Lockdown musings....

Consumers have been gorging on pasta and noodles during the lockdown, in addition to salty snacks and biscuits, data on household consumption patterns shows.

In fact, it is pasta that has seen the sharpest spike in consumption with volumes jumping nearly three-and-a-half times from 2,200 tonnes to over 7,600 tonnes during the 12 weekly periods between April second week and the second week of July, Kantar’s Worldpanel division’s numbers reveal.

In volume terms, however, it is a fraction of the noodles market, where volumes expanded 27% from 58,000 tonnes to nearly 74,000 tonnes in the same period, while biscuits jumped by 52%. And salty snacks, another favourite, grew by 32%.

Kantar Worldpanel division MD (South Asia) K Ramakrishnan said, “Snacking has seen significant growth during the last few months. All of this has been on the back of strong consumption gains by households. For example, 220 additional grams of noodles were bought during this period by an average household. ”Some brands outgrew their category growth. According to sources, ITC’s Yippee, for instance, is said to have clocked a growth of 50% during this period.

ITC foods division chief executive Hemant Malik said, “We have witnessed an unprecedented surge in demand for Aashirvaad atta, Sunfeast biscuits and Yippee noodles over the last few months, driven by increase in home consumption, increase of snacking occasions, as people continue to work from home as well as consumers’ preference for trusted and safe brands during this pandemic.”

Ramakrishnan also said, “For biscuits, the additional purchase by consumers is a massive 1.1 kg, and for salty snacks it is just over 500 gm.”

The trend of growing moments of snacking is being milked by many marketers. For chocolate major Mondelez India, while Oreo plays in creams with focus on family snacking moments, Bournvita biscuits tap into the morning snacking space. Mondelez India associate director – marketing (biscuits) Sudhanshu Nagpal said, “The biscuits category has been highly commoditised traditionally. But we see consumers are increasingly seeking and experimenting with more variety and superior experiences over the last few years. In our endeavour to continue to give consumers such experiences, we have entered the chocobakery segment this year with the launch of a new brand ‘Cadbury Chocobakes’, which extends the brand Cadbury into bakery formats of cookies and cakes.”

However, Ramakrishnan said Kantar does not see strong indications of a growing number of brands entering households. “For example, households buying multiple brands stayed stable at 37% for noodles in the March-June period. Similarly, for the other categories too, we do not see any growth in this aspect. This trend of brand consolidation was something that we have observed pre-Covid also, which seems to have continued during the Covid period,” said Ramakrishnan.

Outside of snacking, with growing adoption of hygiene methods by consumers, some FMCG brands such as Dettol have gained significantly to become the leading soap brand by value.

The average value share of Dettol soap for the three months (April, May, June) of 2020 is 14.2%, according to Nielsen retail sales data. A Reckitt Benckiser spokesperson said, “This is a milestone achievement and buttresses the strength of the Dettol brand — it is already the no. 1 antiseptic and no. 1 handwash in India, and now has become the market leader in soaps.”

Maharashtra de-regularises entire farm sector trade

Farmers in Maharashtra can now sell their produce to anyone – they no longer have to go via Agriculture Market Produce Committees or mandis. The state government on Saturday announced a set of reforms fully opening up agricultural trade, which will allow farmers to sell grains, cereals, oilseeds and pulses directly to individual buyers and corporate clients. The previous state government had freed trade in fruit and vegetables from control of APMCs in July 2016.

Farmers’ organisations have cautiously welcomed the decision; it was a longstanding demand of theirs that the APMCs’ monopoly over agricultural trade should be abolished. They accused APMC traders of forming cartels in order to depress the price of produce.

The state government’s move followed the Centre’s decision to this effect in June. (As agriculture comes under the Concurrent List of the Constitution, each state had to issue a separate notification.) There are 306 APMCs in the state and their annual turnover in the financial year 2019-20 was around Rs.48,000 crore.

“Now big retail chains can directly enter into trade with farmers without intervention of intermediaries and make available food products at reasonable rates to consumers,” a senior official from the agriculture marketing department said.

Nashik-based farm rights activist Giridhar Patil welcomed the decision. “The agricultural trade is a specialised trade. Grading of stock, deciding their price, sorting them out, storing them… all this requires both knowledge and infrastructure. It will take time to create an alternate system, outside the APMC system,” he said.

Raju Shetti, former MP and president of the Swabhimani Shetkari Saghtana, also welcomed the decision. “The APMC system gives security of payment to farmers. And if the government wants to provide the same security to farmers under the new system, it should make mandatory to traders to get licence from the agriculture marketing department of the state government and also seek bank guarantee from traders.”

AK Chavan, secretary of Navi Mumbai APMC, which is largest in the state, said the APMCs will have to become competitive to survive and the state government should reduce cess and other fees that are charged on turnover at APMC.

PM Unveils Cable Link to A&N Islands

 Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated a ₹1,224-crore optic fibre-based telecom connectivity initiative between Chennai and Andaman & Nicobar Islands, which is expected to facilitate ease of living for locals and boost tourism.

Based on the undersea optic fibre cable link, Airtel became the first telco to launch its 4G services on the island.

“It will facilitate ease of living. Tourists may stay longer in Andaman, and it will provide more job opportunities locally,” Modi said in a televised address Monday, and added that citizens would get Digital India benefits such as online education, banking, shopping, and telemedicine services.

The 2,313-km undersea cable between Chennai and Port Blair was implemented by state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam. The fibre-based network connects seven islands — Swaraj Dweep (Havlock), Long Island, Rangat, Little Andaman, Kamorta, Car Nicobar, and Greater Nicobar.

“The digital infrastructure deployed today would help in improving telecom connectivity in Andaman & Nicobar Islands,” said telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad. “Between Chennai and Port Blair, there is the deep sea at some places and despite challenges, this initiative was completed in record time.” At a press briefing, Prasad said a tender for 354 uncovered villages in strategic, remote and border areas had been finalised and was under implementation.

Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman of Bharti Airtel, said, “We hope the Department of Telecom will accelerate the deployment of USOF for building such infrastructure backbone to complement the efforts of telecom operators to bridge the digital divide.”

Nicobar to get ₹10,000 crores trans-shipment port

Great Nicobar Island will get a trans-shipment port with investment of Rs.10,000 crore, PM Narendra Modi said.

For years, Indian ports have lost out to Colombo, which is a major trans-shipment hub and the proposed facility may be an alternative given its location and is seen to be close to the channel connecting China, Japan and Australia.

While inaugurating the 2,300 km long submarine Optical Fibre Cable connecting Andaman and Nicobar Islands with Chennai, which will bring rapid net and telephone connectivity to the archipelago, Modi said the Centre’s focus is to reduce the “distance” between Delhi and other parts of the country, as far as development is concerned.

The PM said the aim is to ensure the islands are “not far away from Delhi and from the hearts of the mainland”, while adding that the focus is also on promoting ‘ease of business in the sea’.

Modi said the trans-shipment port would enable large ships to anchor and increase India’s share in maritime trade, while creating new employment opportunities.

A detailed project report was prepared several years ago for developing the trans-shipment port at South Bay in Great Nicobar Island. They added the Island Development Authority has awarded the task of re-validating the DPR to WAPCOS, a PSU under the Jal Shakti ministry.

Modi said islands of India would be plying an important role under the country’s new trade strategy for Indo-Pacific region. He added that under the Act-East policy, the role of Andaman in India's strong relations with east Asian countries and other countries connected to the sea is very high and is going to increase.

PM said the OFC connectivity will improve ‘ease of living’ and will boost tourism.

IAF night flies Chinook over DBO as PLA ramps up troops in occupied Aksai Chin

The Indian Air Force’s rapid deployment Chinook helicopters have flown in the night over 16,000 feet Daulet Beg Oldi, Indian Army’s last outpost near Karakoram Pass, after the deployment and road building activity of China’s People’s Liberation Army deployment increased in the area across the Line of Actual Control.

According to authoritative sources, the divisional commander level meeting at Teinweindien post in occupied Aksai Chin was to lower the temperatures in the DBO sector with the Indian Army demanding that patrolling in Depsang Plains should be allowed unhindered. The DBO dialogue is separate from the military commanders on-going dialogue on Chushul-Moldo area with the specific task of disengagement and de-escalation of troops on the four friction points.

The decision to fly Chinook over DBO advance landing ground during night time was taken to test the Indian Army’s capability of rapid insertion of special forces and infantry combat vehicles in case the situation deteriorates in the sub-sector north area. “ While Apache attack helicopters have been patrolling Chushul area, the US made Chinook flew over DBO to test its night fighting capabilities…..we have already deployed T-90 tanks and artillery guns in the area,” said a senior commander. The US built Chinook has a proven record of night flying in Afghan mountainous terrain and is used for rapid military retaliation by the special airborne forces. The twin rotor platform has two heavy calibre machine guns deployed at the front and back of the chopper to suppress ground fire.

While the Chinese have raised objections to the deployment of tanks and guns at DBO, the Indian Army have pointed to recent accretion of PLA troops in the area along with air activity across the SSN. Both sides are matching each other’s deployment in the area even as the PLA is indulging in fast paced construction of roads in the area for rapid deployment. The interesting part is that while China raises objections to India building border infrastructure, there is no slowing down of the same all along the LAC---from occupied Aksai Chin to Kibuthoo in Arunachal Pradesh.

At the divisional commander level meeting on Saturday, India has also raised the issue that both sides should be allowed to do unhindered patrolling of their respective claim lines in the area including the Depsang Bulge, south of DBO. This was a clear indication of the Indian intent that it is not going to back down from patrolling rights at the Bulge or at any other place on the LAC.

Kashmir: 2,300 pending projects worth ₹6,000cr cleared

In the year following neutering of Article 370 in Jammu & Kashmir, 2,273 infrastructure projects worth Rs.5,979 crore, which had been pending for the past 5-10 years, were sanctioned and 506 completed even as J&K Chief Secretary B V R Subrahmanyam describes the efforts to bring good governance and development to the erstwhile state as “work in progress”.

Some of the works done so far include strengthening of the panchayat structure, completion of Phase 1 of Jhelum flood mitigation project, creation of 10,000 jobs and opening up 50 new degree colleges.

Describing the erstwhile state of J&K as “broken” and with no “system” due to years of mis-governance and corruption and “unbelievable levels of fraud” committed by past regimes led by a handful of powerful families and institutions controlled by them, Subrahmanyam, a Chhattisgarh-cadre IAS officer, said he was sent to J&K by the Prime Minister with a clear direction to “clean up the state, reform it and hand over to the people of J&K their ‘amaanat’ (valued possession)”.

Projects pending for over four decades like the Shahpur-Kandi project were started, J&K Infrastructure Development Finance Corporation was created last year to complete projects languishing for 5-10 years, panchayat elections were held successfully and the intricacies of transition J&K Constitution to Constitution of India, state to Union territory followed through.

Maharashtra : 19.1% positivity rate twice the national average

Maharashtra continues to have the highest positivity rate in the country at 19.1%, more than double the national average of 8.9%. Experts say the numbers are indicative of the continued spread in the state, with certain districts having a PR of more than 25%- 30%. Telangana, with a positivity of 13.3%, and Delhi, with 12.5%, occupy the second and third positions.

With testing volumes going up in a big way across states, including Maharashtra, positivity rates have seen quite some disruption.