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Phase 1 of railways' game-changing freight corridor network will be ready by November The first phase of the Rs 81,000-crore dedicated rail freight corridors project is likely to be completed in November. Once thrown open, the western and the eastern corridors will reduce travel time between Delhi and Mumbai and Delhi and Howrah, the two most congested rail routes in the country, for both passengers and goods. The 1,500-km western freight corridor runs from Dadri near Delhi to Jawahar Lal Nehru Port Trust in Mumbai and the 1,800-km eastern corridor is from Ludhiana in Punjab to Dankuni in West Bengal. “We’ll be making 432 km part of the western corridor and 343 km of the eastern corridor operational by November,” said Anshuman Sharma, managing director, Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation, an arm of Indian Railways. “All the freight traffic that is currently on the rail routes between Delhi and Mumbai and Delhi and Kolkata would be moved to these corridors in parts to de

GST surpasses Rs 1 trn in April, FM says this confirms upswing in economy If the governments at the Centre and in states indeed collect Rs 1 trillion, they will be able to garner Rs 12 trillion in 2018-19 The goods and services tax (GST) revenue collection crossed Rs 1 trillion in April, the highest in a month since the new indirect tax was rolled out in July last year. As many as 69.5 per cent of assessees filed summary input-output returns in April, against 64.61 per cent in the previous month. The mop-up at Rs 1.03 trillion far exceeded the Rs 898.8 billion average monthly collections for the first eight months after the GST was introduced, prompting Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to say that it mirrored enhanced economic activity. “GST collections in April exceeding Rs 1 trillion are a landmark achievement and a confirmation of increased economic activity as brought out by other reports,” he tweeted.However, the finance ministry clarified that the April collection could not be

India’s curbs on import of pulses: US, Australia, EU raise concerns at WTO A commerce ministry official says India defended the restrictions on import of pulses as they are compliant with WTO rules Members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) including the US, Canada, Australia, European Union and Japan have raised concern over India’s quantitative restrictions on import of pulses.India capped imports of green gram (moong) and black matpe (urad) at 300,000 tonnes and that of pigeon peas (arhar) at 200,000 tonnes in August in the wake of domestic harvest and concerns over the slump in prices of traditional pulses. The issue came up in a 20 April meeting of the committee on import licensing at the WTO with countries alleging that quantitative restrictions by India on import of pulses distort global prices and put the future of farmers across many countries in peril. India has been the largest producer, as well as traditionally the largest importer of pulses to ensure steady supply

RBI widens FPIs’ investment scope in local corporate debt Mint Street late on Tuesday raised the incentive for Corporate India to tap the bond market for its working capital needs, allowing foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) to invest a fifth of their total corpus in less th an one-year residual debt papers sold by local companies. The latest directive extends last week’s concessions that effectively enhanced shortterm GSec ownership by overseas funds. Although the policy maker has not raised benchmark rates yet in Asia’s third-biggest economy, the cost of funds at the short end of the yield curve has accelerated much faster than the long end, threatening to increase working capital expenses in an economy where the weighted average cost of capital trends higher than developed countries. “In order to bring consistency across debt categories, it is stipulated that investments by an FPI in corporate bonds with residual maturity below one year shall not exceed, at any point in time