Telangana Affairs
Land auctions hit by Covid, Telangana govts plans to mop up Rs 10,000 crore go awry
The governments plans to mobilise Rs 10,000 crore to Rs 15,000 crore by selling governmentlandappears to have gone awry for the second consecutive year. Though the government has identified some land parcels in the city and surrounding Rangareddy district to raise Money by auctioning the land, it could not go ahead thanks to the first wave of Covid-19 and now the second wave.
Senior officials are worried as the third wave of pandemic is likely to hit sometime in the third quarter of the year and land auctions may not be held this year too. Land auction was last conducted in December 2019 by the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA), the Telangana State Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (TSIIC) was held in May 2017.
The Telangana government is badly requiring funds as it had allocated nearly Rs 50,000 crore for various welfare schemes such as Rythu Bandhu, Rythu Bima, Pensions, <a href="https://exam.pscnotes.com/Agriculture-notes-for-state-psc-exams”>Agriculture loan waiver, Kalyana Lakshmi-Shaadi Mubarak and KCR Kits etc in the 2021-2022 financial year.
National and International Affairs
FDI inflows rise 9.8% to record $82 billion in FY21
Foreign direct (FDI) inflows into India rose 9.8% to a record $81.7 billion in 2020-21 on a gross basis on the back of record investment into companies such asReliance Jio.
Fresh Equity inflows are estimated to have increased by an impressive 19% to $59.6 billion, while reinvested earnings went up 14% to $16.2 billion.
Singapore was the top source, which is now followed by the United States with Mauritius once the dominant source of FDI due to tax benefits under the tax avoidance treaty pushed to the third spot.
In terms of Growth, inflows from Saudi Arabia. jumped from $90 million in 2019-20 to $2.8 billion last year. And with E-Commerce and IT being the major draw for overseas investors looking to tap into the India consumption story, computer Software and hardware emerged as the most attractive sector to invest, cornering nearly 44% of the FDI equity inflows. Next was construction (Infrastructure), which accounted for a 13% share. Among the states it was Gujarat that was the top recipient, according to the Centres data, accounting for 37% of the inflows, followed byMaharashtra(27%) and Karnataka (13%).
The government has been seeking to bolster FDI especially in the manufacturing sector and some of the investments are related to companies such asApples vendors andSamsungpumping in funds to set up bigger production facilities for mobiles and electronics goods.
The government has identified close to 1,000 companies and is working withInvest Indiato tap companies that are seeking to diversify their production bases.