Highlights of Railway Budget 2011-12

http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=70173

Indian Aviation Industry: Reeling Under Losses

Only five airline services companies are listed on the stock exchanges in India and hence only their quarterly financial information is available.

Top three of the five companies in the aviation sector reported a robust sales growth of over 20% each during the December 2010 quarter. Higher passenger volumes coupled with improved realisations enabled the industry post healthy sales growth.

RIL-BP Deal: A Mega Opportunity

The deal is expected to give Reliance Industries an access to world class deep water exploration and development capabilities. On the other hand, BP will gain from RIL’s strong project management skills and operations expertise, together with an access to the growing gas market in India. 

It is probably one of the few occasions when RIL has given such a high stake to another company.

Fertiliser subsidy to rise further

The Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) on fertilisers approved the prices of complex fertilisers for the financial year 2011-12.

The EGoM, headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, approved the prices of di-ammonium phosphate (DAP), muriate of potash (MOP), sulphur and urea for the purposes of its nitrogen component at $580, $390, $180 and $350 per tonne, respectively. These are the prices at which contracting by the industry would be done for the whole financial year of 2011-12 under the Nutrient Based Subsidy (NBS) policy that was implemented for complex fertilisers from April 1, 2010.

However, the farm gate prices of these complex fertilisers would remain nearly at the same level

Telecom Industry in India

The Indian telecommunications industry is one of the fastest growing in the world. The industry has witnessed consistent growth during the last year on the back of rollout of newer circles by operators, successful auction of third-generation (3G) and broadband wireless access (BWA) spectrum, network rollout in semi-rural areas and increased focus on the value added services (VAS) market.

RIL’s strategic partnership with BP

Company’s press release.

GAIL fears loss of revenue… Read

Indian Tractor Industry to grow by 60%: Crisil

The Advance Estimates released by CSO revealed that agriculture and allied activities are likely to grow at 5.4 per cent in 2010-11 as compared to just 0.4 per cent in 2009-10 making a huge stride. Improved agricultural output together higher MSP (minimum supply price) will yield higher income in the hands of the farmer. This will augur well for the tractor industry.

Crisil Research projects tractor industry size to increase to about Rs 320-330 billion by 2014-15 from Rs 200 billion in 2009-10. This is a stupendous 60 per cent increase.

Quarterly Statistics on Scheduled Commercial Banks

RBI’s Quarterly Statistics on Deposits & Credit of Scheduled Commercial Banks. Link

Data in xls format

IIP growth recedes

Industrial growth nosedived to a 20-month low of 1.6% in December 2010. This was mainly due to a contraction in capital goods, consumer non-durables and manufacturing sector as a whole.

The deceleration came in spite of a 6.6% growth in production of core infrastructure industries — which account for 26% in the IIP.

Low-Cost Airlines Flying Faster

The scheduled domestic airlines recorded a 18.7% growth in the number of passengers carried during the calendar year 2010 compared to 2009.

Although the Indian economy recovered swiftly from the slowdown in 2008-09, there has been a remarkable shift in the market share of scheduled domestic airline operators.

The market share of every low-cost airlines — including Indigo, GoAir and SpiceJet — is rising at a rapid pace.