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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

After NRI investments in domestic market, foreign funds on Sebi radar Regulator asks custodians to provide end-beneficiary data of foreign funds with Indian ownership A fortnight after the market regulator tightened rules around non-resident Indian (NRI) investments in the domestic market, several foreign funds have come under the scrutiny of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) According to sources, the regulator has sought investment and end-beneficiary-related information of foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) from their custodians. Sebi wants to crack down on those NRI-managed funds that are also used to channel money belonging to persons of Indian origin (PIO) Sebi’s FPI regulations prohibit any foreign fund from being controlled by a PIO or NRI. Such entities are allowed to obtain an FPI licence on condition that they act only as investment advisors and do not invest their money. However, global funds typically ask fund managers to put up some seed capital

 MFIs see slowdown in bank funding despite a fall in the cost of funds The average cost of funds for MFIs is 12-15 per cent, depending on their size Despite a fall in the cost of funds over the past year, banks remain shy of lending to microfinance institutions (MFIs), especially mid-size and small-size ones. In general, about 60 per cent of funding for MFIs come from banks. The rest was met through instruments such as securitisation (the marke t for which had dried after demonetisation) and debentures, among others. However, most banks have now restricted their funding to large MFIs, said entities in the segment. “In the past year, the cost of funds for MFIs has gone down by 60-70 basis points. However, banks have remained cautious in lending, due to their own problems. As a result, a lot of MFIs are looking at options like non-convertible debentures, which is long-term lending; the amount is also bigger,” said Rakesh Dubey, president, Micro Finance Institutions Network. The

SEBI bans 28 entities for fraudulent trade with fake SMSes Markets regulator Sebi has barred 28 entities from the capital markets for sending out unauthenticated SMSes in bulk with misleading 'buy' recommendations to pump up trading volumes in the shares of Kalpa Commercial. The order comes after Sebi received complaints from intermediaries alleging that some unknown entities are sending guaranteed return SMSes, thereby misguiding the investors with unauthenticated SMSes. Following this, Sebi conducted a preliminary probe into the share trading of Kalpa Commercial Ltd (KCL) during October 10-18, 2017, specifically in relation to bulk Short Message Services (SMSes) circulated with questionable recommendations with respect to trading in the firm's shares. The probe found that 28 'connected entities' (group) had employed a scheme for offloading a large number of shares of KCL in a manipulative manner. They participated in the larger scheme of sending misleadi