The government on Sunday provided little immediate relief except increasing allocation to its flagship rural job scheme by 66 per cent, but used the pandemic to usher in bold public sector reforms in its last leg of its announcements on the Rs 20-trillion package. State-owned units will remain only in strategic areas, which, however, are yet to be defined, while those in other areas will be privatised, according to public sector enterprise policy, which the government will detail later. Union Finance Minister (FM) Nirmala Sitharaman also gave leeway to states in terms of market borrowing, but much of it is conditional on reforms, such as the one-nation-one-ration card. This, if fully tapped, will release Rs 4.28 trillion for states, but will widen the fiscal deficit to 5 per cent of state gross domestic product for each. This, together with the Centre’s additional borrowing of Rs 4.20 trillion, will take the combined fiscal deficit of the country to well over 10 per cent of gross domes…
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on Monday proposed to relax the requirement of the mandatory six-month gap between two successive Qualified Institutional Placement (QIP) issues. The regulator said it has received requests from companies seeking a waiver on this requirement of a six-month cooling off period between two successive QIP issues. “The reasons for such exemption, as informed by the issuer companies, are urgent needs of funds and the fact that other fund raising mechanisms, such as a public issue or rights issue, are time-taking in comparison to a QIP issue,” Sebi said in a discussion paper that seeks public comments by April 15. The proposal was discussed by Sebi’s expert committee on primary markets. To address concerns of companies and to support fundraising, relaxation may be provided for successive QIPs within six months of previous QIP issues, in cases where terms of placement for the subsequent issues are disclosed upfront in the special resolutions. …