NEW DELHI, Oct 11: Industry lobby COAI is scheduled to hold its quarterly executive committee meeting on November 11, but the contentious issue on voting rules raised by new-comer Reliance Jio has not been listed so far for discussion.
The meeting is held once every quarter and this time, up on the agenda are status updates on matters pertaining to electro-magnetic frequency (EMF) awareness programme, service quality, progress in tower construction and rollout of eKYC, among others.
“So far, no one has asked for it (the voting norms issue) to be included in the agenda for discussion… But if someone wants to raise it in the meeting, they are free to raise it, and it will be discussed by members,” Director-General Rajan S Mathews told PTI when asked if the meet would discuss Reliance Jio’s call for overhaul of COAI’s voting rules.
“Alternatively, members can write to the chair and ask for a particular issue to be included in the agenda.”
Mathews further said the inter-connect issue is also not listed for discussion as the matter is bilateral under the purview of Trai and necessary communications pertaining to it have been sent out by the industry body.
Last month, Reliance Jio — a member of the Cellular Operators’ Association of India (COAI) — had demanded a revamp of the industry body’s voting rules alleging that they only served “vested interests” of three incumbent dominant operators (IDOs) even as the association had hit back dubbing Reliance Jio as a Back Door Operator or BDO.
Jio had also faulted the group’s proportionate voting rules as “skewed” in favour of dominant operators — Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea — that gave them “the absolute control to influence any or all of the decisions of COAI”, given that the trio enjoyed 68 per cent of the total votes.
Mathews held that the executive committee runs in a “relatively free format” and added that the senior representative from all member companies come together once every quarter for the meeting to review the progress of the association.
The members have already been informed about the upcoming meeting, he said.
Besides the members, COAI’s leadership team consists of Chairman Gopal Vittal (MD & CEO – India & South Asia – Bharti Airtel), Vice-Chairman Sunil Sood (MD & CEO for Vodafone India) and Mathews, who are part of the executive committee meeting.
COAI members include Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Idea Cellular, Aircel, Reliance Jio and Telenor. (PTI)
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JUSTBUYLIVE
Just Buy Live aims to
turn profitable by FY’18
NEW DELHI, Oct 11:
Just Buy Live, an online distributor that connects mom-and-pop retailers to consumer brands, aims to become profitable by next fiscal as it focuses on expanding its presence to more states including Gujarat and Kerala.
“We are spending on infrastructure building and onboarding retailers but we are not burning cash. We are focusing on becoming profitable in each centre that we operate in,” Just Buy Live Chairman and CEO Sahil Sani said.
Also, because the company is not in the race to discount and get customers, it would hit profitability faster, he added.
The company, which received funding earlier this year from Mohandas Pai’s Arin Capital and Alpha Capital Advisors, operates in cities like Delhi and Mumbai.
“We are now looking at expanding our model to states like Gujarat, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan by the end of the fiscal,” he said.
Unlike e-commerce companies, Just Buy Live uses the digital platform to connect brands with offline retailers. It has on board brands like Xiaomi, Samsung, Micromax, YU Mobiles, Oppo, Patanjali, ITC, P&G, Unilever, Coca Cola, Pepsico, Amul and Nestle.
“We aren’t fighting with e-commerce companies for customers. Our competition is distributors. We are aggregated suppliers of various brands and with value propositions for retailers like exclusive launches, we have seen phenomenal growth, 30 per cent month-on-month growth,” he said.
Established in 2015, the company launched commercial operations in January this year. It claims to have 60,000 retailers on its platform. With an average order value of Rs 17,500 on its platform, it is confident of hitting profitability within its targeted period.
It aims to have 10,000 brands and one million products on offer reaching out to a million retailers by the end of 2016.
Just Buy Live’s app hosts over 500,000 products from 2,500 brands across categories like foods, personal care, auto, mobile, home, fashion, toys, sports and stationery among others. (PTI)
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GAIL
GAIL places order for 345 km pipeline laying job
NEW DELHI, Oct 11:
GAIL India, the nation’s biggest gas marketer, has placed orders for laying work of a 345-km section of the Jagadishpur-Haldia-Bokaro-Dhamra gas pipeline, helping expedite the Rs 13,000-crore project.
“GAIL has initiated a major step towards the construction of the Jagadishpur-Haldia-Bokaro-Dhamra natural gas pipeline (JHBDPL) by approving placement of orders for pipeline laying work of 345 km from Phulpur to Dobhi,” the company said in a statement.
The cost of the 345-km stretch would be Rs 306 crore and contracts have been placed on JSIW Infrastructure Pvt Ltd and IL&FS Engineering & Construction Co Ltd.
Laying work would commence by the end of October and is targeted to be completed by December 2018, it said.
The government is supporting the project by providing 40 per cent of the project cost or Rs 5,176 crore as capital grant over a five year period. The project will cost Rs 12,940 crore.
The first phase at a project cost of Rs 3,200 crore and will span 755 km to cover Phulpur, Mani, Gorakhpur, Varanasi, Dobhi, Silao, Patna and Barauni. Pipeline construction is already under progress along Gaya-Barauni–Patna section.
The 2,539 km long JHBDPL is scheduled for completion by December 2020 and will connect major cities and towns enroute for commencing piped natural gas to homes across Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Odisha in addition to supplying feed gas to anchor fertilizer units at Gorakhpur, Barauni and Sindri.
Previously, GAIL had placed pipeline supply orders on Jindal Saw Ltd, MAN Industries (India) Ltd, Essar Steel India Ltd and China’s Zhongyou BSS (Qinhuangdao) Petro pipe Co Ltd.
“The JHBDPL pipeline network shall serve to be the gateway for rapidly expanding natural gas based clean energy to Eastern India spanning across five states ushering a new era of growth and development with a potential to serve as a natural gas hub for the neighbouring Asian economies of Nepal and Bangladesh,” the statement said. (PTI)
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STARTUPS
Startups: No relaxation in procurement norms for certain items
NEW DELHI, Oct 11:
Government agencies may not relax procurement norms for startups on prior experience and turnover criteria in respect of goods that have implications on public safety and health.
Earlier, the government had said that all central ministries and department “may relax” condition of prior turnover and prior experience in public procurement to all startups if they meet quality and technical specifications.
However, a doubt had arisen if it makes optional for central ministries and departments to relax condition of prior experience and turnover in public procurement to startups, said a office memorandum of Expenditure Department.
It said that “normally” for all public procurement, government departments and ministries should ensure that experience and turnover criteria is relaxed.
“However, there may be circumstances (like procurement of items related to public safety, health, critical security operations and equipment) where procuring entities may prefer the vendors to have prior experience rather than giving orders to new entities.
“For such procurements, wherever adequate justification exists, the procuring entities may not relax the criteria of prior experience/ turnover for the startups,” the communications said.
India has the third-largest number of startups globally. In January, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had unveiled a slew of incentives for them including tax holiday, inspector raj-free regime, capital gains tax exemption, Rs 10,000 crore corpus to provide funds, and relaxation in procurement norms.
In its October monetary policy review, the Reserve Bank said startups can raise external commercial borrowings (ECBs) of up to 3 million in a financial year, with a view to boosting innovation and promoting job creation. (PTI)
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STEEL
Steel stages poor show after an ‘august’ uptrend
NEW DELHI, Oct 11:
After giving a stellar performance in August, the Indian steel sector again faced headwinds last month, witnessing rise in imports along with dwindling exports and consumption.
Steel imports last month rose 3.6 per cent to 0.61 million tonnes (MT) compared to August 2016, latest data from the Ministry’s Joint Plant Committee (JPC) showed.
However on year-on-year (y-o-y) basis it was down 46 per cent, it added.
In case of exports, outbound shipments of the metal declined 3.5 per cent to 0.66 MT over August 2016, but on the brighter side they rose 111 per cent compared to that in September 2015.
Similarly, steel consumption last month stood at 6.73 MT, a decline of 7.7 per cent over the previous month. However as compared to September 2015, it rose 7.6 per cent.
Likewise, crude steel production in September declined marginally by 0.7 per cent to 8.09 MT, but when compared to the same period last year it was up 11.3 per cent.
The performance of the over USD 100 billion industry in September is almost the opposite of what it did in August.
August turned out to be a bright month for the sector, with imports of the metal declining, while exports and consumption registering an upward trend.
After falling for 2 consecutive months, country’s steel consumption rose, though marginally, to 6.97 MT in August compared to July 2016.
Also, imports in August stood at 0.62 MT, down 36 per cent over August 2015 and by 2.2 per cent over July 2016.
Exports too witnessed an upward trend in August.
Outbound shipment in August 2016 stood at 0.68 MT, a healthy growth of 87 per cent over the same month last year and 26 per cent over July 2016. (PTI)
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FINMIN
Jaitley to address seminar on
boosting investment flows
NEW DELHI, Oct 11:
In the run up to the BRICS summit, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will on Thursday address a seminar, to be attended by experts from five member countries, on better international taxation procedure and global best practices to attract foreign investment.
The seminar titled ‘BRICS-Investment Flows’ would also discuss ways to boost foreign portfolio investments in the emerging economies and ways to tackle bilateral tax treaty abuse.
Organised by the Department of Economic Affairs in Mumbai on October 13, the seminar would be attended by Secretary Shaktikanta Das and RBI officials, besides experts from BRICS nations, multilateral organisations, financial institutions and the corporate sector.
The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) summit will be held in Goa between October 15-16 and as a lead-up to that, India has initiated a number of events.
India has been relaxing foreign direct investment norms in various sectors, including in civil aviation, retail and private security services.
Net foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows have increased over the past three years, reaching record highs of USD 40 billion in 2015-16, from USD 31 billion in 2014-15.
So far in the current fiscal, FPIs have invested Rs 53,399 crore in equity and debt instruments.
The country has been taking a number of steps to ease process for doing business in India and has also taken initiatives to rework tax treaties with countries to bring them in line with global best practices. (PTI)
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