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The government on Monday gave sugar mills three months more till December to export the last year's balance quota of the sweetener.

Mills were able to export about 3.8 million tonne of sugar during the 2018-19 marketing year (October-September) due to depressed market conditions, against the target of 5 million tonne under the Minimum Indicative Export Quota (MIEQ) scheme.

"Now, it has been decided by the central government to allow those sugar mills, which had partially exported their MIEQ of 2018-19 till September 2019, to export the balance quantity of their MIEQ by December 31, 2019," said a fresh notification issued by the food ministry.

This will be over and above the quota allocated for the ongoing 2019-20 marketing year.

A senior food ministry official said that much of the sugar during the last year was exported to the Middle East, Iran, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

For the current year, the government has fixed an export quota of 6 million tonne under the MIEQ. Mills are hopeful that the quota will be fulfilled as the global market is facing 4 million tonnes of deficit.

India has started the 2019-20 marketing year with an all-time high opening stock of 14.5 million tonne against a requirement of 3-5 million tonne.

The government has pegged sugar output to decline to 28-29 million tonne for the current year from 33.1 million tonnes during 2018-19 due to sharp fall in cane acreage in Maharashtra and Karnataka.

Whereas industry body ISMA has projected the country's output to touch a three-year low at 26 million tonne during 2019-20.

There are 534 mills in the country. Mills in Uttar Pradesh have started the crushing operation, while it is delayed in Maharasthra and Karnataka.

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With the mining leases of 329 private mines slated to expire on March 31, apex mineral body FIMI believes that iron ore, a raw material used in steel-making, will be the worst hit from the move.

The 329 mines, including 48 operative and 281 non-operative ones, are spread across 10 states, Federation of Indian Mineral Industries (FIMI) said.

"Raw material for steel industry, iron ore, would be the worst hit, since out of 329 mines 232 are of iron ore alone - 24 operative and 208 non-operative iron ore mines," FIMI Secretary General R K Sharma said in a statement.

"Things are not that simple as the government might be thinking. It is going to be a panic situation for a lessee if it is not able to retain the mine.....On one side steel industry is looking to produce 300 plus million tonne and here we have a situation where supplies of raw material are bound to get disrupted for a long period," Sharma said adding that the current capacity is of about 100 million tonne.

When India is looking to achieve this target, the blues in iron ore mining will be a major roadblock for steel producers, he rued.

The mining leases of 48 operative mines - 24 in Odisha, six each in Jharkhand and Karnataka, five in Gujarat, three in Andhra Pradesh, two in Rajasthan, and one mine each in Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh - will expire on March 31, 2020.

Mining leases of 184 non-operative mines in Goa, 42 in Karnataka, 12 each in Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh, nine in Maharashtra, seven in Odisha, six each in Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat, two in Rajasthan, one in Himachal Pradesh will also expire.

Majority of non-operative iron ore mines are in Goa which has a blanket ban on mining.

Besides iron ore, the mining leases of 21 mines of manganese, 14 of bauxite, 23 of limestone, four of chromite, two of graphite, one of garnet and 32 of other minerals will expire on March 31.

"FIMI does not understand the logic behind such discrimination. For captive mines the expiry is March 31, 2030 and for non-captive mines it is March 31, 2020. Ultimately the raw material is being used to make final products. These bottlenecks are nothing but hinderance in economic growth and need to be removed," Sharma said.

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Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will review the state of economy at a meeting of the Financial Stability and Development Council (FSDC) on November 7 to be attended by sectoral regulators, including RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das. The FSDC is the apex body of sectoral regulators, headed by the finance minister.

According to sources, the meeting will take stock of various measures taken by the government to boost the sagging growth which hit a six-year low of 5 percent in the first quarter of the current fiscal.

The meeting will review the current global and domestic economic situation and financial stability issues, including those concerning banking and NBFCs, sources added.

Besides RBI Governor, Securities and Exchange Board of India chairman Ajay Tyagi, Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India(IRDAI) chairman Subhash Chandra Khuntia, Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) chairman M S Sahoo and Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority Ravi Mittal will attend the meeting.

This would be the second meeting of the FSDC after the Modi 2.0 government assumed office.

The government has announced several short and long-term measures to boost the economy in three phases between August 23 and September 14.

Out of the total 44 measures announced, 16 have been fulfilled while the rest of the announcements are under consideration by relevant ministries.

Further, it said action on one out of three announcements made for the housing sector has been completed and the other two are being taken up.

According to experts the slowdown is primarily due to moderation in demand and steps are being taken to infuse liquidity in the financial system to aid loan growth.

Sources said the FSDC meeting will also be attended by Minister of State for Finance Anurag Singh Thakur, Finance Secretary Rajiv Kumar, Economic Affairs Secretary Atanu Chakraborty, Revenue Secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey and other top officials of the finance ministry.

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Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday reviewed the state of economy including stress in the financial sector at the meeting of the Financial Stability and Development Council (FSDC). The FSDC is the apex body of sectoral regulators, headed by the finance minister.

"The meeting was very constructive and it took stock of entire financial system and other issues," said Finance Secretary Rajiv Kumar after the meeting that lasted nearly two hours.

RBI and other regulators are looking at financial at it holistically, he said when asked about stress in the financial sector.

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Growth in bank credit may decelerate sharply to 8-8.5 percent during 2019-20 from 13.3 percent last fiscal, mainly due to decline in incremental credit in first half of the current financial year, rating agency Icra said in a report.

"Moreover, with the bond markets remaining risk averse towards NBFCs, the YoY growth in the volume of bonds outstanding is expected to moderate to about 4 percent in FY2020 from 12 percent in FY2019," it said.

Additionally, the recent changes in mutual funds regulations are likely to result in a decline in the volume of commercial paper (CP) outstanding by March 2020, it said.

Considering these three domestic sources of funding, that is bank credit, corporate bonds and CP outstanding, Icra expects year-on-year credit growth to decline to 6.2-6.8 percent in FY20 from 13.5 percent in the last financial year.

A shift of large borrowers such as NBFCs and housing finance companies (HFCs) to the banking system for their funding requirements had boosted bank credit growth in FY19, it said.

However, factors such as muted economic growth, lower working capital requirements of various borrowers, as well as risk aversion among lenders, have compressed incremental credit in first half of the current fiscal, it said.

"Incremental bank credit has declined by Rs 0.19 trillion during H1 FY'20, in contrast to the rise of Rs 0.81 trillion during H1 FY'18 and Rs 3.51 trillion during H1 FY'19," it said.

The recent data on bank credit released by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) reveals that the contraction in incremental credit outstanding to the services as well as the industrial segments, offset the entire growth in credit to the retail segment during H1 FY20, it said.

Within services, the credit outstanding to NBFCs increased. However, the decline in trade credit and other services (which also includes HFCs) resulted in the overall contraction in credit outstanding to the services segment in H1 FY20.

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Manufacturing activity in the country continued to weaken in October, with factory orders and production rising at the weakest rates in two years, a monthly survey said on Friday.

The headline seasonally adjusted IHS Markit India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) fell to a two-year low of 50.6 in October from 51.4 in September.

This indicates only a marginal improvement in the health of the manufacturing industry, the survey said.

In PMI parlance, a print above 50 means expansion, while a score below that denotes contraction.

As per the IHS Markit survey, the cooling of manufacturing sector conditions in India continued in October, with both factory orders and production rising at the weakest rates for two years.

"Subsequently, job creation softened to a six-month low, while companies were reluctant to hold excess stock and lowered input buying in response," it noted.

The PMI data for October showed a continuation of manufacturing sector weakness in India, "with sales growth softening to the slowest in two years", said Pollyanna De Lima, Principal Economist at IHS Markit.

"Weakening demand had a domino effect in the manufacturing industry, knocking down rates of increase in production, employment and business sentiment," Lima said.

With quantities of purchases contracting for the third month in a row, Lima pointed out that input costs fell for the first time in over four years during October.

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Citing the example of Singapore, several experts have suggested that India should do away with multiple tax slabs under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) for greater ease of compliance.

Singapore has only one tax rate under GST— seven per cent -- on taxable goods and services while India has multiple slabs to charge the indirect tax.

An achievement of India's GST implementation is that the measure hasn't been inflationary, according to Abhijit Nath, who works with Insitor Partners, a consultancy firm on GST.

“However, to avoid confusion and greater ease of compliance, India should aim for a two-rate system over time to be in line with global best practices,” suggested Nath.

GST introduction in India has the potential to be a long-term game-changer by unifying the country as one market, he said.

Singapore's practice of early announcement of GST rates for various categories helps in smooth transition, he added.

“This also makes the increase politically viable,” Nath said, suggesting that the same can be followed in India as well.

Singapore's Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat in his budget 2018 speech announced that there are plans to increase GST from 7 per cent to 9 per cent sometime from 2021 to 2025, according to the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS).

Sandeep Chilana, managing partner of Chilana and Chilana law offices, said India should endeavour to move towards least tax slabs.

He said while other countries have considered a single rate of GST, keeping in mind the vast gap in per capital income and the need for generating revenues, it may not be possible at this stage for India to consider it.

“However, India should endeavour to move towards least tax slabs possible, of 6 per cent and 14 per cent,” Chilana said.

Manu Bhaskaran, founding director and chief executive officer of Centennial Asia Advisors, said GST is one of the most efficient taxes available “so it is a good tax”.

“By itself, it can be regressive so it needs to be combined, as Singapore did, with other measures so that the net effect is not regressive,” he said, when asked what developing economies like India can learn from Singapore's GST model.

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The government's Rs 15,000-crore soft loan programme for sugar mills to set up ethanol units is moving at a very slow pace as banks have so far disbursed only about Rs 800 crore, industry experts have said.

The Centre had announced this loan package in two tranches -- first in June 2018 amounting to Rs 4,440 crore and the other in March 2019 of Rs 10,540 crore.

The objective was to help millers in clearing cane arrears and divert surplus sugar for ethanol manufacturing.

A soft loan is a loan that is given at a subsidised interest rate.

"About Rs 800 crore soft loan has been disbursed from banks so far to sugar mills for setting up ethanol units," a senior food ministry official told PTI.

The soft loan package is being implemented by the food ministry, which provides a list of eligible loan applicants to the banks for further process.

The ministry had received total 418 applicants, of which 328 applicants have been identified as eligible for availing soft loan from banks, the official said.

"The ministry has cleared 328 applications totalling a loan amount of Rs 16,482 crore so far. Now, banks have to further process these applications and take a call," the official added.

According to industry experts, only 5-6 per cent of the total soft loan amount of Rs 15,000 crore announced under the scheme has been disbursed so far by banks.

Of 418 applications, the ministry has approved 328 proposals after scrutinising various eligibility criteria.

The ministry checked whether mills have cleared loans taken from the government's Sugar Development Fund (SDF) and also whether they supplied their quota of sugar for ration shop sale (called levy sugar) prior to 2013.

A sugar industry official, who did not wish to be identified, said much of the time is being wasted in the first level of screening at the ministry level.

Ideally, the banks should check the eligibility criteria and sanction the loan amount accordingly, the industry official added.

"In this process, the scheme has not been able to take off properly. The scheme was launched in June 2018 and still the ministry is screening the applications. In this pace, mills may not benefit from the scheme. It takes at least 18 months to establish an ethanol unit," an another industry official said.

At present, 3-4 lakh tonnes of sugar gets diverted for ethanol making. With creation of additional capacity under the scheme, 9-10 lakh tonnes of sugar is expected to be diverted for ethanol production, according to the All India Sugar Trade Association.

Sugar mills have supplied 175 crore litres of ethanol to oil marketing companies (OMCs) till October 22 of the 2018-19 season (October-September) and helped them achieve 5.2 per cent blending with petrol, as per industry data.

The soft loan was announced to improve liquidity of mills, reduce sugar inventory and facilitate timely clearance of cane price dues of farmers.

However, cane arrear still remains high at Rs 9,000 crore so far this year based on the sugarcane price fixed by both the Centre and states, as per the ministry data.

There is sugar glut in India, the world's second largest sugar producer after Brazil. The country had produced 32.5 million tonnes and 33.1 million tonnes in 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons (October-September), respectively, much higher than the domestic consumption of 25 million tonnes.

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In 2013, the UPA government imposed a 10 percent import duty on gold. P Chdambaram, the then finance minister was quite savvy about the way financial markets work.

He knew too well, that any import duty above the 5 percent threshold, would inevitably draw the attention of smugglers. But he hoped that official imports would reduce because of the higher duty, and consequently the current account deficit (CAD) would narrow. In his effort to spruce up the books of accounts, Chidambaram ended up making smuggling very lucrative for traders.

Gold has a special appeal for smugglers because it has a high value despite a low volume. That makes the smuggling in of gold easy -- through airports, through passengers as part of personal gold, or even through carriers. Sometimes, when the contraband is large enough, it comes through dhows as well, and the metal is landed somewhere along the porous coastline of India.

True, the customs seize gold.  But as a reply to the Lok Sabha on February 3, 2017 (in reply to the unstarred question no 387) showed, the government admitted that seizures were scant compared to the volume of gold that was being smuggled into India.  The government admitted that the Income Tax Department conducted more than 1,100 searches, seizures and surveys and issued more than 5,100 notices, between November 2016 and January 2017, for verification of suspicious high value cash deposits in old high denominations.

Collectively, these raids and seizures accounted for valuables worth Rs. 610 crore which includes cash of Rs. 513 crore. Rest of the seized valuables worth Rs.97 crore was mainly in the form of gold, jewellery and silver. Of the 100 tonnes of gold smuggled in each year, the total seizure accounted for just 0.003 percent!.

In another reply to  the Lok Sabha on March 31, 2017 (unstarred question no. 4842), the government stated that “[even though] there are no firm statistics on estimated demand and availability of gold in the country . . . as per rough estimates gold demand in the country is 800-900 tonnes per annum.”.

In yet another Lok Sabha reply (unstarred question No.384 of February 3, 2017), the government stated that the total seizure of gold (and gold ornaments) accounted for just 7.1 tonnes during the latest three-year period (2013-14 to 2015-16). The biggest seizures were in Delhi, followed by Mumbai and Chennai. Remember that the volumes of goldf smuggled in stand at around 80-90 tonnes.

Clearly, smuggled of gold cannot be stopped, and Chidambaram’s 10 percent duty boosted gold smuggling.  Then in successive measures, subsequent budgets increased the duty on imported gold to 12.5 percent and now (along with GST) top around 15.5 percent.  Smuggling of gold is more attractive than ever before.

So how does gold come in?  There are no official documents on this pattern, but common sense suggests that it comes through the porous borders of Nepal, Myasnmar, Bangladesh and by sea and air from Malaysia, Thailand and other neighbouring countries.

The best indicator of how India’s gold policies have made its neighbours richer, and this country itself poorer, can be gleaned from the table alongside. Watch the way gold imports have swelled in countries like Thailand and Sri Lanka which do not have a major domestic market for this yellow market.  China and India are the two markets where huge quantities of gold gets absorbed by the local population. This lure for gold is partly on account of sentiment, and partly because of the tremendous faith people have in gold.

Marketmen point to the way gold sales swelled in Kerala immediately after the floods.  That was when most common folk saw a great deal of their wealth eroded. What they could carry with them was gold. It is becoming attractive now as well, because of the weakening of the rupee and other global currencies.

The irony is that in an attempt to control the current account deficit, the government believes that a higher import duty on gold will prevent gold imports.  What it actually does is dampen official gold imports. Instead, unofficial gold imports swell. That in turn corrodes the value of the Indian rupee and will gradually translate into higher inflation.  So an apparently stronger balance sheet will come at the cost of a weakening currency.

If the government wants to prevent this, it must look at gold once again, more sensibly. Till that happens, expect the rupee to continue becoming weaker.

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Petrol and diesel pumps across Rajasthan will keep their operations shut for 24 hours, starting October 23 to protest against the increased rate of Value Added Taxes (VAT), officials said on Tuesday.

Sunit Bagai, president of the Rajasthan Petrol Diesel Association (RPDA) said fuel pumps located in the border areas are on the verge of shutdown due to increased VAT rate.

"Petrol and diesel pumps located in the border areas of neighbouring districts are on the verge of shutdown due to increased VAT. Demand is continuously decreasing.

"We have apprised the state government about losses incurred by the fuel pump stations," said Bagai.

The shutdown has been called against increased VAT rate, he said, adding the RPDA has also demanded scrapping of road cess.

Bagai said if prices of petrol and diesel are compared with neighbouring states, it was Rs 5-9 higher in Rajasthan.

Terming it a corrective measure, the Congress government in July had reversed the previous government's decision to reduce the VAT on petrol and diesel by 4 per cent. During the previous government, VAT on petrol was 30 per cent, which was brought down to 26 per cent while VAT on diesel was reduced from 22 per cent to 18 per cent.

In the general budget, the Centre had announced Rs 1 per litre in excise duty and Rs 1 as road cess. Following the hike, the state government through a notification on July 6 increased VAT rate on petrol from 26 to 30 per cent and 18 to 22 per cent on diesel.