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سپتامبر 24, 2022

Adani’s global footprint and India’s infrastructure diplomacy

“Several foreign governments are now approaching us to work in their geographies and help build their infrastructure. Therefore, in 2022, we also laid the foundation to seek a broader expansion beyond India’s boundaries,” chairman and founder of the Adani group Gautam Adani, now the world’s third-richest person, said in a virtual address to shareholders at the annual general meeting of Adani Enterprises Ltd in July this year.
In fact, the Adani group had been scouting abroad much earlier. Since 2010, the Adani group has been in Australia, developing the Carmichael coal mine in Queensland despite massive country-wide protests over environmental and other concerns. The mine is now operational, albeit not as big as planned and, it has begun exporting.

In 2017, Adani Ports and Special Economic Zones (Ltd) signed an MoU for a greenfield multi-purpose port for handling containers at Carey Island in Selangor state, about 50 km southwest of Kuala Lumpur. With Malaysia a crucial link in the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative, the Adani interest was contrary to the expectation that a Chinese investor would be roped in for a mega port-cum-maritime city project on Carey Island. Like Carmichael, however, the port project ran into local opposition. A feasibility study is still ongoing.
The last two years, however, have seen the company pursue international infrastructure projects aggressively. In May 2022, APSEZ made a winning bid of $1.18 billion for Israeli state-owned Haifa Port, jointly with Israeli chemicals and logistics firm Gadot. The Adani company will own 70 per cent of the stake in the port. Down the road from Haifa is another port operated by the Chinese state-owned Shanghai International Port Group, and the two are expected to compete for business.
In August this year, APSEZ and Abu Dhabi’s AD Ports Group signed an MoU for “strategic joint investments” in Tanzania. In their sights is Bagamoyo Port, earlier being jointly developed by China Merchants Holdings International and Oman’s State Government Reserve Fund (SGRF) under a 2013 agreement with the Tanzanian government. The port was supposed to be a premium BRI project. But it struggled to get off the ground. Two years ago, the contract was cancelled after then President John Magufuli called the terms “exploitative and awkward”. The new ASEZ-AD MoU will look at a bouquet of infrastructure projects besides Bagamoyo in the East African Indian Ocean nation — rail, maritime services, digital services and industrial zones.
Is it just a coincidence that Adani’s global expansion closely shadows the Chinese footprint along its Belt and Road Initiative? Or is it that as Delhi competes with China for influence in the neighbourhood and beyond, the Adani group’s size, resources and capacity are seen as a key element in achieving India’s strategic objectives than has been possible so far. Irrespective, India’s infrastructure diplomacy is now becoming identified the world over with one company.
For the Adani group, described as India’s biggest ports and logistics company, there couldn’t be a better time. As the Quad grouping of Australia, India, Japan, and the US, competes with China in the Indo-Pacific, it has committed “to catalyse infrastructure delivery” by putting more than $50 billion on the table for “assistance and investment” in the Indo-Pacific over the next five years and “drive public and private investment to bridge gaps”. The Australia-India free trade agreement signed earlier this year, which gives coal imported from Australia zero duty access to India, is no small detail for Adani.

The joint Adani-AD Ports interest in Tanzania has come at a time when India-Israel-UAE-US have come together as the “Quad of the middle east” to address the China challenge outside the Indo-Pacific.
In Sri Lanka, a controversy erupted over last year’s award of two wind energy projects to Adani Green Energy Ltd, after an official declared he had been asked to greenlight the project by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa under pressure from the Indian Prime Minister.
It was not the first time though that Adani appeared as the go-to company for Indian projects in Sri Lanka.
Under a Sri Lanka-Japan-India agreement, APSEZ was to develop and operate the East Container Terminal at Colombo Port. The Rajapaksa government abruptly cancelled this agreement in January 2021, and later offered the West Container Terminal as consolation. Adani is developing it jointly with a Sri Lankan partner. In both cases, it is not known why or through what process Adani was the chosen Indian developer.

Even as many in Sri Lanka fret about these “secret agreements”, Sri Lankan officials seem to have made pragmatic peace with the choice. “80 per cent of the business at Colombo Port is transhipment. Of this, 70 per cent is to India. And of that 70 per cent, 35 per cent goes to Adani held ports. With Adani coming in with 3 million TEUs (20-foot equivalent unit) in the West Container Terminal — our capacity of 7.5 million TEUs increases significantly,” Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner to India Milinda Moragoda said in an interview to The Indian Express in January.
Adani’s new “no-hands” model of doing business with neighbours — a power plant in Jharkhand, exporting all its output to Bangladesh — has been seen as a “win-win” deal. An official compared the “success” of this model with Nepal, where Indian projects have been held up for decades due to local politics and other hurdles. Jharkhand was not problem free, but as Adani tweeted after his meeting with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in Delhi earlier this month, the project is all set to send 1500 MW to Bangladesh by Bijoy Dibosh in December 2022, six years after an MoU for this was signed.
The link between diplomacy and commercial interests has generated its share of debate, especially in the US, where its diplomats, intelligence agencies and military interventions abroad have actively pushed the interests of big business — first the hunt for cheaper raw materials, then for markets abroad, then to shift industry where manpower was cheaper. As seen in the new age trading blocs — the US-led IPEF, and the Chinese dominated RCEP — economic interests lie at the heart of geopolitics.
At a time when global rivalries are growing sharper in the shadow of the war in Europe, and as India looks out for its own interests, pushing powerful corporates to the centre-stage of its diplomacy, whether it is to build ports, buy or sell weapons or make chips, is inevitable. Which companies are deployed, how and why will be watched and discussed. Just as Delhi has fashioned non-alignment 2.0 in its global relations, its diplomacy has to avoid tying itself, and by extension the national interest, in less than opaque ways to the fortunes of a single private entity. Given the concentration of capital in India Inc and the economic headwinds ahead, that will be a challenge.
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سپتامبر 16, 2022

Cloud over output from UP, Govt likely to restrict sugar exports

After banning exports of wheat and broken rice, the Narendra Modi government is set to take a call next on sugar.
Mills, in all likelihood, will be allowed to export up to 50 lakh tonnes (lt) of the sweetener in the new sugar year from October. Any decision on further quantities would be taken in January-February after a review of domestic production and price trends.
On May 24, the Modi government had moved sugar exports from the “free” to “restricted” category. It also capped total exports for the 2021-22 sugar year at 100 lt, which was raised to 112 lt with effect from August 1.

“They (government) are concerned about output, particularly in Uttar Pradesh where the monsoon rainfall has been nearly 43 per cent deficient and there are also reports of the cane crop being affected by red rot (a fungal disease),” a source told The Indian Express.
The current 2021-22 sugar year has seen both production and exports from India touch record levels of 360 lt and 112 lt respectively. However, closing stocks, estimated at 60 lt on September 30, would be a five-year low.
“That’s still equivalent to two-and-a-half months’ consumption (projected at 275 lt for the whole year). Also, lower production in UP is likely to be offset by increases in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, where rains have been good and reservoirs are full. But they don’t want to take any chances, especially after the latest consumer food price inflation number of 7.62 per cent for August,” the source said.

Prakash Naiknavare, managing director of the National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories, said that permitting exports in tranches makes sense, as it will enable mills to enter into contracts before they start production for the new year (crushing operations usually take off post-Diwali).
“The government has already sounded us out that mills can sign export contracts up to 15 per cent of their production (projected at 330-360 lt in 2022-23). We have conveyed this to our members so that they can plan accordingly,” he added.

A strategy to regulate exports after reviewing the domestic availability position is likely in 2022-23 as well.
“The notification allowing an initial quantity of 50 lt is expected in the next few days. A second tranche of 30-35 lt may follow by February, when a reasonable estimate of production can also be made,” the source said.

ExplainedAfter rice and wheatRice, wheat and sugar were three “surplus” agro-commodities. But a whittling down of the surpluses has reignited inflation concerns — and prompted the government to impose restrictions.

Mills are keen to start exports early for two reasons. The first is that the world’s biggest exporter Brazil’s sugar season is from April to November. It gives a window of exports for Indian mills, which crush from late-October to early-May.
The second is prices. White sugar for December delivery is currently quoting at about $538 per tonne. Indian sugar, being less white/refined, would fetch a $50 quality discount or $488 (Rs 39,000) per tonne.
Deducting Rs 3,500 costs (towards bagging, transport from factory to port, stevedoring, and handling) translates into an ex-mill price of Rs 35,500 per tonne. That’s more than the roughly Rs 34,000 that Maharashtra mills are realising from domestic sale of ‘S-grade’ (small-sized granules) sugar.
Indian mills have also been exporting raw sugar, which fetches a 4 per cent “polarisation” premium (for being more amenable to refining into whites) in the world market.

December raw sugar prices are now 17.97 cents per pound, corresponding into 18.69 cents or $412 (Rs 33,000) per tonne from. The expenses are also about Rs 500 per tonne lower, since raw sugar is shipped out in bulk break vessels, as against containers in the case of whites.
India’s sugar exports, which were a mere 0.46 lt in 2016-17 and 6.32 lt in 2017-18, soared to 38 lt, 59.40 lt and 71.90 lt in the subsequent three sugar years, before the all-time-high of 112 lt achieved in 2021-22.
Drought in Brazil in 2021 and in Thailand the year before – and this year’s heat wave in the European Union – have created export opportunities for Indian mills. But whether they can fully seize it now, given inflation worries back home, remains to be seen.
The Modi government, on May 13, banned wheat exports. On September 8, it prohibited exports of broken rice, besides slapping a 20 per cent duty on shipments of other non-parboiled non-basmati varieties.

سپتامبر 8, 2022

Covid distress: One in 6 MSME loan accounts under Govt pandemic relief package turns NPA

In an indication of the continuing distress in the Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) sector, one in every six loans disbursed under the Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLG Scheme) launched as part of the Covid-19 relief package in May 2020 has turned bad in just 27 months, according to information obtained by The Indian Express under the Right to Information Act. The defaults are mainly in the lower end of the loan bands (up to Rs 20 lakh), the data reveals.
Replying to an RTI, the National Credit Guarantee Trustee Company Ltd (NCGTC) – a company set up by the Union Ministry of Finance to manage and provide guarantees to these loans – has said that loans to 16.22 lakh accounts, or 16.4 per cent of the total 98.86 lakh accounts, disbursed since May 2020 turned into Non-Performing Assets (NPA).
While the total NPAs or bad loans as per the RTI response dated August 25 this year stood at Rs 11,893.06 crore, the total loan amount disbursed till August 25 this year amounted to Rs 2,81,375.99 crore. The quantum of loans that could be provided by banks was increased from Rs 50 crore initially in a phased manner, and the Rs 500 crore ceiling was finally removed in May 2021.

The government announced the ECLG Scheme for the MSME sector in May 2020, two months after the national lockdown announced in March. Loans under the ECLG scheme’s first component (ECLGS 1.0) allowed a two-year moratorium. The interest rate charged was capped at 9.25 per cent for banks and 14 per cent for Non-Banking Financial Corporations (NBFCs). MSMEs were provided additional loans up to a maximum of 20 per cent of their outstanding debt. The maximum loan provided was Rs 50 crore. These loans were to be categorised as NPAs when they remained unpaid even three months after the two-year moratorium.
Most loans that have now turned bad were awarded under ECLGS 1.0.

A banker involved in the exercise said the current NPA categorisation norms state that if even one loan account of a customer turns bad, all loan accounts will be categorised as NPAs, irrespective of the fact the other accounts continue to be serviced. The banker said some accounts may have turned bad even before the mandatory three-month period due to non-payment of other loans, indicating that the company or individual was not able to service loans due to financial stress.?

Explaining why the number of loan accounts that have turned bad are high though the quantum of bad loans is low in value terms, a second banker said the initial lot of NPAs are from smaller loans extended earlier in the scheme. “NPAs are mainly in loan buckets under Rs 20 lakh. On bigger loans, the number of NPAs are lower for now,” said a banker handling loan accounts in an industrialised region of the country with a large number of MSME units.?

Emails sent to NCGTC, Union Ministry of Finance, and Financial Services Secretary Sanjay Malhotra did not elicit any response till the time of going to print.?
A January 2022 report by the State Bank of India had said that the ECLGS was crucial in keeping MSMEs afloat. It saved an estimated 13.5 lakh MSME accounts, 1.5 crore jobs and prevented an estimated 14 per cent of outstanding MSME loans amounting to Rs 1.8 lakh crore turning bad. Of the 13.5 lakh MSMEs accounts saved, 48 per cent belonged to the micro enterprises category, 46 per cent to the small enterprises category, and the remaining 6 per cent to the medium enterprises category. The NPAs under ECLGS loans, bankers noted, were mainly of small businesses.
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Loans under the ECLG Scheme carry a government guarantee and 75 per cent of the total loan amount is immediately paid to the banks in case of loan accounts turning bad; the rest after the bank fails to recover the loan amount. In normal course, banks have to provide 15% of the outstanding in the first year of a secured loan turning bad. In case of unsecured turning bad, banks have to provide 25% of the loan outstanding.
In terms of industry classification, micro units are categorised as units with investments up to Rs 1 crore and turnover of less than Rs 5 crore, small units as those with investment limit of Rs 10 crore and a turnover of less than 50 crore. A unit is a medium enterprise, if it has investments of up to Rs 20 crore and a turnover of less than Rs 100 crore.
© The Indian Express (P) Ltd .

سپتامبر 3, 2022

Polio to Covid-19: What accounts for India’s vaccination success story?

India’s success with immunization is an achievement not only for the country but also for the world. India has consistently contributed to the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by focusing on the immunization of newborns, infants, children, and pregnant women. Under its Universal Immunization Programme (UIP), India provides vaccines against 11 diseases nationally and one disease sub-nationally, targeting close to 2.7 crore newborns and 2.9 crore pregnant women every year.
Vaccination is one of the most cost-effective public health interventions, which saves lives by protecting people, especially children, from dreadful vaccine preventable diseases. Since the discovery of the smallpox vaccine over two centuries ago, vaccines have effectively reduced the burden of diseases such as polio, measles, tetanus, whooping cough, influenza, and lately, Covid-19. A recent study in the medical journal The Lancet estimates that vaccines have prevented up to 3.7 crore deaths in the last 20 years in low- and middle-income countries alone.

Vaccines also have economic and social benefits. A study published in Health Affairs estimated that for every rupee invested in immunization against 10 pathogens in LMICs from 2021-30, the return on investment will be 52 rupees.
From polio to Covid-19
India has a long history of successful vaccination with historical accounts of inoculation dating back to the 18th century. After being declared smallpox-free in 1977, India launched the Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) in 1978, and introduced the BCG, DPT, and OPV vaccines. Since then, India’s immunization programme has steadily improved in reach and the arsenal of childhood vaccines provided under its umbrella.
Newer vaccines, better infrastructure, and innovative strategies to improve both demand and supply of vaccines have been integral components of programme expansion. Along with a government-driven eradication plan, a multi-faceted communication approach helped the entire population achieve public ownership to be polio-free in 2014.

Since 2014, immunization activities have been intensified with catch-up rounds such as Mission Indradhanush to ensure that full immunization coverage of >90% is achieved and sustained across the country. In 2016, India became the first country in Asia to launch the Rotavirus vaccine under the UIP. And in 2017, the Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine (PCV) was introduced and scaled up using Made-in-India vaccines to prevent rotaviral diarrhoea and pneumococcal pneumonia in children.
PCV produced in India costs around Rs 200 per dose, making it affordable and accessible to protect young children from pneumococcal pneumonia in India and other parts of the world. Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, the vaccine was scaled up to all states of the country in 2021. Additionally, the introduction of the pentavalent vaccine in the routine vaccination provides protection against five diseases with no added infrastructure costs and fewer missed doses for individual vaccines.
Data from the National Family Health Surveys (NFHS) provide direct evidence of India’s success: childhood vaccination rates have consistently improved over the last two decades with the proportion of children who are ‘fully vaccinated’ reaching 76% as per the latest 2019-21 survey. As India and the world set themselves up to eliminate measles by achieving a sustained vaccination coverage of 95%, the data from India look promising.

Measles vaccination rates have increased from 59% in 2006 to 88% in 2021. Mass immunization campaigns have prevented tens of thousands of measles deaths in children. India launched an ambitious Measles-Rubella (MR) vaccination drive and vaccinated over 3 crore children in three years. All the diseases prevented, and lives saved also translate into economic and social benefits.
India has achieved remarkable feats with childhood vaccination, and continues to do so with Covid-19 vaccination. India has overcome challenges across time and geography to reach much of its population, ensure last-mile delivery, finance a sustained large-scale operation at the government level, and develop and sustain trust among the people.

During the pandemic, lockdowns led to disruptions in routine immunization services and the closure of health facilities. And while we saw global collaboration to bring out vaccines at an unprecedented speed, we also saw an ‘infodemic-fueled’ vaccine hesitancy in people who previously trusted vaccines.
Sustained vaccination services, along with cultivating continued vaccine trust and basic knowledge of vaccine benefits in the general population, has helped prevent outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles and polio that are being seen in some parts of the world. Use of technology like the Electronic Vaccine Intelligence Network (eVIN) system that digitizes the entire vaccine stock management, their logistics and temperature tracking at all levels of vaccine storage from national to the sub-district, further ensures vaccine availability and vaccine safety.

Behind India’s success
What accounts for India’s success?
One, since Independence, India has built up its biomedical enterprise including research and development, and manufacturing capacity. A fruitful public-private partnership has helped bolster this development. The indigenously produced Rotavirus and PCV vaccines, and the speed with which India was able to indigenously produce two Covid-19 vaccines, are examples of the return on these investments.
India also built its delivery infrastructure by establishing cold chain systems, and by developing and training a community health cadre of workers who established last-mile services. Today, India is the single largest producer of vaccines in the world, providing quality vaccines at low cost, and helping immunize other LMICs. It is estimated that almost two-thirds of the children in the world receive at least one vaccine manufactured in India.
Two, the infrastructural developments were accompanied by an improvement on the demand side through social and behavioural communication campaigns.
Such campaigns target all segments of the population to generate awareness about vaccine-preventable diseases and build trust and confidence in vaccinations. In our studies with pregnant and breastfeeding women across various states in India, we documented a continued positive attitude towards childhood immunization mostly because of accurate knowledge about vaccines and their benefits, and about vaccine-preventable diseases.
This awareness can be attributed to sustained communication campaigns as part of UIP. India uses various available platforms of communication to convey consistent and accurate information. Community health workers such as ASHAs and Anganwadi workers go door-to-door to provide information and identify the missed-out children and pregnant women for any due dose. They have been a cornerstone of the polio endgame through their role in vaccination and active surveillance.
While national leaders and celebrities spreading messages through mass media has proven to be useful, engagement with local community influencers who are “closer” to people has also tremendously helped build vaccine confidence. As media outlets proliferated, the government incorporated dissemination through new channels such as mobile messaging and social media as part of its evolving communication strategy.
Despite multiple challenges, vaccination is indeed one of India’s public health success stories. As the world aims to bring about improved uptake of, and equity in Covid-19 vaccination, policymakers and public health practitioners can learn from India’s vaccination programmes. Advocacy, capacity building, investment in research and manufacturing, community engagement, mass- and social-media engagement, and social mobilization have helped India reach its current vaccination coverage.
Dr Pinnamaneni is a Research Fellow at the Harvard T H Chan School of Public Health and a physician. Dr Dhawan is a Data Programmer Analyst at Dana Farber Cancer Institute. Prof Viswanath is Lee Kim See Professor of Health Communication at the Harvard T H Chan School of Public Health, and Director of Harvard T H Chan School of Public Health, India Research Center. Their projects focus on translational health communication to influence public health policy and practice. Some of their projects include Project SANCHAR that trains health journalists and civil servants in India, and work with the MoWCD on maternal and child nutritional behaviours.

آگوست 22, 2022

No renewals or new patrons: Zomato takes Pro off menu

Food tech platform Zomato is recalibrating its loyalty programs, and has closed new sign ups and renewals for its flagship program Zomato Pro, The Indian Express has learnt. The company had already shut down the more premium iteration Zomato Pro Plus earlier, and revised the terms of its co-branded credit card with RBL Bank.
The Gurgaon-based company launched Zomato Pro in 2020 and Zomato Pro Plus in 2021. The Zomato Pro program replaced the Zomato Gold membership offering. Pro members get discounts while ordering food online from or dining out at partner restaurants.
In a message to users trying to renew their expired Pro membership, Zomato says: “Thank you for being a part of the Zomato Pro program. The membership is unavailable for renewal as we are working on a new and better experience for you. We request you to check the Zomato app to stay updated on the latest offerings.”
Confirming the development in response to queries sent by The Indian Express, a Zomato spokesperson said: “While Zomato Pro and Pro Plus have been loved tremendously by our customers and merchants, we want it to be even more beneficial, especially for the most engaged customers and merchant partners.”

“We are taking feedback and working closely with our customers and restaurant partners to craft a new program. Meanwhile, we are not onboarding new members and merchant partners to Zomato Pro and Zomato Pro Plus. While active members can continue to get their benefits as promised, they will not be able to extend/renew their memberships once their membership tenure expires,” the spokesperson added.
In a separate message to the users of Zomato’s co-branded credit card, RBL Bank and the food tech platform said that September 20 onwards, it was capping the cashback from orders placed on the app using the co-branded credit card to 500 Edition Cash a day (1 Edition Cash is redeemable as Re 1 for subsequent Zomato orders).
Zomato offers 5 per cent cash back on spends done on its app. Under the new conditions, the company has also added spends done on the Blinkit app to the cashback scheme. Zomato recently acquired quick-commerce platform Blinkit, formerly known as Grofers.

ExplainedEye on newer use casesThe decision to pause onboarding of new members as well as to renew the membership of existing ones on Zomato Pro comes amid the company’s strategy of introducing newer use cases, focused more on dining out. These plans are unfolding as Zomato attempts to further narrow its losses.

These recent decisions are in line with Zomato’s new strategy of looking beyond loyalty programs to drive customer frequency. In its earnings call for the April-June quarter earlier this month, Zomato’s chief financial officer Akshant Goyal said, “I think if you have to go from where we are today and meaningfully increase customer frequency, we will have to look beyond these loyalty programs and look at introducing newer use cases, which perhaps leads to a lot of the current offline spend on restaurant food moving on to our platform.”
The company reported a consolidated net loss of Rs 186 crore for the three-month period ended June, compared with Rs 359.70 crore in the March quarter and Rs 360.70 crore in the quarter ended June 30, 2021. This, even as its topline grew to Rs 1,413.90 crore in April-June this year, against Rs 844.40 crore in the same period last year.
The company said food delivery business grew 15 per cent sequentially and saw a break-even in adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) — a measure of its operating margins.
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Zomato’s chief rival in the food tech space Swiggy too runs its loyalty program Swiggy One, which was launched in November last year.
Swiggy operates this program as a common membership for the bouquet of services it provides, including food delivery, quick-commerce and local door-to-door package delivery.
The Swiggy One program offers the app’s users unlimited free deliveries from select restaurants and unlimited free delivery from Instamart on orders greater than Rs 99 in value, in addition to other discounts and no surge fees.