11844 stories by IPA Staff
Manmohan Should Rope In Mulayam For Stability
By Harihar Swarup Tension has been brewing between Mamata Banerjee and Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi for quite sometime. Trivedi sensed it and also came to know of her plan to withdraw him from the Union Ministry. Trivedi did not want to be virtually dismissed as the Railway Minister. If...
Trinamool To Play A Major Role In Manipur
By Barun Das Gupta KOLKATA: The surprising element in the Manipur Assembly election outcome is not that the Congress has won for the third consecutive time because the Congress victory was a foregone conclusion, the surprise is that the Trinamool Congress, taking part in the elections for the first...
In Power, FM Works On Fuel & Financing
The Budget tried to build on the incentives to the limping power sector granted by the Prime Minister recently. It cut customs duty on thermal fuel for power companies and made financing easier. Calling it a sector which has been under stress, Pranab Mukherjee made a slew of announcements,...
Decisive Action On Power Sector
The government has finally done its bit to improve power availability in the country. The Budget has addressed a majority of the problems raised by the industry, and the moves announced seem to be dictated by the growing realisation that time is running out fast for salvaging the sector,...
Consumers Will Have To Pay Higher Price For Electricity
KOLKATA: Bulk of the domestic consumers may have to pay a higher tariff on power due combined effect of one percentage point rise in central excise and a possible inclusion of transmission and distribution (T&D) in service tax net. According sources in West Bengal Government controlled utility, transmission cost...
Some Cheer For Conventional Power Sector
Nabin Ballodia, Partner-tax, KPMG Energy is one of the most important indicators of the growth trajectory and sustainable development of an economy. With enhanced focus on climate change and clean energy, the quality of energy has attained significant importance. Hence, this sector was the most keenly watched in Budget...
Positives For Power Sector In Budget
Hemant Kanoria, CMD, Srei Infrastructure Finance The Finance minister has presented a Budget aimed at sprucing up the country’s infrastructure and readying it for higher growth. Besides enhancing sectoral allocations, the doubling of the amount of tax free bonds to be raised for infrastructure in FY13 will go a...
A Cost Reduction Attempt For Power Sector
Kameshwara Rao, Leader – Energy, Utilities & Mining, PwCIndia The budget proposals for the power sector offer a very intriguing mix of initiatives, reflecting a fair appreciation of the challenges facing the industry, and some quick-fix attempts to resuscitate it, while falling short of the fundamental changes necessary to...
NPCIL Forms A New Company In Joint Venture With NALCO
KOLKATA: Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited ( NPCIL ) has formed a new company in joint venture with National Aluminium Company Limited ( NALCO). The new JV company , namely N PCIL-NALCO Power Company Limited was incorporated on March 2, 2012. The first meeting of the board of...
Little To Cheer For Renewable Energy Sector
CHENNAI: Save for a few sops, the sunrise renewable energy sector had little to cheer from Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s Budget. One of those sops was an exemption from special countervailing duty that was made available for plant and equipment used in solar thermal projects The budget also proposed...
Concession On Equipment For Solar-Thermal Is Senseless, Says Domestic Solar PV Industry
Finance minister today announced during the presentation of union budget 2012 that concessions and exemptions will be provided for energy saving devices, plant and equipments needed for solar-thermal project during their setting up. This hasn’t gone too well with the domestic manufacturers who were expecting the same for solar...
Scrapping Duty On Coal Import To Reduce Power Generation Costs
NEW DELHI: The budget proposal to scrap customs duty on imported coal would bring down electricity generation costs by about 12 paise per unit, experts said. Faced with acute domestic coal shortage, many power producers are banking on imported fuel to meet their needs. The scarcity is estimated to...
Coal Imports Unlikely To Spike Despite Tax Cut
NEW DELHI: Government scrapped taxes on coal imported by power companies on Friday and although the move makes overseas thermal coal more attractive it won’t be enough to boost purchases much beyond the 70-80 million tonnes already forecast by analysts for 2012/13. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee announced in his...
Coal India Officials Unhappy With Announcements
KOLKATA: Coal India officials are unhappy with the Budget announcements for the coal sector as the proposed exemptions on mining will help the state-run miner save only about Rs 60-80 crore. The company imports equipment worth Rs 600-900 crore every year. However, Coal India has readied another expression of...
Budget 2012 Hikes Cash Subsidy For State-Owned Oil Firms
NEW DELHI: The government has hiked the cash subsidy it will pay to state-owned oil firms for selling fuel below cost in current fiscal to Rs 65,000 crore but has also hiked the cess upstream firms like ONGC pay on crude oil production to Rs 4,500 per tonne. “Crude...
Oil Firms To Gain From Higher Subsidies
While enhancing the provision for petroleum subsidy for the current year, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has provided some relief for government-owned oil and gas companies. The last supplementary to the current year’s Budget is now expected to provide Rs 15,000-crore more towards petroleum subsidy. At a revised estimate of...
Diesel Price Hike Is The Key
MUMBAI: The market’s expectations from this year’s Budget were rather low. After the state election results, the market was hoping that the finance minister would maintain a status quo on populist spending, if nothing else. The other thing it was hoping for was a degree of realism as far...
Budget 2012 Lacklustre For Oil And Gas Sector
MUMBAI: Despite a rollback of customs duty on imported gas or LNG and an extension of viability gap funding for various oil and gas installations, pipelines and LNG storage terminals, industry insiders see the Union Budget 2012 as lacklustre. say they had expected complete deregulation of diesel, more freedom...
