The Nerul-Uran-Belapur railway corridor

The first phase of the Nerul-Uran-Belapur railway corridor is set to be commissioned by Union railway minister Piyush Goyal and chief minister Devendra Fadnavis. This 12 km-long corridor is part of a Rs.1,782-crore project that will eventually cover 27 km. On the day of the commissioning, a train will run from Kharkopar and cover Baman Dongri, Targhar and Seawoods-Darave to reach Nerul. While travelling from Belapur to Kharkopar, the train will directly head to Targhar and not go via Seawoods-Darave. However, as of now, there will be no halt at Targhar for any train as the station is still under construction. Regular services will start from Monday with the first run from Kharkopar to Nerul scheduled at 6.50 am and from Belapur at 6.22 am for Kharkopar. While the travel time from Kharkopar station to Nerul station has been pegged at 20 minutes, it will be 18 minutes from Kharkopar station to Belapur station as this stretch has one station less. The one-way travel fare on both stretches has been fixed at Rs.5. The new corridor will help residents of Ulwe and nearby areas to get a direct connect to CSMT and Panvel station on the Harbour line. The residents of Ulwe will also get connectivity to Thane as they can now board Trans-Harbour trains. Cidco and Central Railway have a 67:33 cost-sharing arrangement for developing the rail network in Navi Mumbai.

Cabinet gives nod to private management of six more airports

The Union cabinet gave its approval for privatization of the management of six airports, including those in Jaipur and Ahmedabad.

The government’s experience of managing five airports in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Kochi and Hyderabad through private participation has been encouraging and has led it to adopt a similar method in managing six more airports, law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said.

The Union cabinet has given... “in-principle approval for leasing out six airports of AAI viz. Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Lucknow, Guwahati, Thiruvananthapuram and Mangaluru for operation, management and development under public-private partnership through (the) Public Private Partnership Appraisal Committee,” he said.

Private participation in infrastructure projects brings efficiency in service delivery, expertise, enterprise and professionalism, apart from harnessing the investments in the public sector, according to a cabinet statement.

PPP in airport management has helped the government raise sizeable revenue and utilize the model for better air connectivity elsewhere in the country, the government said. It hopes the move will bring more foreign investment into airport infrastructure. However, it is not immediately clear whether the private players in the six airports that are to be jointly managed will get land parcels for real estate development beyond aviation requirements. The government also set up an empowered committee of secretaries to oversee the process.

US exempts India from sanctions for Chabahar Port

The United States has exempted India from imposition of certain sanctions for the development of the strategically-located Chabahar Port in Iran, along with the construction of the railway line connecting it with Afghanistan, a state department spokesperson said.

The decision by the Trump administration, which a day earlier imposed the toughest ever sanctions on Iran and is very restrictive in giving exemptions, is seen as a recognition by Washington of India’s major role in the development of the port on the Gulf of Oman, which is of immense strategic importance for the reconstruction of war-torn Afghanistan. “After extensive consideration, the secretary (of state) has provided for an exception from imposition of certain sanctions under the Iran Freedom and Counter-Proliferation Act of 2012, with respect to the development of Chabahar Port, construction of an associated railway and for shipment of non-sanctionable goods through the port for Afghanistan’s use, as well as the country’s continued imports of Iranian petroleum products,” a state department spokesperson said.

The US on Monday imposed sanctions that cover Iran’s banking and energy sectors and reinstate penalties for countries and companies in Europe, Asia and elsewhere that do not halt Iranian oil imports.

However, secretary of state Mike Pompeo said that eight countries – India, China, Italy, Greece, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Turkey – were temporarily allowed to continue buying Iranian oil as they showed “significant reduction” in oil purchase from the Persian Gulf country. To a question on the fate of Chabahar Port after the US reimposed sanctions, the spokesperson said, “This exception relates to reconstruction assistance and economic development for Afghanistan. These activities are vital for ongoing support of Afghanistan’s growth and humanitarian relief.”

In May 2016, India, Iran and Afghanistan inked a pact which entailed establishment of Transit and Transport Corridor among the three countries using Chabahar Port as one of the regional hubs for sea transportation in Iran, besides multi-modal transport of goods and passengers across the three nations.

The port in the Sistan-Balochistan province on the energy rich nation’s southern coast is easily accessible from India’s western coast and is increasingly seen as a counter to Pakistan’s Gwadar Port, which is being developed with Chinese investment and is located at distance of around 80 km from Chabahar.

The Chabahar Port is considered a gateway to golden opportunities for trade by India, Iran and Afghanistan with central Asian countries besides ramping up trade among the three countries after Pakistan denied transit access to India.

Pompeo’s decision to give India exemption from imposition of certain sanctions for the development of the port is driven by the South Asian strategy, which was announced by President Donald Trump in August. It states that India has a major role in bringing peace and development in Afghanistan.
“The president’s South Asia strategy underscores our ongoing support of Afghanistan’s economic growth and development as well as our close partnership with India,” the state department spokesperson said. “We seek to build on our close relationships with both the countries as we execute a policy of maximum pressure to change the Iranian regime’s destabilising policies in the region and beyond.”

Reacting to the Trump administration’s decision, US experts said it was a “right move”.

“Trump administration made the right move by exempting India for the development of the Chabahar port,” Jeff Smith of the Heritage Foundation said. India, Smith argued, “made a convincing case” that its principal interest in the port was to develop alternative infrastructure links to Afghanistan that bypass Pakistan, which also serves the US national security interests. “Delhi also made clear that it does not support Iran’s destabilising activities in the Middle East or an Iranian nuclear weapons program, and that any involvement in Chabahar will not advance those two agenda,” he said. Smith said, Delhi credibly argued that if it were to abandon development efforts at Chabahar the void would most likely be filled by others, including China. “Combined with the importance, this administration places on developing good ties with India, there was a compelling geopolitical case to be made for a waiver,” he said.

Aparna Pande of Houston Institute think-tank said to give an exemption to India’s development of Chabahar port was a welcome decision that comes on the heels of the US granting India along with a few others - a waiver and temporarily allowing these countries to import oil in reduced quantities from Iran. “Both these decisions demonstrate that the Trump administration values the deep strategic relationship with India. It understands India’s national security interests. Where Chabahar is critical to India’s access to and assistance towards ensuring a stable Afghanistan, India’s energy needs require a basket of energy suppliers,” Pande said.

Rick Rossow of the Center for Strategic and International Studies said: “Chabahar’s role to transport key logistics to Afghanistan will continue to grow over time. So this waiver is squarely aligned with the US interests,” he said.

India Inc’s Q2 Margins Shrink

A growth rate of 21.5% in the top line of over 1,400 listed companies that have declared their second quarter Q2 results for fiscal 2018-19 is seen as a reflection of improved demand in the Indian economy. However, this demand is not strong enough to give corporates pricing power, as seen by the slower 10.5% growth in their overall net profits. Margins are shrinking on the back of higher input costs, partly due to a weaker rupee and higher crude oil prices, translating into 24.9% expenditure growth.

Sales growth, at 27%, was higher than estimates for 28 out of the top-50 companies — that have announced their results so far in Q2 — in the National Stock Exchange’s Nifty Index. However, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (ebitda) was lower at 14.1% and net profit growth even lower at 9%. Higher commodity and raw material prices have taken a toll on profit margins, especially for sectors such as airline services, aluminium, cement, oil and natural gas. The ability to pass on price hikes is limited due to competitive pressures for airlines, cement and FMCG companies, further accentuating the pressure on profit margins.

If private banks were excluded, sales of 28 of the 50 Nifty firms have grown by 27.2%, while ebitda was up 14.5% and profit growth was lower at 8.5%. While the actual sales growth has been higher than market expectation of 24%, the estimates of 12.7% growth in net profit was much higher than what turned out. Domestic brokerage house Motilal Oswal Securities has cut its Nifty earnings per share estimates for FY19 by 2.1% to Rs.528.

In the oil and gas sector, only Reliance Industries and Bharat Petroleum Corp have reported their numbers so far for Q2. Both have reported a sequential contraction in refining margins.

Consumer-facing companies reported a mixed set of numbers. Within financial services, private banks continued to report steady trends in loan growth, but their performance on the profit margin front has been mixed. NBFCs posted another quarter of healthy core performance, even as concerns around growth and profit margins have surfaced, given the underlying context of tight liquidity and rising cost of funds. Automobile companies marginally exceeded profit estimates.

For the information technology sector, the seasonal strength of Q2 manifested across top-tier firms. The revenue performance was patchy for tier II firms with several companies missing expectations.  Cost pressures continued to drag down the profitability of cement companies, even as volume growth remained in line with expectations.

Unemployment rate at 6.9%

Unemployment rate in the country rose to 6.9% in October, the highest in two years, according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy. Worse still, the labour participation rate—a measure of the proportion of adults willing to work—fell to 42.4%, the lowest since January 2016, CMIE said.

“Labour participation rate fell sharply after demonetization”, from around 47-48%, “and it has still not recovered,” the study said. “The small improvement in labour statistics seen in September turned out to be short-lived. October statistics point to a continuation of the deterioration in labour markets seen earlier,” the think-tank said. The estimated number of persons employed during October 2018 at 397 million was 2.4% lower than the 407 million persons employed in October 2017. “This sharp fall in the employment rate in October is perhaps the most worrisome measure of the labour markets,” CMIE said.

The count of the unemployed persons actively looking for jobs almost doubled to 29.5 million in October 2018 from a low of 14 million in July 2017 (and 21.6 millon in Ocotber 2017), CMIE added.

BKC

Looking at Bandra Kurla Complex today, it is difficult to imagine that just 30 years ago, land was available there at a throwaway price of Rs.3,000 per square metre, or just Rs.300 per square feet. Astonishingly, and to its consternation, Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority, the special planning authority for BKC, found that there weren’t many takers for its offer.

MMRDA had spent the decade leading up to 1980—the year it started selling plots at BKC—preparing the ground for buildings to come up on a sliver of marshy land between Bandra and Kurla along Mithi River. Much effort and money had gone into reclamation and land compaction. The government came in for much flak from experts, who decried politicians upstaging planners to decide the city’s future. After all, BKC was conceptualized by the state, specifically former chief minister Sharad Pawar, as one of the alternatives to Nariman Point and SoBo in general. Across the creek, Navi Mumbai was coming up under the supervision of the newly created City and Industrial Development Corporation, or Cidco. Within Mumbai, it was going to be BKC.

“Not many corporates were willing to move out of south Mumbai to a former swamp with little by way of connectivity,” said Sulakshana Mahajan, an expert on urban issues. “That’s because politicians and not planners decide Mumbai’s destiny.” But as the 90s approached, the price of land at BKC gradually inched up to Rs.6,000, and then to Rs.8,000 per sq metre. It was finally liberalisation that changed BKC’s fortunes. “Suddenly, banks started looking for places other than South Mumbai to set up offices. When MMRDA planned its first auction, the reserve price was fixed at Rs.25,000 per sq metre, but it quickly went up to Rs.40,000,” said Dilip Kawathkar, joint project director, MMRDA.

BKC really took off in the new millennium. By the end of the noughties, the diamond bourse had opened, as had consulates of UK, Australia, Belgium and the Netherlands. A few years later, the American consulate shifted base from Breach Candy. This was perhaps BKC’s crowning glory. After all, nothing quite screams upmarket like Western diplomatic missions.

The last land auction at BKC occurred towards the end of the noughties. By then, the price of land there had shot to almost Rs.3.5 lakh per sq metre. To meet increasing demand, MMRDA increased BKC’s FSI from 2 to 4 for commercial plots and from 1.5 to 3 for residential plots. Seventy plots have been leased to commercial entities and 12 for residential buildings, the lease period being 80 years. The money raised is meant to be used for developing infrastructure in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region. In a few years, MMRDA’s annual budget has grown from Rs.3,000 crore to Rs.10,000 crore (for the 2017-18 financial year). It has earned reserves of Rs.17,000 crore, a significant contribution coming from BKC land sales.

Not that there aren’t any negatives about BKC. A significant drawback continues to be poor connectivity, despite the complex’s central location and proximity to three prominent suburban railway stations—Bandra, Kurla and Sion. “Within BKC, it is easy to move, but to get to BKC is an onerous task,” said Mahajan. “Bus services to this busy business hub are inadequate. People have to wait for hours to get a bus. The Kurla bridge took years to be built as did the Santacruz-Chembur Link Road.” Not to mention that access roads to BKC are heaving with traffic round the clock.

Nevertheless, transport challenges do not seem to have deterred banks and corporates from operating out of the city’s newest finance district. “Last year we carried out a survey for applying for special economic zone status for the International Finance Service Centre. The average salary in BKC is Rs.3 lakh per month. Currently, two lakh people work here and it has a capacity to accommodate another two lakh workers,” said a senior official from MMRDA’s town and country planning department.

For the time being, all eyes are on the completion of the Metro rail project. The BKC stop will be an interchange between what will go on to be two of the busiest corridors.

The International Financial Service Centre is supposed to be the last mega project at BKC, which has exhausted its land bank for development.

Though the state government is keen on the prestigious project, its fate will be decided by the Centre, which for the time being is not inclined to granting it. The Centre has told Maharashtra in no uncertain terms that Gujarat’s GIFT City—a pet project of Prime Minister Narendra Modi—must be settled first, only after which would an IFSC in Mumbai be considered.

Mumbai, the country’s financial capital, was the natural choice for the IFSC. In 2005, the then finance minister P Chidambaram even set up a committee under former World Bank economist Percy Mistry for a study. But with no headway on permissions, legal requirements, and infrastructure, the proposal was pushed on the backburner.

The latest proposal, mooted by the Devendra Fadnavis government, is for the IFSC to come up at BKC’s G-Text block (adjoining G block and earlier earmarked for the textile industry), and not as a standalone structure, but to include an underground bullet train terminus, an underground Metro station (line 3) and an overground Metro station (line 2B). The plan is also to make it a go-to place for high street fashion.

The state government gave its approval, and last year the proposal was sent to the Centre for its approval. But the IFSC faces an uncertain future. “The Maharashtra government’s view is that an IFSC in Mumbai can coexist with a similar facility in Gujarat, and in fact, be complimentary to each other. Mumbai could be the front-end and Gujarat the back-end,” said finance secretary and former MMRDA commissioner UPS Madan, who did the initial groundwork for the IFSC. “There is also a plan to connect the two cities (Mumbai and GIFT) through the bullet train. We have sent a proposal to the Centre on this,” he added.

The MMRDA has already appointed consultants—Tata Engineering Services and Hong Kong Townland Consultants Ltd—who have submitted a draft plan and a second improved draft is awaited, said MMRDA officials.

An exhibition-cum-convention centre is also being built at BKC by Reliance Industries Limited. The project, however, has been delayed and run into legal hassles. After the IFSC what remains will be around 35 hectares. “This balance land will be used for parking and some residential projects,” said R A Rajeev, current metropolitan commissioner.

Of Kashmir’s 1st big-ticket soccer game in 20 years....

There were security checks at every 50 metres on the approach to Srinagar’s Tourist Recreation Council ground, the plainclothes policemen themselves slightly amused at this mid-week, early-winter intrusion into their otherwise high-tension routines. “Hurry up,” one told his colleague as he frisked a ticket-holding youth who couldn’t wait to get in, “I’ve heard around 25,000 people are expected today.”

One of the policemen, on feeling a travel sachet of medicines in the bag, asked if there was a pill for his headache. Another said had we informed them that we were not locals, they would have let us in without much ado. “We know whom to check and for what exactly,” he quipped, “Saves time.” It was a headache as usual for the local authorities, but for a change the Srinagar locals didn’t mind at all.

In any case, all of this has never mattered to Mohammad Shahban—70 years old, with a grey flowing beard, an embroidered cap adorning his skull, and youthful eyes dancing at the prospect of what could unfold during his Real Kashmir’s debut I-League home game. He’s something of a legend in these parts. People walking by saluted as he sat beneath the façade of the TRC dargah on the far side of the ground.

“He has not missed a football game in Kashmir for 40 years,” whispered Nazir Ahmed, 40, but looking a lot older, in a reverential tone. “How could he miss Real Kashmir’s first game here? He’s been sitting here, waiting since morning,” added 22-year-old, Abid Raza, a self-confessed ‘mohalla’ footballer.

Ahmed, Raza and Shahban formed an unlikely trio at their club’s opening game at home, for many the first big ticket match in the Valley in nearly two decades.

For almost everyone present, the match signalled a return to the good old times of Shahban’s ’70s and ’80s, where football ruled the roost before insurgency took over the narrative. “Football mahaul mein tabdeeli lata hai (football changes the social and political atmosphere),” they said.

On workday Tuesday, scores of tiny groups made up the 10,500-odd crowd that formed the home support for the Valley’s team.

Not that the visiting Goan side were overawed—they enjoyed the better share of the exchanges in an absorbing first half, with young Lamgoulen Hangshing running down the left to provide for Willis Plaza and Dawda Cessay.

It was the shape that David Robertson has instilled in his Real Kashmir side, which held them in good stead, leaving it to Loveday Okechukwu to restore order and patiently build the attacks from the middle. Many a time the Kashmir attacks led to expectant ripples in the crowd. It was a bruising affair, but all eyes in the stands were on the wiry, lithe form of Danish Farooq, playing on Real Kashmir’s wide left midfield.

“Yeh hamara ladka hai (he is our boy),” Shahban peeled his eyes away from the action and pointed at the Real Kashmir No. 10 whenever the ball came his way. “Bahut shaandaar khelta hai (he plays great football),” he said like a proud grandparent watching over his prodigious scion. The ease of Farooq’s game and the knack of being in the right place at the right time flowed to the rest of his Real Kashmir teammates. Even though Churchill walked away moral winners in football terms—a hard-earned point in rapidly increasing afternoon chill and fatigue setting in—there was no doubt who was feeling more triumphant. Real Kashmir found a gushing fan in the visiting coach, Petre Gigiu of Romania.

“Very difficult game, very tough for us, but beyond that your team, very strong and very technical. Very, very good team. Congratulations,” he addressed the gathered journalists as if all of them formed part of the Real Kashmir collective.

The real drama came at the stroke of half-time. Fed from the deep, Aaron Katebe was on a goal-ward break that most would give their right arm for. As the Zambian bore down, unmarked and free, the Churchill goalkeeper James Kithan had no choice but to rush out of his area and scythe the threat early. Katebe clattered on to the floor and referee Tanmoy Dhar had no choice but to eject Kithan. The dangerous Hangshing was sacrificed for replacement keeper Vigneshwaran Baskaran, who made up for the adverse tilt in momentum with some good work under the bar.

With the advantage of an extra man on the field, Real Kashmir sensed their best chances coming. But they missed narrowly, or were denied by Baskaran. Still having the upper hand and egged on by the crowd, they kept stretching Eldor and Novakovic in the hope that they would get the break. But Churchill have come into this season on the dint of new steel and held on resolutely. Honours even, both teams were looking at the outcome in their own right, only that Real Kashmir were seeing the bigger picture and celebrating more.