(ET) The Prime Minister’s Office has set up a panel chaired by Niti Aayog vice-chairman Rajiv Kumar to draw up plans to address air pollution in the Capital and other city-specific issues. The panel — which includes principal scientific advisor (PSA) K VijayRaghavan and Tarun Khanna of Harvard Business School — will submit its report to the Prime Minister in two weeks. It also has Rajya Sabha MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar and major general Madhuri Kanitkar as members. The committee will coordinate efforts by over 40 research institutes to find solutions to problems affecting New Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune, a senior government…
Author: Aruna Sharma
(ET) Inclusion of natural gas in the goods and services tax regime, pipeline tariff reform and pricing freedom for all domestic gas would be necessary to make the proposed gas trading hub a success, the chief of Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board has said. India is aiming to build a gas trading hub to help develop the domestic gas market, and the downstream regulator, PNGRB, is working out regulations for the proposed hub.“There will be so much confusion in trading gas on hub without GST. People will withdraw. It will not be a happy situation,” PNGRB chairman Dinesh Kumar Sarraf. This…
(FE) The government has said there has been 12% reduction so far this year in incidents of stubble burning in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. It further claimed that the use of ‘happy seeder’ machines has helped bring down the practice. Citing an ICAR study, agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar said in a statement that there were 331,402 incidents of crop residue burning until November 4, against 35,717 such cases in the year-ago period. Stubble burning has been in practice in these states for the past few years as farmers prefer to burn the residues after harvesting paddy to clear the…
(LiveMint) Indian Railways’ North East Frontier Railway (NFR) zone has taken steps to improve the lighting in the interior of the railway coaches. As a part of its upgradation process, NFR has initiated a a drive for replacement of existing incandescent lamps and CFL lights inside coaches by LED lights. According to a statement, the step will help Indian Railways to cut on its energy bill and also the inside of the coaches will also get brightly illuminated.A total of 1890 passengers coaches have been retrofitted with LED lights so far and entire stock of coaches will be done within the next one year.The…
(BS) GAIL (India) announced the inauguration of supply of domestic Piped Natural Gas (PNG) and Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) station in Jamshedpur. The work for laying a 125 KM long spur pipeline from Purulia to Jamshedpur was also commenced. This will feed CGD networks of East Singhbhum, West Singhbhum and Seraikela- Kharsawan geographical areas.Several rolling-steel, wire and pipe along with automobile industries would be benefited by the availability of cheaper and continuous fuel. The projects are being implemented by GAIL (India) which is constructing the prestigious Jagdishpur Haldia Bokaro-Dhamra and Barauni Guwahati Natural Gas Pipeline (JHBDPL), popularly known as the Pradhan…
(LiveMint) India on Monday decided against joining the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) trade deal, holding that it did not receive any “credible assurance on market access and non-tariff barriers”. The other 15 members, however, decided to go ahead and sign the trade deal sometime next year, keeping the door open for India to join at a later date. Negotiations for RCEP, which includes 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) and six free trade partners—China, India, South Korea, Japan, New Zealand and Australia—began in 2012. Indian industry was, however, apprehensive that the deal would lead to a surge…
(FE) Power generation in the country fell 12.7% year-on-year (y-o-y) in October, recording the third straight month when electricity produced was less than the corresponding year-ago month. According to provisional data from the Central electricity authority, 105.6 billion units (BU) were generated in the month compared with 121 BU in October 2018. Thermal power plants generated 78.3 BU, 19.8% lower than October last year, indicating a further fall in their plant load factors (PLF). Renewable energy sources decreased their generation by 6.4% y-o-y in the same month to 7.3 BU, in spite of a 15% rise in its installed capacity. Since electricity…
(FE) State-run Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) is evaluating the option of throwing its hat in the ring and taking over the entire government stake in fellow oil-refiner-marketer Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL), which tops strategic disinvestment list firmed up for the current fiscal. According to an internal note circulated among IOC top brass which FE has accessed, its marketing division discussed “the issue of taking the government stake in BPCL or the ONGC stake in HPCL by IOC”, in the light of the risks to its business from a possible privatisation of BPCL, at a meeting on October 25. The note…
Directorate General of Training (DGT), under the aegis of Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship (MSDE), today announced the launch of SkillsBuild platform in collaboration with IBM. As part of the programme, a two-year advanced diploma in IT, networking and cloud computing, co-created and designed by IBM, will be offered at the Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) & National Skill Training Institutes (NSTIs). The platform will be extended to train ITI & NSTI faculty on building skills in Artificial Intelligence (AI). SkillsBuild offers digital learning content from IBM and partners such as CodeDoor, Coorpacademy and Skillsoft. The digital platform will provide a…
(PTI) Power producers’ total outstanding dues owed by distribution companies rose around 37 per cent to Rs 69,558 crore in September 2019 over the same month last year, reflecting stress in the sector. Distribution companies owed a total of Rs 50,583 crore to power generation companies in September 2018, according to web portal and app namely PRAAPTI (Payment Ratification and Analysis in Power procurement for Bringing Transparency in Invoicing of generators). The portal was launched in May 2018 to bring a transparency in power purchase transactions between generators and discoms (distribution companies). In September this year, total overdue amount, which was…