Mumbai, August 18
Rising for the fifth day, benchmark Sensex today gained 288 points to end at a new peak of 26,390.96 and the Nifty soared 83 points to close at a new high of 7,874.25 after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s August 15 pledge to boost infrastructure and manufacturing fired up markets.

Opening after a long weekend, stock markets were in a cheerful mood as investors infused funds to pick up shares across-the-spectrum. Sustained buying by foreign funds and firm European trends also helped, brokers said.

Besides, a fall in global crude oil prices following receding geo-political concerns sustained the positive mood on domestic bourses as India imports nearly 80% of its oil requirements, they added.

Buying was seen mainly across-the-board as 10 out of 12 BSE sectoral indices closed with gains of between 0.26% and 2.64%. Oil & gas, banking, capital goods, power and metal shares led the charge while select FMCG and IT counters attracted profit-booking.

“Markets witnessed a strong rally, which was boosted by positive statements from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who emphasised the need for better governance and focus on improving infrastructure and manufacturing sector,” said Nidhi Saraswat, senior research analyst, Bonanza Portfolio.

The S&P BSE 30-share Sensex resumed slightly better and gradually improved further to an intra-day all-time peak of 26,413.11 before settling at new high of 26,390.96, showing a spurt of 287.73 points or 1.10%. In straight five sessions, it has now zoomed 1,061.82 points or 4.19%.

ICICI Bank, ONGC, Tata Motors, Axis Bank, Cipla and BHEL were among prominent gainers in 24 Sensex counters that rose.

Similarly, the 50-issue CNX Nifty of the NSE logged an intra-day new high of 7,880.50 before ending up by 82.55 points, or 1.06% at 7,874.25 — a new closing peak.

The overall market breadth remained strong as 1,930 shares ended higher while 1,003 finished lower. Small caps and midcaps participated well in the rally. — PTI 

New Delhi, August 18
Cracking the whip on cash-starved Bhushan Steel, a consortium of bankers today ordered a forensic audit into the books of account of the company and asked its promoters to infuse more capital to ensure that it remains solvent.

The decision was taken at a lenders meeting here today to take stock of the situation following the arrest of Bhushan Steel vice-chairman and managing director Neeraj Singal by the CBI in an alleged cash-for-loan scam involving Syndicate Bank chairman SK Jain.

The forensic audit would be conducted by a reputed audit firm to be appointed soon. It would examine if the company used loans for the right purpose or there was a diversion of funds.

Besides, the consortium led by PNB also decided to appoint three nominee directors on the Board representing the lenders.

It was also agreed that banks would appoint an independent engineer to monitor the manufacturing operations of the company and its ongoing expansion activities.

Bankers approved appointing one of the reputed audit firms for monitoring the cash flow on daily basis, it added. As many as 51 banks have total exposure of about Rs 40,000 crore in the company.

In order to overcome tight cash situation, bankers today asked the company to deleverage by bringing in equity, including monetising non-core assets. The company informed the bankers that the professional management of the firm was still intact as on date and the operations were running normal. — PTI

New Delhi, August 18
Country’s largest software exporter, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) today pledged Rs 100 crore for the Clean India initiative announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his Independence Day address.

TCS said it would support provision of hygienic sanitation facilities in 10,000 schools across the country for girl students.

To help India harness its demographic dividend and support Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Clean India campaign that was announced on the occasion of India’s Independence Day, TCS announced that it would finance hygienic sanitation facilities for girl students across 10,000 schools in the country.

“TCS is proud to support the Prime Minister’s Clean India initiative and would like to pledge a sum of Rs 100 crore towards it. We believe that achieving the mission of providing hygienic sanitation for girl students will have a tangible impact on the level of education achievement and development of India’s next generation,” announced N Chandrasekaran, chief executive officer and managing director of TCS.

New Delhi, August 18
Analysts are of the view that the Modi government is focusing on ground execution rather than big bang reforms.

According to a research note by Deutsche Bank, “While the government’s plans of rolling out the reform agenda through the insurance and labour amendment Bills have been delayed, we have observed an urgent focus by the new government on improving execution, which in our view remains more critical currently to a manufacturing-led economic revival than big bang reform”.

The report says that Environment, Power and Road ministries apart from the Project Monitoring Group (PMG) in the Cabinet Secretariat have been at the forefront of urgent execution.

It says the Environment Ministry in particular (44% of stalled projects delayed due to environmental approvals) has been very productive issuing multiple notifications aimed primarily at simplifying regulations and hastening clearance process.

Deutsche Bank analysts add that there are three key areas of government focus aimed at improving the economy’s efficiency, productivity and better governance. These include accelerate project clearances with a focus on stalled projects, empower the bureaucracy to hasten decision making, improve transparency in according clearances and pioneer a much-needed Centre-state coordination in project clearances.

“We believe these moves may provide a strong tailwind to the ongoing cyclical recovery which seems to be firmly underway over the past two months”, the report adds.

“In our view, delayed project execution has been a key factor in compressing India’s GDP growth over the past few years. Hence restoration of growth trajectory to 6.5-7% is initially dependent on efficient ground execution rather than big bang reforms,” the note said.

The importance of kick-starting stalled projects is shared by other analysts too. Societe Generale in a research note says that currently in aggregate $134 billion worth of projects are stalled and of these close to 57% (around $75 billion) are stalled for land acquisition and government clearances.

It says this aggregate of stalled projects is a sizeable number and is roughly about 7% of the GDP whereas historically it has been 2.5%. “We see this as a low hanging opportunity for the government to kickstart the investment cycle”, it adds.

“Our base case scenario is that the government will be able to revive projects worth $60 billion or about 45% of the stalled projects at various government offices. This should lead to a sustainable improvement in GDP growth and corporate earnings and to a structural rally in the Sensex,” it adds.

Agri-logistics is emerging as a sunrise sector to cut down on post-harvest agriculture losses. Sohan Lal Commodity Management (SLCM) is a technology-driven agri-logistics and warehousing management company present in over 70 locations across 20 states with more than 100 warehouses. It imparts modern warehousing services to its clients, including Cargill, Louis Dreyfus Commodities, Olam, MMTC, PEC, Glencore, Future Group and Tinna. Sandeep Sabharwal, CEO, SLCM, says food storage losses can be brought down substantially from the current level of 10%.

Q: What is the overview of agri-logistics and warehouse management industry?

A: Agri-logistics is at a nascent stage and is still an evolving industry in India. India is the 2nd largest producer of food in the world with an output of approximately 255 million tonne every year. Yet, food worth Rs 60,000 crore is wasted in storage every year, which represent 10% of annual output. Storage and preservation is archaic and not based on best scientific knowledge while price discovery is arbitrary. All these challenges have led to the emergence of a new class of agri-logistics players.

Q: What is the business overview of the company?

A: SLCM has been at the forefront of innovation in the agri-logistics industry. We are the only company that issues storage receipts, which are bar-coded to ensure the authenticity. Similarly, we are the only company in this vertical which has to date not even invested in building a single warehouse as we believe that we are a warehouse management company and not an infrastructure company. At the same time, we have heavily invested in technology and are the first and only company in India which boasts of Real Time MIS that is virtually connected across India with data turnaround time of less than 5 minutes with an alert facility akin to a credit card swipe.

We have developed robust Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) which allows us to operate any structure and hence we are agnostic of infrastructure, geographic location and crop. SLCM has handled 593 warehouses with a capacity of more than 13.3 lakh metric tonne spread across 20 states with an area of more than 77.8 lakh square feet and a throughput of 50 lakh metric tonne.

Our first year revenue was around Rs 4 crore and our last year comparable revenue was around Rs 1,100 crore.

Q: What are your expansion plans for Punjab and Haryana?

A: We are looking at adding 50 warehouses in the states of Punjab and Haryana and facilitate loans against crops in these warehouses for around Rs 250 crore in the 3rd quarter of this year. Our NBFC, Kissandhan is focusing on providing loan against paddy and rice in the coming season that is October through November.

Q: How can post-harvest losses be reduced?

A: Post-harvest losses in India are pegged at 10% of our annual production or a staggering Rs 60,000 crore. This is due to inefficient and opaque operations. To address this, we have devised Standard Operating Procedure to ensure we are doing the right thing pertinent to the stored crop at the right time. This means we not only diagnose the problem, but cure the same and also have preventive mechanisms in place. This SOP has been modulated into a Real Time Platform, which enables us to take timely action to ensure that firstly these losses do not happen and in case there are signs of deterioration, then the same are corrected immediately.

BRIEFLY

Govt extends deadline for pharma barcodes
New Delhi: The government has extended the deadline to affix barcodes on mono-carton (ointments, eye/ear drops) by pharmaceutical companies to April 2015. Barcode helps in tracking and tracing origin of drugs, which minimises the chances of genuine medicines being considered spurious, sub-standard or counterfeit. — PTI

Volkswagen launches Vento Konekt at ~7.84 lakh
New Delhi: German carmaker Volkswagen on Monday launched limited edition of its mid-sized sedan Vento in India, priced between Rs 7.84 lakh and Rs 9.8 lakh ex-showroom Mumbai). The limited edition — Vento Konekt comes with various features, including the Blaupunkt infotainment system, with GPS navigation and hands-free and Bluetooth-enabled telephony. — PTI

SpiceJet shares surge nearly 13%
Mumbai: Shares of low-cost carrier SpiceJet on Monday climbed nearly 13%, in line with a strong stock market, ignoring the disappointing June quarter earnings. SpiceJet’s scrip zoomed 12.60% to settle at Rs 13.49 on the BSE. In intra-day, the stock surged 13.52% to Rs 13.60. On the volume front, 74.42 lakh shares of the company changed hands at the BSE during the day. — PTI

P-Notes investment drops to $34bn in July
New Delhi: Investments into Indian shares through participatory notes (P-Notes) in July dropped to Rs 2.08 lakh crore (about $34 billion) after hitting over six-year high in the preceding month. This also marks the first decline since April. As per SEBI data, the total value of P-Note investments in Indian markets declined to Rs 2,08,284 crore at the end of July from Rs 2,24,248 crore in June, the highest level in more than six years. — PTI