oppn parties Urgent Need To Water The Green Shoots

News Snippets

  • SP drops two candidates owing allegiance to Azam Khan from Rampur and Moradabad
  • In Assam, a controversy erupted after a picture of UPPL leader Benjamin Basumatary, lying on a stack of Rs 500 notes circulated on social media. UPPL is an ally of the BJP
  • AAP's Jalandhar-West MP Sushil Kumar Rinku joins the BJP. He was the only AAP Lok Sabha MP
  • Supreme Court dismisses Centre's plea to review its 2023 verdict in the PMLA case
  • Close save for passengers as they remain unhurt after the wings of two planes graze at Kolkata airport. Pilots derostered and inquiry ordered by DGCA
  • Bengal BJP leader Dilip Ghosh gets notice from the EC as well as the BJP for making ugly remarks about Mamata Banerjee's parentage
  • Sadanand Vasanth Date, who faught terrorists in the 26/11 attack and was awarded the Preisent's Police medal, has been appointed the head of the NIA
  • Centre will borrow Rs 7.5L cr in the first six months of FY25, nearly 50% of the target for the full year
  • 25 stocks, including SBI, will see same day trade settlements from today in the world's fastest settlement mode in both BSE and NSE
  • Stocks recover smartly on Wednesday: Sensex rises 526 points to 72996 and Nifty 118 points to 22123
  • Tennis: Rohan Bopanna-Matthew Ebden reached the semifinals of the Miami Open
  • IPL: records tumble as SRH beat MI in a high-scoring match. SRH score 277/3 with 18 sixes and Mumbai score 246 with 20 sixes to fall short by 31 runs. Atotal of 38 sixes, highest in an IPL match were hit and both teams combined to score 523 runs, the highest aggregate in an IPL match
  • Amul will launch fresh milk in the US
  • IPL: RCB beat Punjab by 4 wickets as Kohli and Karthik shine with the bat
  • India strongly objected to German foreign office remarks over the arrest of delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, called it "biased assumptions"
Delhi Lt Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena says government cannot be run from jail, hints at President's Rule in the capital ////// In a dangerous incident, the wings of two planes grazed while taxiing on the runway at Kolkata airport, all passengers were safe but DGCA ordered an inquiry and the pilots were derostered
oppn parties
Urgent Need To Water The Green Shoots

By A Special Correspondent
First publised on 2020-10-02 13:40:08

Should we be heartened by the silver linings in September - GST collections in rose for the first time in 6 months; manufacturing PMI was up by 58.8%, its fastest pace in more than eight years; petrol sales crossed pre-Covid levels; railway freight booking were up by 15.3%; car sales were slated to pick up due to the festive season as evidenced by increased stocks at dealerships across India; and the 157 times oversubscription for the Mazagaon Dock Shipbuilders which made it the most successful PSU divestment in terms of oversubscription - or should we be disheartened by the Centre's decision not to borrow more funds for investment despite a healthy current account surplus and a compelling need to invest in infrastructure to water the green shoots that are showing up in the economy?

Frankly, the Centre's decision to cap the borrowings to Rs 12 lakh crore for the entire year does not make sense in these troubled times. The government needs money to invest in infrastructure. It is not going to come from regular sources as tax collections are down and divestment has not taken off as expected. Extraordinary measures are needed in times which are not ordinary. Never before have factories in India suspended production for two months at a stretch. The stress caused by that has had repercussions in the form of job losses, salary cuts and closure of many businesses. To rectify this, it is absolutely necessary for the government to find the money to invest heavily in infrastructure. The benefits will flow in through creation of jobs, new factories, rise in tax collection and creating a positive atmosphere in which more funds will flow in through better realization for shares of PSUs that are up for divestment.

By putting its entire faith in the inherent ability of the Indian economy to bounce back due to its size and the size of the market, the government is making a big mistake. For, these are not normal times. People have curtailed consumption (the economy was tottering even before the pandemic and demand was low) due to the uncertainty created by the pandemic. The first requirement is to remove this uncertainty. That can only be done if the government starts investing now. Its investments will raise the confidence levels and fill up the order books of core sectors industries like steel and cement. Cascading effect will take care of the rest. Any delay will perhaps see a slump post the festive season. That would be a disaster for the economy that is trying to limp back to normalcy. 

pic courtesy: westernasset.com