Today’s Latest Business News, Finance and Share Market News at 10:00 am on 26 December 2023

Let's begin - GIFT Nifty traded up by just 14 points or 0.07% at 21,409, indicating a flat opening for domestic indices NSE Nifty 50 and BSE Sensex on Tuesday. Previously, on Friday, the NSE Nifty 50 gained 94.35 points or 0.44% to settle at 21,349.05, while the BSE Sensex ended higher by 214.86 points or 0.34% to 71,106.96. The stocks to keep an eye on today are Adani Green, Aurobindo Pharma, Adani Power, Zydus Healthcare, Bank Of Baroda, Adani Wilmar, Motisons Jewellers and Muthoot Microfinance, among others.

Up next - Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said earlier this year that the GST regime has brought a significant improvement in the system which has not only benefited the states but ultimately the “people as well”. One may argue that the current weighted average tax rate under GST is, which is lower than the revenue neutral rate of 15%, has led to lower tax collections, primarily affecting state tax revenues. But a sustained buoyancy in the GST mop-up, coupled with an increasing tax base, and easing compliance costs has nonetheless aided both Centre and states revenue collections, and provided cushion to fiscal slippage – which experts say would continue to some extent in the coming year as well.

Moving on - The upcoming spectrum auction, which the government is expected to conduct over the next three months, may see a subdued response from telcos as demand is likely to be restricted to airwaves which will be up for renewal in some circles, sources said. Against the Rs 1.5 trillion-worth 5G spectrum sold in the last spectrum auctions, this time the spectrum auction is estimated to fetch around Rs 8,000-9,000 crore to the government, officials said. The main reason for telcos not going for aggressive bidding this time is that they already have ample spectrum. With no scope of 5G monetisation, they don’t see the need to spend further.

In another development - B2B fintech major EnKash, which received the Reserve Bank of India’s payment aggregator license recently for its Olympus product, plans to expand overall spends by 3X-5X by FY25 from $3 billion in FY23, co-founder Yadvendra Tyagi told FE. EnKash, being a B2B focused fintech, pre-dominantly provides services to corporates which include streamlining their B2B payments, including vendor, supplier, taxes, and utility payments, among other products. Tyagi said EnKash anticipated receiving a payments aggregator license from RBI nearly six-eight months ago and accordingly built a team to reach out to its existing business partners with enhanced business offerings. The company also plans to launch an advanced AI/ML-enabled expense management solution to streamline and automate the expense management process for businesses of all sizes.

Meanwhile - Industry players have urged the government to introduce an amnesty scheme to resolve long-standing disputes under the Customs laws in the upcoming interim Budget. Experts say that an amnesty scheme, along the lines of ‘Sabka Vishwas’ and ‘Vivaad se Vishwas’, would help in ending long-drawn litigation under the Customs laws, and will particularly help small businesses to get rid of their past baggage of disputes. The government had introduced ‘Sabka Vishwas’ and ‘Vivaad se Vishwas’ schemes in 2019 and 2020, respectively to reduce the long-pending litigation in central excise, service tax and direct tax disputes. The two schemes have fetched revenues over Rs 90,000 crore for the government.

In other news - To ensure that farmers get remunerative prices and build up the buffer, the government will soon start procurement of tur dal which is currently ruling above the minimum support price through a ‘dynamic pricing’ formula. Sources told FE that agencies such as National Cooperative Consumers Federation and farmers’ cooperative Nafed will purchase the pulse variety directly from farmers or primary agricultural credit societies at a price derived on the basis of prevailing mandi prices of one-week duration. The mandi prices of tur dal on Monday at Latur, Maharashtra, the hub of the trade, was ruling around Rs 9500 – Rs 9600/quintal against the MSP of Rs 7000/quintal for the 2023-24 season.

Lastly - The Delhi airport on December 25 diverted eight flights between 6 am to 9 am due to bad weather conditions, PTI reported earlier citing an official. While seven flights were diverted to Jaipur, one saw a diversion to Ahmedabad. In its latest advisory posted at 7:20 am, the Delhi airport said that while landing and takeoffs continue at the airport, flights that are not CAT-III compliant may get affected. It further asked the passengers to get in touch with their respective airline for updated information. The latest weather prediction by IMD on December 25 stated dense to very dense fog conditions were likely to continue in some pockets of Delhi along with those in Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh and Uttar Pradesh during December 26-28 during early hours/morning hours.

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