- Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced a pipeline of road projects worth Rs 19.63 trillion. The new pipeline comprises 39% projects each of the Centre and states, and 22% of the private sector.
- Until FY25, the expected investment in the Railways sector comes to around Rs 13.7 trillion, of which 87% is likely to be contributed by the Centre government. The share of the private sector is as low as 12% and that of states is only 1%.
- The Centre unveiled the National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP) with projects worth ₹102-lakh crore. It aims to ensure timely implementation of these projects, spread across 18 States and Union Territories, over the next five years.
- India will struggle to achieve 5% GDP growth in 2020 as the significant deceleration in past few quarters was largely owing to credit squeeze which is a cyclical problem, not a structural problem said American economist Steve Hanke.
- Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s office has proposed waiving a tax on coal to help finance pollution-curbing equipment, according to documents, but the move would also make coal more competitive in price with solar and wind energy.
- Modi’s office has proposed waiving the carbon tax of 400 rupees ($5.61) per tonne that was levied on the production and import of coal, according to the documents.
- NITI Aayog released the second edition of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) India Index which comprehensively documents the progress made by states and union territories towards achieving the 2030 SDG targets.
- The forest-and-tree cover in India has risen by 5,188 square kilometres in the last two years, said the India State of Forest Report (ISFR) 2019, which showed Karnataka growing the maximum cover of 1,025 sq km.