As per the data released by the Commerce and Industry Ministry, wholesale price index (WPI) deflation in primary articles was 0.79% in April, as against an inflation of 3.72% in March. The fuel and power basket saw a deflation of 10.12% in April, against 1.76% deflation in the previous month.
Coal India (CIL) has a mandate of replacing at least 100 MT of imported coal with domestic non-coking coal in the financial year 2020-21, an official said. The development comes at a time when the country on the one hand has abundance of domestic coal, while on the other hand there is a slump in demand of the dry fuel.
With the Government’s Rs 20 lakh crore stimulus package, the country’s fiscal deficit is likely to be more than double to 7.9% in the current financial year, according to an SBI research report. The report had earlier estimated the fiscal deficit to be 3.5% of the gross domestic product (GDP) this fiscal.
India’s demand for steel contracted by 91% y-o-y in April 2020 with end user industries’ like auto real estate and infrastructure that constitute 80% of demand, coming to a virtual standstill. Domestic steel production fell by a record 69.5% y-o-y in April 2020 as per provisional figures. The country produced a mere 2.8 million tonne of crude steel during the month, according to data released by Joint Plan Committee (JPC).
Miners’ body FIMI hailed the Rs 20 lakh crore special economic package, expressing hope the package will also be used to boost the highly taxed and struggling mining sector, which is critical for raw material supply to Indian manufacturing units, power, infrastructure sectors, etc.
India is likely to fall short of its ambitious wind energy target for 2022 by up to 10 gigawatt (GW) if urgent regulatory challenges are not addressed, according to a latest report. It added that the country’s total wind energy capacity would only reach 50 GW by 2022 as existing the pipeline and new auctions face multiple challenges. India has set an ambitious 175 GW renewable energy target by 2022, of which 60 GW is due to come from wind energy.