First food: business of taste
Good Food is First Food. It is not junk food. It is the food that connects nature and nutrition with livelihoods. This food is good for our health; it comes from the rich biodiversity of our regions; it
India
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Energy Efficiency (Advertisement)
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Government raises petrol and diesel prices
AFTER several rounds of deliberations on raising auto fuel prices, the government finally decided to bite the bullet. Despite the Left's opposition it has raised petrol and diesel prices by Rs 2/litre and Re 1/litre, respectively, from February 15. The current price of petrol in Delhi is Rs 45.52/litre (from the earlier price of Rs 43.52/litre) and diesel is Rs 31.76/litre (from Rs 30.48/litre).
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Sovereign wealth fund for overseas energy assets
The government is planning to create a multi-billion-dollar sovereign wealth fund to invest in energy assets such as oil, gas and coal across the world. "The plans are at a very initial stage. A decision on this would be taken after the budget,' Planning Commission energy adviser Surya P Sethi said here. "The fund, if set up, will invest in overseas oil, gas and coal assets.' Sethi did not give any idea of the possible size of the fund, but said: "It has to be in billions of dollars.' According to the latest data available with the Reserve Bank of India, the country's foreign exchange reserves stood at about $290.8 billion for the weekended February 8, up 57% from a year earlier. A sovereign wealth fund comprises assets such as stocks, bonds and other financial instruments, which is owned and managed by the government. The funds are deployed overseas for higher returns. The fund will be on the lines of Temasek Holdings, a sovereign wealth fund owned by the Singapore government. Officials are of the view that low returns on investments in US treasury bills and other sovereign securities did not cover the costs of maintaining huge forex reserves, and justified establishing a fund that could deliver higher returns. Last year, state-run India Infrastructure Finance Co Ltd set up an offshore unit in London to use part of the country's reserves to help local Companies import equipment for infrastructure projects. The corpus of this fund is $5 billion. The central bank has previously expressed reluctance at using forex reserves to set up an investment fund as it said the build-up in reserves was largely to insulate the Economy from the impact of huge capital inflows, which could be reversed at short notice.
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Brinda questions Deora on fuel price hike
Picking on an advertisement issued by the Petroleum Ministry to explain the recent fuel price hike, CPI(M) Politburo member and MP Brinda Karat wrote a letter to Petroleum Minister Murli Deora on Tuesday, questioning the Ministry's claim about the Government absorbing a financial burden of over Rs 71,000 crore during the current financial year. "I believe that the claim is not based on facts. In fact, the entire campaign launched by your ministry is misleading,' she said, seeking answers to a five-point questionnaire.
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Rationalise levies on petro products for long-term good
WE ALL know the critical role played by oil and gas in the economic development of a country. Fuels such as PDS kerosene and domestic LPG are essential commodities, next only to food, and impact the life of common man in a major way. Therefore, managing the supplies and prices of sensitive petroleum products is a key policy issue for the government.
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Energising reserves
A wealth fund with dedicated funds from forex reserves would add muscle to India's race for energy supplies around the world.
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Recession is iffy, inflation looks certain (Editorial)
Given the way world prices for food, energy and other industrial goods are moving, the potential implications on the price situation at home is of great import and cause for concern, says Saumitra Chaudhuri THISis a strange year, most likely it will get stranger. There are so many conflicting signals as to where the world economy is headed that market movements are seized of great volatility. Eminent voices see a major US recession down the road; some among them are yet willing to see an "if' about it. Other street signs
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President's address courts 'aam adami'
Skirting commitments on all controversial issues like Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and the Indo-US Civil Nuclear Agreement, the government today made it clear that pro-people, inclusive social and economic policies alone would be pursued in the last year of its five-year term. The President's address to the joint session of Parliament, traditionally a summary of the government's activities during the previous year and its priorities for the coming year, spelt out only those issues on which there was parliamentary consensus. Therefore, while showcase schemes like the expansion of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme and the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan were held up as ways in which the government had embraced the poor, contentious issues like Left extremism, land reforms and labour legislation were not even mentioned in the speech. Much was made of Bharat Nirman, the National Rural Health Mission and the Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission. This was made possible, the government said, because of the performance of the Indian economy that has grown at close to 9 per cent per annum for four years in a row. "The historically high investment rate, of over 35 per cent of GDP, and savings rate, of over 34 per cent of GDP, symbolise a new dynamism in our economy,' the government said in the address, adding that this was all the more creditable against the background of high international oil prices and rising commodity prices. The government said the Indian consumer would continue to be insulated against high international costs of food commodities and oil, putting paid to any tinkering in the duty structure and subsidies in oil and gas. The government said outlays on agriculture, health and rural development had been tripled and together with education, these sectors account for more than half of the Central Gross Budgetary Support as compared to less than one-third in the Tenth Five-Year Plan. "This is a major structural shift in Plan priorities, aimed at reducing disparities and empowering people,' the address said. It added that attention had been focused on areas like agriculture and the target set in the National Common Minimum Programme, of doubling agricultural credit in three years, had been exceeded. However, the government did not commit itself on the implementation of the Radhakrishna report on rural indebtedness. Conscious that it was under fire on the issue of agricultural prices, the address said the government had effected "an unprecedented steep hike of over 50 per cent in the Minimum Support Price (MSP) for wheat and about 33 per cent for paddy in the last four years'. Specific sectoral successes like the legislation for unorganised labour, increase in the level of minimum wage from Rs 66 to Rs 80 per day, increase in the eligibility limit for payment of bonus to workers from Rs 3,500 to Rs 10,000 per month, and the National Rehabilitation and Resettlement Policy for people displaced from their land due to development projects, were also mentioned as landmark schemes. Despite the prime minister's repeated warnings on the performance of the power sector, the President's address only patted itself on the back for allotment of coal blocks with the capacity to support 68,000 Mw of power generation and the identification of nine sites in for setting up coal-based Ultra Mega Power Projects (UMPP) with capacity of 4,000 Mw each. Nor was there any mention of when additional spectrum would be allotted for the telecom industry, even as the government announced that the Indian telecom sector had emerged as the fastest growing in the world with the addition of over 7 million subscribers per month. On SEZs, the address said the government had already provided direct employment to about 100,000 people, with indirect employment estimated at twice as much. "They have attracted investment of over Rs 50,000 crore, and are expected to generate exports of Rs 67,000 crore this year,' the address said. Meanwhile, the third front declared that the President's speech skirted around major problems facing the country, including that of continuing farmer suicides and inflation. The United National Progressive Alliance (UNPA) leaders said they had support of UPA allies CPI(M) and CPI in their attempts to raise these issues in the public realm. According to the Samajwadi Party general secretary Amar Singh, CPI(M) leader Prakash Karat and CPI leader A B Bardhan will be participating in a UNPA-sponsored dharna on farmer suicides to coincide with the presentation of the railway budget on Tuesday.
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5% oil freight cut will not lower petrol, diesel prices
The 5% reduction in freight rates for motor fuels announced in the Railway Budget is aimed at weaning away petrol and diesel traffic from road transport but will not result in any reduction in pump prices as the oil companies will save a mere Rs 50 crore annually due to the low volumes moved through rail. The new rate will bring down the cost of moving petrol and diesel over a distance of 100 km to Rs 172.40 per tonne from Rs 181. The rate for moving motor fuels over 1,000 km would cost Rs 1,184.40 a tonne against Rs 1,243.60. For a distance of over 2,000 km, the cost would come down to Rs 2,131.80 per tonne from Rs 2,238.40. The oil companies move less than 40% of the petrol and diesel consumed in the country by rail. The price build-up of petrol and diesel factors is a notional 50% of the prevailing rail freight. The 5% cut in rail freight will therefore not have an impact on the price build-up as the new freight charge would continue to be higher than what is accounted for in the price build-up. Following this 5% cut in freight on the two auto fuels, the railways hope to wean the petroleum cargo transport business away from roads. Oil firms move over 40% of the annual consumption of petrol and diesel through pipelines, the cheapest mode, and 20% by road.
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Crude oil, gas output falls due to closure
The production of crude oil from the country's sedimentary basins fell marginally by 0.3 per cent to 2.89 million tonne (mt) in January this year compared with 2.90 mt in January 2007. The output was, however, marginally higher than the 2.88 mt in December, data released by the petroleum ministry showed. The output of natural gas in January was also down by 2.53 per cent to 2.69 billion cubic metres (bcm) compared with the 2.76 bcm in January 2007. Compared with the 2.85 bcm gas produced in December 2007, the fall in January this year was higher at 5.61 per cent. The decline in crude oil and gas production in January was due to a two-week shutdown of a production platform at Bombay High, the country's largest oil producing field. In the April-January period of the current financial year, crude oil production was 0.28 per cent higher at 28.46 mt compared with 28.38 mt in the same period of the last financial year. Natural gas production was up by 1.7 per cent to 26.89 bcm from 26.44 bcm in April-January 2006-07. In January this year, the country's oil refineries processed 13.67 mt crude oil, 5.31 per cent higher than the 12.98 mt in the year-ago month. The rise in refinery production is primarily due to private refiner Essar Oil. The quantity of oil processed at the company's refinery rose almost 161 per cent in January after the full 10.5-million-tonne-per-annum capacity was commissioned in the later part of the month. The refineries, on an average, utilised 108.4 per cent of their capacity in January 2008, against 106.9 per cent in the year-ago month. In December 2007, the capacity utilisation was 103.5 per cent. In the April-January period of the current financial year, refinery output increased 7.30 per cent to 129.78 mt, compared with 120.94 mt in the same period of the last fiscal. Average refinery capacity utilisation during the period was, however, lower at 104.2 per cent compared with 106.7 per cent in the year-ago period.