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As many as 159 memorandum of understandings (MoUs) were signed on Monday at the HP Global Investors Meet, Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur said. Presiding over the MoU-signing ceremony at the Meet, Thakur said the MoUs would ensure a total investment of over Rs 17,000 crore and employment opportunities to over 40,000 people.

Among the major pacts, Thakur said three MoUs were signed with public sector undertakings for an investment amount of Rs 1,115 crore, 88 with the Department of Industries for Rs 5,243 crore investment; 36 with the Department of Tourism and Civil Aviation for Rs 2,810 crore funding; 17 with the Department of Urban Development (Rs 4,332 crore).

The state government is coming up with new policies for industry, tourism, warehouse and logistics, among others, to provide incentives to the entrepreneurs interested to invest in the state, he added.

Stating that such initiatives were never taken before in the state, he said efforts would be made to ensure clearances for projects faster.

A holistic approach has been adopted by the state government to attract investment in the state, he said adding that apart from industries, MoUs have also been signed in tourism, wellness, transport, housing, language, art and culture sectors.

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The government will provide budgetary support to rubber sector to enhance research, promote exports and reduce dependence on import, according to the draft national rubber policy.

The proposed policy will also provide support for skill development; incentives for smallholders, workers and entrepreneurs; and enforcement of regulations on quality and standards.

For all these measures, proportionate budgetary provisions would be made, the draft said.

As per the draft policy, possibility would be explored for treating natural rubber as an agricultural product for all practical and legal purposes, it said.

The policy will also explore the possibility of treating income from rubber production as agricultural income, in consultation with the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare.

The draft said the budgetary support from the central government would focus on new plantation and replanting.

"Appropriate convergence and dovetailing of funds with other programmes of departments/ministries of the central and state governments such as Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment (MGNREGA), would be attempted," it added.

The 27-page draft said financial assistance is vital in motivating growers to take up rubber cultivation.

"Adequate planting subsidy would be given for incentivising rubber plantation. Priority would be given to marginal and small growers belonging to the resource poor communities," it added.

The commerce ministry has come up with this draft policy seeking views of stakeholders.

The objectives of the policy include promoting overall sustainability of the rubber lndustry with respect to economic, social and environmental dimensions, development of entire value chain from upstream production to downstream manufacturing activities.

Besides, the policy aims to increase the area under natural rubber by new plantation without causing any adverse impact on forests.

The draft has also suggested several policy interventions such as providing insurance cover for the growth of the sector.

It said the import policy for natural rubber would be accorded special focus as imports have impact on both growers and end-user industries.

Natural rubber is not a traditional export-oriented commodity and export may be promoted only to adjust temporary demand-supply imbalances in the domestic market, it added.

The draft said "the price volatility in rubber crop directly impacts livelihood of lakhs of small and marginal growers and efforts would be made to ensure the livelihood protection by way of insurance/price support in consonance with the prevailing norms and policies".

It also said the possibility of extending exclusive financial assistance schemes for grower forums for processing and trading in rubber would be explored in consultation with NABARD.

"Introducing auction for rubber trading in the country would be attempted for fair price discovery," it said.

Most of the rubber products, including tyres, require blends of natural rubber and synthetic rubber.

India is currently the sixth largest producer of natural rubber in the world with one of the highest productivity (6,94,000 tonne in 2017-18).

Kerala and Tamil Nadu account for 81 per cent of the total natural rubber production in India. The other states include Tripura, Assam, Meghalaya, Odisha, Karnataka, Maharashtra and West Bengal.

India is the second largest consumer of natural rubber globally with current consumption of around 1.1 million tonne. Of this, 68 per cent is consumed in the automotive tyre sector.

There are around 1.3 million rubber growers and 0.6 million workers in rubber plantation sector in India. Around 40 per cent of the domestic consumption is met from imports.

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Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu on Friday dedicated to the nation projects worth Rs 1,000 crore, including National Institute of Design campus in Jorhat and Bhopal, and two spices parks in Kota and Raebareli.

The projects in seven states and two Union Territories were inaugurated through video conferencing here, the commerce ministry said in a statement.

Prabhu inaugurated skilling Common Facility Centre (CFC) in Udupi, and laid the foundation stone for a CFC in Coimbatore. He also inaugurated two spices parks in Kota and Raebareli.

The minister also inaugurated National Institute of Design campus in Jorhat and Bhopal, IIFT campus at Kolkata and Maidangarhi, and Footwear Design and Development Institute (FDDI) in Banur, Chandigarh, it added.

The CFC in Udupi for traditional jewellery manufacturing in south India will be able to produce world class talent in gem and jewellery business for around 1,200 units in and around Udupi, it said.

Similarly, the centre at Coimbatore has the capacity to train 50,000 people in unique jewellery manufacturing like Kundan, Meenakari, Bidri, temple jewellery, filigree and Jadau jewellery.

The establishment of spice park is a major initiative to help farmers get better returns for their produce and to ensure the quality of spices for exports, it said.

"At present there is a need for improved linkages between spice producers, processes and food processing industry and the spices parks will function as a nodal point for development of the spices industry," it added.

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The Unified Payment Interface (UPI) witnessed a record number of transactions in January and amounted to more than Rs 1 lakh crore in value, according to data released by NPCI (National Payment Corporation of India), the Livemint reports.

The transaction volume grew by 8.5 percent to Rs 1.09 lakh crore in January, up from Rs 1.02 lakh crore in the month of December 2018. December was also the month when UPI recorded over 600 million transactions for the first time ever, the report states.

UPI was introduced by NPCI in 2016 as a platform that powers multiple bank accounts into a single mobile application. UPI got a significant boost when the BHIM app was launched by the Central government on the 30 December 2016. Since then, NPCI has taken steps to cut down fraudulent transactions and introduced many regulatory guidelines.

Out of the total transactions registered in January, 13.98 million transactions were conducted through BHIM app alone, the data shows.

The last one year has witnessed the rise of 350% in UPI transactions.

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The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) may not tinker with the policy rate, but will change its stance to neutral. Economists and market experts whom Moneycontrol spoke to were divided on the rate cut but were confident of a change in stance by the banking regulator.

This is the first policy of RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das, who also heads the monetary policy committee.

The change in the stance from ‘calibrated tightening’ to ‘neutral’ is what is being keenly watched by the market. In its December policy, the MPC decided to keep the policy repo rate on hold at 6.5 percent and maintain its 'calibrated tightening' stance.

Shubhada Rao, Chief Economist at Yes Bank, said that while there could be a pause in this policy, the stance may be changed to neutral. However, she sees possibility of a rate cut sometime in 2019.

In its fifth bi-monthly monetary policy in December 2018, while the decision on keeping the policy rate unchanged was unanimous, Ravindra Dholakia voted to change his stance to neutral. The committee members maintained that the central bank’s focus remained focused on taming inflation, even if it came at the cost of higher rates.

A Kotak Economics Research Securities report expects the committee to change its stance to ‘neutral’ in February and 25 basis points repo rate cut in April and June given the benign inflation trajectory.

Deepak Jasani, Head-Retail Research, HDFC Securities, said RBI is likely to change its stance from calibrated tightening to neutral. However, he added that a rate cut at this stage may be a bit premature though there are reasons to back it.

Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation hit an 18-month low, rising 2.19 percent in December as compared with 2.3 percent in November due to cheaper fuel and food items, data released by the government showed. CPI, or retail inflation, is the main price gauge that RBI tracks.

At its last policy, the MPC expected retail inflation to moderate to 2.7-3.2 percent during October-March, before rising to 3.8-4.2 percent in April-September in 2019-20, with ‘risks tilted towards the upside’.

MPC had earlier said that the benign outlook for headline inflation is driven mainly by the unexpected softening of food inflation and collapse in oil prices in a relatively short period.

Consumer food price index had seen a de-growth to 2.51 percent in December from (-) 2.61 percent in November. Among food and beverages, prices of fruits, eggs, vegetables, pulses and sugar fell during December.

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The Niti Aayog is open to the idea of having a role in fund allocation to states for developmental expenditure and would discuss the matter with the 15th Finance Commission, the think tank's vice chairman Rajiv Kumar said on Monday.

Former chairman of the Finance Commission Vijay Kelkar recently suggested that the Aayog should be given financial powers to help address regional imbalances.

The Aayog, unlike its predecessor Planning Commission, does not have financial powers nor any say in preparing annual plans of the states. "I have always respected Dr Kelkar and his views comes from a very long experience, both as finance secretary as well as chairman of the Finance Commission.

"I having worked as the vice chairman of Niti Aayog for 16-17 months, what I do feel is that there needs to be some independent allocations for states to undertake their developmental expenditure," Kumar told PTI in an interview. He said that if the Aayog would be given some role in allocating development expenditure to states, then that would also "promote co-operative and competitive federalism".

"And I can also say to you that we are going to be discussing this with the 15th Finance Commission...," the Aayog vice chairman said. In a recent research paper, Kelkar suggested setting up of 'Niti Aayog 2.0' that would have financial powers as part of efforts to address regional imbalances.

Kelkar had also suggested that the vice-chairman of the new Aayog be made a permanent invitee of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA). Socialist-era Planning Commission was replaced by the Aayog on January 1, 2015. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the chairman of the Aayog.

While the Aayog is open to the idea having a role in resource allocation to states, Kumar made it clear that he was not seeking revival of the Planning Commission. "But certainly we don't want to return to old days of the Planning Commission and have a huge expansion in the number of centrally sponsored schemes etc...," he noted.

The Planning Commission used to play a key role in deciding the expenditure plans of central ministries as well as that of states. "I think the time has come to achieve a better balance between complete fiscal sovereignty and some allocation for targeted infrastructure in development-oriented expenditure across the states to ensure that there is a better convergence within the states.

"And all those states that are now today have weaker infrastructure (and need to) catch up with the more forward states," Kumar said. Echoing similar views, former Union minister and noted economist Yoginder K Alagh said that in 2014, he had called for the new body to have powers to allocate funds as per transparent rules.

"The government abolished the Planning Commission, started a large number of central schemes but resources (are allocated) by the finance or the ministry concerned. Some chief ministers' say this is arbitrary. Kelkar rightly wants a rule-based system,"Alagh told PTI.

About the interim Budget for 2019-20, Kumar said it has achieved a very good balance between providing a growth stimulus and maintaining the fiscal discipline. On former finance minister P Chidambaram's criticism that the Budget was an 'account for votes' and not a 'vote on account', Kumar said, "you cannot expect a non-election budget in an election year".

"... addressing some of the issues of some of the classes of the people is good political economy and only shows that the government is sensitive to the problems of the particular segments," Kumar said. Regarding the disinvestment target for 2019-20, he said the government when it comes back to the office would pursue the target much more efficiently.

"We will make sure that this Rs 90,000 crore disinvestment target will be achieved through some strategic disinvestment of loss-making PSUs.

The Interim Budget has set a target of Rs 90,000 crore to be mopped up from CPSE disinvestment in 2019-20 higher than Rs 80,000 crore in the current fiscal. Meanwhile, the Aayog vice chairman said there is now a need for re-establishing the quality of the India' statistical system.

The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation should not only come out as a collector of all data but also a quality regulator of all data, he opined. "What we have inherited is a relatively neglected statistical and data system in the country. I think, we now need to reverse that.

"And there was a time when the Department of Statistics was also a part of the Ministry of Planning, and I think that particular co-ordination is required," he said. The Department of Statistics has now rechristened as the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.