell via Deli CMF founders hold relatively small ber) codes. Pvt. Ltd, BofA Securities India
Pte Ltd shares worth ₹200 stakes. While Kapil Bharati In FY21, it reported a nega- Ltd, and Citigroup Global
crore, half its earlier ₹400 holds 1.11%, Mohit Tandon tive free cash flow of ₹246 Markets India Pvt. Ltd are
crore sale plan; and Times owns 1.88%, and Suraj Saharan crore as against ₹848 crore in managing the share sale.
LIVEMINT.COM CORPORATE FRIDAY, 6 MAY 2022
NEW DELHI 07

E-way bill generation 2021-22

Consolidated
2021-22
FMCG Volume
Dabur India Limited
Regd. Office: 8/3, Asaf Ali Road, New Delhi -110 002

dips in April; may hit Revenue Up

14%
Growth of
10%
CIN: L24230DL1975PLC007908, Tel No. 011-23253488, Fax No. 011-23222051
Website: www.dabur.com e-mail: corpcomm@dabur.com
Extract of audited consolidated financial results for the quarter and year ended 31 March, 2022
( in crores, except ratios)

May’s GST collection S. Particulars

No.

1 Revenue from operations

Quarter
ended
(31/03/2022)
2,517.81
Current year
ended
(31/03/2022)
10,888.68
Corresponding
quarter ended
(31/03/2021)
2,336.79
Previous year
ended
(31/03/2021)
9,561.65
2 Net Profit for the period / year (before tax, exceptional items and 475.91 2,355.48 452.23 2,057.03
share of (loss) / profit of joint venture)
3 Net Profit for the period / year before tax (after exceptional items and 389.71 2,268.68 451.64 2,056.02
GSTN said 75.2 million e-way bills were issued in April share of (loss) / profit of joint venture)
4 Net Profit for the period / year after tax and share of (loss) / profit of 294.34 1,742.30 377.29 1,694.95
joint venture
Gireesh Chandra Prasad 5 Net Profit for the period / year after tax (after non controlling interest 294.22 1,739.22 377.82 1,693.30
gireesh.p@livemint.com and share of (loss) / profit of joint venture)
NEW DELHI 6 Total Comprehensive Income for the period {comprising profit for the 232.99 1,650.02 295.76 1,606.51
period / year (after tax) and other comprehensive income (after tax) }

G
eneration of e-way bills, which are
7 Paid-up equity share capital (Face Value of 1 each) 176.79 176.79 176.74 176.74
needed to ship goods within and
across states, eased a notch in April, 8 Reserves (excluding Revaluation Reserve) 8,204.51 8,204.51 7,486.79 7,486.79
suggesting that Goods and Services 9 Securities Premium Account 380.59 380.59 365.00 365.00
Tax (GST) collections this month 10 Net worth 8,381.30 8,381.30 7,663.53 7,663.53
could be lower than the previous month’s record
high. 11 Outstanding Debt 1,030.10 1,030.10 509.06 509.06
Data from GSTN, the company that processes 12 Debt Equity Ratio 0.12 0.12 0.07 0.07
GST returns, showed that 75.2 million e-way bills 13 Earnings per share (Face value of 1 each) (not annualised)
were generated in April, lower than the 78.1 mil-
(a) Basic 1.66 9.84 2.14 9.58
lion raised in March. However, the number is still
the second highest since November 2020. (b) Diluted 1.66 9.81 2.13 9.55
Businesses will pay GST for April transactions 14 Debt Service Coverage Ratio 26.39 34.50 22.48 23.89
in May.
15 Interest Service Coverage Ratio 47.01 68.57 61.12 75.55
March had witnessed a spurt in e-way bills as
companies pushed inventories at the end of the 16 Other Equity 8,204.51 8,204.51 7,486.79 7,486.79
financial year to meet their targets, leading to a Notes:
record ₹1.68 trillion in GST revenue collections. 1. Additional information on standalone financial results is as follows:
The revenue to be collected in May for the trans-
actions in April could reflect the slight modera- Particulars Quarter ended Current year ended Corresponding quarter ended Previous year ended
tion seen in e-way bill generation, which is taken The e-way bill generation number for April is still (31/03/2022) (31/03/2022) (31/03/2021) (31/03/2021)
by analysts as a high frequency indicator of eco- the second highest since November 2020. MINT Revenue from operations 1,852.34 8,179.50 1,721.86 7,184.73
nomic activity. Profit before tax 373.58 1,896.31 362.76 1,683.31
Economic recovery and improved tax compli- GST collections were less impacted during the
Profit after tax 291.76 1,432.93 300.27 1,381.89
ance have helped boost revenue collection in the second wave of the pandemic in the first half of
recent past. It remains to be seen how the RBI’s FY22 than during the first wave, which had 2 . The above is an extract of the detailed format of audited consolidated financial results for the quarter and year ended 31 March, 2022 filed with
increase of its main policy rate by 40 basis points severely depressed revenue in the first half of the stock exchanges under Regulation 33 and 52 of SEBI (Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2015. The full format of
to 4.40% to tame inflation will impact consump- FY21. Revenue receipts significantly improved in the standalone and consolidated financial results for the quarter and year ended 31 March, 2022 are available on the Stock Exchange websites
(www.nseindia.com and www.bseindia.com) and Company’s website (www.dabur.com).
tion. RBI had earlier flagged that private con- the latter half of FY22 as the economy recovered
sumption’s share in gross domestic and pent-up demand drove con- For and on behalf of Board of Directors
product is still a tad below pre-pan- PRESSURE sumption. Experts also say that in Mohit Burman
Place: New Delhi Vice Chairman
demic levels, going by FY22 esti- MOUNTS addition to the anti-evasion measures
Date: 05 May, 2022 DIN : 00021963
mates. taken by the tax authorities, a surge in
The S&P Global India manufactur- ECONOMIC commodity prices is also having an
ing purchase managers’ index had recovery and better
tax compliance have
impact on GST revenue collections.
shown earlier this month that the boosted revenue Brisk goods shipments across the
manufacturing industry in India had collection of late country also helped truck rentals in
a strong start to FY23, posting a April. Greater momentum in wheat
marked expansion in new orders and IT remains to be and cereal harvesting and higher
seen how RBI’s repo
production. PMI is based on a survey rate hike to 4.40% cargo movement from factories, cou-
of 400 businesses, while e-way bill will impact pled with improved consumer
data is based on actual transactions. consumption spending during the peak marriage
Rising from 54 in March to 54.7 in season helped truck rentals in April
April, the seasonally adjusted PMI despite a jump in diesel prices, the
highlighted a solid and faster improvement in Indian Foundation of Transport Research and
operating conditions across the sector, according Training said. The growth in GST revenue col-
to S&P Global. Growth gathered momentum in lection in recent months highlights the revenue
the intermediate and capital goods segments, but collection potential the new indirect tax system
there was a slowdown at consumer goods mak- offered by leveraging technology-linked compli-
ers, it said on 2 May. ance requirements.

SBI offers special Central

loan to LIC staff to Bank set to
close 13% of
participate in IPO its branches
Gopika Gopakumar ₹902-949 for the IPO. LIC’s
gopika.g@livemint.com draft prospectus said it has Reuters
MUMBAI 114,498 employees. feedback@livemint.com
To support India’s largest MUMBAI

L
enders have taken special IPO, the Reserve bank of India

C
measures to help Life (RBI) has also allowed banks to entral Bank of India, a
Insurance Corp. of India’s keep their branches open to state-owned commer-
(LIC’s) employees and custom- process the application sup- cial bank, plans to shut
ers subscribe to the mega initial ported by blocked amount for 13% of its branches to improve
public offering (IPO). State the public on 8 May, which will its financial health and bring an
Bank of India (SBI), for allow bids for the IPO to be end to nearly five years of close
instance, is offering a personal accepted on Saturday as well as scrutiny by the Reserve Bank of
loan of up to ₹20 lakh, or 90% of Sunday between 10am to 7pm. India, according to persons
the purchase price of shares, While IPOs remain open for aware of the matter and a docu-
whichever is lower, to the only three days for public sub- ment seen by Reuters.
employees of LIC, at a special scription, the LIC share sale, The bank is looking to
rate of 7.35%, lower than the given its size, has been allowed reduce the number of branches
three-year marginal cost of to remain open for six days. by 600 by either shutting down
lending rate (MCLR) of 7.4%. As of Thursday, the LIC IPO or merging loss-making bran-
Besides, SBI also waived off was subscribed 103%. The por- ches by the end of March 2023,
the processing fee tion reserved for according to the copy of a doc-
for the five-year While IPOs remain i n s t i t u t i o n a l ument reviewed by Reuters.
loan for LIC open for only 3 investors was sub- It is the most drastic step the
employees, where days for public scribed 40% on lender has taken to improve its
10% of the loan subscription, the the second day of finances and will be followed by
amount will be bidding. The poli- the sale of non-core assets such
LIC IPO has been cyholders portion
taken as the mar- as real estate, said government
gin with no secu- allowed to remain saw highest official who did not want to be
rity or guarantee. open for 6 days demand, with named.
A small portion, oversubscrip- The closure of branches by
or 1.58 million tions of 3.11 times. the eighth largest state-owned
shares on sale is reserved for The retail investor portion was lender by assets has not been
LIC employees. As of the sec- subscribed 93%, while the por- reported previously. The more
ond day of bidding, this portion tion reserved for high net- than 100-year old lender cur-
of the share sale was oversub- worth individuals was sub- rently has a network of 4,594
scribed 2.21 times, indicating scribed 47%, according to data branches.
strong interest among the from stock exchanges. Central Bank along with a
employees. The government, is selling a clutch of other lenders was
According to the draft pro- 3.5% stake in the state-owned placed under RBI’s prompt
spectus, an LIC employee, who insurance behemoth, instead corrective action (PCA) in 2017
is also a policy holder and a of the initially planned 5% due after the regulator found that
retail investor, can invest up to to market condition. The LIC some state-run lenders were in
₹6 lakh in the IPO. However, IPO will be a pure offer for sale, breach of its rules on regulatory
when asked why the maximum and the proceeds will go to the capital, bad loans and leverage
loan amount was pegged at ₹20 government. ratios. “The bank is struggling
lakh, an SBI official said that the Retail investors were allotted to come out of PCA of RBI due
plan was floated well in 35% of the total shares on offer, to poor performance on profit
advance and the bank was not at a discount of ₹45 to the IPO since 2017 and to utilize man-
aware of LIC’s terms for sub- price. About 10% of the float power in more efficient and
scribing to the IPO. was earmarked for policyhold- effective manner,” the docu-
That apart, LIC employees ers, who gets a ₹60 discount on ment dated 4 May sent out by
are also enjoying a discount of each share. The minimum lot the headquarters to branches
₹45 per share on a price band of size is 15 shares. and departments stated.
08 FRIDAY, 6 MAY 2022
NEW DELHI DEALS, TECH & STARTUPS LIVEMINT.COM

Absolute
m MINT SHORTS
Byju’s to pump in $200 mn in 2 yrs
Cognizant plans to make secures
to expand hybrid tuition model
Kolkata: Byju’s will be pumping $200 million over the next two
years to expand and build its hybrid tuition business, a senior
company official said. The firm valued at $22 billion, in March
fewer acquisitions this year $100 mn in
funding
raised $800 million (about ₹6,000 crore) in a funding round
participated by Sumeru Ventures, Vitruvian Partners and Ayushman Baruah Joseph Rai
BlackRock. PTI ayushman.b@livemint.com joseph.rai@livemint.com
BENGALURU NEW DELHI

Apple, Google, MS join forces

C A
ognizant Technology Solu- bsolute, which is build-
tions Corp. has posted an ing a plant bioscience
to boost passwordless logins 11.5% growth in March and AI-driven adaptive
BLOOMBERG
quarter net profit to $563 platform for agriculture, has
million, and revised its full- raised $100 million in recent
year revenue growth guidance for 2022 rounds from Sequoia Capital
to 9-11% in constant currency terms. In India, Tiger Global and Alpha
an interview, Rajesh Nambiar, chairman Wave Global, the agritech
and managing director, Cognizant India startup said on Thursday.
and president of digital business and The capital will be used to
technology, said that the inorganic part, strengthen its tech infrastruc-
mergers and acquisitions (M&As), of the ture, expand to new markets
revenue guidance has come down, since and segments, besides hiring,
the company has become more choosy said Agam Khare, founder and
about the targets and the price. Nambiar chief executive, Absolute.
spoke about Cognizant’s mergers and Founded in 2015 by Khare
New Delhi: Apple, Google and Microsoft, three of the acquisitions strategy, deals pipeline, and and later joined by chief oper-
world’s biggest tech companies, announced a collaborative expansion in other geographies. Edited ating officer Prateek Rawat,
effort earlier to adopt cross-platform compatibility for log- excerpts: Absolute has three verticals—
ging in to sites and services without the need to enter bioscience
unique passwords everywhere. Through this move, the What do we read into Cognizant’s research,
companies stated that they would begin supporting indus- revision in revenue growth gui- universal
try standards for passwordless logins set by industry body, dance for 2022? farm oper-
Fast Identity Online (FIDO) Alliance, and the World Wide We have sort of narrowed down the margins. We continue to be very disci- their cloud adoption, and sharpening North America is our largest market ating system (Farm OS), and a
Web Consortium (W3C), to accelerate adoption of pass- revenue growth guidance range from plined in terms of our M&A portfolio their innovation cycles. and grew 8.7% year-on-year (y-o-y) in global trade platform.
wordless logins. TECH CIRCLE 8.5-11.5% to 9-11% as we get closer. How- and that is what you see in terms of the As digital deals take centre stage, constant currency. However, we have The company spent the last
ever, we will still be able to deliver the reduction in the inorganic component how have the nature of deals been growing rapidly in our other mar- six years to understand the
$20-billion revenue range we guided of our growth. changed in terms of their size and kets as well. For instance, Europe grew microscopic details of nature’s
BlueSky releases code to create last quarter. The midpoint of our cur- Have clients already finalized their tenure? 15.6% y-o-y in constant currency while molecular building blocks that

‘
rent readings is still the same. However, budgets and where do you see the From the number of deals point of the Rest of World or global growth impact agricultural yield and
decentralized social media standard if you look at our constant currency gui- spending coming from? view, the large deals markets, as we call quality. Its research and
New Delhi: Less than a month after billionaire Elon Musk’s pur- dance from an organic business point of The broad trends that we have been have been coming them, grew at a very development platform, BioX,
chase of Twitter, a little-known company called Bluesky has view, it has actually gone up by about seeing have not changed significantly. down. If you look at We have taken fast pace at 22.2% y-o-y works at the intersection of
released code meant to create a decentralized social media stan- 0.5%. The inorganic part The client conversations digital, they tend to be a series of actions to in constant currency. plant biology, microbiology,
dard. The significance of Bluesky is in the fact that it was backed is what we are changing m INTERVIEW have also been addressing a specific focus on our We have taken a series omics, molecular biology, epi-
by Twitter itself, when it was led by founder Jack Dorsey, as this year we believe unchanged. We are client pain point and of actions to focus on genetics and artificial intelli-
back in 2019. Dorsey remains on the company’s board till that our M&As are going looking at various use thus they tend to be global growth our global growth gence (AI).
date. PRASID BANERJEE to be lower than what we did in 2021. We case scenarios and industries such as smaller in nature. How- markets in the past markets in the past one Omics refers to study in
want to be very choosy in terms of the telco and insurance have been more ever, our booking of the one year year. We have hired biological sciences like
M&As that we go after. Traditionally, we pronounced in terms of investments. last 12 months stood at new leaders in the UK, genomics, proteomics or
Rajesh Nambiar
Ola’s vehicle commerce chief acquired a lot of companies and they From an industry trend point of view, $23.4 billion, which is a Chairman and managing
ANZ, and Japan, who metabolomics.
have been able to strengthen our artificial intelligence (AI) and analytics, sizable number for a have made a huge dif- Its farm OS platform helps
executive Arun Sirdeshmukh exits broader digital portfolio. However, in insights and hyper-personalized offers, company. This too, we
director, Cognizant India
ference for us. They generate insights for farmers
Bengaluru: SoftBank-backed Ola’s vehicle commerce chief the first quarter, we didn’t do much of and user experience, across customer have been able to bring in new talent and to maintain optimal growing
executive Arun Sirdeshmukh will be exiting the firm, a company M&As. This is because we want to be journeys, are getting prioritized. From a achieve without any major large deals. capabilities, which is helping drive our conditions throughout crop
spokesperson confirmed. The development was first reported by sure that we only go after the right deals. business trend point of view, clients However, we will continue to focus on shift from traditional to digital. Our digi- cycles, which helps in increas-
Moneycontrol, the report also stated Ola’s chief of group strategy We need to protect shareholder value in have gone past the initial spending hesi- large deals at the right margin levels. tal revenue grew 20% annually and con- ing yield by up to 20%, leading
Amit Anchal is also exiting the firm, the company spokesperson terms of how much money we pay for tancy around covid and are making How are you expanding into mar- tributed 50% to the total revenues for to a profitability jump of up to
has denied this claim. ANUJ SUVARNA these deals and what is the right level of investments, being decisive, growing kets other than the US? the March quarter. 40%, the company said.

Startups partner accelerators to go global Venturi Partners may accommodate two

Debjyoti Roy
debjyoti.roy@livemint.com
family offices to top up $175 mn debut fund global, which is a strong value
proposition for most Indian
NEW DELHI brands,” said Ameve Sharma,
founder of Ayurvedic products Joseph Rai & The debut fund is expected

C
ross-border e-com- brand Kapiva. Kaushiki Chatterjee to invest 50-60% of the capital
merce solutions pro- Assiduus is also working in India versus 40-50% in
viders, such as Assid- with foreign brands from the NEW DELHI Southeast Asian markets as the
uus and Eunimart, are helping US, Europe, the Middle East, Indian market is three to four

homegrown direct-to-con-
sumer (D2C) startups to
expand their footprint in over-
seas markets, to diversify their
businesses in the face of rising
competition in India.
Equipped with market bas-
ket analysis for understanding
different markets, processes,
price point and customer pur-
chasing patterns, such accel-
erators are not only offering
expertise to new-age D2C
brands,
that are
flush-with-
funds and
looking to grow inorganically,
but are also helping multi-mil-
lion dollar brands from other
countries to set up shop in
India.
“Accelerators can help open
doors in new markets where
they are aware of customer
preferences, regulations, mar-
keting techniques, etc. tai-
lored to a particular region and
audience. Hence partnership
with the right accelerator can
S
Africa and Asia to enter India. ingapore-based invest- years ahead of the Southeast
“Assiduus is the only company ment platform Venturi Asian market in terms of the
that came up with an end-to- Partners, which invests deal pipeline as well as from an
end solution for multiple geo- across India and Southeast Asia exit history perspective, said
graphies and multiple market- at the mid and late-stage levels, Cator, who founded Venturi in
places. We love the unified may accommodate one or two 2019.
dashboard with a central view family offices to top up its debut In Southeast Asia, the invest-
Assiduus is also working with foreign brands to enter India. ISTOCK on data. We are confident with fund that marked the final close ment platform will primarily
them we will grow substan- at $175 million last month, a top look to invest in Indonesia,
enable much faster go-to-mar- Assiduus said its operational tially in India, Saudi Arabia, executive said. The investment platform already deployed 30% of the fund. ISTOCK Vietnam, and the Philippines.
ket strategies across the globe. expertise lets them under- Kuwait, the UAE, Qatar, Bah- “There are still one or two, The investment platform,
This is a trend that is seen glo- stand and identify market rain, Oman and Japan,” Larry potentially large family offices identities.Venturi Partners’ Venturi Partners. which invests $10-40 million in
bally with firms like Pattern demands and empowers Bodner, chief executive officer that we believe would add sig- co-investment strategy is 1:1— Last month, Venturi Part- Series B to D rounds, has
that have helped large busi- brands to curate, design and of American coffee brand Bul- nificant for every one dollar the invest- ners marked the final close of already deployed 30% of the
nesses accelerate position products letproof, said. value to ment platform has in the fund, its debut fund at $175 million, fund in three companies across
growth,” Abinan- Accelerators can that would appeal Eunimart has also enabled our invest- it has an equiva- higher than the India and Southeast Asia
dan TS, director, help in new to consumers. It is Indian brands to go global with ment plat- lent amount as a The debut fund is targeted $150 mil- including home design and
Veda Corporate markets where helping brands logistics, payments, order and form not only with their brand co-invest pool. In expected to lion. Limited part- decor service provider Liv-
Advisors, a bou- they are aware of scale up their inventory management solu- names but also with their inter- some cases, the invest 50-60% of ners (LPs), or space and house of brands
tique investment presence across tions on its artificial intelli- est to co-invest with us because ratio could even the capital in investors, in the Believe. It aims to make the rest
regulations,
bank, said. more than 12 gence- and machine learning- we want to offer a 100% co-in- be higher. fund include large of the deployment in the next
customer India versus 40-
Bengaluru- marketplaces, driven platform. vestment ratio to our inves- “However, EU and Asian two years and expects to have a
based Assiduus preferences including Ama- Analysts said such partner- tors,” said Nicholas Cator, man- eventually, it is 50% in Southeast family offices, concentrated portfolio of
Technologies, zon, Walmart, ships between cross-border aging partner at Venturi Part- the families that Asian markets such as Peugeot around eight companies.
which is raising a Noon, Shopee, facilitators and Thrasio-styled ners. decide on Invest, Acker- “The reason why we want to
large institutional round, is Lazada, Etsy, Tokopedia and ventures will gain traction The addition of new family whether or not mans & Van have a concentrated portfolio is
helping many new-age brands Ozon. specifically in beauty and per- offices may add a few million the investment would fit their Haaren and Frédéric de we are value-add and high-
like Kapiva, Bold Care, Auric, “I think what’s very interest- sonal care and health to deliver dollars but may not reach $200 strategy from a co-invest per- Mévius, founder of Verlinvest conviction investors and don’t
Welly and Strive to foray into ing is the idea of creating a rapid growth to justify acquisi- million from $175 million, he spective,” explained Rishika and Planet First Partners, want to do three to five deals a
overseas markets. platform to take Indian brands tions. added, without disclosing their Chandan, managing director, among others. year,” said Cator.

Indian smartphone users exhibit slowdown in their upgrade cycles

Abhijit Ahaskar six months in 2015, to 9-12 the devices longer. He pointed segment. Samsung and Xiaomi upgrades in newer phone mod- be a challenging year for the
abhijit.ahaskar@livemint.com months in 2016-17 and up to 24 out that phone firms make have almost vacated the space els. industry.
NEW DELHI months in 2020. more trade-offs on mid-seg- as it is difficult to do business The trend isn’t limited to the “We don’t think even H2 will
According to experts, the ment smartphones after the and stay profitable in this seg- urban or tier-1 markets either. be able to salvage the market as

D
elhi-based professional
Sutanuka Dasgupta
spent about two weeks
researching a phone last
month. Her smartphone was
about a year old and she
wanted to change it. After
speaking to friends, fam-
ily and others, she decided to
give up the idea, realis-
ing that her current phone
would last much longer.
India’s smartphone users,
once known for upgrading
every six months, have started
turning away from the market.
A combination of rising prices
and lack of incentives has
brought upgrade cycles from
time frame is 27 months now,
and Tarun Pathak, research
director at Counterpoint
Research, said it might increase
by another month or two by the
end of 2022.
To be sure, the
s lowdown in
upgrade cycles is a
global phenomenon as well. In
the US, the cycle is pegged at
33-34 months, but some of
those markets have higher
penetration of phones, and are
more mature.
According to Pathak, con-
sumers have increasingly been
buying more mid-tier phones,
which is why they hold on to
pandemic, in order to adjust for
growing component prices.
Smartphone makers have
been dealing with increasing
freight prices and a global
shortage of chips
for almost two years
now. Industry pre-
dictions say that
this shortage could continue
well into the year, and last till
2024 for some industries.
As a result, experts said that
the emphasis on mid-segment
devices has become an indus-
try-wide strategy to overcome
the shortage of components.
According to Counterpoint
Research, shipments of phones
Emphasis on mid-segment devices has become an industry-wide
strategy to overcome the shortage of components.
priced under ₹10,000
accounted for 30% of all smart-
phone shipments in the quarter
ended December 2021, drop-
ping by 5% year-on-year. On
the other hand, shipments in
ISTOCK
the ₹20,000 and ₹30,000 seg-
ments accounted for 23% of all
shipments and grew by almost
100%.
“There are not many smart-
phones in the ₹7,000-8,000
ment. Mudit Sethia, who it is difficult to top 160-165 mil-
Also, demand in DECLINING runs a mobile retail lion shipments every year,” he
this segment has NUMBERS store in Kishanganj, said.
shrunk,” said Bihar, said that the “The market might actually
Navkendar Singh, A combination of highest selling contract for the first time,” said
research director at rising prices and
lack of incentives
phones in his store a top executive at one of India’s
IDC India. has slowed the are the ones priced largest phone firms.
Singh agreed upgrade cycles between ₹13,000 According to Singh, the only
that the first quar- and ₹20,000, as thing that could lead the mar-
ter of 2022 was THE slowdown is a opposed to the ket to grow in the next few
global phenomenon
lean, but said it isn’t as well. In the US, the ₹7,000-10,000 years is 5G network connectiv-
an indicator of fall- cycle is pegged at phones he used ity, but it will take time for ven-
ing demand. 33-34 months to sell pre-pan- dors to bring that to phones
Instead, he said demic. that sell at less than ₹10,000,
that “organic As a result, his due to growing component
growth of smartphones” hasn’t customers are buying with EMI costs.
been happening for “quite tenures that last for at least 9-12 Many users are turning to
some time now”, owing to lack months. the used or refurbished smart-
of innovation and meaningful Singh noted that 2022 will phone market.
LIVEMINT.COM
FRIDAY, 6 MAY 2022
NEW DELHI 09

DELHI JAL BOARD, GOVT OF N.C.T OF DELHI

OFFICE OF THE CE(W)PR-I/ EE(PR) W-VIII
A-BUILDING, VARUNALAYA, JHANDEWALAN, NEW DELHI-110005
Phone No:- 011-23533083, Email:- eeprojectw8@gmail.com
NIT No.: 01 (2022-23)
Sl. Name of work Amount put to Earnest Money Tender Completion Last date
No. tender Processing Period of tender
(Rs.) Fee download
(Rs.)
1. Construction of approach roads and Rs. Rs. 2,84,000/- Rs. 1000/-
06 Months 17.05.2022
path ways for proper watch & ward of 1,41,51,211/- (to be transmitted (Non- upto
tube wells at Sonia Vihar. through RTGS ) Refundable) 3.00 PM
Tender ID No.:- 2022_DJB_221597_1
Note: Any further amendment/corrigendum made in this NIT will be uploaded and can only be seen on website http://
govtprocurement.delhi.gov.in.
ISSUED BY P.R.O. (WATER) STOP CORONA: WASH YOUR HANDS, WEAR MASK, (P.K. SHARMA)
Advt. No. J.S.V. 82(2022-23) MAINTAIN SOCIAL DISTANCE E.E.(Project)W-VIII
10 FRIDAY, 6 MAY 2022
NEW DELHI CORPORATE LIVEMINT.COM

Edtech firm
TaMo unveils small e-truck, Horizon Industrial
Vedantu to invest ₹4.5k cr
lays off 200
employees
eyes electric big trucks too on expansion plans
Madhurima Nandy
madhurima.n@livemint.com
Joseph Rai BeNGAlURU
joseph Rai@livemint.com Tata Ace EV will come with a certified range of 154 km and can adapt to many intra-city uses
G
New DelHi lobal asset manager
Blackstone Group-
Alisha Sachdev

V
edantu Innovation Pvt.
Ltd, which operates a
live tutoring platform,
has become the latest edtech
owned Horizon Indus-
alisha.sachdev@livemint.com trial Parks plans to invest
New DelHi ₹4,500 crore to expand across
cities, said a top company

startup to lay off employees
after raising millions of dollars
in fresh capital last year.
Vedantu has laid off around
200 or about 3.3% of its 6,000
employees, said a spokesper-
son of the tutoring platform.
About 120 of the laid off staff
were on contract and 80 were
full-time employees.
“We have an annual contract
with them and at the beginning
of every academic year we fol-
low a process of load rebalan-
cing where we rejig pertaining
to these
r o l e s ,
based on
our growth
expectations,” the spokesper-
son said.
The company relooks at
these roles of its academics and
assistant teachers with more
technology intervention,
restructuring of the class for-
mat, and changes in the catego-
ries. Meanwhile, the company
is also hiring more than 1,000
employees in various teams,
including more than 100 for
similar positions, the spokes-
person said.
Vedantu, which was founded
by Vamsi Krishna, Anand Pra-
kash, and Pulkit Jain in 2011,
became the fifth digital learn-
ing startup in India to hit uni-
corn status after raising $100
million (₹740 crore) in its Series
E round led by Singapore-
based impact investor ABC
World Asia in September last
year. A unicorn is a startup with
a valuation of at least $1 billion.
T
ata Motors, India’s largest executive.
commercial vehicle manufac- Of the amount, ₹1,300
turer, on Thursday unveiled crore will be spent in the
its first electric truck, the Tata National Capital Region Rahul Pandit, CEO, Horizon
Ace EV, a spin on its largest (NCR), which constitutes Industrial Parks.
selling truck, Tata Ace. The vehicle will around 25% of the portfolio,
come with a certified range of 154 km about ₹2,000 crore in south Horizon is developing
and has a modular platform, which can India (40% portfolio share) nearly 9 million sq ft of ware-
adapt to a wide variety of intra-city and the remaining ₹1.200 housing space in south India.
applications. crore in western India. “NCR, too, continues to be a
Tata Motors has optimized its offering Earlier this year, Blackstone large area of focus for us. It
for a host of e-commerce businesses set up a logistics vertical ‘Hori- comprises nearly 25% of our
such as Flipkart, Amazon, and Bigbas- zon Industrial Parks’ in India portfolio, representing a huge
ket, which have “closed-loop” use of to house its existing assets, geography and a key con-
trucks, which travel a specified distance which would be scaled up sumption market. We are
and return, and are, therefore, amenable through acquisitions and looking to enter eastern India,
to electric vehicles. greenfield developments. The in key cities such as Kolkata
Tata Motors will also leverage Tata enterprise value of the 16 and Guwahati. Urban logistics
Power’s strengths and work with logis- assets under the platform is is also going to be a massive
tics service providers to install charging about $900 million, and opportunity for us,” Pandit
stations at specific e-commerce fulfilm- Tata Motors has optimized its offering for a host of e-commerce businesses that have “closed-loop” use of trucks. PTI Blackstone has invested $500 said.
ent centres. million so far. In the next two
The automaker has signed memo- “Even in M&HCVs there are some and therefore the alternative will remain of electrification in our portfolio, the “We are look- The firm is also years, Blackstone
randa of understanding with these applications which are closed-loop, low- more relevant in larger trucks. However, percentage of capex spend that will go ing at high quality increasing its is planning to
e-commerce players to deliver 39,000 er-range movements. For example, there are customers who are talking to towards electric vehicles will go on operating assets, investment in double its portfo-
trucks starting next quarter in Pune, players in the cement and steel indus- us about some of these applications. We increasing. Today, it is still taking care of brownfield assets clean energy to lio on the back of
Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Delhi. The tries are interested in moving towards will work with them the way we did with IC engine diesel and natural gas vehicles and greenfield increasing
power its parks
company did not give a delivery time- electrification to fulfil their own net- our e-commerce customers,” Wagh because next year we have to transition developments, demand for orga-
line, citing production constraints zero emission goals. So, there is good said. to the second phase of BS-VI emissions that we could and offer it to the nized warehous-
because of the shortage of semicon- norms, so that is a big transition of operate under tenants ing space both in
ductor chips. GETTING ELECTRIC READY the entire product range currently Horizon. We are and around large
The Tata ACE EV, a small com- under way. However, once that’s also looking to cities, as well
mercial vehicle, will be eligible for TATA Motors also IT has signed MoUs THE company did IT said it has also done, gradually year over year, you partner with various stake- selectively in smaller cities
subsidies under the government’s plans to work to set
up charging stations
with e-commerce
players to deliver
not give a delivery
timeline, citing
received interest in
electric options of its
will see more and more capital holders including regional such as Nagpur.
FAME-II scheme and fleet operators at e-commerce 39,000 trucks production medium and heavy expenditure going towards electric developers and landlords,” The company also said it is
deploying the trucks will also be fulfilment centres. starting next quarter constraints commercial vehicles and also alternative fuels such as Horizon Industrial Parks’ chief increasing its investment in
able to benefit from incentives pro- CNG,” Wagh said. executive Rahul Pandit said in clean energy to power its parks
vided by various state governments. Even as Tata Motors starts work- an interview. and offer it to the tenants.
The automaker said it has also interest even in that segment, but of Tata Motors is already a leader in the ing on delivering on the demand it has The portfolio currently Horizon Industrial Parks
received interest in electric options of its course, the kind of technology that we electric vehicle segment for passenger been able to aggregate, supply chain dis- comprises 16 Grade-A logistics would be the third asset-spe-
medium and heavy commercial vehicles use is going to be different,” said Girish cars with more than 80% share of the ruptions due to a shortage of semicon- and warehousing assets, span- cific platform for Blackstone in
(M&HCVs), but did not clarify how soon Wagh, executive director, Tata Motors. market and is planning a similar, fast- ductor chips might keep capacities con- ning a 24 million sq. ft area of the country, after Nucleus
a product could be introduced. In any “However, in commercial vehicles, paced introduction of electric solutions strained. “We are first going to work on total development potential in Office Parks (for commercial
case, all its EV solutions will be custom- the transition to electrification will hap- in commercial vehicles as well. the supply chain side to see how fast we Bengaluru, Delhi-NCR, office assets) and Nexus Malls
designed for each application. pen through natural gas, for example, “As we gradually increase the spread can deliver on these orders,” Wagh said. Hyderabad and Pune. (for shopping malls).

Hill resorts, hotels see surge in demand Southern studios eye a bigger slice of the
Varuni Khosla
varuni.khosla@livemint.com
north India business pie with remakes in demand. As a result, the cost
of accommodation in popular
New DelHi hill stations is ranging 30-40%
higher as compared with pre- Lata Jha Large-scale event films from

H
otels and resorts in the pandemic levels. lata.jha@livemint.com the south have reached smaller
hills are reporting high “We have pre-booked and New DelHi towns in north India and audi-
demand as early as April purchased inventory at popular ences have warmed up to their

and May—which aren’t typi-
cally considered holiday sea-
sons—as the summer heat
peaks in the plains.
Online tour operators like
MakeMyTrip as well as Thomas
Cook India say hill stations in
the north are outperforming
their southern counterparts
with Kashmir, Leh, Ladakh,
Himachal Pradesh and Uttara-
khand recording 45-50% more
occupancy than in 2019. The
ones in the south are growing at
25-30%. This is aided by the
fact that the pandemic-induced
lockdown and travel restric-
tions over the last two years
have fuelled people’s appetite
for travel bucket lists as well as
non-standard stays.
The demand for one resort in
Gulmarg has been robust with
over 90% average occupancy.
Vinit Chhabra, general man-
ager, The Khyber Himalayan
Resort & Spa, Gulmarg said,
“We have started April on a
very positive note with such a
strong average occupancy.”
Online tour operator Make-
H
destinations like Kashmir, aving tasted success in style of filmmaking, Sarkar
Himachal, Uttarakhand, Leh- Hindi-speaking mar- said.
Ladakh, Sikkim and the North- kets with dubbed ver- While the remake may not
East, keeping this demand in sions of their films, southern be an exact copy of the original,
mind. This is helping us fulfil studios are collaborating with and may be adapted to suit the
customer demands by offering Bollywood producers to tastes of the Hindi audience,
them availability and special remake their films, signing up it brings two different
Hill stations in north are outperforming their southern counterparts. rates this season,” he said. for 50% partnership in most production teams together, he
Lemon Tree Hotels has wit- things including share of box added.
MyTrip said for the company, 25% over this time in 2019,” nessed the fastest recovery in office revenue and ancillary Independent trade analyst
destinations in Kashmir, Hima- said Abhishek Logani, chief occupancy and average room rights. Telugu film RRR made ₹262 crore from its Hindi dub. AFP Sreedhar Pillai said southern
chal Pradesh, Leh, Ladakh and business officer for hotels at rates in its leisure portfolios of While veteran Telugu pro- producers have understood the
Uttarakhand are doing MakeMyTrip. locations like Srinagar, Corbett ducer Allu Aravind presented chise, has introduced southern instead of just selling rights for monetization opportunity in
between 45-50% better than The Kumaon, a luxury resort and Katra. Shahid Kapoor’s sports drama producers to the charm of the remakes,” Shibasish Sarkar, the north and are tapping into
2019 in terms of occupancy. in Almora in Uttarakhand is One luxury resort company Jersey, Prithviraj Sukumaran north Indian market, where chief executive officer, Interna- the solid distribution networks
“We are already seeing a higher in the south, The Tamara, saw a will co-produce Selfiee, the viewers are accepting of their tional Media Acquisition Corp and expertise of Bollywood.
above April 2019 Due to high occupancy as growth of 16% from 2019 to remake of his Malayalam film mass-market said. Sarkar, The Hindi versions of Baahub-
numbers for these demand, the compared to 2019 2022 in its Kodaikanal prop- Driving Licence, with Dharma commercial films. Southern former group ali and KGF have benefited
locations. Most accommodation and expects the erty. But its Coorg property has Productions. KGF made nearly language film CEO at Anil from Karan Johar’s Dharma
larger cities are cost in popular coming months to seen a growth of over 55% from Southern language film pro- ₹383 crore from producers are Ambani-owned Productions and Farhan Akh-
doing 25-30% see a further surge 2019 to 2022. “ It’s exciting to ducers who would earlier give its Hindi dub, now setting their Reliance Enter- tar and Ritesh Sidhwani-
hill stations is
overall and in in travel demand. see our hill station properties, away rights to popular films for while RRR made tainment, has owned Excel Entertainment
ranging 30-40% sights on wider
some cases even Rajeev Kale, The Tamara Coorg and The Hindi remakes at a measly ₹2-3 ₹262 crore. seen the company coming on board as presenters.
45-50% better higher president & coun- Tamara Kodai, almost fully crore are now setting their “It’s a healthy audience base, strike a partner- “No producer wants to sell
than the same try head, holidays, booked for summer. Both sights on a wider audience base and positive sign bigger revenue ship deal with the rights and exit anymore.
period in 2019. MICE, Visa at domestic and international across the country and a bigger that producers Dream Warrior They want to continue to be in
Where we are still seeing Thomas Cook India said due to travel opening up has encour- revenue in partnering Bolly- are looking at dif- Pictures for the the limelight, take a share in all
demand build up is hills in the the strong pent-up travel aged travellers to their resort,” wood producers. ferent opportunities for films remake of its Tamil film Kaithi profits and make sure their
south. The major hill stations in demand coupled with an said Shruti Shibulal, chief exec- Film trade experts said the that can travel across states and which, in Hindi, is titled Bholaa brand gets a boost in the
areas like Coorg, Ooty, Lona- unprecedented heat wave, the utive officer, Tamara Leisure success of RRR, KGF: Chapter 2 languages, and partnering with and stars Ajay Devgn in the northern market,” Pillai
vala are growing but around company is seeing an increase Experiences. and earlier the Baahubali fran- Bollywood creative producers lead. pointed out.

Marvel Studios all set to strike gold in India with Doctor Strange
Lata Jha owners swear by the Marvel years, a significant chunk of Runway 34—have failed to find bers, is closely followed by the by Benedict Cumberbatch,
lata.jha@livemint.com brand and expect that the film whom support each of its any draw, Chauhan foresees a Hindi version. Cinephiles from who enjoys a strong fan follow-
New DelHi to make around ₹25-30 crore films,” Kamal Gianchandani, smooth run for Doctor Strange, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Pune, ing in India.
on opening day. chief executive officer at PVR with a weekend of ₹70-80 Chennai, Hyderabad, Delhi “The popularity and fan fol-

A
fter setting the cash reg-
isters ringing with Spi-
der-Man: No Way Home,
Marvel Studios is all set to strike
it big at the Indian box office
with Doctor Strange: In The
Multiverse of Madness. In an
unprecedented move the film
opened bookings a month ago,
and has already made ₹20 crore
ahead of its 6 May release.
The film has found great
appeal across metros and small
towns even though unlike Spi-
der-Man, Doctor Strange is not
entirely child-friendly and is
suited to a more mature audi-
ence, analysts said. Yet theatres
Released last December, Spi-
der-Man made ₹32.67 crore at
the box office on its first day
and finished with lifetime earn-
ings of ₹218.41 crore while the
first Doctor Strange instalment
released in 2016 had started
with opening day figures of
₹2.63 crore and ended its
theatrical run with ₹25.20
crore.
“The buzz around Doctor
Strange is fantastic and it’s
tracking much like Spider-Man
did in December. This just
reinforces the undisputed hold
that Marvel has built over fans
in the country over so many
Pictures Ltd said. While the
Marvel fan base in India is dom-
inated by the 15-35 age group,
there is a 60:40 skew in favour
of men, Gianchandani added.
Vishek Chauhan, an inde-
pendent exhibitor in Bihar’s
Purnea said the advance book-
ings for Doctor Strange in his
town surpassed those for
period drama RRR released
late March, and were second
only to KGF: Chapter 2.
“The only constraint for
these Hollywood films is that
they can only release in DCI
(Digital Cinema Initia-
tives)-compliant theatres but
In an unprecedented move, the film opened bookings a month
ago and has already made ₹20 crore ahead of its 6 May release.
that is made up for by just how
crazy people are for these
brands,” Chauhan said. DCI, a
joint venture of several film
studios, sets up common
AP
requirements that ensure a
high and uniform standard of
digital cinema viewing. How-
ever, given that last week’s Eid
releases—Heropanti 2 and
crore and lifetime NCR, Kolkata, Tri- lowing of the Marvel Cinematic
collections of ₹150- CREATING vandrum, Guwa- Universe and the movie releas-
175 crore. BUZZ hati and Coimba- ing in quick succession of the
Ashish Saksena, tore have been previous blockbuster in this
chief operating BOOKINGS for among the first to league, Spider-Man: No Way
officer, cinemas at Doctor Strange in
Bihar surpassed
get their hands on Home, is set to provide great
ticketing site Book- those for period tickets in advance,” momentum to this sequel,”
MyShow said the drama RRR Saksena said. Saksena said.
strategy of distribu- Doctor Strange, Previously, it was common-
tors Walt Disney EXPERTS foresee a one of the most place to have movies made
smooth run for
Studios to open up the movie with a popular characters about just one or two select
advance bookings weekend collection of the much-loved superheroes. However, Marvel
several days earlier of ₹70-80 crore Marvel Cinematic has successfully created sub-
than usual has paid Universe, more so plot movies and mini-series
off. since the release of that give a life of their own to
“So far, the English language Avengers: Infinity War and the key supporting characters and
version of the film while natu- finale Avengers: Endgame, has a these have been lapped up by
rally leading the ticket num- strong screen presence helmed fans.
LIVEMINT.COM CORPORATE FRIDAY, 6 MAY 2022
NEW DELHI 11

‘Seeing good demand THERE IS SCIENCE BEHIND SOFTNESS

stingrays. This motion, we learn, can also help us understand “how

for chemistry, biology’ A M AT T E R

OF NUMBERS
carpets may fly close to a wall”. (I told you to wait.)
The Royal Society of Chemistry publishes a journal called Soft Mat-
ter that covers plenty of such research. Again, most of it is esoteric
beyond my ability to understand. But even a quick look at the titles
of some recent papers in the journal gives a taste of the range of sub-
DILIP D’SOUZA jects in this field. There’s Effect of network topology and crosslinker
reactivity on microgel structure and ordering at liquid-liquid interface:
Respond to this column at certainly esoteric, but note that there’s geometry and softness there.
Q4 growth was driven by solid delivery across all 4 divisions: Syngene’s CEO feedback@livemint.com Or take a moment to ponder this one: Differences in cell death and divi-
sion rules can alter tissue rigidity and fluidization. According to the

T
oday I learned from the Wall Street Journal about brushing
Ujjval Jauhari hair. This is true. I’ll return to that.
ujjval.j@livemint.com In reading on from there, I ran across a geological phe-
NEW DELHI nomenon that has fascinated me for years. This is columnar rhyol-
itic lava-rock formations known for their shape. You can find them
authors, such rigidity and fluidity are suggestive of “health and dis-
ease in various biological processes, including cancer”. Enough rea-
son to investigate, right there. Then there’s Edible mechanical meta-
materials with designed fracture for mouthfeel control. There’s every
reason to believe the authors of this paper had plenty of fun with their

C
ontract research and manu- on a certain beach in Karnataka, for example. As I wrote in this research. That’s because they attempted to “control mouthfeel sen-
facturing services firms, such space last year, they are “hexagonal columns with flat tops, joined sory experience” by—wait for it again—“using chocolate as a model
as Syngene International Ltd, together, rising out of the sand and water”. (She sells hexagonal material”. There’s even a charming diagram of a man stuffing what
will be in the limelight rocks by the seashore, 8 April 2021, bit.ly/3LRdU3o). looks like three slabs of chocolate into his wide-open mouth.
because of the increase in I like to think this is the first time hair-brushing and those hexag- As you can tell, the study of soft materials covers all manner of
outsourcing opportunities in the pharma- onal rocks have both been mentioned in one nondescript sentence. subjects. If it takes in cells, it also examines how certain animals
ceutical space. The hexagons are formed by volcanic lava that, as it cools, solidi- tend to flock (see my column Collective complexity,
Syngene posted strong numbers for the fies at the surface first and then inside. This “differential cooling” bit.ly/3KMovLm). If some researchers try to persuade us that they
March quarter led by its development ser- produces the hexagons that you can see in a few spots around the are studying chocolate instead of eating it, others have looked into
vices division, which fast-tracked projects world—like in Karnataka, like on the coast of Northern Ireland. “how sperm cooperate in a competitive environment”.
postponed because of disruptions, includ- There, they form the “Giant’s Causeway”; it’s this Causeway that If you think about it, this wide range nicely reflects a world in
ing supply chain delays, following the cor- the hair-brushing-prompted reading led me to. which there’s plenty of middle ground between solid and liquid.
onavirus outbreak. I’m referring to the study of so-called “soft materials”. These Sure there’s concrete, sure there’s water —but is a leaf solid? What
The growth was nicely balanced, driven “have a number of emergent properties that arise from the combi- about a pile of leaves? What about a
by solid delivery across all four divisions, nation of geometry and softness, and encompass everyday materi- Turn that bottle snake? What about cotton candy before
Jonathan Hunt, Syngene’s chief executive als such as the polymers, gels, powders, colloids, suspensions etc., of body wash and after it melts in your mouth?
officer and managing director, said in an that are in us, on us, and surround us”. (See bit.ly/3FgiYf6). Note: What, come to think of it, about hair?
interview. “We are seeing good demand in Geometry and softness, hexagons and lava. And sure enough, this upside down, for What about a head full of hair that needs
the marketplace for chemistry and biol- Jonathan Hunt, chief executive officer and managing director, Syngene. Harvard University research programme offers up a theory that example. It brushing? Why is this sometimes easy
ogy as many of our Western clients are “explains the differential cooling-driven hexagonal patterns in doesn’t flow out but sometimes so hard that it causes
getting back to their offices,” Hunt said. fits we have enjoyed on a number of our came from the research business. Despite geophysical formations such as Giant’s Causeway, with predictions as water would pain in the owner of the hair?
“Our development services, manufac- facilities being covered by SEZ tax bene- strong and consistent growth in research that have been confirmed experimentally”. No, I don’t understand The Wall Street Journal article quotes
turing businesses, discovery services, and fits,” said Hunt. services, the share of the research busi- the theory. But I am fascinated by everything this research covers. Prof L. Mahadevan, who leads the Har-
dedicated centres delivered very solid sus- The growth opportunities are immense ness now accounts for 66% of its revenue, Here’s a flavour of that. (Wait for the carpet.) vard soft matter programme: “At least half of humanity combs their
tained growth,” he said. and momentum is expected to remain indicating a visible shift in Syngene’s reve- The theory that explains hexagonal rock formations came from the hair every day, and yet almost no one pauses to think deeply about
Business normalization and rebound in strong. The company’s client base has nue mix towards development and manu- study of “soft fluid-infiltrated gels”. That phrase probably puts in it.” (The other half probably doesn’t think deeply about it either.)
discovery services, which is key, was also grown from 256 to 420 over FY16-22, and facturing, Hunt said. mind materials like ubiquitous body washes, toothpaste, or, indeed, When he put his mind to it, though, he realized that fundamen-
helped by inventory build-up, which, the multiple-year extension of Amgen, The company is relatively new in the lava. These straddle a middle ground somewhere between solid and tally, this was a problem of the “tangle”. Individual hairs winding
however, led to some pressure on margins BMS, and Baxter contracts make it well- drug development and manufacturing liquid. Turn that bottle of body wash upside down, for example. The themselves into a tangle are, in essence, no different from strands
and may take a few quarters to ease up. positioned to capitalize on growing businesses, but the progress so far has stuff doesn’t flow out as water would. It’s much more viscous and of microscopic structures —the helix of DNA, for example—wind-
Overall, the inventory been encouraging. “As we slow-moving. But of course, it isn’t like a cake of soap either. How do ing around each other. The more the tangles, the harder it is to sep-
build-up is positive consider- GOOD PROSPECTS scale commercial-scale man- we explain its behaviour? Toothpaste is closer to being solid yet isn’t arate the strands. The harder it is, the more likely that brushing will
ing the emerging threats of ufacturing for both small and really there either. Lava is essentially stone that is heated to a temper- lead to anguished yelps.
supply disruptions in China SYNEGENE posted IT posted strong THE growth large molecules, we expect ature so high that it melts. What happens as it emerges out of the fur- Mahadevan’s team recently published a paper in Soft Matter
because of the fresh wave of strong numbers for
the March quarter
revenue growth, but
profit growth was
opportunities are
immense and
the share of business from the nace that is a volcano and comes into contact with much cooler tem- (Combing a double helix, 22 March 2022, rsc.li/3KLaoGj). They report
covid and subsequent lock- led by development muted because of momentum is likely services to increase. FY22 laid peratures on earth’s surface? Hexagonal rocks are one result. Or that most of the tangles in the hair are between pairs of strands. So
downs. “We are monitoring services division rising tax rates to remain strong the foundation and we see check a remote corner of Alaska, where lava from the Great Sitkin vol- detangling is a matter of pulling a brush between them, leaving “two
the supplies and pricing regu- FY23 as an important year as cano has formed a shape uncannily like a giant spider (bit.ly/37ibxrf). untangled filaments in its wake”. How easy this is, depends on what
larly and though we cannot manufacturing plays a larger Then there’s a material that lubricates. That suggests oil but the authors call “link density”, a measure of how knotted the hairs
take a call for FY23 as a whole, but in the opportunities globally, analysts said. role in driving future growth,” Hunt said. think too of the pieces of cartilage that separate bones in our bod- are. Naturally then, every head of tangled hair has an “optimal comb-
near term, we are not facing any major “Today, we have a well-established Syngene is also aggressively expanding ies. They are the reason our knees, elbows, ankles, and wrists all ing strategy”. As a scientist at MIT told the Wall Street Journal, “You
threat,” Hunt said. position in the contract research market its manufacturing facilities. In the move and flex so easily. That is, until injury or wear damages the start at the bottom of the hair with a short-stroke... As you work your
The company posted strong revenue and a strong emerging presence in con- research business, it upgraded its technol- cartilage, and we feel the pain of a suddenly unlubricated joint. The way up, the strokes become longer and longer.”
growth, but profit growth was muted tract development and manufacturing ogy capabilities across platforms and ther- Harvard researchers have proposed a theory for this “cartilaginous Maybe you knew that. What about the connection to hexagonal
because of rising tax rates. “We expected services businesses,” Hunt said. apeutic areas. It has also concluded joint lubrication”. Intriguingly, they found they can generalize this rocks?
a rise in the effective tax rate, driven by the This is reflected in the business portfo- phase-3 of the expansion plan for the theory to explain the motion of fish of the family Rajidae—the Once a computer scientist, Dilip D’Souza now lives in Mumbai and
expiry of some of the historical tax bene- lio, where a decade ago 80% of revenue Hyderabad facility. broadly square animals with long tails that we know as rays or even writes for his dinners. His Twitter handle is @DeathEndsFun.

ISSUE OUT
TOMORROW

THE EMPIRE OF
WASSEYPUR
A decade after it premiered, ‘Gangs of Wasseypur’s’
influence is as strong as ever. We speak to director
Anurag Kashyap and assess the film’s legacy

CULTURE
What The Batman movie owes to the comics
TASTE
Aromas of Lucknowi homes
FOCUS
Saving the fishing cat, the soul of the wetlands
BOOKS
Reading Louise Erdrich’s ‘The Sentence’
12 FRIDAY, 6 MAY 2022
NEW DELHI GLOBAL LIVEMINT.COM

Digital-advertising giants
Russia steps up attacks on back to earth after a boom
Ukraine’s railways, infra Suzanne Vranica
feedback@livemint.com
in hiring. The slower growth
comes at a particularly vulnera-
ble moment for the digital-ad

T
he supercharged adver- business, which is trying to cope
tising growth that some with the fallout from mobile
of the world’s largest ad-tracking changes that Apple
technology companies introduced last year that make
Russia’s missile strikes seek to disrupt shipments of Western weapons to the Ukrainian forces reported during the pandemic it harder for advertisers to tar-
is decelerating. get consumers and measure the
A round of tech earnings last efficacy of their ads. The change
James Marson Ukrainian forces have made recent week made it starkly clear that has hobbled the digital-adver-
feedback@livemint.com gains on the battlefield, ousting Russian the covid-led surge in digital tising model and continues to
troops from villages they were using to advertising has begun to ease. be a pain point, causing many

R
ussia is intensifying strikes on
Ukrainian infrastructure,
seeking to disrupt deliveries
of Western weapons as Mos-
cow’s offensives in the east
appear to have stalled.
Ukraine’s state railway operator said
Thursday that 46 passenger trains were
delayed by up to 11 hours due to damage
from the Russian strikes.
Missile strikes in recent days have tar-
geted rail hubs and electrical power
facilities—in particular in Ukraine’s
west, where arms are flowing into the
country from the U.S. and its allies.
“They are attempting to hit what we
assess to be critical infrastructure tar-
gets out towards the west,” Pentagon
spokesman John Kirby said Wednesday.
“We think this is an effort to try to dis-
rupt the Ukrainians’ ability to replenish
and reinforce themselves.”
Meanwhile, Russia resumed bomb-
ing the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol
on Thursday, a day after more than 340
women, children and elderly people
were evacuated through a humanitarian
corridor from the city and surrounding
areas, Ukrainian officials said.
Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense said
Russian forces were blocking and trying
to destroy Ukrainian units in the Azov-
stal area. “With the support of aircraft,
the enemy resumed the offensive in
order to take control of the plant,” the
ministry said in a briefing.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov
said Thursday that Russian forces were
continuing to block the Azovstal plant,
but didn’t corroborate remarks from
Ukrainian officials that Russia had
resumed bombing the site. He said com-
ments from the Ukrainian side con-
tained disinformation.
On Wednesday, some 344 people
were evacuated from in and around the
city, according to Ukrainian Deputy
Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk, who
thanked the United Nations and the
International Committee of the Red
Cross for working to ensure the evacu-
ees safely reached the southeastern city
In recent days Russia has targeted its missile strikes in Ukraine at railway hubs and
power facilities, particularly in the west of the country.
of Zaporizhzhia.
“Another small win of ours,” Ms. Ver-
eshchuk wrote in a Facebook post.
Elsewhere, a Russian missile hit rail-
way infrastructure in the eastern city of
Dnipro late Wednesday, halting trains,
Ukrainian officials said. The rail net-
work in the city, a hub for Ukraine’s mili-
tary efforts in the east, was also hit by
two missiles Tuesday, part of one of the
largest barrages since Russia invaded on
February 24.
Missile strikes late Tuesday hit two
water pumping stations and three
power substations in the western city of
Lviv, knocking out electricity in part of
the city, the mayor said.
The Russian Defense Ministry said
Thursday it had used air-launched mis-
siles to strike the Kanatovo military air-
field in the Kirovohrad region, as well as
a large ammunition depot and a fuel-
storage facility for Ukrainian military
equipment in the Mykolayiv region on
the Black Sea.
Ukrainian officials in those regions
confirmed strikes overnight but didn’t
give an assessment of the targets and
REUTERS
levels of damage.
Mr. Kirby said the Pentagon couldn’t
offer an immediate assessment of the
impact of the latest Russian strikes, but
noted the inaccuracy of many of Russia’s
missiles. “Their ability to target with
precision has been less than advertised
throughout this entire war,” he said.
Trains around Lviv were particularly
affected, the operator said. Lviv, some
30 miles from the border with Poland, is
a hub for moving weapons and supplies
into Ukraine.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei
Shoigu on Wednesday reiterated that
Moscow considers any weapons ship-
ments from the West legitimate targets.
Ukraine’s railways have been critical
for moving weapons and evacuating
civilians. A Russian missile strike on a
station in the eastern city of Kramatorsk
killed more than 50 civilians.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zel-
ensky said that the increased strikes on
infrastructure underscored Russia’s fail-
ing war effort. “They are trying to vent
their powerlessness, because they can’t
beat Ukraine,” he said.
strike Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-most
populous city.
Russia has also taken recent setbacks
off the battlefield. The European Union
on Wednesday proposed a ban on Rus-
sian crude and refined oil products, and
prepared to impose sanctions on Rus-
sian military figures whom EU officials
accuse of war crimes.
Western countries have sought to
tighten the economic noose around
Russia, and earlier this week Mr. Zelen-
sky called on companies to extricate
themselves from Russian commerce.
“If any companies remain in the Rus-
sian market, that means you are directly
supporting that war machine, the ter-
rorist Russian Federation war machine,”
Mr. Zelensky said via videolink to The
Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Sum-
mit on Tuesday.
Mr. Zelensky warned executives that
doing business with Russia also carried
risks. “It seems to you that you have a
business with Russia…a profitable busi-
ness, but one day you wake up to find
that a rocket is flying toward you from
Russia, and everything changes,” he said
through an interpreter. “It’s not possible
to do business with someone who
tomorrow, instead
of payment, will
simply send rockets
toward you.”
Belarus, a neighbor of Ukraine that
has supported the Russian invasion,
began military drills on Wednesday,
calling the exercises a “highly effective
form of training forces that doesn’t pose
a threat to the European community as
a whole and neighboring countries, in
particular.”
The U.K. government said Thursday
that Russia could exploit large-scale
drills from its ally Belarus to “inflate the
threat” against Ukraine in the north and
keep Ukrainian forces occupied there,
as Moscow seeks to make gains in the
east and south of the country.
Mauro Orru and Joanna Sugden con-
tributed to this article.
©2022 DOW JONES & COMPANY, INC.
The slowdown was caused by a
confluence of events, including
inflation fears, supply-chain
shortages, the war in Ukraine, a
gradual return to normalcy two
years into the pandemic, the
continued rise of TikTok and
Apple Inc.’s recent privacy
changes. “We have not seen a
collective set of headwinds for
advertisers like this since the
early 1980s,” said Michael Nat-
hanson, an analyst at Moffett-
Nathanson.
The three largest digital-ad-
vertising players in the U.S.—
Google parent Alphabet Inc.,
Facebook parent Meta Plat-
forms Inc. and Amazon.com
Inc.—last week said ad revenue
in the first three months of
2022 grew by 22%, 6.1% and
23%, respectively, from a year
earlier—down sharply from the
50%-plus increases they experi-
enced at some point last year.
Facebook’s overall revenue
growth was the slowest it ever
posted since going public in
2012. “Digital is holding on to its
gains, but is
not growing
as quickly as
it grew dur-
ing the pandemic,” Mark Read,
the chief executive of the
world’s largest ad-holding com-
pany, WPP PLC, said in an
interview last week.
The Big Three’s rapid growth
during the pandemic further
cemented their dominance of
the advertising market. The
year 2020 marked the first time
Google, Facebook and Amazon
collected the majority of all ad
spending in the U.S. Represent-
atives for Google, Meta and
Amazon had no comment. In
the early days of the pandemic,
consumers spent more time on
computer screens and did more
The covid-led surge in digital
advertising is easing. BLOOMBERG
shopping online, but their
behaviors are returning to more
normal patterns as covid fears
wane.
“After the start of covid, the
acceleration of e-commerce led
to outsized revenue growth, but
we’re now seeing that trend
back off,” Meta CEO Mark
Zuckerberg said during a call
with analysts last week to dis-
cuss first-quarter results.
Global digital ad spending is
expected to grow by 13% this
year, excluding political ad dol-
lars, a significant slowdown
from the 30% leap it took last
year, according to WPP unit
GroupM, one of the world’s
largest ad buyers. Digital adver-
tising has been growing at a
much faster pace than advertis-
ing on other platforms—from
TV to newspapers—and is
expected to account for 67% of
total global ad spending this
year, GroupM said. “Once you
are two-thirds of the industry,
it’s really hard to grow,” said
Brian Wieser, GroupM’s global
president of business intelli-
gence. Both Meta and Alphabet
cited the war in Ukraine as one
of the contributors to the reve-
nue slowdown. The war had “an
outsize impact on YouTube ads
relative to the rest of Google,”
Alphabet Chief Financial Offi-
cer Ruth Porat said during the
company’s earnings call last
week. The company said it saw
a related reduction in spending
primarily by brand advertisers
in Europe. Meta said the war
caused a reduction in ad
demand, both within Europe
and outside the region.
On Wednesday, Meta
announced a sharp slowdown
small and e-commerce compa-
nies to diversify their spending
across a larger swath of players.
Last quarter, Meta warned that
the changes would cost the
company some $10 billion in
2022. Players in digital adver-
tising are also facing increased
competition from TikTok, the
wildly popular app best known
for short viral videos that is
owned by Chinese company
ByteDance Ltd.
TikTok’s global ad revenues
are expected to triple this year
to $11.6 billion—helping it sur-
pass the combined sales of rivals
Twitter Inc. and Snap Inc.,
according to Insider Intelli-
gence. The research firm
expects Twitter and Snapchat
to generate $5.58 billion and
$4.86 billion, respectively, in ad
revenue this year. Google and
Meta are rushing to ramp up
their TikTok-like offerings.
Both companies talked up their
nascent short-video services—
Shorts and Reels—during their
first-quarter calls with analysts.
Twitter and its $4.5 billion ad
business could be vulnerable in
the wake of Elon Musk’s $44
billion pending takeover of the
San Francisco-based company,
ad buyers said. Some brands
could ditch the service if
Musk’s push to make Twitter a
more open platform causes the
amount of misinformation and
other controversial content to
rise, ad buyers said. Twitter has
reached out to some advertisers
to reassure them that the com-
pany is committed to brand
safety, according to an email
seen by The Wall Street Jour-
nal. The email was earlier
reported by Financial Times. A
Twitter representative had no
additional comment.
©2022 DOW JONES & COMPANY, INC.

Elon Musk gets $7 billion in
fresh financing for Twitter deal
Will Feuer
Opec sticks to production plan on high oil prices
Benoit Faucon
feedback@livemint.com
producing states like Iraq and
Algeria are set to reallocate a
part of the extra cash they are

O
to $6.25 billion and the take- PEC and its allies making to deal with food infla-
feedback@livemint.com over will be financed now by stuck to a small, tion and ease chronic social
$27.25 billion in equity and planned increase in tensions.

E
lon Musk has assembled a
group of investors
including a Saudi prince,
Larry Ellison and a bitcoin
exchange to pony up more
than $7 billion to back his bid
to buy Twitter Inc.
Tesla Inc.’s chief executive
has received letters commit-
ting about $7.14 billion from a
group of 19 investors. The big-
gest contribution comes from
Prince al-Waleed bin Talal of
Saudi Arabia, who agreed to
retain his nearly $1.9 billion
stake in Twitter following
Musk’s takeover, the disclo-
sure said. The new money will
cut in half the amount Musk
needs to borrow against his
Tesla stake, and will slightly
reduce the balance of cash he
needs to put up personally, to
just under $20 billion.
Oracle Corp. co-founder
Larry Ellison, who sits on
Tesla’s board, agreed to put in
$1 billion. Cryptocurrency
exchange Binance.com, con-
trolled by billionaire devel-
oper Changpeng Zhao, prom-
ised $500 million. Other con-
tributors include $850 million
from venture capital stalwarts
Sequoia Capital. Arms of asset
managers Fidelity Invest-
ments and Brookfield Asset
Management Inc. will also take
part. Binance said its involve-
ment is “as a supporter of Elon
Musk’s plans for Twitter and
an investor,” a spokesman
said. Zhao tweeted that the
investment was “a small con-
tribution to the cause.”
Musk said he is in talks to
bring more current Twitter
shareholders, including
co-founder Jack Dorsey, into
the company after the buyout.
Musk has told potential inves-
tors in Twitter that he could
return the company to public
markets after a few years of
Musk has assembled a group
of investors including a Saudi
prince, Larry Ellison and a
bitcoin exchange. AP
ownership, The Wall Street
Journal reported earlier this
week.
By assembling a roster of big
money backers, Musk will
effectively reduce the amount
of risk he has to personally
take to close the $44 billion
deal. The world’s richest man,
by some measures, Musk lev-
eraged a wide network of asso-
ciates to come on board for his
plans. He has said that he
wants the social-media com-
pany to be less censorious in
content moderation, but has
otherwise given few details
about his exact plans. At one
point he said he doesn’t care
whether he makes money on
the deal. Musk has a history of
missing his timelines and tar-
gets at Tesla, the electric-car
company.
Twitter shares jumped 2% in
premarket trading to around
$49, edging toward Musk’s
$54.20 a share offer price. The
closer the stock gets to the
offer price, the higher likeli-
hood that investors put on the
deal going through.
As a result of the new
financing commitments,
Musk said the $12.5 billion
margin loan he had received to
buy Twitter has been reduced
cash. Musk’s heavy borrowing
against his shares has weighed
on Tesla’s stock in recent
weeks. The shares were flat in
premarket trading.
Other prominent backers of
the deal include Dubai-based
investment firm VyCapital,
which is on the hook for $700
million, and venture capital
firm Andreessen Horowitz has
thrown in $400 million.
Qatar Holding LLC,
founded in 2006 by the Qatar
Investment Authority, has also
pitched in $375 million and
Aliya Capital Partners LLC,
run by Chief Executive Ari
Shrage, has committed $360
million.
Other new financiers of the
deal include familiar faces in
Musk’s past. Bamco Inc.,
founded by prominent Tesla
investor Ron Baron, has com-
mitted $100 million. Draper
Fisher Jurvetson, SpaceX
board member Steve Jurvet-
son’s former venture capital
firm, has committed another
$100 million. Capital LLC and
Witkoff Capital are also back-
ers. Tech-
focused
financial
adviser Key
Wealth Advisors LLC, private-
equity firm A.M. Management
& Consulting and Chicago-
based Litani Ventures, which
is the family office of RXBAR
founder Peter Rahal, are also
coming in on the deal.
Other companies listed are
Peter Avellone-founded Car-
tenna Capital LP, which com-
mitted $8.5 million, and David
Fiszel-founded Honeycomb
Asset Management LP, which
threw in $5 million.
Caitlin Ostroff and Patricia
Kowsmann contributed to this
article.
©2022 DOW JONES & COMPANY, INC.
oil production on Thursday, as
windfall revenue from high
crude prices boosts the econo-
mies of Saudi Arabia and other
producers while providing a
buffer to Russia against West-
ern sanctions.
In its third meeting since
Russia invaded Ukraine, send-
ing oil prices above $100 a bar-
rel for the first time in eight
years, the Organization of the
Petroleum Exporting Coun-
tries and a coalition of Mos-
cow-led oil producers said
they agreed to continue rais-
ing their collective production
by 432,000 barrels a day.
The incremental boost for
June is in line with what the
cartel, called OPEC+, agreed to
last year as part of a plan to
raise output to prepandemic
levels. It comes despite
repeated calls in recent
months from the U.S. and
other major oil-consuming
nations for Saudi Arabia and
other OPEC+ members to tap
into the group’s millions of
barrels of remaining capacity
to pump more oil to help tame
prices.
In after-
noon trad-
ing in Lon-
don, Brent crude, the interna-
tional benchmark, was up 1% at
$111 a barrel, while U.S. crude
was 0.8% higher at $108.70.
A proposed European
embargo on Russian crude
imports within six months
could reduce global oil sup-
plies and send prices higher,
analysts say.
Russian crude production
has already fallen since the
invasion of Ukraine in
response to reduced demand
overseas and in the domestic
market.
In a speech to the group’s
delegates at a technical gath-
Most Opec+ members are pumping crude oil at their maximum capacity, while Saudi Arabia and the
UAE, which have spare capacity, say beefing up output would raise prices, not lower them. REUTERS
ering ahead of Thursday’s
meeting, OPEC Secretary-
General Mohammed Barkindo
said the “potential loss [of Rus-
sian oil], through either sanc-
tions or voluntary actions, is
clearly rippling through
energy markets.” But he noted
this “cannot be made up from
elsewhere. The spare capacity
just does not exist,” adding
that a resurgent Covid-19 pan-
demic in China should inspire
caution.
Most OPEC+ members are
already pumping at their max-
imum capacity, while Saudi
Arabia and the United Arab
Emirates—which have
so-called spare capacity to
raise their production—say
beefing up output would actu-
ally raise prices, not lower
them.
High oil prices have resulted
in tens of billions of dollars of
additional revenue for many
OPEC+ members, providing a
vital boost to their economies
after years of slow growth due
to relatively low prices, some
OPEC delegates and analysts
say.
“The Saudis and other oil
producers benefit too much to
take any chance and change
the status quo in the short
term,” said Adel Hamaizia, a
visiting fellow at the Center for
Baghdad says rising prices
generated its highest oil reve-
nue since 1972 in March, when
it made $11 billion in a month.
The IMF expects Iraq to be the
fastest-growing oil economy
in the region at 9.6% this year.
But it is also facing an inflation
rate of 6.9% in 2022, the fund
says, in part driven by food pri-
ces.
To mitigate living costs,
Iraq’s government has pro-
posed a law authorizing the
spending of $20 billion,
Middle Eastern Studies at Har- stronger than the 6.3% growth including for the purchase of
vard University and a former currently expected by the con- at least six months’ worth of
economic adviser to the king- sensus, it said. wheat and covering debts of
dom. Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. farmers hit by rising fertilizer
The International Monetary are also spending to expand costs.
Fund in a report last week esti- their influence in countries In Algeria, where chronic
mated oil exporters in the badly hit by the food-com- joblessness and a stagnant
Middle East and North Africa modity crisis. Riyadh has economy contributed to a
would receive $320 billion this agreed to a $8 billion bailout popular uprising three years
year more than expected due package for Pakistan, long ago, the government is using
to high oil prices. courted by rival Iran; Abu the extra cash to ease tensions
The economies of the Dhabi is shoring up the econ- at home.
region’s core omy of Egypt, In March, Algiers increased
Arab oil produc- High oil prices where it fears a public pensions by up to 10%,
ers are set to have resulted in resurgent Mus- and introduced new unem-
expand the most tens of billions of lim Brotherhood, ployment benefits of about
of any major eco- dollars of with a $2 billion $90 to more than half a million
nomic region in cash injection to unemployed.
the world this
additional support its econ- Oil prices have surged in
year, its data revenue for many omy. recent months, fueling infla-
shows. Opec+ members Elevated oil tion around the world, in part
Saudi Arabia— prices are also because several OPEC+ mem-
OPEC’s biggest expected to help bers have been unable to meet
oil exporter and the group’s buffer the shock of Ukraine- their share of production as
de-facto leader—registered its related sanctions for Russia. global demand has picked up.
fastest growth in a decade dur- Russia’s production fell by While some members worry
ing the first quarter, with its 367,000 barrels a day below that elevated prices might
gross domestic product its OPEC+ quota in April, eventually hurt demand in
expanding 9.6% from a year according to data-intelligence some key markets already
earlier, according to the Saudi company Kpler. Analysts say struggling with high inflation,
statistics authority. With oil the proposed European Union other delegates have said the
production expected to ban on imports of Russian surge in prices is being driven
increase further and the crude could reduce Moscow’s by panic and not demand-sup-
strong likelihood of looser fis- oil sales because not every bar- ply fundamentals, which
cal policy, London-based con- rel of Russian oil that once would mean any additional
sulting firm Capital Econom- landed in Europe will be supply wouldn’t change much.
ics estimates the kingdom’s rerouted to buyers in other Ghassan Adnan contributed
economy will grow around markets. to this article.
10% this year. That is far Meanwhile, some other oil- ©2022 DOW JONES & COMPANY, INC.
LIVEMINT.COM
TWEETS & QUOTES
Sonal Varma
MD & chief economist,
Nomura
We believe the rate hike
is a belated acknowl-
edgement of inflation
risks and that policy has
been behind the curve
ArcelorMittal Q1
net income jumps
G I
lobal steel giant ArcelorMittal on
Thursday posted 80.52% growth in net
income at $4,125 million (about ₹31,350
crore) for the first quarter ended 31 March.
It had posted a net income of $2,285 million
for the year-ago quarter, the company said in a
statement.
“ArcelorMittal recorded net income for first
quarter 2022 of $4,125 million as compared to...a
net income of $2,285 million for first quarter of
2021,” the Luxembourg-based firm said.
ArcelorMittal is the world’s largest integrated
steel and mining company. It follows January-
December fiscal year.
The company further said its net debt
declined by $878 million to $3.2 billion as of 31
March 31 as compared to $5.9 billion on 31
March 31 2021.
Its capex guidance for financial year 2022
remains unchanged at $4.5 billion, of which
$529 million is for first quarter of 2022. PTI
India saw its warmest March this year.
IMD warns fresh
HT
spell of heatwave
A
fresh spell of heatwave is likely to begin
over northwest India from 7 May and
over central India from 8 May, the India
Meteorological Department (IMD) said on
Thursday. Heatwave conditions are predicted
over Rajasthan on 7 May to 9 May, and over
south Haryana, Delhi, southwest Uttar Pradesh,
Madhya Pradesh and Vidarbha region of
Maharashtra on 8 May and 9 May, it said.
With scanty rains owing to feeble western
disturbances, northwest and central India
experienced the hottest April in 122 years with
average maximum temperature touching 35.9
degrees celsius and 37.78 degrees celsius,
respectively.
Several places in the country had logged their
all-time high temperatures for April as the
mercury leaped to 46-47 degrees celsius under
the impact of the torrid heatwave at month-end.
India saw its warmest March this year since
the IMD began keeping records 122 years ago,
amid a 71% rain deficit.
A heatwave is declared when the maximum
temperature is over 40 degrees celsius and at
least 4.5 notches above normal. PTI
TVS Motor elevates
Sudarshan as MD
T
VS Motor Company on Thursday said it
has elevated Sudarshan Venu as
managing director (MD) with immediate
effect. Venu, 33, has been charting the future of
the two-wheeler manufacturer and has played
a pivotal role in the company’s growth in
domestic and key international markets,
including Asia, Africa, and more recently in
Europe, the company said in a statement.
“Sudarshan has got a clear vision and brings
with him both a tremendous passion for
advanced technologies and sustainable
growth, deep-seated in values...Personal, smart
mobility, including electrification, are two of
his big areas of focus. He has also spearheaded
the international growth of the company,” TVS
Motor Company chairman Ralf Dieter Speth
noted.
TVS Motor Company chairman Emeritus
Venu Srinivasan said Sudarshan’s
extraordinary efforts have witnessed key
decisions to develop aspirational products and
grow fast in India and overseas. PTI
Telecom sector AGR up 3% in Dec quarter, ARPU up by 5.5%
I
n a promising development for telecom companies, the monthly average
revenue per user or ARPU, a key measure of profitability for the sector,
increased by 5.55% for wireless services to ₹114.16 in quarter ended
December 2021 from ₹108.16 in the previous quarter, according to latest data
from the sector regulator. On a year-on-year basis, monthly ARPU for wireless
service increased by 12.31% in the quarter, a big upside for carriers that depend
on ARPUs from each user to shore up revenues and profits.
Prepaid ARPU per month increased to ₹107.98 in quarter ended December
2021 from ₹102.16 in the previous quarter however, postpaid ARPU per month
decreased to ₹210.33 from ₹212.28, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India
(TRAI) said in its quarterly data for the December.
Gross revenue and adjusted gross revenue or AGR of telecom sector for the
quarter stood at ₹69,695 crore and ₹55,151 crore, respectively. Gross revenue
increased by 3.56% and AGR increased by 3.07% on-year, compared to -2.64%
and 15.81% respectively, seen last year.
Margrethe Vestager
Chief, Europe antitrust
The more we, as an interna-
tional competition commu-
nity, are able to harmonize
our approach, the less
opportunity there will be for
global tech giants to exploit
enforcement gaps
POLLUTION CONCERNS
A farmer burns stubble in his field following the harvest season, on the outskirts of Amritsar, on Thursday.
Auto retail sales grow 37% in
Apr on low covid-hit base effect
Commercial vehicle retails stood at 78,398 units in April, up 52% from 51,515 units
PTI
feedback@livemint.com
NEW DELHI
A
utomobile retail sales in India
increased by 37% in April on a low base
of covid-hit April last year, automobile
dealers’ body FADA said on Thursday.
Total sales across categories rose to
16,27,975 units in April, as compared to 11,87,771
units in the year-ago period.
On a year-on-year (y-o-y) basis, all vehicle cate-
gories including passenger vehicles and two-
wheelers were up as compared with April last year.
Passenger vehicles registrations stood at
2,64,342 units last month, up 25% from 2,10,682
units in April last year. Similarly, two-wheeler sales
were at 11,94,520 units, up 38% from the year-ago
period. Commercial vehicle retails stood at 78,398
units in April, up 52% from 51,515 units in April
2021.
Several banks revise lending rates
Several banks have revised its external
benchmark lending rate. MINT
P accepted at Apple
rivate sector lender ICICI Bank has
revised its external benchmark
lending rate (EBLR) to 8.10%, and
state-owned Bank of Baroda (BoB) has
raised the rate to 6.90% with immediate
effect after the RBI hiked the key repo
rate.Likewise, two other public sector
GULVEEN AULAKH Prepaid ARPU per month increased to ₹107.98 in December 2021. MINT
NEWS WRAP
Three-wheeler sales were up 96%, while tractor all retails were down by 6%,” Gulati stated.
registrations were up 26% as compared with April
last year.
“While Y-o-Y comparison with April 2021 shows industry continues to witness supply crunch with
all categories in green with high growth rate, it is semiconductor shortage and high metal prices and
important to note
that both April 2021
and April 2020 were
affected by nation- FADA president Vinkesh Gulati said segment, which has
wide lockdown due April 2022 when compared with April witnessed slight
to phase one and two
of the covid wave, 2019, reveals that we are still not out increase
which witnessed
no-to-negligible
business,” Federa-
tion of Automobile Dealers Association (FADA) continues to remain below pre-covid levels, Gulati
president Vinkesh Gulati noted. Hence, a better said. “It is a clear sign that Bharat has not been
comparison will be with April 2019, which was a keeping up with India. Apart from rural distress,
normal pre-covid month, he added.
“April 2022 when compared with April 2019, are keeping price-sensitive entry-level two-
reveals that we are still not out of the woods as over- wheeler customers away,” he added.
banks, Bank of India and Central Bank of
India, have also raised the repo linked
lending rate.
In an out of turn Monetary Committee
Meeting (MPC), RBI on Wednesday
announced to hike the benchmark repo
rate by 0.40% to 4.40% with immediate
effect, aimed at taming the rising inflation
caused by the global geopolitical
situation. The increase in the repo by RBI
will push up the cost for most of the
personal loans, auto and home loans for
customers as the new loans post-October
2019 are linked to the repo rate.
RBI policy repo rate effective 4 May, is
4.40% , ICICI Bank said.
BoB also revised the external
benchmark linked lending rate, with
effect from 5 May.
BoB had introduced Baroda Repo
Linked Lending Rate (BRLLR) in respect
of all retail lending products from October
2019. PTI
Liz Ann Sonders
@LizAnnSonders
Chief Investment Strat-
egist, Charles Schwab &
Co
Gallup data show that
only 30% of Ameri-
cans think it’s a good
time to buy a house
PTI
He noted that with the Russia–Ukraine war con-
tinuing and China under lockdown, the auto
container shortage
impacting the sector.
The two-wheeler
in sales,
when compared to
of the woods last month, is
extremely sensitive
to price hikes and
multiple price hikes coupled with high fuel prices
Users were complaining about not being able to
pay for subscriptions using cards. MINT
Indian cards not
A
pple has stopped accepting Indian debit
and credit cards as a payment method for
apps and subscriptions on its App Store.
The company has updated its support page for
billing in India, clarifying that going forward,
users in India will have to look for alternate
payment methods to pay for subscriptions or
apps.
“Regulatory requirements in India apply to
the processing of recurring transactions. If you
hold an Indian debit or credit card and you
have a subscription, these changes impact your
transactions. Some transactions might be
declined by banks and card issuers,” Apple’s
statement on its India billing page says.
It further clarified that users will need to pay
via their Apple ID balance in the country.
In India, users can pay for the same through
App Store codes, net banking or unified
payments interface (UPI).
Over the past two months, numerous users
have taken to social media platforms to
complain about not being able to pay for
subscriptions or apps with previously saved
debit and credit cards on their Apple ID.
SHOUVIK DAS
FRIDAY, 6 MAY 2022
NEW DELHI 13
Emmanuel Lenain
@FranceinIndia
Ambassador of France to India
Coming so soon after the
French presidential election,
this (PM Modi’s ) visit holds
special significance. France
deeply appreciates this mark
of trust and friendship
‘India, Israel can do
lot of good in world’
sraeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on
Thursday thanked his Indian counterpart
Narendra Modi for his warm greetings on
Israel’s independence day and said that the
Jewish state “cherishes its friendship” with New
Delhi and the two countries together can do a
“lot of good in this world”. Prime Minister Modi
on Thursday conveyed best wishes to the people
of Israel on their independence day and hoped
that the two countries would deepen ties in the
coming years. He made the remarks in a video
message shared on his Twitter handle on the
74th anniversary of Israel’s independence day.
Responding to Modi, Prime Minister Bennet
said in a tweet: “Thank you my dear friend,
Prime Minister @NarendraModi for your warm
words”.
“Israel greatly cherishes its friendship with
India — together we have the power to do a lot of
good in this world!” Bennet said. PTI
The Bank of England raised its key interest rate to
the highest level in 13 years.
Bank of England
BLOOMBERG
raises interest rate
T
he Bank of England raised its key interest
rate to the highest level in 13 years on
Thursday as policymakers around the
world combat inflation fuelled by high energy
prices, Russia’s war in Ukraine and lingering
concerns about covid-19.
The central bank’s Monetary Policy
Committee voted 6-3 to raise interest rates for
a fourth consecutive meeting, lifting the rate
that the Bank of England pays other banks by a
quarter-percentage point, to 1%. Those in the
minority wanted to raise it even higher, to
1.25%.
The decision comes a day after the US
Federal Reserve stepped up its attack on
inflation, approving the biggest rate increase in
more than two decades and signalling that
more are on the way. The Fed increased its key
short-term rate by a half-percentage point, to a
range of 0.75% to 1%. AP
NordVPN may
cease operations
I
ndia’s new rules for virtual private network
(VPN) providers may lead such companies to
abandon Indian users on their platforms. In a
statement to Mint today, one of the top VPN
providers in the world, called NordVPN, said it
may cease operations in India in light of the
cybersecurity rules furnished by the ministry of
electronics & information technology, on 28
April, through the Indian Computer Emergency
Response Team (CERT-In). “At the moment,
our team is investigating the new directive
recently passed by the Indian government and
exploring the best course of action. As there are
still at least two months left until the law comes
into effect, we are currently operating as usual.
We are committed to protecting the privacy of
our customers therefore, we may remove our
servers from India if no other options are left,”
Patricija Cerniauskaite, spokesperson for
NordVPN, said. SHOUVIK DAS
Mohite is 1st woman
to scale five peaks
P
riyanka Mohite from Satara in western
Maharashtra has become the first Indian
woman to scale five peaks above 8,000m
after she climbed Mount Kanchenjunga on
Thursday. Priyanka (30), the recipient of
Tenzing Norgay Adventure Award 2020,
successfully completed her expedition to Mount
Kanchenjunga (8,586m), the third highest
mountain on the planet, at 4.52 pm,” her brother
Akash Mohite told PTI.
In April 2021, she had scaled Mount
Annapurna (8,091 m), the 10th highest
mountain peak in the world and had become the
first Indian woman climber to achieve the feat.
Priyanka has also climbed the world’s highest
peak Mount Everest (8,849 m) in 2013, Mount
Lhotse (8,516 m) in 2018, Mount Makalu (8,485
m) and Mount Kilimanjaro (5,895 m) in 2016.
In 2015 Priyanka scaled Mount Menthosa
which at 6443 m is the second-highest peak in
the Lahaul and Spiti district of Himachal
Pradesh. PTI
14 FRIDAY, 6 MAY 2022
NEW DELHI LONG STORY LIVEMINT.COM

REPORTAGE | TALKING POINTS | IDEAS | INSIGHT | THE BOTTOMLINE

PARADISE POLLUTED:
KASHMIR LAKES LOSE SPARKLE
Untreated sewage, encroachments, weeds and ferns are choking the biggest tourism hotspots

Around 500,000 people of Kashmir are directly and indirectly associated with tourism. These include boat owners, hotel employees, travel agents, guides, handicrafts makers, and providers of transport and pony services. JAVAID NAIKOO

Javaid Naikoo quality,” says Muzamil Maqbool, a social
feedback@livemint.com activist. “The lakes are shrinking and if
SRINAGAR they are no longer an attraction, tourist
traffic will be affected.”
houseboats were an important tourist
attraction, and their dwindling number
would affect tourism income. Finally, in
March 2021, it introduced a houseboat
(LCMA) began a ₹416 crore project to shift was the settlement commissioner of Kash-
mint
SHORT 10,500 families living around Dal Lake to mir between 1889 and 1894.
STORY Bemina, 12 km away. The families were to The book says the lake is spread over
be provided plots of land over an area of 25.86 sq km, of which 18.21 sq km is water,

S
ixty-year-old shikara owner That would be a disaster. Simply policy by which new houseboats could be 379.4 hectares. But 15 years later, the land with the remaining 7.65 sq km consisting
Noor Mohammed remembers a because 500,000 people of Kashmir are built on the lakes, but only if they were WHAT acquisition is still incomplete, while many of landmass and vegetation. “It remains
time when the waters of Srina- directly and indirectly associated with equipped with a bio-digester–a mecha- of those who have shifted complained that the same today,” says Ahmad. “Some peo-
gar’s Dal Lake were clean tourism. Besides boat owners, there are nised toilet system which decomposes With normalcy returning to they were jobless and the area lacked basic ple claim it was once 84 sq km, but they
enough to drink. Today, he dis- hotel employees, travel agents, guides, human waste to rid it of its bacteria. Simi- Jammu and Kashmir after the facilities. have never provided any evidence to
plays the allergic rash he got on one of his handicrafts makers, providers of transport larly, repair of damaged houseboats would abrogation of Article 370 of the “I cannot earn a livelihood staying away prove it,” he adds.
hands by accidentally dipping it in the and pony services across Srinagar, Pahal- be allowed on case-by-case basis, if the Constitution, tourism has been from the Dal Lake,” says Zahoor Ahmed,
same lake. gam and Gulmarg who make a living by owner’s application is approved by the rapidly growing—about 180,000 45, who refused to shift. “Here, I grow veg- CITIZENS’ INITIATIVE
tourists visited in March alone.
“I warn tourists who hire my boat never
to touch the water, and if they inadvert-
ently do, to sanitise their hands immedi-
catering to tourists. The per-head
expenditure on a week-long Kashmir visit
is estimated at ₹50,000-60,000; the
tourist department and includes installing
a bio-digester.
However, sustainable houseboats will
etables and take tourists around in my shi-
kara to provide for my family which I n the past, the deteriorating condition
of the lakes was even a political issue,
includes three children. My forefathers with politicians of all hues promising
ately,” he says. “This lake is our bread and industry contributes 6.98% to the UT’s not be enough to save the lakes, as the AND lived here and I have to do the same.” before every election to improve them.
butter. We are heavily dependent on it. gross domestic product. causes of their degradation run deeper Yet another effort of the government, “Politicians would go deep into the Dal
But we have destroyed it and are doing and are inextricably tied to Srinagar’s A good number of tourists stay begun in 2010, was to use dredging Lake’s corners, and promise people reha-
nothing to save it.” THE BIGGEST POLLUTER urbanisation. As Kashmir tourism grew on houseboats. However, the machines to remove some of the debris bilitation, jobs and other facilities, but
lakes aren’t in good shape. They
His views are echoed by other shikara
owners—shikaras are small boats that T he lakes are being choked by weeds
and ferns like Azolla, increasing silt
ferry visitors within the Dal lake, one of and encroachments of various kinds, but
rapidly in the 1960 and 1970s, and the
lakes became a major tourist draw, more
and more locals congregated on and
are being polluted by sewage,
choked by ferns like Azolla, and
and silt collected at the bottom of the lakes. after the elections they would not take our
The dredging was expected to restore the calls,” says a Dal Lake resident who also
lakes to their former glory but experts now goes by the name Bashir Ahmad. With
Kashmir’s tourism hotspots, immortalised their biggest polluter is untreated sewage. around them for a livelihood, leading to a spoilt by encroachments. maintain it may have done more harm political activity at a standstill following
in numerous popular movies and travel It has been estimated that those living on major spike in the waste flowing into the than good, affecting the flora and fauna of the Article 370 abrogation and the disso-
literature. and around the Dal Lake alone generate lake waters. While the tourist inflow has the lake, degrading its water quality fur- lution of the assembly, civil society has
“When I take tourists around the lake, five million litres of sewage daily. But this waxed and waned, falling during the NOW ther instead of improving it, diminishing stepped in with better results.
they notice dead birds floating on the is only a small proportion of a total of 45 insurgency years and then rising again, the natural habitat and lowering fish pro- One such initiative has been that of
water; they see heaps of plastic bags and million litres of sewage dumped daily into the locals have remained. As Srinagar’s The government is aware of the duction. A recent report by three research social activist Manzoor Wangnoo, who
empty bottles,” says Gulzar Ahmed them, the rest coming from surrounding overall population grew, the canals that economic importance of the scholars shows that certain vital sea orga- was inspired to intervene after he watched
Sheikh, another boat owner. “As we move, areas. According to the UT’s pollution flushed water out of the lakes were also lakes and authorities say they are nisms such as lymnaea stagnalis (great a TV show on Srinagar’s Doordarshan
my oars often get entangled in the over- control board, Srinagar generates around choked with waste and silt. Roads built to de-weeding them. Sustainable pond snail) and radix auricularia (freshwa- channel in December 2020. “During a dis-
grown weeds. I try to divert the tourists’ 201 million litres of sewage daily, but its cope with the city’s growing traffic restoration would require the ter snail) had been eradicated from the cussion on the ‘Halat-e-Hazira’ show, the
attention by talking about the beauty of sewage treatment plants can handle only blocked parts of the canals, while defores- involvement and buy-in of locals. lake waters due to the dredging and warns anchor asked the panellists for sugges-
Kashmir. But it is impos- 53.8 million litres–the tation along the streams that feed the lakes of dire consequences if it tions on what to do
sible to hide the truth for rest all flows into its lakes increased the inflow of silt. is continued. about the lakes,” he says.
long.” Sustainable houseboats will and the Jhelum river. At 2005 and 2019 on the preservation of Some living close to As tourism grew, more “It made me feel respon-
With normalcy grad- not be enough to save the least 15 big drains of the REHABILITATION GOES AWRY Kashmir’s lakes, of which ₹401 crore came the Dal Lake also dismiss and more locals congregated sible.”
ually returning to
Jammu and Kashmir
after the upheaval
lakes, as the causes of their
city empty into the Dal
Lake alone.
Houseboat owners feel
M any efforts have been made to save
the lakes, starting with the Srinagar
Master Plan of 1971–which was never seri-
from the Centre and the rest from the
state. The Centre’s contribution includes
the ₹300 crore Prime Minister’s Develop-
much of the govern-
ment’s efforts as window
dressing. “The parts of
around the lakes for
Soon after, with a cou-
ple of friends, he chalked
out a strategy to clean up
degradation run deeper and a livelihood, leading to
caused by the abroga- a disproportionate ously adhered to–but little seems to have ment Package (PMDP) of 2015, of which the Dal Lake that run one of the smaller lakes–
tion of Article 370 of the are inextricably tied to amount of the blame for worked so far. Even the Centre stepped in ₹50 crore was allocated to cleaning the alongside city roads or a spike in the waste flowing Khushal Sar.
Constitution, tourism the decline of the Dal as early as 1997, with the ministry of envi- lake and the remaining ₹250 crore–the are close to the Shere-e- “We got together 20
has been rapidly grow- Srinagar’s urbanization. Lake is heaped on them ronment and forests launching a ‘Save Dal’ bulk of the package–to rehabilitating peo- Kashmir International into the waters. volunteers who worked
ing. Since June 2021, 7.2 alone. “Less than 2-3% of project to which it allocated ₹500 crore. ple living on or around the lake in alterna- Convention Centre for about 100 days in the
million tourists have visited the union ter- the pollution is caused by houseboats, but As the Jammu & Kashmir High Court itself tive locations, and thereby reducing the (SKICC), where major conferences are spring of 2021,” says Wangnoo. “At first we
ritory (UT), including 340,000 in the Jan- we are made scapegoats for the govern- observed in one of its judgments, “Despite human pressure on it. held, have indeed been cleaned up to worked manually with spades and shovel,
uary-March quarter of 2022, which is the ment’s failure,” says Ghulam Rasool Siah, public money being pumped in by the Separately, in 2018, the Indian Army impress outsiders,” says Javaid Ahmed, removing hundreds of bags of waste every
highest in the last seven years, govern- president, Houseboat Owners Association. government, the authorities have proved launched a 21-day ‘clean Dal’ mission– also a houseboat dweller. “But in the inte- day. But carcasses and weeds could not be
ment officials say. About 180,000 came in Independent estimates have main- helpless and unable to effectively ensure uprooting weeds and removing plastic rior areas, the lake remains a dumping site.” removed this way, so we approached the
March alone. Despite the intense cold, tained that of the five million litres of daily some meaningful outcome.” and other waste. In 2019, then union Bashir Ahmad, vice chairman, LCMA, LCMA who was very cooperative and pro-
even the winter months of 2021-22 saw a sewage inflow, the houseboats’ contribu- Following a public interest litigation home minister Rajnath Singh announced maintains that most of the criticism of his vided us the equipment needed,” he adds.
sharp tourist spike with 100% hotel occu- tion is around 800,000 litres. Even so, claiming that the Srinagar Master Plan yet another ₹350 crore package for the organization’s efforts to restore the lakes The volunteers then carried out a door-
pancy in popular resorts such as Srinagar, houseboats have been easy targets ever was being blatantly violated, the court too Dal Lake’s preservation. In October last was unfair and ill informed. “The moment to-door campaign in the catchment area,
Gulmarg and Pahalgam, which had never since pollution at the lake became a press- intervened, delivering a July 2002 judg- year, lieutenant-governor Manoj Sinha we hear of any kind of fresh encroachment impressing upon the people living there
happened before in Kashmir’s history. A ing concern. Way back in 1982, the gov- ment by which it took over monitoring of held a fortnight long ‘Swachha Pakhwada’ on the lakes, we remove it and book the the socio-economic importance of the
good number of tourists stayed on house- ernment banned the registration of new the Dal Lake’s water quality and directed drive for the lake, as part of the Swachh culprits,” he says. “De-weeding is on in full lake as a revenue earner.
boats on lakes. houseboats. In 2009, the Jammu and its immediate clean up. Later judgments Bharat Abhiyan. But even today, little evi- swing across the Dal Lake, a massive 120 “The situation demands a community
But every lake dweller also adds to its Kashmir High Court even banned the ordered all encroachments within 200 dence of all this effort is visible. tonne of weed being extracted daily.” approach for a comprehensive restoration
degradation–not only Dal, but also other repair and renovation of registered house- metres of the lake be demolished. Even before the PMDP allocation, steps Ahmad also dismisses the allegation of of the lakes,” says Raja Muzaffar, an envi-
Srinagar lakes such as Nigeen, Khushal boats. As a result, the number of house- According to data obtained through towards shifting people had been taken. critics that the lake had shrunk greatly due ronmentalist. “The administration needs
Sar, Gilsar and Anchar. boats has shrunk from around 4,000 in RTI applications by social and environ- However, they have run into various hur- to encroachments, pointing to the book to formulate a holistic strategy involving
“It is human interventions, particularly the 1980s to 910 now. mental activists, a total of ₹759 crore has dles. In 2007, for instance, J&K’s Lake The Valley of Kashmir by Walter Roper the local people. The sooner it is done, the
encroachments, which have ruined water But the government was also aware that been spent by the government between Conservation and Management Authority Lawrence, published in 1895. Lawrence better.”
LIVEMINT.COM MINT MONEY FRIDAY, 6 MAY 2022
NEW DELHI 15

How affluent investors are How much a house costs in Chennai

A house is probably the biggest spend for most Indians.
And with urban population increasing manifold,

battling rising interest rates

buying a house in a large city, which is where most jobs
are likely to be, has become difficult—the main obstacle
being cost. Determining a property’s value is difficult.
Our compilation of property prices of prominent localities
in major cities and surrounding areas across India may
help you compare and make an informed decision.
Here are the prices of some properties across three bands.

No. of Average unit Average price Approximate

Rich investors, particularly HNIs, had braced for potential rate hikes six-nine months back Location
bedrooms size (sq. ft) (₹/sq. ft) price (₹ lakh)
MINT Under ₹30 lakh
Abhinav Kaul
abhinav.kaul@livemint.com Kundrathur 1 BHK 400-600 3,900-4,700 15-28

T
Pammal 1 BHK 400-600 4,300-4,600 17-27
he Reserve Bank of India
(RBI), in a surprise move on
Tambaram 1 BHK 500-600 4,700-6,300 23-37
Wednesday, decided to hike
repo rate by 40 basis points Thiruvottiyur 1 BHK 540-580 4,600-4,900 24-28
(bps) to 4.4%, which can be
seen as a precursor to another 50-75 bps Sholinganallur 1 BHK 430-450 5,300-6,600 24-29
interest rate hike this year. This has
made risk mitigation in the current eco- ₹30 lakh-₹75 lakh
nomic environment quite challenging,
and high net-worth individuals (HNIs)
Guduvancheri 2 BHK 850-1200 3,600-4,600 30-55
are vulnerable.
With the global macroeconomic pic-
ture getting grim and markets turning Perungalathur 2 BHK 800-1200 4,000-5,600 32-67
volatile, most prudent affluent investors
Poonamallee 2 BHK 900-1200 4,500-5,500 40-66
have already readjusted their portfolio
to preserve capital.
West Tambaram 2 BHK 1000-1400 4,600-5,050 46-70
According to Asheesh Chanda,
founder and chief executive officer of Mogappair 2 BHK 950-1000 6,000-7,500 57-75
Kristal.AI, a digital-first global private
wealth management platform, wealth Above ₹75 lakh
preservation is a bigger concern for
investors, than beating inflation at this Velachery 3 BHK 1200-1800 6,450-8,400 77-151
point.
Experts say that inflation will remain Vadapalani 3 BHK 1000-1800 7,800-11,000 78-198
a concern over the next 12 months, espe- ties,” says Prateek Pant, a chief business things. Short-term should remain in form of rental income and benefit from
cially when it comes to equity markets, officer at WhiteOak Capital Asset Man- arbitrage kind of opportunities, because long-term capital appreciation. The Anna nagar 3 BHK 1500-2000 10,600-16,700 159-334
and investors are not preferring to buy agement. we don’t even want to expose ourselves favourable risk-return profile of the
the dip now, as there are significant On the debt side, rich investors to the shorter end of the yield curve asset class makes it a good fit for a diver- Adyar 3 BHK 1200-2000 13,500-19,000 162-380
downward risks on stocks. started bracing up for potential rate right now. For the medium part, we use sified portfolio and fixed income solu-
“There is reallocation to value from hikes six-nine months back and aligned target maturity funds predominantly at tion,” said Aryaman Vir, founder and
growth stocks for money that is their portfolios accordingly. this stage. And for any yield kickers, we CEO, Myre Capital, a neo-realty tech- Nungambakkam 3 BHK 1000-2000 18,500-22,500 185-450
invested. However, new money is going “Our investors were not locking in are still using Invits,” said Randev. enabled fractional ownership platform. Look out for real estate data in this space for cities such as Delhi and NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata, Pune
to assets classes that have low correla- yield for a longer period of Experts also say that Real WhiteOak Capital’s Pant suggests and Hyderabad. The list is not exhaustive. Data as on 2 May 2022.
tion to equity markets, such as life settle- time, and making sure that There are fears of Estate Investment Trusts that the most important thing right now The average price is the base rate on saleable area, and excludes infrastructure charges and government taxes.

ment funds, commodity arbitrages,
long-short strategies and private market
deals. Pre-IPOs deals have also become
more attractive in the current environ-
ment,” said Chanda.
The expert suggests avoiding small-
caps, high-yield, lower quality and lev-
eraged investments and rather focus on
high-quality, mega-cap stocks that are
less rewarding, but also less risky.
“If corporate earnings continue to be
solid, which we are seeing right now, we
don’t see any long-term impact on the
markets. On the equity side, we would
actually ask people to continue holding
their allocation and maybe use this dip
to actually raise the allocation on equi-
if they were locking in Source: Cushman and Wakefield Research India
one or two more (REITs), which are hybrid is not to try and time the market. “Be
yield, they were locking in RBI rate hikes due asset classes, are proving to clear about what is your long-term allo-
at a certain part of the to the demand as be good income generators cation and accordingly, keep committed
curve, which was the four- as they benefit from rising to that,” he suggested.
well as some
six year maturities on the
corporate bond side. So we
were using the
supply side
inflation
inflation. Some affluent
investors also increased
allocation to gold, which is
Financial advisors warn that retail
investors shouldn’t try to emulate HNIs’
strategy. “HNIs are slightly more sophis-
How to invest if you want to earn
2025/26/27 target matur-
ity funds and allocate some
a proven safe-haven invest-
ment instrument. Some
kind of money so investors didn’t have experts are of the opinion that commer-
ticated investors where they understand
the risk. Along with understanding the
risks, they also have means to deploy
a corpus of ₹75 lakh in 6 years?
any mark-to-market risk, and were get- cial real estate (CRE) has also been one of more capital when prices are lower,
ting a kind of fixed return in that way,” the preferred asset classes for HNIs and which retail investors probably might
said Munish Randev, founder, Cervin institutional investors. not be able to do. So, in my opinion, Surya Bhatia lakh and can pay ₹25,000
Family Office. The expert expects one or “A-grade CRE assets attract multi-na- strategy for a retail versus HNI should be as EMI (equated monthly
two more rate increases due to demand tional tenants with long-term leases very different,” said Kirtan Shah, I retired 6 months ago with installment) comfortably.
side as well as some supply side inflation. (nine-15 years). This enables investors to founder and CEO, Credence Wealth ₹90 lakh as corpus and get Should I take the home loan
“Right now we are suggesting three earn stable monthly cash flow in the Advisors. ₹93,000 as monthly pen- for a longer duration or opt
sion. I have invested ₹39 for a higher EMI per month
lakh in some central gov- to cover the loan early?
ernment schemes and — Rittika

Things to know about LIC’s initial public offering
Maulik Madhu
maulik.madhu@livemint.com
T
he much-anticipated Life
Insurance Corporation of
India’s (LIC) IPO, India’s
largest public issue, opened on
4 May. The government is off-
loading a 3.5% stake in the life
insurance behemoth. At the
upper end of the price band,
the offer size comes to ₹21,000
crore. As of 5 May, the IPO had
been subscribed 1x time
already, shows NSE data.
The IPO price band has been
fixed at ₹902–949 per share.
The offer closes on 9 May and
investors can bid on 7 May, a
Saturday, too. The bid lot size is
15 equity shares and in multi-
ples thereof.
Pricing and discount
The offer is being made
through the book-building
process. Aditya Kondawar, an
independent IPO expert,
explains how the final allot-
ment price is determined in
this case. “Once the subscrip-
tion period is over, the demand
and supply are taken into
account and the price at which
maximum demand has come
becomes the cut-off price.”
He suggests, that investors
place bids at the highest price
MINT
(after accounting for the dis-
count) to maximize their
chance of getting an allotment.
Retail investors and eligible
LIC employees are being
offered a discount of ₹45 per
share for bidding in their
respective reserved portions.
Eligible LIC policyholders will
get a discount of ₹60 per share
around ₹57 lakh in fixed
deposits (FDs), including
one with a cooperative soci-
You can consider taking a
housing loan for a longer ten-
ety. I get around ₹50,000 ure. For a housing loan of ₹30
for bidding in the portion remaining shares, if any, in the income from these every lakh with 20 years repayment
reserved for them. If you fall retail portion will be allotted month. tenure and 6.7% interest rate,
under any of these categories, proportionately. My monthly expenses ASK MINT the EMI comes to ₹22,722 per
m
you can apply for shares in mul- Multiple categories include investments in gold FINANCIAL PLANNING month. However, you can pay
tiples of 15, such that the bid While most people may be savings plan, and chit funds. ₹25,000 per month easily, so
amount does not exceed ₹2 able to apply for the LIC IPO I need ₹30-40 lakh in the you may consider a 15-year ten-
lakh (net of discount). only under one of the catego- next two years for my son’s funds as well as balanced ure where the EMI is ₹26,465.
Basis of allotment ries, if you happen to be con- marriage. How do I achieve advantage funds with the total You also need to take in
As per the LIC nected with LIC— a corpus of ₹75 lakh after 6 equity holding not exceeding account that the interest rates
red herring pro- Policyholders of as an employee or -7 years? 10% to start with. may rise with rising inflation
spectus, employ- LIC will get a policyholder or — Name withheld on request This will also ensure that you and hence your EMI may also
ees, policyholders discount of ₹60 both—you can be are able to achieve your tar- increase. You should factor the
and non-institu- per share for an applicant Your current investments geted corpus after a few years. same before deciding the
tional bidders period of repayment. And in
bidding under the under three sepa- are all debt-based asset classes. Your total investible corpus is
(bids of ₹2 lakh rate categories, if The investments mainly are in ₹96 lakh and your monthly case you have any funds accu-
and a b o v e , portion reserved you want. That is, sovereign/government debt in pension more or less takes care mulated in between, you may
includes HNIs) for them you can place a bid addition to FDs. It is recom- of your expenses, not including consider repaying the housing
will be allotted under the por- mended that you review the PPF, NPS, or gold savings plan. loan debt.
shares on a pro- tions reserved for society FD primarily from the Hence you do not need to with- Surya Bhatia is managing
portionate basis. Except for in employees, policyholders and credit rating and risk aspect. draw from your investible sur- partner of Asset Managers.
case of under subscription, the retail or non-institutional The same holds true for your plus and instead let the corpus
value of shares allocated to an investors (one of the two). Note chit fund investments. accumulate. Do you have a personal
employee or a policyholder will that, if you make an application Alternatively, you may con- finance query? Send in your
not exceed ₹2 lakh. both under the retail and non- sider adding equity-based MFs I am 29 and earn ₹81,000 queries at
Retail investors will be allot- institutional portion, they will to your portfolio. The alloca- per month. I plan to buy a mintmoney@livemint.com
and get them answered by
ted not less than 15 shares each, be considered as multiple bids tion to the equity holdings can house for which I need to
industry experts.
subject to availability. The and both will get rejected. be started small via debt hybrid take a home loan of ₹30

WHAT BORROWERS CAN DO TO TACKLE THE RISING INTEREST RATES ON LOANS

Non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) use prime lending calculation, let’s say you chose to increase your EMI to ₹50,000.
rates. Today, repo-linked loans are the cheapest. But only banks This slashes your loan from 240 months to 148. It also cuts your
POWER provide them. You could refinance your loan from bank to bank,
NBFC to bank, or bank to NBFC. The choice is yours. Do a cost-
interest down to ₹23.68 lakh. This is a powerful option.
Smart prepayments
POINT benefit analysis of each option. A one-time lump-sum prepayment erases the added interest
Refinancing happens in two different ways. Firstly, you can ask from the rate rise. For example, if your ₹50 lakh loan for 20 years
ADHIL SHETTY your own lender to lower your rate. You’ll need to pay a small pro- has a rate hike of 25 basis points to 7.25%, your interest increases
cessing fee — typically, a few thousand rupees. One of two things to ₹44.84 lakh. It also adds 11 EMIs to the loan. But an immediate
We welcome your views and comments at may happen here. One, you’ll get a lower rate if your loan is with an bullet payment of ₹1 lakh erases the
mintmoney@livemint.com NBFC but your benchmark is unchanged. Or two, you may get A one-time additional EMIs.
moved to a repo loan with a lower rate, if your loan is with a bank. lump-sum pre- The other option is to prepay system-

H
ome loan rates have started rising. Experts believe interest
rates may rise by as much as 200 basis points in two years.
As this happens, your home loan tenure and your interest
burden will increase. However, small tweaks to your payment plan
can ensure your loan doesn’t drag on and you become debt-free on
time.
Here are some things you can do now to make it happen. For
illustrative purposes, the sample numbers we’ll use here are as fol-
lows—a loan of ₹50 lakh at 7% for 20 years, where the EMI is
₹38,765 and the interest is ₹43.03 lakh.
Refinancing your loan
Firstly, understand your loan benchmark. Every loan has one.
The benchmark is the lowest rate at which a loan can be given.
Most bank loans since October 2019 are linked to the repo rate.
Loans from before that time since April 2016 are linked to the
MCLR. Before that, it was the base rate.
You can refinance even if the difference between rates is low — say,
25 basis points. Refinancing the above loan to 6.75% for 20 years
reduces the interest to ₹41.24 lakh. This, therefore, cushions you
against a rate hike temporarily.
Secondly, refinancing can also be done by transferring your loan
to another lender offering you better terms. This is called a loan
balance transfer. It involves more paperwork and has higher costs.
You will need to pay processing fees, legal fees, and mortgage reg-
istration fees. Typically, these costs are between 0.5% to 1% of the
loan. A transfer is sensible when the difference in rates is sizea-
ble— say, 50 basis points or more — and when you’re closer to the
start of your loan tenure than its end.
Increasing your EMIs
When you refinance, you may have the benefit of a lower EMI.
This sounds useful and leaves you with a higher disposable income.
But consider the alternative. You could keep your older, higher
atically. We believe the optimal prepay-
payment erases ment for a home loan is 5% of your loan
the added balance once every 12 months. This
interest from method helps pay off a 20-year loan in
the rate rise around 12 years assuming a constant
rate. This is optimal. You could always
go faster if you want to. The idea is to
EMI. This helps pay off the loan faster. In the above example loan use more of your savings for investing and wealth creation.
of ₹50 lakh, your EMI is ₹38,764 at 7% and ₹38,108 at 6.75%. If you A combination of the above options will also help. What you
refinance to 6.75% but pay the original EMI (basically, ₹656 more mustn’t do is not act. That would increase your interest substan-
per month), it shaves off eight EMIs from the loan and reduces your tially.
interest to ₹39.57 lakh. In a worst-case scenario, if your 7% loan went to 9% in two years,
The higher EMIs essentially provide you with micro pre-pay- you could be staring at over 100 additional EMIs. These could
ments, helping you bypass the requirement that the pre-payment become barriers to the fulfillment of aspirations such as retirement
needs to be at least one EMI’s worth. As your disposable income or children’s education. You wouldn’t want that.
increases with time, you can pay higher EMIs. In the above 6.75% Adhil Shetty is CEO, BankBazaar.com.
16 FRIDAY, 6 MAY 2022
NEW DELHI VIEWS LIVEMINT.COM

OUR VIEW MY VIEW | FARM TRUTHS

AFP

Statistics of poverty suffer from

the country’s poverty of statistics
India’s lack of official data for estimates could impair policy formulation and thus hurt the economy

variation is an indicator of the state of
affairs in poverty measurement. The
differences in poverty estimates are due
to the measure of income/consumption
used as much as their choice of poverty
lines. While Subramanian used leaked
NSO data on consumption, Mehrotra
and Parida used a short consumption
question in NSO’s job surveys. Roy and
HIMANSHU Weide used the Consumer Pyramid
is associate professor at Jawaharlal Nehru Household Survey of the Centre for
University and visiting fellow at the Centre Monitoring Indian Economy, with some
de Sciences Humaines, New Delhi adjustment. Bhalla, Bhasin and Virmani
have used the private final consumption
is the loss of reliable data and a yardstick
to measure poverty and inequality after
2011-12. Until then, the responsibility of
providing official poverty estimates
based on comparable and acceptable
criteria was the government’s, in partic-
ular the erstwhile Planning Commission.
Panels would regularly define and
update our poverty line for use with NSO
data, all of which was freely available,
allowing for a healthy debate on poverty.
Indeed, India can rightfully claim to be a
pioneer in poverty studies as well as
household consumption surveys, which

Americans can’t afford

expenditure (PFCE) estimate of National were acclaimed and adapted by such
Accounts to create a series. The only one agencies as the World Bank.

T
wo different sets of poverty esti- that’s different here is the estimate by We are now in a situation where the
mates for India were released Bhalla, Bhasin and Virmani which does last consumption survey of 2017-18 was
recently. One of the papers was not use a household survey; this is the abruptly junked without any official

to forfeit a basic liberty authored by Surjit Bhalla, Karan Bhasin

and Arvind Virmani and the second by
Sutirtha Roy and Roy Weide, both affili-
ated to the World Bank. Both presented
old method that Bhalla has been advo-
cating without success, given the non-
comparability of National Accounts data
with survey data. Differences also arise
study or abnormality findings being
made public. Even for committees that
defined poverty line, the last panel led by
C. Rangarajan has not seen any action by
estimates for roughly the same period, from the poverty line: Like Roy and the government though its report was
after 2011-12, but ended up at starkly dif- Weide, Bhalla, Bhasin and Virmani used submitted eight years ago.
America is out of step with a world moving towards liberal abortion laws. Whichever way ferent estimates of poverty and the mag- the $1.9 and $3.2 poverty line of the The absence of an official poverty
nitude of its decline. This is in contrast World Bank, while Subramanian and line and consumption data has forced
its top court leans, US politics must find a way to protect women’s reproductive autonomy with two earlier estimates, both of which Mehrotra and Parida used the official researchers to use alternative ways of
showed an increase in poverty after poverty lines by the Rangarajan and estimation. But this has created more
2011-12 using data on consumption Tendulkar committees, respectively. confusion than clarity on how hard-up
expenditure from the National Statistical This is not the place to examine the Indians have fared. The question is

L
essons in the frailty of hard-fought
freedoms are all around us. Even so, as
backslidings go, this is a shove down a
cliff. A leaked draft opinion reveals
that the US Supreme Court is close to
striking down Roe vs Wade, its 1973
ruling that gave American women the right to
access abortion services and has been in the
crosshairs of a strident conservative campaign
ever since. This might not be the court’s final
decision, though the skew of the bench, packed
as it is with conservative judges, suggests other-
wise. The draft is worrying on various counts.
There is no mention, it argues, of abortion in
the US Constitution, an odd contention since it
came into force in the 18th century, well before
American women had the right to vote. It claims
the “right to abortion is not deeply rooted in
the nation’s history and traditions” and so the
issue must be returned “to the people’s elected
representatives”. Such logic holds the present
ransom to a contentious past and throws funda-
mental freedoms of the individual in jeopardy
(ironically, in the name of democracy). If
firewall of Roe vs Wade, this is the nightmare Office (NSO), although from different merits and demerits of those estimates. important in normal times but more so
that awaits those who wish to medically termi- surveys. S. Subramanian presented his Part of the reason there are conflicting after the economy went through policy
estimates in 2019 using leaked data of estimates of poverty for the same period shocks such as demonetization and the
nate a pregnancy. That number is unlikely to go consumption expenditure from the GST roll-out and also natural calamities
down. For, this much has been proven over and 2017-18 survey which was junked by the such as the droughts of 2014-15 and the
over: a ban will not end abortions, only push government. On the other hand, Santosh covid pandemic. Poverty estimates are
them underground with dangerous implica- Mehrotra and Jajati Parida used con- QUICK READ not just an academic exercise but are
tions for women and their right to life. The blow sumption aggregates from the NSO’s crucial parameters to judge policy out-
employment surveys to arrive at broadly Estimates made by economists comes and the overall functioning of the
will fall harder on women from marginalized similar estimates as Subramanian of a of extreme poverty in India range government. Note that poverty statistics
groups and poor homes. Unwanted pregnan- rise in poverty after 2011-12. from barely 3% to over a third continue to be used for allocations under
cies could push women out of education and Putting it all together, one gets esti- of our population, a variation so various government programmes and
the job market—and into poverty. By giving in mates of poverty ranging from 2.9% vast that we have only a hazy notably for the distribution of resources,
to the religious right, America is out of step by Bhalla, Bhasin and Virmani to 13.6% picture of the real state of affairs. financial and otherwise, across states.
by Roy and Weide, 25.9% by Mehrotra Poverty and income distribution are
with the rest of the world. A Catholic nation and Parida and 35.1% by Subramanian. It’s unfortunate that for the issues for public discussion as much as
like Ireland voted in 2018 to scrap its abortion Except for Mehrotra and Parida’s, whose past decade our statistical they are instruments of governance
ban. Most recently, Colombia decriminalized estimates are for 2019-20, the rest are for system has been unable to and public policy for an economy which
abortion till 24 weeks; Mexico has eased up too. 2017-18. Clearly, the variation is too vast. provide data that can reliably still has a substantial population that’s
Closer home, India has had a far more progres- The reality doesn’t change irrespective be used as a policy input in a financially vulnerable even if not
of the way poverty is measured, but that country of evident indigence. officially poor.
sive record on abortion. The Medical Termina-
tion of Pregnancy (MTP) Act was passed in 1971
as an exception to Section 312 of the Indian
Penal Code that criminalizes abortion. It
allowed a termination of pregnancy up to 20
weeks in a wide range of situations: if it involves
risk to the mother or child; and if it is a result of www.livemint.com New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Chandigarh*, Pune* Saturday, May 5, 2012 Vol.5 No.106 `5.00 12 PAGES
16
+ 20 PAGES LOUNGE + 4 MARKETS PAGES

upheld, this might cast a shadow on other sexual assault or contraception failure in case of Q&A:Vaswani, Schuckenbrock,
on Dell’s services business >4
TECHNOLOGY: Facebook targets
$96 billion valuation >12

liberties—the right to use birth control or marry a married woman. Last year, the latter provision EXCLUSIVE PARTNER
MARKETS: Samvardhana withdraws
$311 million IPO on poor demand >10
ENERGY: Oil dives $4 on weak
economic sentiment >12

people of the same gender—that stem, like was extended to unwed women too, even as it SENSEX 16,831.08 æ 320.11

Govt looks
NIFTY 5,086.85 æ 101.55

EXTERNAL PRESSURES
DOLLAR `53.47 Æ `0.06 EURO `70.44 Æ `0.31

Bayer appeals
GOLD `29,210 æ `100 OIL $112.11 æ $4.29

QUICK EDIT
Corporate culture is the
set to enter
Rupee slumps on against Policy

Roe vs Wade, from the right to privacy and find offered a 24-week MTP window, provided it has arbitration
with RIL
B Y A MAN M ALIK
A VEEK D ATTA
&

trade deficit scare

compulsory
licence order
B Y C .H . U NNIKRISHNAN
ch.unni@livemint.com
no explicit mention in the Constitution. the sign-on of two doctors. While we can surely
························· ·························
NEW DELHI/MUMBAI MUMBAI
panacea
T he release of a
district collector in
Chhattisgarh, who had
been kidnapped by
only sustainable competitive
Maoists, has led to calls
for a “national policy”

T he government looks set to

enter arbitration proceed- Worsening economic G erman drug maker Bayer
HealthCare AG has ap-
on hostages. Such a
policy is unlikely to work.
ings with Mukesh Ambani-con- fundamentals take THREAT TO GROWTH pealed against the compulsory Given the current

advantage that is completely

trolled Reliance Industries Ltd
(RIL), its British partner BP Plc,
Hardy Oil and Gas Plc and a
subsidiary of Canadian joint
licence granted to Natco Phar- political climate in India,
their toll on currency, A falling rupee and On inverse scale 44
ma Ltd to manufacture and even if such a policy were
threaten to undermine burgeoning trade market cancer drug Nexavar by to be adopted, there will
deficit are putting India’s Controller General of be no will to implement
India’s growth

Most Americans are against overturning the do more—notably, it’s still not an unqualified
venture partner Niko Resources
Ltd regarding the dispute over
the recovery of costs for devel-
oping gas fields in the Krishna-
Godavari (KG) basin.
The government on Thursday
served RIL a notice for recover-
B Y A SIT R ANJAN M ISHRA
B LOOMBERG
·························
NEW DELHI
additional pressure Patents. Bayer filed its appeal it, unless—of course—the
on India’s external at the country’s Intellectual option is to exchange
& Property Appellate Board on kidnapped persons with
economy. Friday. criminals. Most states
The country’s patent office adopt this path of
44.762 46
had, in a landmark decision in political least resistance.

T he rupee fell precarious- March, granted a licence to That, however, is not

within the control of

ing $1.46 billion (`7,840 crore ly close to the psycho- Hyderabad-based Natco to the only problem.
today) from the company for logical level of 54 per As a % of GDP make and sell a copy of Bayer’s Hostage-taking situations

1973 judgement, as several opinion polls show. right—it is not policy but the paucity of health
falling gas output from the oil-
field. RIL has already recovered
$5.258 billion in development
costs from the Dhirubhai-1 and
3 (D1 & D3) gas fields in KG-
DWN-98/3 (KG D6).
A senior government official
with direct knowledge of the
matter confirmed that the no-
dollar on Friday in its worst liver and kidney cancer medi- can vary tremendously.
weekly decline in more than a 12
cine on the ground that the Political conditions,
month, as concerns over a re- 10.7 Rupee/$ 48
drug patented by Bayer was geographic terrain,
cord trade deficit, which wid- Trade not fully accessible to local pa- states’ capability to
ened to 10.9% of gross domes- 10
deficit tients because of its cost and maintain law and order,
tic product (GDP) in the last other reasons. and stomach for tough
fiscal, and deteriorating eco- “We strongly disagree with decisions vary a great
nomic fundamentals take their 8
the conclusions of the Patent deal. A uniform,
toll on the currency and Controller of India and have countrywide policy is

But a hardline “pro-life” campaign has steadily infrastructure that restricts women’s access.
tice had been sent, but said that
technically arbitration can only
begin once RIL objects to the
notice.
“In effect, yes, the situation
now calls for arbitration. But
that can only happen once RIL
formally objects to our notice.
Till that happens, we are not
the entrepreneur.
threaten to undermine India’s 6.5 appealed his order with the In- likely to create more
50
growth story. 6
tellectual Property Appellate problems than solutions.
The Indian currency de- Board,” said a Bayer India Policies don’t exist in a
clined 1.7% this week to 53.475 4 spokesperson. vacuum. Maoists are sure
per dollar, the biggest drop 4
The compulsory licensing to react in a dynamic
since the trading week ended decision, the first in the coun- fashion to such a policy
23 March, according to data try, met with mixed reactions. by exploiting its
compiled by Bloomberg. It 2
weaknesses.
52
touched 53.9225 earlier on Fri- TURN TO PAGE 3®

eroded the reproductive rights of women in In America’s polarized political arena, the
1
formally in any dispute with the day, the lowest level since 15 Current
company,” said this official, who December, when the currency account deficit
did not want to be identified. fell to a record 54.305. On Fri-
0
53.475
The D1 and D3 fields are pro- day, the currency pared losses 2006-07 2008-09 2010-11 2012-13 WEB 2.0
ducing about 27.5 million stan- to 0.1%, after falling as much
dard cubic metres per day (msc-
md) of gas, against a commit-
ment of 61.88 mscmd.
as 1% earlier in the day, on
suspected dollar selling by the
Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Note: Trade deficit for 2012-13 and
current account deficit for 2011-12 and
5 May
2011
4 May
2012
54
Who says slideshows
RIL fell 1.68% on BSE on Fri- One-month implied volatili-
don’t make money?
2012-13 are projections by Citigroup.

many states. Around 12 Republican-ruled states Republican offensive on abortion has sought to
day to close at `726.45. The
benchmark Sensex lost 1.87% to
end at 16,831.08 points.
The government’s “wrongful
Source: Bloomberg, Citigroup, Mint research
ty for the rupee, a measure of
SANDEEP BHATNAGAR/MINT
exchange rate swings used to
price options, rose 1.4 percent-
age points to 11% on Friday.
Reserve Bank steps B Y L ESLIE D ’M ONTE

DAV I D C U MMI N G S
denial” of cost recovery was That’s the biggest increase leslie.d@livemint.com
“unwarranted and violative of since 22 November. Stocks fell ·························

in to shore up rupee
the PSC” (production-sharing the most in Asia, with BSE’s MUMBAI

contract), RIL told BSE late on

Friday evening. “These issues
benchmark Sensex index fall-
ing 1.9% to below the psycho- I f the first dot-com boom
helped Sabeer Bhatia make

last year passed anti-abortion legislation; most rally a radical base of voters. Whichever way the
will be resolved through arbitra-
tion process..., which has been
initiated by RIL. RIL continues
to maintain that a contractor is
entitled to recover all of its costs
under the terms of the PSC, and
there are no provisions that en-
title the government to disallow
logical level of 17,000 at
16,831.08 points, the lowest
since 23 January.
As imports, led by oil and
gold, outpaced exports, India’s
trade gap widened to an all-
time high of $184.9 billion
(around `10 trillion today) in
millions by selling the free
B Y J OEL R EBELLO & central bank said. Web-based email service Hot-
A NUP R OY The interest rate ceiling mail to Microsoft Corp., and
······················· on foreign currency non- Rajesh Jain make a small for-
MUMBAI resident, or FCNR (B), de- tune selling his India World
T he Reserve Bank of In-
dia (RBI) introduced
fresh measures on Friday to
posits of banks has also
been raised from 125 bps
above Libor to 200 bps for a
portal to Sify Technologies Ltd,
the Web 2.0 explosion of social
media companies is helping

did not even provide exemptions for rape or ruling goes, much will hinge on the Democratic
recovery of any contract cost as
defined in the PSC.”
The company last year of-
floaded 30% of its stake in 21 hy-
drocarbon blocks, including D6,
to London-based BP for $7.2 bil-
lion.
“RIL as operator has initiated
arbitration proceedings with the
the fiscal year ended 31 March,
according to data released on
Tuesday, reflecting mounting
risks in the external sector. A
depreciating currency raises
the cost of imports, pushing up
prices in the domestic econo-
my.
Concerns about Asia’s third
attract foreign exchange in- maturity of one year to less some Indian entrepreneurs
flows to the country and ar- than three years, and to 300 harness the power of, and
rest the rupee’s rapid fall bps above Libor for three- make money from, the Internet
against the US dollar. five years. Libor is the inter- once again.
In a late Friday announce- national interbank refer- Just last month, the world’s
ment, RBI allowed banks to ence rate for lending. largest social media website
set their own interest rate “The above measures are Facebook acquired Indian en-
on lines of credit to export- aimed at augmenting for- trepreneur Abheek Anand’s Presentations matter: Rashmi
ers, removing the ceiling of eign currency inflows to start-up Tagtile for an undis- Sinha, SlideShare’s CEO and

incest. One sought to punish doctors who per- will to wrest back that right. A country that calls
government of India on this
matter, and BP is fully aware of
this. We believe that these pro-
ceedings and discussions be-
tween RIL and the government
should bring clarity on the issue
of cost recovery pertaining to
the KG D6 block,” an India-
based BP spokesperson told
largest economy prompted
Standard and Poor’s (S&P) to
revise its credit rating outlook
on India to negative from sta-
ble on 25 April. Investors have
also been fretting about gov-
ernment proposals for retro-
spective taxation of foreign in-
vestors.
Libor (London interbank of- banks, which in turn would closed sum, days after it one of its three co-founders.
fered rate) plus 350 basis facilitate their foreign cur- bought photo-sharing service
points (bps). A basis point is rency loans to exporters,” Instagram for $1 billion strategy and design; and Amit
one-hundredth of a per- RBI said, adding that the (around `5,370 crore today). Ranjan, its Delhi-based chief
centage point. new norms will come into On 3 May, the world’s largest operating officer, who focuses
“The ceiling rate on ex- effect on Saturday. professional network on the on product management, con-
port credit in foreign cur- FCNR (B) deposits are for- Internet, LinkedIn—with 161 tent and community. Jonathan
rency, which was constrain- eign currency deposits de- million members world- Boutelle is the third co-found-
ing the availability of credit nominated in US dollars, wide—said it agreed to acquire er and chief technology officer

form abortions. Another barred women from itself the ‘leader of the free world’ cannot afford
Mint in an emailed response.
TURN TO PAGE 3®
Mint is also available for R9.50 with
Hindustan Times under a combo offer
In Manila for Asian Develop-
ment Bank meetings, finance
minister Pranab Mukherjee
blamed volatility in global
TURN TO PAGE 3®
to exporters in foreign cur- euros, pounds, Canadian SlideShare Inc., a leading pro- of SlideShare.
rency, has been deregulated dollars, Australian dollars fessional content-sharing Founded in October 2006,
by allowing banks to freely and yen, held in Indian community that was co-found- SlideShare users, according to
determine their interest ed by two Indians: Rashmi Sin- a company statement, have
rates on such credit,” the TURN TO PAGE 3® ha, its chief executive officer
(CEO), who focuses on product TURN TO PAGE 2®

procuring abortion pills by mail. Without the to forfeit such a basic freedom.

MY VIEW | MUSING MACRO

We should watch out for a silent build-up of bad assets

or loan guarantees, or some loan restructur-
AJIT RANADE ing. The fiscal restraint on display then did
not prevent the fiscal deficit from hitting
9.5% of GDP during fiscal 2020-21. With loss
of incomes and livelihoods, it was no surprise
that there was initially lukewarm demand
Stability Report (FSR) had forecast a scenario 2021, for which it was not hauled up as per MPC has abruptly raised rates and the cash
of 13.5% as gross NPAs by September of the the contract of the targeting regime. In fact, reserve ratio, removing nearly 12% of market
following year, even rising to 14.8% under there was also an RBI research report which liquidity.
severe stress conditions. Naturally, there recommended that the MPC “failure” rule Its action came just hours before a 50 basis
was great anxiety about asset quality, loan be extended to four successive quarters of points rate hike by the US Federal reserve.
recovery possibilities, survival of businesses missing the target, rather than three. The Much has been written about the shadow of

T
he Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has the
unenviable job of choosing to fight
inflation or promote economic growth.
In the era of multi-objective multi-instru-
ment monetary policymaking, there was an
inbuilt trade-off in the objectives. The trade-
off might not have been fully transparent, but
by and large, there was enough manoeuvring
room. Since 2016, we have had the Monetary
is a Pune-based economist Policy Committee (MPC) regime, with a sin-
gle mandate of targeting inflation to keep it
between 2% and 6%. This is as per a contract
between the central bank and the govern-
ment. Failure to meet this flexible target for
three successive quarters calls for the offend-
ing party (i.e., the MPC or RBI itself) to
explain the failure. The MPC has been ultra-
accommodative for nearly four years, since
much before the pandemic’s onset. During
the worst phase of the pandemic, monetary
policy was used to the hilt. The Prime Minis-
ter’s Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan relief
package, placed at 10% of India’s GDP, was
nearly all in terms of either liquidity injection
from small entrepreneurs for state-guaran-
teed loans. It took a while for credit offtake
under the Emergency Credit Line Guarantee
Scheme (ECLGS) to cross ₹2 trillion. With
hindsight, that is not surprising. When busi-
ness comes to a halt, a fresh loan, even if guar-
anteed partially by the government, is hardly
the top priority.
RBI additionally also imposed a morato-
rium on loan repayments, giving extra relief
through regulatory forbearance. Major loan
restructuring was offered via the Kamath
committee, for sectors particularly harshly
affected by the pandemic. The moratorium
had a perverse impact on the reported extent
of bad loans, or the ratio of non-performing
assets (NPAs). The banking sector’s gross
NPA ratio declined from 7.3% in March to
6.9% in September 2021. This was not
merely because of better recoveries. It was
partly the impact of relaxed regulatory
norms that allowed leeway in not classifying
loans as NPAs. We should remember that
back in December 2020, RBI’s Financial
badly hit by the pandemic and labour market low-rate stance of the MPC was merrily stagflation in the Western world and dismay
prospects. By July 2021, the revised forecast cheered by stock and bond markets, and over the unending war in Europe. The world
as per the FSR was more optimistic than RBI’s statement about doing “whatever it is also struggling with mounting sovereign
before, but still saw the NPA ratio going up takes” for liquidity support was music to debts, with countries like Sri Lanka and
from 7.5% to 10% by March 2022, and 11.2% their ears. Ghana at the brink of default and bank-
under severe stress. So, the FSR was being a For quite a while, our wholesale price ruptcy. Since 2008, we have seen massive
conscience keeper cautioning us about the index (WPI) based inflation has been much money expansion and a rising mountain of
true health of corporates, higher than consumer debt, and it has not been clear how all this
small businesses and price index (CPI) infla- will unwind, short of outright defaults and
retail buyers, despite QUICK READ tion, the latter being the repudiation, even by sovereigns.
others predicting a MPC’s target mandate. What also needs urgent attention in the
V-shaped recovery. Banks’ gross NPA ratio decline Surely, the 14% plus infla- Indian context is a build-up of NPAs. The
Not surprisingly, the of 2021 was not just because of tion rate of commodities large amount of write-offs, healthy tax col-
MPC kept its monetary better recoveries but partly as captured by the WPI lections and handsome corporate profits of
stance accommodative thanks to relaxed regulatory would eventually slip into the last quarter should not make us compla-
all through. Concerns norms that offered them leeway retail prices, would it not? cent over hidden and growing NPAs.
about a weak recovery not to classify loans as such. And finally, amid the The time for regulatory forbearance is
were seen to override war in Ukraine, contin- over and lessons from the ILFS collapse
worrying signals on the As credit conditions have been ued supply chain disrup- should not be forgotten. The MPC’s actions
inflation front. Oh, don’t far from normal, we must resist tions (partly caused by will of course increase interest burdens and
forget that the MPC complacency over hidden NPAs lockdowns in major Chi- add to stress on loan repayments. Hence it is
overshot its inflation tar- and take a close look at the nese cities) and a global imperative that we urgently and dispassion-
get in most of the 12 books of banks to spot such rot oil price that threatens to ately examine the books of banks to spot the
months prior to April before it turns into another crisis. remain in three digits, the rot before it grows into another crisis.
LIVEMINT.COM VIEWS FRIDAY, 6 MAY 2022
NEW DELHI 17

THEIR VIEW M I N T C U R AT O R

Inflation and what to do about it: RBI would need to raise rates
further to regain its credibility
Secure cheap Russian oil at least Its sharp rate hike of 4 May should be followed by more tightening

A parallel focus on headline and core inflation will give us a better grasp of what monetary policy can achieve in tough times

REUTERS

ANDY MUKHERJEE
is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist.

INDIRA RAJARAMAN
is an economist

I
n trying to squeeze one last drop of out-
put from an empty barrel of monetary
elixir, India’s central bank made the

W
hen headline inflation by the
Consumer Price Index (CPI)
printed on 12 April 2022 at
6.95% year-on-year (yoy) for
March, people did not need
the reading to know inflation
was on. Not surprisingly, an off-cycle monetary
policy announcement on 4 May hiked the repo and
all associated absorption and injection rates by
0.4%, along with more direct liquidity draining
measures.
The price rise is largely driven by the non-core
elements (subject to exogenous forces, less
amenable to domestic policy) in the retail
consumption basket. The standard non-core
elements deducted to obtain core inflation (head-
line minus non-core) are food (the Consumer
Food Price Index, CFPI, rose to 7.68% for March
from 5.85% in February) and fuel. It is useful at all
times to retain a parallel focus on core inflation. Of
course, core inflation is affected by the non-core,
especially fuel as a universal intermediate, along
with other intermediates currently driving the
core, like steel.
Today, even the food element in the non-core
is being driven up both by primary global supply
shortages and the rise in the fuel cost of transport-
ing food. The key, therefore, is the cost of fuel.
Indian diplomacy was credited with having
achieved access to Russian crude oil in the face of
sanctions, reportedly on offer at a discount of
$20-30 per barrel. That held out a promise of
inflation control without heavy dependence on
the more indirect route of monetary contraction.
Sadly, however, it looks as though we will not
reap that bonanza any time soon. A Bloomberg
article authored by Serene Cheong and Debjit
Chakraborty identifies the problem as the way
Indian oil refineries source crude oil—by a call for
tenders from trader intermediaries, few enough
in number to form oligarchies which collude on
prices. The deep discounts on Russian crude are
reportedly being pocketed by those traders, while
refineries continue to pay what might at best be a
marginally discounted price.
Chinese state-owned refineries are reported to
have their own trading arms, which scour the
globe in search of the best deals. We in India opt
for the greater amenability to vigilance of the
tendering process, which can work well in stable
times, but carries a huge cost at times like the
present.
The oligarchic hold of intermediaries in the
global market for oil is of a piece with what I dis-
covered during past research on international
trade in coffee and cocoa. Economists laud the
benefits of trade, among other reasons on the pre-
sumption that competition self-regulates prices,
but that is far from the reality. Global markets for
serious mistake of not only ignoring the RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das may have a
country’s inflation build-up, [in evidence long slog ahead against inflation MINT
for quite some time], but pretending that
it didn’t exist. Now that the Reserve Bank Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s gov-
of India (RBI) has surprised markets with ernment would not like short-term rates
an unscheduled 40 basis point increase in to go up all the way to 6.25% because that
its benchmark interest rate, the so-called could mean long-term sovereign bond
repo rate, the journey to recoup its lost yields of 8% or more, something India
credibility is finally underway. Chances, hasn’t seen on a sustained basis since the
however, are that it will be a hard slog for aftermath of the 2013 taper tantrum. (The
RBI. While a campaign of tightening mon- 10-year yield surged to almost 7.4% after
etary policy is unavoidable under the RBI’s unexpected move on Wednesday.)
country’s economic circumstances, the Higher interest rates from her onwards
longer it goes on, the more it could annoy may complicate the financing of a record
Indian politicians. $200 billion government borrowing pro-
Even the US Federal Reserve seriously gramme, bigger than even in the first year
underestimated the risk of inflation last of the pandemic.
year, and has to play catch-up. [It raised its Costlier capital could also pour cold
main policy rate by 50 basis points hours water on a recovery in private investment
after RBI’s rate hike on Wednesday]. that policymakers have been desperately
RBI’s policy errors are more recent. The waiting for.
central bank blew its February meeting by It’s catch-22. Trying to stoke weak
projecting price increases for the financial demand with artificially low rates could
year ending on 31 March 2023 at a benign have eventually threatened external sta-
4.5%. The central bank’s monetary policy bility. Foreign investors have pulled out
primary commodities are characterized by power- Over the 10 months from June 2021 to March committee (MPC) put its faith behind that more than $17 billion so far this year from
ful price-maker intermediaries. 2022, uncontaminated by lockdown data issues, cheery forecast even though the Indian the Indian equity market. The country’s
In the current situation, the limited access to average monthly inflation in the FL group was bond market didn’t believe it: Private-sec- $600 billion in foreign-exchange reserves
Russian crude exacerbates matters. However, 11.58 %. The average for conveyance fuel was tor estimates were by then already starting may shield its currency this time around
other traders are reported to be trying to work 19.85%. And yet this is included in the core as cur- to coalesce around the top end of the cen- from the sort of intense selling pressure it
their way around the sanctions. Eventually a larger rently measured. Inflation in the FL group is much tral bank’s 2%-6% target inflation range. witnessed after the Fed’s 2013 taper. Even
piece of the Russian price discount may reach lower because two-thirds of the weight is taken by Still, market traders took the official fore- so, a widening current account deficit,
Indian refineries. That will take electricity (administered prices) cast as a signal that RBI was going to combined with RBI’s reluctance (till this
time, however. and firewood. ignore price pressures just to keep bor- week) to raise policy rates, hasn’t exactly
The direct impact of fuel oil QUICK READ Core inflation as currently rowing costs low for the Union govern- inspired confidence in rupee assets.
and food on headline inflation is (and wrongly) measured, aver- ment and give a helping hand to a still-in- The Nifty index of top 50 stocks was
a function of their weight in the The cost of fuel has been a major aged 5.98% over that June to complete recovery from the ravages of the trading at 22 times forward earnings at the
retail consumer basket. In India, driver of inflation but the hope March period. The revised core covid pandemic. start of the year; that valuation has since
these are presently taken as the that Russian oil supplies at deep excluding fuel in all its uses aver- However, by the time India’s February shrunk to 19 times earnings. Yet, [going by
weight of the food and beverages discounts would take some ages 5.41%. It still includes the inflation reading came in at 6.1%—higher net equity-market outflows since Octo-
group (FB, 45.86 %) and fuel and burden off monetary action has indirect impact of fuel through than the previous month’s 6% and outside ber], global investors are refusing to bite.
light (FL, 6.84 %). That leaves a turned into a disappointment. transportation, which is set to go the tolerance range—Russia’s invasion of Inflation hurts the poor and the middle-
core with a weight of 47.3 %. In up further, as auto and taxi fares Ukraine had begun. If RBI was behind the class more than it affects the rich. It also
March 2022, when headline The oligarchic hold of powerful are adjusted upwards, and as curve before the war, it wasn’t close to squeezes smaller businesses that aren’t
inflation stood at 6.95%, core intermediaries in the global oil costs of transporting all goods being on the right route after it. able to absorb higher commodity costs the
inflation measured that way market may have squeezed spirals their prices up further. It After consumer prices rose nearly 7% same way that large companies can by sac-
stood at 6.37%. the relief we’d expected but will also reflect the price rise in from a year earlier in March, Nomura rificing overheads.
But the FL group includes fuel perhaps efforts could yet be intermediates like steel, as also Holdings raised its forecast for rate Many of India’s small- and mid-sized
only as used for cooking and light- made to get truly cheap deals. the impact of the Shanghai lock- increases by the third quarter of 2023 to enterprises have only survived the pan-
ing. Fuel directly bought by the down on prices of active phar- 200 basis points, up from its previous esti- demic with the help of government-guar-
consumer for conveyance (petrol, diesel) is listed in maceutical ingredients (APIs) and a whole host of mate of 150. The terminal rate for RBI’s anteed emergency loans. Now that RBI
the transportation group. It should rightly have other inputs in the global supply chain. Not to repo rate would be 6%, economists Sonal has stopped being in denial about the
been included in the FL group, since what matters mention semi-conductors and fertilizer. But it Varma and Aurodeep Nandi said. After country’s price trajectory, the more vul-
is the direct purchase of that item by the consumer gives us inflation shorn of the direct impact of food Wednesday’s increase, which took the nerable producers and consumers will
regardless of the uses to which it is put. Doing that and fuel inflation, and that is what a core measure Indian benchmark rate to 4.4%, Nomura expect it not to stop prematurely. Let the
adjustment, the (revised) weight of the fuel group is supposed to do. changed its terminal rate estimate to government do its best to protect growth
goes up by an additional 2.385%, and the weight of Both headline and core will benefit enormously 6.25% by the second quarter of next year. while managing its finances. India’s cen-
the core correspondingly goes down from 47.3% to if we manage to secure those large discounts on The longer you delay normalization, the tral bank must go back to fulfilling its
44.9%. Russian crude. more of it you end up doing. inflation mandate. Bloomberg

MY VIEW | PEN DRIVE

The cliques of India Inc are perpetuators of exclusion

at par with them, I will probably not join this
DEVINA SENGUPTA FMCG firm because the preference for that
alumni base is too strong. I will get stuck
later,” confided a senior Human Resources
executive who had been approached by the
company for a job.
India Inc’s biases are part of a global phe- ment at a lateral level. “A senior executive in favoured the candidate, but by the time he
nomenon. Similar parameters are reported a Gujarat-based firm was not hired because left the room, he had decided not to join.
to have formed a template in the West for of his ethnicity. The recruitment team “There were sweets distributed favouring a
judging candidates and colleagues. alerted us that though the candidate was a political outcome. I cannot be part of a firm
“The meetings take on a different tone if right fit, the hiring team was afraid he may like this where the biases are so out in the
we speak a shared language. We had a new not be received well by the client side,” said open. And this was a collective cheer, not

writes on workplaces and
education at Mint
W
hich batch?” are the two words
that determine career paths in
one of India’s top Mumbai-based
manufacturing firms. If you happen to be a
graduate from one of the Indian Institutes of
Management (IIMs), or from XLRI-Jam-
shedpur, then you could expect your career
to take a different trajectory. “The cliques in
that company are so strong that they even
fish out their colleagues and peers from the
same grade of B-schools and head out for
lunches together. If you want to head a busi-
ness there, then you must show pedigree
because a tier-II B-school won’t get you far,
irrespective of how good you are,” in the
words of a senior executive.
One of India’s largest consumer goods
companies is said to have an unofficial men-
torship programme for IIM graduates. The
seniors meet them after office hours and the
circles of kinship formed are tough to break
into. “I have a Pune university degree and
although I come with similar skill sets, earn
Many companies in India are seen to har-
bour unstated biases that cover a wide spec-
trum, from a preference for specific
B-school graduates to the open favouring of
particular communities. It isn’t corporate
policy, of course, and the job descriptions
never say so. Yet, recruiters in many cases
have got enough wind of it to know which
candidate would fit the bill and who will not
make the cut despite having the necessary
qualifications and attitudes towards work.
“It is especially stark in promoter-driven
companies. There is a whisper why a candi-
date won’t work. This can be traced to his or
her ethnicity and there is sometimes a nudge
towards getting another candidate who
shares similar cultural ties with the senior lot
in the firm,” according to a senior executive
at one of the country’s top search firms. “It is
not new, but these whispers are getting
louder, and if these companies become
myopic, they will get adversely impacted
soon,” the executive cautioned.
CEO, and within the next six months his another senior executive who worked in one man’s opinion in the meeting,”
entire new team came from the same that company at the time. recounted the marketing executive.
region. Soon, meetings were conducted in Typically, it is the tug and comfort of a Preferences are often revealed in the
their shared language, which though was shared identity that results in groupism and form of office ‘banter’ and remarks that are
understood by the old guard at a basic level,” creates workplace cliques. These are all the rarely escalated to the top. Many insiders at
said a senior executive in a Mumbai- based more unsettling for a newcomer because firms have said that such talk gets shrugged
electronics company. entry to such clubs is not off while those at whom casual barbs are
“You cannot argue in a open to those who spend aimed get little support from colleagues.
language you do not QUICK READ time and learn the ropes, The galling part of all this is that unlike
know,” she added. “The but is effectively reserved gender biases, these bonds of kinship stay
result was that others Many companies in India are for candidates with pre- mostly unspoken and often run too deep to
who did not share a simi- seen to harbour unstated biases defined educational weaken. The idea of an ‘old boys’ club’
lar cultural tie seemed that cover a wide spectrum degrees and socio-cul- doesn’t attract the opprobrium it deserves.
lost and many felt from a preference for specific tural backgrounds, which Bias acceptance makes space for stray com-
shunted out.” B-school grads to the favouring are factors that cannot be ments and targeted jokes that seem harm-
The impact of such of particular communities. changed. less to some but perpetuate exclusion.
exclusion is felt particu- A senior marketing The search firm senior executive quoted
larly hard by junior and Corporate cliques can be very executive was called for earlier said that recruiters can at best push
middle-order managers unsettling for newcomers as an interview at a retail the case of a deserving applicant, but the
who are trying to make a these clubs are not open to company for a post in the task of serving client needs quickly takes
mark. It starts at the those who spend time and learn country’s eastern region. precedence. “But we know it is the company
campus-hiring level or the ropes but go by parameters The role was good and that loses out if the grounds are such. It is
with middle manage- that cannot be changed. salary negotiations never the candidate,” he added.
18 FRIDAY, 6 MAY 2022
NEW DELHI BUSINESS OF LIFE INDULGE LIVEMINT.COM

Lexus tests market

for its electric SUV
The all-electric UX
300e is a compact
yet premium offering
and a mix of classic
Japanese luxury
and minimalism
Pavan Lall
feedback@livemint.com

O
verseas, Lexus, which is
owned by Toyota, ranks
alongside the likes of
Acura and Infinity, the
luxury brands of auto
majors Honda and Nissan respectively. It
is known for refined driving, luxury and
the best engineering and technology.
In the US market, the larger flagship
Lexus sedans, including the LS400, were
considered a better choice than German
luxury cars for a number of reasons. The
prime one was that they had all the pre-
mium features one wanted along with a
more practical price tag. And then, of
course, there was the exceptional hospi-
tality that customers received at Lexus
dealerships—rarely before had buyers
been treated like valued guest at a car
showroom. It all combined for a beautiful
experience that helped the brand grow.
While Lexus has planted its flag in
India, and sells four hybrid electric SUVs,
three electric hybrid sedans and half a
dozen other ICE-engine vehicles, such as
the RX, NX, LX and LC, its overall num-
bers are small. It is yet to create the mys-
tique that it has in other Asian markets in
order to drive sales and growth.
Lexus’ latest offering being showcased
in India, the UX 300e, is sharply designed,
compact and fitted with the right technol-
ogy. It brings to the driver that blend of
super-luxury and minimalism that only
Japanese brands have mastered. The car
is not yet up for sale but is being offered to
a few for test drives.
The dimensions and manoeuvrability
make it the perfect compact SUV for
Indian roads and traffic conditions as well
as a practical car if you drive yourself
around. The 17-inch alloy wheels (that
come with a repair kit) handle bumps well
as well as provide good ground clearance.
The UX 300e comes with many of the
bells and whistles common to all high-end
cars now—a seven-inch media screen with
a remote interface, reversing camera sys-
tems, front and rear parking sensors, and
headlights with automatic high beams. It
features ‘dynamic and active safety equip-
ment and features’, including vehicle sta-
bility control (VSC), active brake lights,
lane tracing assist (LTA), acoustic vehicle
alerting system (AVAS) and electronically
controlled braking regeneration. Other-
features include seatbelt pre-tensioners
and knee airbags for front passenger seats.
Beyond the safety features and technol-
ogy, the true essence of a Lexus is the lux-
ury of its design, the smoothness of the
ride and the quality of the engineering.
The car glides over road surfaces and
silently cruises to almost illegal speeds
without so much as a whimper—a typical
characteristic of all-electric cars but
which still takes getting used to. Like all
electric cars, power flows on tap and one
does not need to cycle through gears.
While the company hasn’t shared what
it plans to do with the UX 300e in India, it
seems to be using this car to test the waters
before it rolls out a slew of SUVs, all of
which are likely to be electric. Lexus sells
the larger NX and RX SUVs with ICE
engines here. Electric versions of these
models may be more suitable in the Indian
context given the market’s price sensitiv-
ity. Time will tell how the Japanese car-
maker chooses to price these cars in India.
The international prices for UX 300e
start at around £42,000, or ₹41 lakh,
which when treated to India’s layers of
duties would escalate the retail price to
well over a crore. This is a huge tag by any
yardstick, and probably explains Lexus’
trepidation and the testing of the waters
before a full-fledged launch. In the short
term, it is a given that there will be few tak-
ers for electric cars here for multiple rea-
sons, including a yet-to-be-developed
charging network and the high cost of the
cars. Pricing, therefore, will ultimately
determine Lexus’ success in India.