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The Dalwai committee on doubling farmers’ income has suggested India should adopt latest genetically modified (GM) technologies in important non-food crops since use of GM in food crops is an issue under debate. In a draft report, released for public comment on Tuesday, the committee said GM technology is an important aspect of long-term research.
The Dalwai committee on doubling farmers’ income has suggested India should adopt latest genetically modified (GM) technologies in important non-food crops since use of GM in food crops is an issue under debate. In a draft report, released for public comment on Tuesday, the committee said GM technology is an important aspect of long-term research. The committee, headed by Rainfed Area Authority CEO Ashok Dalwai, said since over 95% of the genetic diversity of the country has yet not been tapped, conventional breeding programme may be depended upon in case of food crops and the genetic diversity available outside India may also be accessed for this purpose.
Of the several GM technologies, Genome Editing may be considered after diligent examination in case of food crops, when specific trait is not available to undertake conventional breeding, it said. “Since use of GM in food crops is an issue under debate, the latest technologies could be assessed and adopted for important non-food crops as of now. Simultaneously, the apprehensions about safety of GM-based food crops can be addressed and the issue settled at the earliest,” it said.
Terming the GM technology as a powerful tool for developing future crop varieties with in-built genetic resistance to various biotic and abiotic stresses for reducing crop losses and enhanced input use efficiency, yield potential and quality traits, the committee said using the technology “will be crucial for the food and nutritional security of the country, and therefore, research on them must be continued with the aim of developing safer, more productive and nutritious food crops.”
However, it cautioned, this should be done in a more transparent and socially inclusive manner for wider public acceptance. Also, concerns of the opponents of GM technology should be addressed to allay fear on food safety, environmental and economic security before deploying this technology in food crops, the report said.
It acknowledged the contribution of Bt cotton in improving the yield and production of the fibre crop in the country. About 90% of India’s cotton acreage of 12.26 million hectare was under Bt cotton varieties in 2017-18 crop year (July-June). Bt cotton was the only GM crop approved for cultivation in India in 2002 with the introduction of Monsanto’s GM cotton seeds. The UPA government in 2010 did not allow commercial release of Bt brinjal even after the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) gave its consent. The NDA government, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is yet to decide on the GEAC’s recommendation for release of GM mustard, developed by former Delhi University vice chancellor Deepak Pental.
Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) is a bacterium that produces toxins harmful to a variety of insects, mainly bollworms. Bt cotton was created by introducing genes from the bacterium into the cotton seed, creating a crop resistant to bollworms. The introduction of Bt cotton led to a dramatic increase in production across the cotton producing states, and soon Bt cotton took over most of the acreage under cotton cultivation, the report said. Cotton production rose from 8.62 million bales in the pre-Bt year of 2002-03 to 34.9 million bales in 2017-18, helping in reducing imports and growth of exports
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As per the latest data of the state agriculture department, kharif sowing has reached 2,25,231 hectare as on June 18, which is 74.16% down from 8,71,700 hectare in corresponding period of 2017.
Gujarat has witnessed a huge fall in sowing in kharif season this year due to delay in monsoon and water scarcity. As per the latest data of the state agriculture department, kharif sowing has reached 2,25,231 hectare as on June 18, which is 74.16% down from 8,71,700 hectare in corresponding period of 2017. “Sowing of kharif crops is slow this year on account of delay in monsoon. Once rain comes, farmers will gear up the sowing. We are hoping for good progress in sowing area in July,” said an official of agriculture department of Gujarat.
Data suggests that overall just 3% of the season’s total sowing has been done in the state thus far. Last three years’ average total sowing of Gujarat is 8.56 million hectare. Main kharif crops like groundnut and cotton witnessed fall in coverage area by 85% and 72%, respectively. As on date, groundnut has covered 37,788 hectare this year as against 2,49,100 hectare in corresponding period last year. Similarly, area under cotton crop has registered 1,39,740 hectare so far as against 4,96,400 hectare in the said period.
According to agriculture experts, as the water availability is lesser this year, pre-monsoon sowing has not been done in many areas. Moreover, agriculture universities have also been advised for late sowing to protect cotton and groundnut from any disease. A R Pathak, vice chancellor of Junagadh Agriculture University (JAU) said, “We have observed that farmers have not begun pre-monsoon sowing because of water scarcity in many parts of Gujarat, mainly in Saurashtra region which usually start sowing cotton and groundnut in first week of June. On the other side, monsoon has been delayed by almost two weeks. These are the reasons for lower coverage of kharif crops this year.”
JAU has advised cotton farmers to sow late as possibility of rain is negligible and early sowing may damage the cotton seed which may result into loss for farmers. Pathak said, “We have advised farmers to wait till one suitable showering for cotton sowing. At this stage, it may damage the cotton seed in farm.”
As per the agriculture department’s data, areas of crops such as sesame, tur, mung, corn, jowar and bajara have drastically fallen. Mung has been sown on just 26 hectare as on June 18 this year which was 900 hectare in 2017 at the same time. Area under urad has reached 93 hectare as against 2,000 hectare and sowing of tur has been done on 3,641 hectare as against 7,500 hectare in the corresponding period. As against 1,900 hectare, sowing of sesame has reached 10 hectare only this year. Shockingly, sowing of math has not begun this year. Last year it was 100 hectare. Bajara has covered 93 hectares so far which was last year stood at 1,800 hectares.
Business will get diverted to those registered with GST
The Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime is slowly wiping out small logistics players who used to transport goods without documents as they did not prepare themselves for the transition.
The trend of large players eating up smaller ones will continue, said Ramesh Agarwal, Chairman, Agarwal Packers and Movers Ltd.
It will take three-four years for the smaller players to come into the mainstream. Their business will get diverted to those registered with GST. This transition is happening at a rapid pace, he told BusinessLine.
Multiple cargoes
The road transport industry is pegged at ?8-9 lakh crore every year with the bulk of this being handled by the unorganised sector. In India, there are about 4 lakh small operators (having one or two trucks) and they are under threat post GST. Most of them have become sub-contractors, he said.
Some of the top players include Safe Express, TCI, Om Logistics and APML — with a collective business of ?20,000 crore. Their combined market share is expected to grow sharply, he said. “For us, business will grow manifold. The traditional business growth will be 10-15 per cent. There will be incremental business from tier-II players,” he said.
The logistics industry is growing at 10-12 per cent annually. Post GST, it will be nearly 15 per cent as boundaries are gone. In a single bill, there could be multiple cargoes for different destinations. “In logistic cost, we will be soon on a par with other developed countries,” he said.
On APML, Agarwal said that by 2019, the company hopes to report revenues of ?550 crore. Its core business is relocation (of household articles), reaching every nook and corner of the country.
Its other businesses include commercial movement (pharmaceutical, foods, electronics, white goods and tyres), third party logistics, and international cargo (only ex-Delhi), he said.
Despite adverse impact on GST implementation, India saw a 20 per cent increase in both the number of dollar millionaires and their wealth in 2017 to emerge as the fastest growing market for high net population, a report said today.
The report, which comes amid growing concerns over social ramifications of asymmetry in wealth distribution, said the number of high net worth individuals grew 20.4 per cent to 2.63 lakh people, while their collective wealth grew 21 per cent to over USD 1 trillion.
” India was the fastest-growing market globally,” the report by French tech firm Capgemini said.
The country’s growth on both the number of HNIs and wealth is faster than the global average of 11.2 per cent and 12 per cent, respectively, the report by French tech firm Capgemini said. The US, Japan, Germany and China are the biggest HNI markets in the world, it said, adding that the show in 2017 has increased India’s ranking to 11th.
An HNI is defined as one who has investable assets of over USD 1 million, it said.
One of the major reasons for the growth was an over 50 per cent surge in market capitalisation during the year, along with an average 4.8 per cent increase in realty prices and the 6.7 per cent GDP expansion, which is faster than the world.
There was an adverse effect on wealth due to the implementation of Goods and Services Tax in July, but the report called it “transitory”. Other factors, like the monetary policy being steady, impact of demonetisation wearing off and higher savings rate helped in wealth creation, it said.
It can be noted that in January, a study had stated that the top 1 per cent of the over 1.2 billion population had cornered 73 per cent of the overall wealth generated during the year. Besides, 67 crore Indians comprising the population’s poorest half saw their wealth rise by just 1 per cent, as per the survey released by the international rights group Oxfam ahead of the annual World Economic Forum had said.
Ludhiana: In a big relief to businessmen who were not able to access their own GST (goods and services tax) account due to the lack of information on email ids, passwords and mobile numbers associated with their GSTIN (GST identification number), the finance ministry has issued instructions to create new passwords for them.
The move came after the ministry received many complaints from tax payers which stated that the intermediaries through whom they applied for GST numbers had used their own email ids and mobile numbers during the registration process and were now refusing to share these credentials with them.
Acting in the case, the finance ministry issued new instructions under which the tax payer can approach the concerned jurisdictional tax officer to get the new password for his/her GSTIN. After submitting identity proofs of himself and his occupation, the businessmen will be given a new password by the tax officer.
Once the ministry directives are implemented, the businessmen who were struggling to cope up with the system of GST (goods and services tax) and were unable to access to their own account in the absence of any credentials, can now update their email and mobile numbers by approaching the GST department.
Terming it a huge respite for the tax payers, Narinder Bhamra, president of Fastener Manufacturer Association of India, said, “This is good news for the businessmen who were not able to access their own GSTIN due to the intermediaries who were not sharing the passwords of their accounts and were not able to reset the passwords as they did not have any details about the email id and mobile numbers registered with their accounts. The problem was being faced by many businessmen. They were being fleeced by the intermediaries by charging exorbitantly for filing GST returns and other services.”
According to Atul Saggar, general secretary of Apparel Manufacturers Association, Ludhiana, “I welcome finance ministry’s move as it will give the business owner the right to have access to his account and he can reset the password as and when he prefers. Moreover, with this facility the businessmen can have full control over their GSTIN and monitor every transaction closely.”
With just six months away for the second edition of Global Investors’ meet (GIM) scheduled in January 2019, the clock is ticking for Tamil Nadu.
The southern state is the country’s second most industrialised state as well as its second richest according to Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP), but a wave of protests against industry gain momentum in the state.
First, it was the long standing protests in Thoothukudi against a copper smelter plant belonging to Sterlite Industries which ended when the police allegedly opened fir during ongoing protests, leading to the loss of 13 lives.
Now, the agitation against the Salem-Chennai Green Corridor is picking up pace.
Chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami recently admitted in the assembly that Tamil Nadu had witnessed the maximum number of protests in the country, which is unusual for a state considered to beindustry-friendly.
Whether it is the IT cluster in and around Chennai or the automobile companies around Sripermbedur, the textile exporters in Tiruppur, the electrical industry in Coimbatore or the leather export cluster in Ambur, the state has carved a niche for itself on the country’s industrial landscape.
According to the Confederation of Indian Industries, Tamil Nadu, with its contribution of over 20% to auto exports, 28% to the renewable energy capacity in the country, has been a front-runner in attracting investments over the past three decades.
“The protests are mainly due to the weak political stability in the state. At present, the medium and small scale industries are under severe stress.
Thousands of small industries have closed down due to multiple factors ranging from GST, demonetisation and issues pertaining to Tamil Nadu including the agitations and unrest,” said KE Raghunathan, national president of the All India Manufacturers Association.
Over the last four years, TN has not added any major company to its industrial clusters in Gummidipoondi, Hosur, Coimbatore, Vellore and Sriperumbudur, but there are reports of several largecompanies shifting their additional new investments away fromTamil Nadu, he noted.
However, office bearers of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in Chennai are hopeful that the state will bounce back. “The launch of a single window portal under the Tamil Nadu Business Facilitation Act would attract large number of companies to invest and expand their operations in the state. The proactive steps taken by the industries department have raised the confidence of investors in the state,” opined M Ponnuswami, chairman, CII TN state council.
The proposed eight-lane corridor project under the Bharatmala Pariyojana initiative would be a game changer in enhancing the economic growth of central districts of Tamil Nadu, said Ponnuswami.
When asked about the recent protests and unrest, senior minister D Jayakumar said the police had to enforce the law of the land. Tamil Nadu industries secretary K Gnanadesikan said all is well with the industry sentiment in the state.
Denying that the state has attracted less investment in the recent years, he said, “We are holdings talks with Foxconn and are on the process of reviving the Nokia plant which has been shut down in Sriperumbudur and more industry friendly talks are underway.”
They want minimum wages notified
Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy on Tuesday directed officials to set up a committee involving Labour Department officials, textile manufacturers, Central trade unions, and garment workers to study the long-pending issues plaguing garment workers, including notification of minimum wages.
At a meeting with representatives of Garment and Textile Workers’ Union and All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) and Textile Manufacturers, the Chief Minister said the committee should come out with its report in a time-bound manner so that minimum wages of garment workers could be notified by this year-end.
Draft notification
Garment workers have been demanding that the new government implement the revision of minimum wages that the erstwhile Siddaramaiah-led government attempted by issuing a draft notification in February 2018, but withdrew it in March 2018. The industry employs around 4.5 lakh people in the State, mostly women, with nearly 3.5 lakh workers in Bengaluru alone. The Labour Department had issued the draft notification on February 22, 2018, proposing to double the minimum wages in the tailoring industry. But garment workers’ hopes were dashed when the department issued an order withdrawing the draft notification.
The department said the industry management had objected to the revision on the grounds that minimum wages in Karnataka were higher than that in other States and doubling it would have an adverse impact on an industry that is already facing tough international competition. “In today’s meeting, the Chief Minister said it is not possible to restore the withdrawn notification, and assured us that based on the new committee’s report, minimum wages will be notified by this year-end,” said a member of AITUC who attended the meeting.
Students can visit the museum at Manjoor that has an array of equipment and photographs
The hydro-electric museum which was inaugurated recently at Manjoor, boasting more than 600 pieces of equipment and historical photographs, aims to highlight the history of hydro-electric power, and the Nilgiris’ key role in electrifying Tamil Nadu till the second half of the 20th Century.
The museum, believed to be the only one of its kind in India, has been set up to not only detail the history of the various hydro-electric projects across the State and country, but to also serve as a centre for documentation for students and researchers to delve into, and to learn about the early techniques used for dam construction, operation and maintenance.
S. Ragu, Superintending Engineer, Kundah Hydro-Electric Circle, told The Hindu the museum highlights the roles of the people responsible for introducing hydro-electric power to Tamil Nadu and India, like the first chairman of the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board, V.P. Appadurai Mudaliar, who travelled to Canada and brought back expertise.
“In fact, the Sri Appadurai Collection in the museum comprises photographs and documentation brought back by the man himself after his trip to Canada,” said Mr. Ragu.
The museum also emphasises the crucial role the power stations played in fuelling the economies of the surrounding districts, including Coimbatore. Mr. Ragu pointed out that the Singara power station helped power the textile mills and other industries in Coimbatore. “We also have pictures and documentation of the now demolished, temporary power station at Glenmorgan, which used to produce around 1 megawatt of electricity for the Nilgiris,” he added.
One of the most striking exhibits at the museum is a series of 52 photographs documenting, step-by-step, the construction of the Emerald Dam. Each row contains images of the left and right banks, as well as the centre of the dam, showcasing in great detail not only the scale of the project, but also the thousands of workers engaged in the construction.
“The Kundah dam was constructed over a three-and-a-half-year period with over 10,000 workers reportedly working each day,” said Mr. Ragu.
V.R. Thimmarayappan, who joined the Kundah hydro-electric circle as Junior Engineer in 1961 shortly after its completion, and who was on a visit to the museum, said that the museum was showcasing instruments and equipment that have been in use since the early 1930s. “As the golden era of dam constructions have come to an end, college students and people interested in learning about the history of the various dams across Tamil Nadu must pay a visit to the museum,” he said.
It has taken officials more than a year to collect the items that are currently on display, including survey equipment, prepaid electricity meters, phone booths and other technical equipment that were installed in the power plants. Most of the items were rescued from scrap heap and restored to their original condition before being put on display. Mr. Ragu said the museum was open to visit by college students or of any educational institution.
“As the interest in the museum will be from a purely technical perspective, we feel that engineering students and students pursuing higher education will stand to gain the most from the visit. They are free to do so after getting permission from us,” said Mr. Ragu.
The requirement of polyester filament yarn (PFY) is increasing as it is the chief substitute for cotton. Cotton’s low availability, durability and cost are its limitations, while polyester is its cheapest replacement with ample availability, relatively good durability and its applicability for ever increasing purposes, said the head of Supertex Industries.
“It is estimated that the per capita consumption of polyester is likely to increase many folds in the developing world,” said Mahesh Sharma, director, Supertex Industries Limited while speaking to Fibre2Fashion. The company manufactures and exports draw warped and sized yarn beams of polyester and nylon.
There are two segments to the PFY industry. One is partially oriented yarn (POY) which requires further processing in a desired way, and the other is fully drawn yarn (FDY). The FDY is an improvement on the earlier two processes of drawing of yarn. In FDY, the produced yarn can be directly consumed or consumed after processes like twisting, sizing, etc, explained Sharma.
Talking about the latest innovations taking place in the industry, he said, “FDY producing technology was not up to the mark compared to the drawn yarn of similar specification on post spinning machines. This is constantly improving and the two are interchangeable in a majority of the uses. Similarly, dyeing by infusion of masterbatch has become far more superior than earlier. There are other developments like high tenacity yarns, fire retardant yarns and also anti-microbial yarns.”
The challenges faced by the industry include volatile oil prices cause instability in the industry, added Sharma. “Having stayed in the unorganised sector for ages, the weaving industry is limping very slowly into the new era of GST. This slow migration has a pronounced impact on the entire business. Money supply is under constant strain and with the banking industry in its current shape, the industry is facing many issues that will take another quarter to be sorted out.”
Sharma also said that Supertex is inclined towards growth. “We do not want to lose our identity of a boutique company, but want to broadbase our activities by integrating more processes that can buttress our profitability.”
Closer to first anniversary of GST, the government on Monday said the new indirect tax regime has added more jobs in formal sector and widened taxpayer base.
It noted that partial inclusion of real estate in the new structure had brought builders and those dealing in steel and cements into tax-net.
But government does not seem to be satisfied with the current level of tax compliance and wants people to pay non-oil taxes honestly. Union minister Arun Jaitley has appealed people to pay taxes and equated it with patriotic duty of citizens.
“The tragedy of the honest taxpayer is that he not only pays his own share of taxes but also has to compensate for the evader. My earnest appeal, therefore, to political leaders and opinion makers is that the full and complete suggestion would be that evasion in the non-oil tax category must be stopped and, if people pay their taxes honestly the high dependence on oil products for taxation eventually comes down,” he said.
In a separate statement, the finance ministry said GST is the biggest reform measure, which is eliminating transactions that were not recorded earlier in the books of accounts and thus were outside the tax net so far. The finance ministry assertion has come even as opposition parties have termed the GST rollout as faulty blaming it for job losses in informal sectors. The ministry has said there are early signs of tax base expansion and is expected to rise. As many as 6,60,000 new agents, previously outside the tax net, sought GST registration between June and July 2017. Further, the entire textile chain is now brought under tax net.
“A segment of land and real estate transactions has also been brought into tax net “works contracts”, referring to housing that is being built. This in turn would allow for greater transparency and formalisation of cement, steel and other sales, which earlier tended to be outside the tax net. The formalisation will occur because builder will need documentation of these input purchases to claim tax credit,” the finance ministry said. The government had launched GST on July 1 last year turning the country into one common market with uniform tax structure. After initial glitches, the new tax system has now settling and yielding desired results.
