DCC may discuss telcos' AGR issue on Friday; COAI presses for relief

The industry has made a string of demands including a moratorium, staggered mode of payment, lower licence fee and setting up of a tariff floor.

The Digital Communications Commission, the apex decision-making body in the telecom sector, is expected to meet on Friday to deliberate on a relief package for the financially stressed industry.

As directed by the Supreme Court, telecom companies need to pay Rs 1.47 trillion to the government towards licence fee and spectrum charge dues linked to adjusted gross revenue (AGR).

Of this, Bharti Airtel needs to pay Rs 35,500 crore and Vodafone Idea more than Rs 50,000 crore—they have paid just a fraction of the total till now.

The industry has made a string of demands including a moratorium, staggered mode of payment, lower licence fee and setting up of a tariff floor.

Sources said that any relief for the sector would come with riders.

“They (companies) cannot manipulate us, they have to make further payments before even seeking relief,” a Department of Telecommunications (DoT) official said.

The DCC, formerly known as the Telecom Commission, comprises officials from the departments of telecommunications, electronics and information technology, revenue, and think tank NITI Aayog.

The DoT is expected to make a presentation to the commission regarding the possible relief scenarios.

Cellular Operators’ Association of India, a body representing the telecom industry, on Thursday urged the Union government to step in so that the telecom sector can be brought back on track.

COAI, in a letter to Telecom Secretary Anshu Prakash, asked for easier terms for payment of statutory dues by telcos, including extension of loans at lower interest rates to cover the AGR liabilities, as also fast implementation of floor prices, to rescue the troubled sector.

Relax fiscal deficit limit from 3% to 4% of GDP, states ask Sitharaman

State FMs had met Sitharaman for a pre-Union Budget interaction.

Business Standard : Some state governments have asked Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to raise their permissible fiscal deficit limit, from the current 3 per cent of gross state domestic product (GSDP) to 4 per cent, after adjusting for inflation.
"The biggest take-home from the pre-Budget discussion of the FM (Sitharaman) is a suggestion by Bihar and Kerala to raise (this) limit," tweeted Kerala Finance Minister Thomas Isaac.

State FMs had met Nirmala Sitharaman for a pre-Union Budget interaction. "This suggestion was agreed to by a large number of states," Isaac tweeted further. "In the current year, the real expenditure of states will decline -- a crazy macro outcome in a time of recession."

States are required to borrow from the market to the extent that their fiscal deficit breaches three per cent of GSDP, under the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management rule. In case it does, certain funds from the Centre come at a higher cost.

The states acknowledged having received Goods and Services Tax compensation for August and September, and asked that the Centre now give it for the next two months. They also raised issues pertaining to their respective areas. Jayant Patil, new FM of Maharashtra, asked for Rs 14,400 crore for relief and rehabilitation in the calamity-hit areas. He said the Centre had given Rs 4,400 crore to the state for August and September and it was yet to receive Rs 4,200 crore for October and November.

Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and Puducherry Chief Minister V Narayanasamy raised the issue of lower devolution of central funds to them, they being Union territories (UTs), not states. Sisodia also raised the issue of funding of centrally sponsored schemes (CSS). He said a committee had recommended 100 per cent central funding for CSS in UTs with a legislature but the Niti Aayog had refrained from doing so.

Sisodia also wanted Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh be given funds to subsidise farmers to ensure the latter do not burn their crop stubble, which causes pollution over Delhi.

Narayanasamy demanded that farm loan waivers be announced, with Centre and states sharing the burden.

Madhya Pradesh commercial taxes minister Brajendra Singh Rathore also raised the issue of reduction in funds for CSS.

Bargain hard but go for RCEP deal: NITI Aayog's Arvind Panagariya

Panagariya said there was a huge scope for India to improve medical treatment.

Former NITI Aayog Vice-Chairman Arvind Panagariya on Monday said India should bargain hard for the proposed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), but this should not become an excuse for not clinching the deal.

When an economy opens up, it has to set its house in order to compete, which brings the best out of it, he said.

“We need to be a little more aggressive. Compete with the best in the world. It brings the best out of you,” Panagariya, professor of Indian Political Economy at the Columbia University, said at the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum in New Delhi.

He was responding to an observation by former foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal that India needs to bargain hard in RCEP due to security concerns that go beyond trade. Sibal said China was pressing for accelerating negotiations for RCEP due to its trade war with the US. “China wants to dominate RCEP because it is the biggest economy. It did not play by WTO rules, so will it play by RCEP rules? Will there be a dispute settlement 

mechanism?” he said. Panagariya sought to dispel the myth that import substitution leads to less imports. “If you import less, you export less as well. When India liberalised it imported more, but then it exported more as well,” he said.

AI boost to health sector

At a panel discussion earlier at the same event, Panagariya said there was a huge scope for India to improve medical treatment by taking advantage of technical developments such as AI (artificial intelligence) and data analytics. “With AI, data analytics and all the technology there, treatments can perhaps be done better (in India) as we go forward,” he said.

By taking advantage of the technological changes such as AI and data analytics, India can bring good treatments almost anywhere in the country, he added. On the pricing issue in the medical industry, he said clearly this is being recognised in the trade agreements as well, citing that in some visible cases, prices have been negotiated between the companies (exporting and importing).

Panagariya said the health sector was still evolving and very informal as it was largely dominated by the private sector and the government’s role largely had been into setting up medical colleges.

Business Standard

India should integrate AI with education to become world leader: Sikka

Last month, at the request of PM Modi, Sikka gave a presentation before the NITI Aayog how to expand the reach of AI to the Indian society in a very big way.

Business Standard : Former Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka, who has announced a new AI startup with $50 million fund, believes India has the potential to become a world leader in artificial intelligence but the key to this is integrating AI into the country's education system in a massive way.

India is at "an inflection point" when it comes to AI or artificial intelligence, Sikka said.

Over the next 20-25 years, AI is going to be "a very, very big disruptor" for the Indian society because what one is seeing now in terms of automation and job losses because of automation is just the beginning, said Sikka, who announced his startup Vianai Systems last week.

"But on the other hand, if we are able to bring AI education, the ability to build AI systems to India at a very large scale, and I'm talking about like billion plus people, then India can really leap frog and become the world's leader in artificial intelligence, in AI skill and AI talent," Sikka told PTI in an exclusive interview.

Doing that requires working on multiple dimensions in parallel, he said.

Last month, at the request of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Sikka gave a presentation before the NITI Aayog how to expand the reach of AI to the Indian society in a very big way.

Representatives of some 20 Union ministries were present during his presentation on AI and India. This, he said, required creating necessary infrastructure to bring the talent through institutions, schools and educational institutions, the ability to do AI education at a large scale.

According to Sikka, the prime minister said he personally saw whenever classes worked into digital classrooms, he was joking that children would sometimes even forget to eat their lunch because they were so engrossed in learning. "It was very encouraging. But I think a lot of that has to be done," he said and suggested multi-faceted countrywide programme like digital classrooms.

If India does nothing then this great wave of AI is going to have massive disruption over the next 20 years. But on the other hand, if it puts together programmes then this can be a huge advantage for it and "we can be a leader in the world," he said.

Govt should ease law on firing workers, reform labour laws: Panagariya

He said the government's plan to introduce a single minimum wage across the country may hurt businesses in smaller towns.

India should ease norms for hiring and firing workers to make it easier for companies to do business in the country, according to a former adviser to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.

Easing the rules are crucial for employers, as their primary aim is not to fire workers, Arvind Panagariya, the head of government think-tank NITI Aayog, said in an interview in New Delhi.

“You need consistency across labour laws.”

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in her maiden budget this month, proposed combining multiple laws governing workers to form four sets of labor codes to improve the ease of doing business.

But what’s needed is the reform of labor laws and not just streamlining of existing ones, said Panagariya.

He said the government’s plan to introduce a single minimum wage across the country may hurt businesses in smaller towns considering the wide differences in costs across urban and rural India.

It could especially hurt small exporters and erode their competitiveness globally.

Modi’s government, which was re-elected for a second straight five year term in May, can do more to help grow the economy, Panagariya said, adding that some of India’s labor laws are probably more than 100 years old. Almost all of them are more than 30 years old.

Business Standard