Bad loans balloon at banks, where IT folks can find jobs, and more news

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India’s bad loans problem is only getting worse. Reuters reports that banks’ stressed loans touched a record ?9.5 trillion at the end of June. RBI data shows that total bad loans rose 4.5% from January to June, and 5.8% in the six months before. The lion’s share of the bad loans is incurred by government banks lending to companies in steel and infrastructure sectors. A rise in bad loans, while the economy loses steam, is hurting banks’ ability to lend to smaller firms. The new SBI chairman, fighting non-performing assets worth more than ?25,000 crore, has created a managing director’s role within his company to fight the sour debt menace.

The IT sector will continue to see job cuts, but engineers can find greener pastures. A TeamLease report suggests that while the $150 billion IT industry is going slow, new-age tech firms, especially those in e-commerce, are on a recruitment spree. Financial services, health and pharma and even knowledge process outsourcing are also hot sectors. Even at IT companies, it’s not all gloom-and-doom. If automation is “eating away two jobs where the guys would earn ?25,000, it’s creating one job where he will earn ?50,000-60,000, compelling people to become more productive,” Rituparna Chakraborty, co-founder of TeamLease Service, told Quartz. Engineers can stay relevant by developing skills in artificial intelligence, machine learning or big data. Another report suggests job cuts in the Indian IT sector will be around 2 lakh annually till 2020.

It’s the IMF’s turn to lower India’s growth forecast for this fiscal year. The “lingering impact” of demonetization coupled with the GST roll-out has caused the International Monetary Fund to downscale India’s growth rate to 6.7% from its earlier estimate of 7.2%. But these drivers will turn positive and actually push the country towards recovery, IMF economists believe. The Fund expects India to win back the “fastest growing economy” title — recently lost to China — in fiscal year 2019 as structural reforms start yielding results. India’s GDP has been stalling for two straight quarters. The Asian Development Bank and the OECD have also trimmed India growth projections.

Indian Railways is taking the axe to its more dated ventures. The public transporter is shutting down 14 printing presses, but assures it won’t cut jobs and that affected employees will be moved to other departments. Over the years, the railways has moved to computerised ticketing systems; that’s drastically reduced its needs for owning printing assets. The Railway Ministry is on a PR overdrive after a spurt in train mishaps and the recent stampede at Mumbai’s Elphinstone Road station. Time to collect those paper tickets before they become a thing of the past.

Ola has confirmed it’s raised about $1 billion. The funding was led by China’s Tencent Holdings, with SoftBank and other US-based investors participating. Ola, which is also talking to investors for an additional $1 billion, will use the money to up investments in supply and technology. The funding comes at a crucial time for Ola as Uber is on a sticky wicket with top management changes, boardroom battles, key market exits and class action suits. Ola facilitates about 1.5 million daily rides in India as against Uber’s 1.3 million.

Idea of the Day: Being a lifelong learner is necessary if you want to continue to grow as a leader, says best-selling author Dr. Marshall Goldsmith. “It’s about doing something — even small things — every day, not waiting for huge leaps and otherwise doing nothing,” Goldsmith writes.

“Those of us engaged in lifelong learning — whether seven or seventy — are constantly enhancing our power. Our evolutionary journey is one of accumulating power so that we can help ourselves and others. This is the essence of leadership.”

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— Nirajita Banerjee / Share this using #DailyRundown