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Dear Readers,

Wish you Happy New Year!

All have celebrated Christmas irrespective of their pursuit of any religion. The message of Jesus Christ is “Do not do others what ye do not wish to be done to yourself”. “Thou shall love God and they neighbours as thyself”. “Seek righteousness in thoughts and actions”. “Nature provides equity in life sustaining water, air, natural products balancing the entire earth”. “Listen to own feeble voice of conscience”.

Bharat Economy : State Bank of India Chairman, Dinesh Khara said that the banking sector is very well capitalized. For the economy to achieve a GDP size of USD 5 trillion, banking sectors would need fresh capital of USD 70 billion. The point is who will be the taker / borrower as wealth and job creators are on a drastic debt reduction spree. Due to external factors beyond anyone’s control, there might be defaults or delays in repayment by borrowers to the lenders, but for that subjecting them to investigations and initiating criminal action against them only creates an aura of fear and uncertainty that discourages entrepreneurs. It appears to be difficult to achieve the GDP size of USD 5 trillion in near future. Globally every venture has a risk element. History tells how the great empires had fallen. So happened with the British Empire.

RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das has observed that policy support is the key to sustain recovery of economy, revive demand and sustenance of enterprises. He further said that the economy is to achieve 9.5% growth in 2021-22. FM Nirmala Sitharaman said that focus on public investment in infrastructure is to revive consumption and demand. Economists have advised FM to maintain tax predictability and stability. Economists have also suggested the Government should present a four year road map on the Direct Tax Code.

Over 500 plus infra projects escalates costs by 20%. Average delay is over 32 months. Just realise the plight of the organisations which need to serve interest and pay instalments. Temporary delay not only endangers the enterprise survival but criminal investigation. 

PM Modi said to the wealth and job creators that the economy could face another setback if the Omicron variant of the Corona virus proves to be deadly. He exhorted them to make use of full initiativessuch as the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme. The Nation wants to see its wealth and job creators amongst the top 5 in the world in every sector. Make Bharat Atmanirbhar. Wealth and job creators have requested to ease out the compliance norms, lessen the approval requirements for greenfield projects and other running projects and decriminalise various regulations. Criminal action should be taken after full investigation and proper judgement by the High Court and Supreme Court. Several external factors need to be first examined in case of delay/temporary default/failure of a business. For image building drastic action should not be taken. To clean the bank / financial institution balance sheets, wealth and job creators should not be cleaned out by taking large haircuts of upto 85% under the Insolvency & Bankruptcy Code (IBC). External factors and historical cycle of the boom and recession should be examined. Historical and global factors should be taken into account. Prime Minister has promised to reduce the compliance burden.

Global economy has been affected by the pandemic Covid-19 and would be further affected by Omicron. Tourism, MSMEs, NBFCs, Retail, Aviation, Mining have been badly affected due to the delay and temporary default in payment by many of the players in these sectors.

Cryptocurrency : RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said that cryptocurrency poses a serious risk to the country’s financial stability. Cryptocurrencies are currencies issued by private entities on which a country’s monetary system has no control. Wild swings in prices make them very unsuitable as a medium of exchange.

NBFCs : According to Shri S.Ramann, CMD, Small Industries Development Bank Of India (SIDBI), the NBFCs must grow manifold in order to broad-base economic growth. NBFC model is developed fundamentally to serve the underserved customers who otherwise find it hard to access credit. It has helped customers in this segment to improve their lives and livelihood positively. NBFCs have deeper penetration in rural markets and have played a significant role in the financial inclusion agenda. NBFCs have bounced back from various challenges and disruptions in the past because of a strong business model that they have built. The government and regulators have always looked at NBFCs as systemically very important in the overall growth of the economy and NBFCs have in turn responded favorably to the respect. As a growing industry, NBFCs look forward to more support that would strengthen the industry and overall growth. NBFCs have played a stellar role in promoting financial inclusion through retail finance and individual loans. They also straddle a wide segment in the financial sector. Of about ` 20 lakh crorecredit given to the MSMEs, NBFCs have a share of about 10%. NBFCs’ credit to GDP is in the region of 12%.

The way technology is coming into the financial sector,soon there will be models that can help deliver credit to the vast majority of the country. The stated credit gap in the MSME sector for debt is calculated to be about Rs. 25 lakh crore by 2025. NBFCs would need to embrace technology for doing their role even better. The requirement to grow the sector from both regulatory perspective as well as the need for government to ensure credit delivery down to the final borrower is very strong. One of the biggest problems is that after 40 or 50 NBFCs that straddle the credit delivery do not have rating ability. Larger NBFCs must come forward and play an enabling role in increasing the reach of the sector.

Non Banking Financial Companies have been serving the MSMEs, wholesale and retail business, housing, individuals in distress whom the banks have not been financing due to various documents required from them. Reserve Bank of India has issued new regulations for NBFCs. New norms can be met by a few may be 5 – 10 companies backed by large corporate houses or those which are government owned. Due to Covid–19 since 2020 and ensuing Omicron variant and the various ad-hoc changes in regulations that the RBI has made to address the changing situations, a fleet of NBFCs might not be able to survive. These NBFCs are also not getting payments from their borrowers as their incomes, employment have also been affected
due to the various external factors too. RBI needs to frame regulations taking into cognizance the problems faced by all the stakeholders in the financial ecosystem so that entities like certain categories of NBFCs are not left in the lurch.

More than six and a half lakh wealth and job creators have left the country. Their offsprings have been taking up professional jobs overseas to create the wealth and job there; not in the Motherland. Enterprises created painstakingly over the years by domestic entrepreneurs are taken to the IBC process by their lenders without examining temporary unforeseen events, and ultimately such ventures are getting sold at rock bottom prices to overseas funding institutions and foreign businessmen. It is reminiscent of Indian rulers
giving permission to the East India Company to do business in India which ultimately caused India to become a British subject. A similar script seems to be playing out now. We have not assimilated the learning from our history and seem to be repeating our mistake.

FM Nirmala Sitharaman said that government has recovered over `13,000 crore by selling assets of defaulters. It needs to be analysed at what cost e.g. how much haircut has been taken and how much these wealth and job could have been created in the country and for how many more years had these defaulters been allowed to get back on their feet with adequate support from the government. How much money has been lost by the government in Public Sector Banks and Public Undertakings despite having their best calibre professional people managing? The banks and many other industries like textiles, mines, engineering, once nationalized, now they are being handed over to the private sectors. Institutions which could have been generators of long term wealth besides acting as the government’s extended arms to meet various social development goals are being bargained for one-off gains.

Government and regulators should facilitate how the wealth and job creators use their wealth for progressive creation of further wealth and jobs; not keeping the wealth stagnant or in any other form. Their inherit spirit for risk appetite should not die out of fear of criminal action and investigation. Investigating agency should not tarnish their goodwill created out of hard work and sacrifice from decades and centuries, until and unless the court awards any final judgement on the matter. Like any other field these wealth and job creators will shine globally in each sector. Many Bharatwasis feel there are too many stifling laws, rules and regulations without stability and too little justice and / or without recourse to justice.

IT: Government of India has adopted a multi-institutional approach for the National Blockchain framework. It will provide the necessary guidelines to create a nationwide ecosystem for the National Blockchain platform.

Cover Story: All the scriptures Vedas, Bible and Quran call for taking care of Mother Earth, but in the name of industrial revolution, modernisation and carelessness, human beings are hurting Mother Earth resulting in global warming, melting of glaciers, rising of the ocean levels and pandemic like Covid-19 and more dangerous variant Omicron which is spreading fast. In the Bible God is pictured as creating plants and trees on the third day and God is depicted as a gardener. In Hinduism Green is the sign of Wednesday, day of Lord Ganesha, the remover of obstacles and benefactor of wisdom and prosperity. “Anahat” (heart centre), the chakra in the human body, is symbolized by the green colour. It helps the heart, lungs, liver, circulatory system, skin and pancreas stay healthy. Islam has a green flag and they wear the green clothes. Quran says; “Greeness as
paradise where righteousness prevails”. National flag of India bears the green colour at the bottom. All human beings must rise to protect Mother Earth, and behave responsibly. They should abstain from throwing garbage in the rivers and water bodies, should not waste unnecessarily and plant more trees to enhance the greenery and improve the environment.

UN climate panel reported that the global warming is nearing dangerous levels. Human beings are unequivocally to blame. Immediate rapid large scale action needs to be taken to reduce emission from polluting fuels. The world leaders met a Glasgow last November. These meetingshave delivered two treaties namely the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 and the Paris Agreement in 2015 to tackle climate changes. The Glasgow summit fleshed out rules for the carbon markets sector that former Bank of England Governor Mark Carney reckons could grow to USD 100 billion a year by overhauling the fuzzy accounting of so-called carbon credits.

It is estimated that trillions of dollars are required every year to fund all the action necessary to control the climate change. Promised funds are not being mobilized. In the Glasgow conference PM, Narendra Modi has announced a few new targets – reducing emissions intensity and increasing the renewable mix in installed electricity capacity. Most of the new capacity additions are in the renewable energy space.