Daily Financial News Analysis – 27th Nov’19

Table of Contents

Govt to IAS officers

The Centre has asked IAS officers to file details of their immovable property in time or face disciplinary action.
An officer of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) shall submit an annual return in a specified form, giving full particulars regarding the immovable property inherited, owned or acquired by him or held by him on lease or mortgage, either in his own name or in the name of any member of his family or any other person, according to the rules.

The kharif 2019 pulses output could be at least some 6 lakh tonne lower than the 3 lakh tonne estimated.
Large-scale crop damages in key producing states such as Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka.
The rabi (winter) crop may fall, given that prolonged monsoon and resultant floods have delayed the sowing activity
The winter-sowing of pulses is now down a fifth.
Usually, the pulses production in a crop year is divided on 6:4 ratio between the winter and summer crops.
2015-16: 163 lakh tonne
2016-17: 231 lakh tonne
2017-18: 254 lakh tonne
2018-19: 234 lakh tonne
Since India’s pulses production just meets the annual domestic demand of about 240 lakh tonne, any production shortfall could impact prices rather directly, although the buffer stocks could give some cushion.
However, there is no official report as yet of crop-wise damage in states.

2019 will go down as the worst year ever for India Inc’s credit profile.

Data from Bloomberg show there have been more than 3,300 downgrades this year, including those of Tata Motors, Yes Bank and Jain Irrigation.
Of these, 472 firms have been assigned ‘default’ status.

Centre has invite fresh expressions of interest (EoIs) by December 15 for the sale of its entire stake in Air India.
The employees of the national carrier — over 11,000 at last count — will be offered job protection for a period of one year.
Sale and purchase agreement (SPA).
Any buyer will like to overhaul the staff in a thin-margin business like airlines to increase efficiency

The omnibus Industrial Relations Code soon to be tabled in Parliament.
Amalgamating four existing Central laws.
It would also get more difficult to strike work legally in establishments once the Code takes effect.
It proposes to extend the mandatory 14-days prior notice condition to practically all sectors
Either party — employer and the sole negotiating union — will have the option under the Code to refer an industrial dispute for adjudication.
This again could come in haandy for the businesses to frustrate bids to use strike tools like mass leaves because once the adjudication process begins, strikes will be illegal till it reaches a finality.
For any union to be designated as sole negotiating union, it will require the support of 75% of workers on the muster roll.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi must invest trillions of dollars on roads and other critical infrastructure if he’s to pull India’s economy out of its slump.
With at least half coming from state governments that are out of centre’s control.
Crisil Infrastructure Advisor: spend Rs 235 lakh crore ($3.3 trillion) on infrastructure over the coming decade to return economic growth rates to more than 5%
Indian states, too, have deteriorating public finances.
States will have to more than triple their contributions from the current decade.
Crisil recommends that frontrunner states such as Maharashtra and Gujarat must attract more private investments to counteract a probable slowdown at recent high spenders including Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.

Food regulator FSSAI will write to the GST council to remove tax on packaged milk products to boost sales.
FSSAI found quality and hygiene concerns in recent sample testing of milk products that were sold loose in the retail market.
At present, milk products attract 5% GST
FSSAI: Released an action plan to ensure quality and safety of milk and milk products on the National Milk Day.
It has decided to launch a scheme to verify one lakh milk vendors, out of 25 lakh such vendors across the country.
FSSAI has provided testing equipment to states for increasing surveillance and enforcements.
Under the ‘Verified Milk Vendors Scheme‘ to be launched in one-and-a-half months, milk vendors can voluntarily register through online registration portal and would be provided photo-identity card and properly calibrated lactometer.
Trainings would be imparted on clean milk practices with periodic sampling and testing of their milk.