Economy remains sluggish

The growth of eight core sector industries slowed to 1.7% in November against 5.8% in the same month last year. Meanwhile, the country’s fiscal deficit in the April-November period reached 94% of the targeted budgetary estimate, raising concerns that India may overshoot its ambitious target of containing this at 4.8% of GDP. 

New Land Acquisition Act comes into force

The new land acquisition Act, enacted by Parliament in September to provide just and fair compensation to those whose land is taken away for constructing roads, buildings or factories, will come into force from Wednesday, replacing the 120-year-old legislation.
The Act, meant for bringing transparency to the process of acquisition of land, provides for generous compensation and rehabilitation of those affected by the takeover.
The new law — Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act — stipulates mandatory consent of at least 70% of affected people for acquiring land for Public Private Partnership (PPP) projects and 80% for acquiring land for private companies.
Now, state governments will have to set up at least six bodies, including the state-level Land Acquisition Rehabilitation and Resettlement Authority, to hear disputes arising out of projects where land acquisition has been initiated by the state or its agencies. The new law was enacted as the archaic Act of 1894 suffered from various shortcomings including silence on the issue of resettlement and rehabilitation.
Under the new legislation, compensation for the owners of the acquired land will be four times the market value in rural areas and twice in urban areas.

Election Commission & Google tie up

The Election Commission (EC) has entered a key partnership with US-based internet giant, Google, to help it manage online voter registration and facilitation services ahead of the democratic exercise. Over the next six months, Google will offer EC its resources, including its search engine, to enable voters to check their enrolment status online and locate their polling station, complete with directions using Google Maps.
The “arrangement” between EC and Google is learnt to have been clinched late this month, and is expected to be “operational” by the second week of January. As part of the partnership, Google will put its worldwide network and resources at the commission’s disposal until June 2014 to help it manage online registration of new voters and allow the enrolled ones to check the address at which they are registered, and get directions to the polling station. With the new rolls with reference to January 1, 2014, slated to be out by January 6, the voters’ queries on the commission’s website are likely to be managed by Google starting from the second week of January.
Google will not charge the EC for these services, estimated to cost $50,000 (over Rs.30 lakh), and fund the same from its corporate social responsibility (CSR) budget.
“The EC is going ahead with the use of hi-tech and professional expertise to manage online enrolment of voters and search a voter’s name in electoral rolls along with the polling station. “So, all that one needs to do now is to type his name/EPIC number and address on the Google Search engine, which will promptly generate results matching the voters’ name with his assembly/Lok Sabha constituency, and pinpointing the location of his polling station… in fact, Google Maps will give exact directions to the voter on how to get to the correct polling station on the polling day,” explained a senior EC official.
Google is offering similar services across 100 countries as part of its CSR obligations. The American firm had approached the EC some time ago to offer its expertise for better management of online services on the commission’s website, particularly voter enrolment and facilitation. The commission, which felt that the management of its online interface with the voters left much scope for improvement, welcomed the offer from the “global leader” and the two signed on the dotted line recently.
The EC is also exploring the option of using the worldwide network and servers of Google for dissemination of results for the 2014 general election likely to be held in May. EC had tied up with US-based IT firm Akamai for putting out results for the recent assembly polls in five states. The use of 272 servers of Akamai across the world to disseminate the results, as against barely two servers in use during the 2009 Lok Sabha poll, ensured that the ECI website could handle the millions of hits it received per minute on the counting day (December 8).

Mumbai monorail to be ready by early 2015

The entire length of the 20 km monorail is expected to be commissioned for commercial operations by March 2015. The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) has planned to complete the civil work of the project’s balance portion before Monsoon 2014.
The first phase of the monorail, comprising an 8.8 kmlong corridor between Chembur and Wadala, is expected to be commissioned for traffic by the end of January. MMRDA has already submitted all the documents to the safety authority for clearance.
MMRDA additional metropolitan commissioner Ashwini Bhide said, “We have already approached the commissioner of railway safety for design clearance for the viaduct that will criss-cross above tracks at Wadala and Currey Road.”
It is an important development as the CRS’s approval will speed up work on the project that has already missed multiple deadlines.
Bhide said, “Another crucial development is that the traffic department has already granted its no-objection certificate for the work to be carried out near Currey Road. MMRDA plans to launch piers after which guideway beams will be installed on it to take the corridor further up to Jacob Circle.”
She added they hope to complete the civil work on the project by monsoon. “The project can be commissioned for traffic subject to approval from commissioner of railway safety.”
Once completed, the monorail corridor will be the second longest after the Osaka corridor, which is 23.8 km long.
The city’s monorail will be connected to the suburban rail system at Wadala, Curry Road and Chembur. Likewise, Metro-II will be connected to V N Purav Marg station.
It is expected to carry more than two lakh commuters every day. MMRDA estimates to reduce 5,000 BEST bus trips, 10,000 taxi and autorickshaw trips during the day, as around 550 commuters are likely to use the corridor per trip.
While the distance between Chembur and Wadala is expected to be completed in 19 minutes, commute on the entire stretch is expected to take not more than 35 to 40 minutes.
The project has missed deadlines due to delay in acquiring land, lack of approval from railway authorities, and so on.

Kejriwal delivers on Water & Power promises

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has announced 667 litres of free water and reduced electricity tariffs in lower slabs, poll promises that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had made.
Fulfilling yet another major poll promise, the AAP on Tuesday gave a new year's gift to the people of Delhi and announced a 50 percent subsidy on power consumption of up to 400 units while appearing all set to order a CAG audit of three private power distribution companies.
The power tariff decision was announced a day after AAP implemented the first promise of free water supply of 667 litres a day.

Having said that he was working on a timeline of 48 hours because he wasn’t sure if his government would survive, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal announced the subsidy. “Till the audit report is done, in order to provide relief to middle-class consumers, the government will give a subsidy for reducing the tariff by 50% in the slabs of 0-200 units and 201-400 units. We are confident that once the CAG report is submitted, the subsidy will not be required.’’
The chief minister said that on paper the subsidy will cost the government about Rs 200 crore for the quarter ending March 31, but in reality the government would bear only Rs 61 crore of the cost, which would be paid to Tata Power Delhi.
The remaining Rs 139 crore will be adjusted against the Rs 4,000 crore plus, which the BSES discoms owe to the Delhi government’s generation and transmission companies. He said the discoms would be directed to bill consumers according to the government decision with effect from January 1, 2014, onwards.
He claimed the government will achieve two objectives—lowering of tariff as well as securing the pending dues of IPGCL/PPCL and Delhi Transco. It was a win-win situation for both consumers as well as Delhi government, he said.
Industry experts, however, argue that the entire subsidy cost to be borne by the government would be about Rs 1,400 crore a year. “One has to see the whole picture. Delhi government is already paying Rs 570 crore a year for the current subsidy against the 0-200 and 200-400 units slabs. The additional subsidy would amount to Rs 800 crore a year. The BSES discoms have said in the past that they are not in a position to pay their outstanding dues to Transco, IPGCL or PPCL. So, the government is taking the taxpayers’ money in the form of a subsidy and giving it to the BSES discoms to help clear their dues,’’ said an expert. Others said the move would signal further problems for the government.
“This is not healthy for the public or the power sector and it encourages higher consumption. The reason discoms are in losses is because they were not granted an adequate tariff hike by the regulator and their losses have since gone up,’’ said former principal power secretary Shakti Sinha.

Rupee fell 12.4% in 2013

The Rupee closed the year 12.4% lower against the dollar, the third year of depreciation in a row. Among Asian currencies, rupee’s performance was only better than the Japanese yen and the Indonesian rupiah that fell by 17.4% and 19.5% respectively. Rupee was also one of the worst performers among emerging markets currencies like Argentine peso — falling the most by 24.6%- followed by South African rand, Brazilian real and the Turkish lira.
While first four months saw rupee trading in a tight range of 53-55 to the dollar, the currency fell 5-8% per month between May and August. The rupee was at a record low of 68.80 on August 28.
The year also kept the country’s central bank on its toes. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) net sold $9.4 billion in ten months of 2013 (data of last two months yet to be released). The RBI sold dollars worth $13.3 billion, which could be the highest foreign exchange intervention ever, to stop the rupee from sliding further. The central bank also purchased $5.3 billion in better times to shore up the foreign exchange reserves. In 2012, the RBI net sold $8.3 billion in the spot foreign exchange market.
Going forward, the prospect for rupee is not all that bleak. Two biggest threats—weak current account deficit and the impact of US Fed tapering its bond buying— seem to be under control. The Fed deferred the tapering to January 2014 much against expectations of beginning in the second half of 2013.
“India utilised the delay in tapering to bring about adjustment in the current account deficit
(CAD) and built buffers by replenishing its foreign exchange reserves,” said RBI in its Financial Stability Report. With the help of various measures and incentives, the central bank was able to attract $34 billion of foreign exchange in three months. CAD also fell to 1.2% of GDP at the end of September 2013 from 5% a year ago.
“Consequently, external sector risks have been considerably reduced and the effect of tapering on the economy is expected to be limited and short-lived,” said RBI in the report.

Somewhere in Mumbai....

The air traffic control (ATC) tower at Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA) will begin operations from January 1. With a height of 83.8 m, quite like a 30-storey building, the new ATC tower is the tallest in India.
It will be a pre-cursor to the opening of the much-awaited Terminal 2, which will be thrown open to the public later this month.
According to the airport operator, the tower is equipped with electronic flight strips (EFS) that will reduce workload of the tower controller, enhance safety and overall capacity of the airport.
“The location and height of the new tower will enable tower controllers to have an unobstructed view of the operational area, which will help in optimising air traffic separation and increase traffic handling capacity,” said an airport official.
The new tower was officially inaugurated on October 18. The air traffic controllers and others responsible for its operation were being trained and later a parallel operation was being run from the new tower with backing from the existing one.
Following the operation of the new ATC tower, the new Terminal 2 will become operational this month. expected to be inaugurated by Prime minister Manmohan Singh.
Terminal 2 will be a state-of-the-art, four-level, integrated terminal with an area of over 4.39 lakh sqm.