Daily Pulse India: Pinning Hopes On April, Spectrum Sale May Be Delayed, A Water Crisis Waiting To Hit

Good and services: The long awaited GST bill will likely be passed after the Parliament returns for the second half of the budget session on April 25, if finance minister Arun Jaitley has his way. Speaking at an IMF conference over the weekend, Jaitley said GST and the Bankruptcy Bill will be in focus in the second half of the session. The Parliament will take a break for a month starting March 17, in between the budget session. There is hope for this session as two important bills – the real estate act and the Aadhaar bill – were passed last week, so it does look like lawmakers are getting down to business, instead of raking up issues like the last two times. So, we also hope, along with Jaitley.

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Water Crisis: There’s a water crisis waiting to hit, after three years of drought. Water in India’s key reservoirs are at less than a third of their capacity and about 70 percent of last year’s levels. That’s bad news for farmers, industrialists and also regular people. But, it’s the farmers who will be first hit, as the dry soil will hurt their crops first. Industry will follow suit especially as power plants (thermal and hydel) are dependant on water. (NTPC has just closed its Farakka plant in West Bengal because of a water shortage). Drinking water for regular citizens will be next. Of course, there is hope. A normal monsoon this year will help ease matter considerably, especially for farmers. This country will be praying to the rain gods harder than ever this year.

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Mallya’s Troubles: Kingfisher founder Vijay Mallya’s troubles escalated even further after a court issued a non-bailable arrest warrant for him in a default case filed by an airport in Hyderabad. Bank, who have been also put out to dry for lending a billion dollars to him in the first place, said they were giving Mallya a chance to turn around the airline. State Bank chief Arundhati Bhattacharya, said that Mallya has also given banks a personal guarantee. This could mean that all his personal assets are also up for grabs. Employees are also up in arms for unpaid salaries, in addition to all the investigative agencies that are also after him. The latest on that comes from the CBI, which is now looking into all Kingfisher transactions.

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Spectrum sale: The much-awaited auction of fresh spectrum by the telecom ministry may be delayed by three to six months. The reason for this, cited by the ministry, is that they want to give the entire process another look. A delay will help telecom companies arrange for funds, which means that they can bid higher at the auctions. The government has already set a rather high reserve price (the lowest price at which bids can be accepted), which has made telcos jittery. There is still work to be done with the defence ministry which will release the spectrum. Lastly, there’s another battle already brewing between the telcos and the government over a service tax on spectrum sales that was introduced in last month’s budget. A delay will resolve more than one problem here.

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Aadhaar is now as official as it gets. The Aadhaar bill was passed in the lower house (and some deft maneuvering ensured that the political debate around it was minimal), which means that it’s now a legal identification document that can be used in all transactions – with the government and otherwise. Of course, there are still the privacy concerns, which the government has left to the Supreme Court to decide.

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Cover Image: Glimpses from the World Cultural Festival organized by the Art of Living Foundation. The festival has been under a cloud, because of alleged damaged to the Yamuna river, but a last minute intervention allowed the festival to go on as scheduled. 

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