The voting of the Parliament on the 22nd Constitutional Amendment – which is an extremely important moment in the country’s politics – was held yesterday (21) afternoon and only 180 Members of Parliament participated in it,
Accordingly, 44 MPs had not participated. They are 26 MPs from the ruling party, 13 from the opposition and 5 independent MPs.
The office of the chief organizer of the ruling party said that 11 of the members of the ruling party are currently abroad, so they could not come to cast their votes. They are the chief organizer of the ruling party, Prasanna Ranatunga, Mahinda Amaraweera, Pramita Thennakone, Siripala Gamlath, Anuradha Jayaratne, Sita Arambepola, Rohitha Abeygunawardena, Dhammika Perera, SMM Musharraf, Pradeep Undugoda and Nipuna Ranawaka.
It is also stated that the MPs representing the ruling party, Jayantha Weerasinghe, Sahan Pradeep Withana, Wimalaweera Dissanayake and Janaka Bandara Thennakoon did not come to the vote due to illness.
Former Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, Sanath Nishantha, Johnston Fernando, Sanjeeva Edirimanna, Sagara Kariyawasam, Pavitra Vanniarachchi, Jayantha Katagoda, Gamini Lokage and Professor Ranjith Bandara did not come to cast their votes without giving any such reasonable reasons.
The opposition MPs who did not turn up to vote yesterday are R Sampandan, Abdul Halim, Vadivel Suresh, Gajendra Kumar Ponnambalam, Selvarasa Gajendran, Hector Appuhami, Su Noharadalingam, P Velukumar, SM Marikkar, Hesha Withanage, MA Sumandhiran, Rasamanikkam Shanakian and Thavarasa Kalasan. Members of Parliament. Some of them were abroad.
Prof. GL Peiris, Upul Galappatti, Shan Wijayalal de Silva representing Mr. Dallas Alahapperuma’s independent group and Prof. Tissa Vitharana representing Wimal Weerawansa’s coalition were also not present to vote.
A three-member official delegation from Sri Lanka, led by State Minister of Defence Hon’ble Premitha Bandara Tennakoon and comprising Army and Navy officers, is currently on a visit to India for attending India’s premier biennial global defence exhibition DefExpo2022. The exhibition was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 19 October 2022 at Gandhinagar, Gujarat. This is the second occasion in the past year during which a Minister from Sri Lanka is participating at an event inaugurated by Prime Minister Modi. It may be recalled that Ministers from Sri Lanka were a part of the inaugural international flight to Kushinagar airport in October 2021.
2. Speaking at DefExpo2022, Hon’ble State Minister Premitha Bandara Tennakoon hailed the partnership between India and Sri Lanka in the defence sphere. He highlighted the importance of defence industrial base in augmenting Security policy and noted that DefExpo 2022 provided a great avenue for a deeper understanding of the nature of transformation in modern warfare across five dimensions.
3. DefExpo2022 is the biggest-defence exhibition, which showcases the growing prowess of India’s defence industry to achieve the vision of ‘Make in India, Make for the World’ as well as self-reliance in the defence domain. Live demonstrations showcasing the equipment and skill sets of the Armed Forces, Defence Public Sector Units and industry were also organized.
4. The Sri Lankan dignitary met the Minister of State for Defence and Tourism of India Shri Ajay Bhatt on 17 October 2022 along the sidelines of DefExpo2022. During the meeting, India’s readiness to continue to support Sri Lanka in the defence sphere was reiterated. The Sri Lankan delegation also had cordial interactions with Defence Minister, Defence Secretary, Chief of Defence Staff and all three Service Chiefs of India during the visit.
5. Bilateral engagement in defence is multi-dimensional in nature. High level exchanges continued both ways despite the challenges posed by COVID-19. SLINEX (Naval Exercise) and exercise MITRA SHAKTI (Army Exercise) are held every year alternatively in India and Sri Lanka. Both Armed Forces collaborate closely in dealing with common security challenges such as drug and human trafficking. The Colombo Security Conclave has emerged as a key security platform in recent times to address such issues at a regional level. The first ever Dornier maritime reconnaissance aircraft from India to enhance the maritime surveillance capabilities of Sri Lanka was inducted into Sri Lanka Air Force Fleet on 15th August 2022 in the august presence of President His Excellency Ranil Wickremesinghe.
6. Experience sharing and capacity building has been a key pillar of India-Sri Lanka defence cooperation, which is marked by great camaraderie and mutual benefit in enhancing our shared security. Indian military establishments including NDC have been the preferred choice of the Sri Lankan Armed Forces for decades and have produced leaders of Sri Lankan Armed forces. Annually, 1500-1700 slots are allocated to Sri Lankan trainees which amounts to around INR 500-550 million (more than USD 6 million). Similarly, Indian Armed Forces officers are also hosted by the friendly Armed Forces of Sri Lanka, including for specialized training modules in various fields such as counter insurgency.
7. Both sides cooperate also on humanitarian aspects such as averting large scale environmental damages, expeditious supply of Liquid Medical Oxygen and other assistance materials, repatriation of around 700 Indian nationals back to their motherland with the assistance of Sri Lanka Armed Forces during COVID-19 etc.
8. The futuristic partnership between the two neighbours underscores India’s ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy as well as Security and Growth for All in the Region (SAGAR) doctrine. India will continue to strengthen its multi-dimensional cooperation with Sri Lanka for mutual benefit and also for enhancing regional peace, security and stability.
The parliament of Sri Lanka today passed the 22nd Amendment by revoking the 20th amendment to the constitution which had been adopted with the aim of converting the country to an autocratic authoritarian regime. We consider passing of the amendment as a victory for all citizens of Sri Lanka who value democracy.
We the National Movement for Social Justice would like to first and foremost thank all members of parliament as well as civil and political forces who continuously advocated for this constitutional reform.
We are organization that vehemently opposed 20A when it was introduced to achieve the aspirations of the former President and even after it was adopted, we emphasize once again that we do not believe that the 22nd amendment is sufficient and the last decisive step to secure the country’s democracy and protect the dignity and expectations of the people. We consider this decision taken by Parliament today as an extremely vital interim constitutional reform that should have been implemented until a new constitution is adopted. Accordingly, we consider this a significant achievement.
The National Movement for Social Justice always stands unwaveringly for a new constitution that will bring dignity to the people and ensure the betterment of the country. At this moment, we request all the political forces to be empowered by this achievement and take the lead in this task, of Strengthing democracy & taking the country for the well being of the people
The National Movement for Social Justice will continuously take the lead in abolishing the executive presidency and eradicating large-scale corruption from the country.
Karu Jayasuriya Chairman National Movement for Social Justice 21/10/2022
Rated Sri Lankan corporates in consumer-goods retail, power generation and home building will be among the most affected if the economic crisis deepens or is sustained for a prolonged period, says Fitch Ratings.
According to the New York-based credit rating agency, significant cost inflation affecting demand and profitability, import restrictions disrupting operations, and high-interest rates are key risks faced by domestic corporates in the next 12-18 months.
Based on Fitch’s base case forecast assumptions, Fitch Ratings projects that most other corporates will be able to weather the current economic downturn, supported by their presence in defensive industries, weakened competition, strong balance sheets, and adequate liquidity.
Fitch remarked that most rated corporates posted strong revenue growth and expanding margins in their June 2022 quarterly results due to inflation-led price hikes and sale of lower-cost inventory purchased prior to the sharp devaluation in the local currency in March 2022, however, the cost of new inventory has risen sharply since then, while high inflation and falling affordability will make it challenging to raise selling prices further.
There is also a significant increase in operating costs, which will be reflected more acutely in the next few quarters, and it is likely to pressure cash flow, the credit rating agency added.
Fitch estimates around 50% of our rated issuers would see rating pressure if economic conditions worsen in the next 12-18 months.
“The extension of an ongoing import ban beyond the next six months, a further rise in interest rates, prolonged high inflation leading to difficulties in raising selling prices, and delays in receipts from government counterparties could lead to a rapid deterioration in some companies’ liquidity positions, while leverage and interest coverage could weaken beyond our negative rating sensitivities.”
Some rated Sri Lankan corporates are more affected by the challenging macroeconomic environment stemming from the Sri Lanka sovereign’s distressed credit profile, Fitch Ratings says.
Sri Lankan corporates are grappling with rising costs and weakening disposable incomes, while the country’s weak foreign-currency reserves will continue to pressure imports, and the unprecedented spike in interest rates will raise borrowing costs and weaken financial flexibility.
Many other corporates face revenue and margin pressure from either their exposure to imported goods, discretionary demand, government expenditure, or high short-term debt.
However, most rated corporates have adequate headroom in terms of low leverage, sufficient interest cover and liquidity to weather challenges in the next 12 months.
Despite the challenges in the last 12 months, Fitch estimates that the aggregate leverage of rated
Corporates with exposure to discretionary demand, imported finished goods or government expenditure should see revenue fall by a sharper 15%-20% on average.
It gets almost three-quarters of its electricity from coal, and has 39 new coal-fired power plants under construction. It digs up and burns more of the stuff than any other country except China. And it is coal’s loudest advocate internationally: at last year’s climate conference in Glasgow, it was the skunk at the garden party, blocking efforts to phase out the fuel most responsible for global warming.
This soot-smeared intransigence, however, distracts from a dramatic countervailing trend. While his underlings defended coal, Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, made a series of pledges in Glasgow that, if kept, will make his country a green-energy powerhouse. The most eye-catching was the promise that India would achieve “net-zero” emissions of greenhouse gases (ghgs) by 2070—meaning that any emissions that had not been eliminated by then would be offset in some way.
Mr Modi underpinned that goal with two exacting targets for 2030: to slash emissions by a billion tonnes from their current trajectory and, to that end, to increase non-fossil power generation (which includes nuclear and hydro as well as wind and solar) more than three-fold, from roughly 150gw to 500gw.
India is the world’s third-largest emitter of ghgs. If it were to meet Mr Modi’s targets, it would not just revolutionise its own energy mix, but also provide a big boost to global efforts to curb global warming. What is more, Mr Modi has declared it a “national mission” to develop “green hydrogen”, a clean fuel made using renewables which could help decarbonise industries that remain stubborn polluters the world over. But just how plausible are these ambitions?
India’s entire generation capacity, both clean and dirty, is currently only 400gw. So Mr Modi wants to build a whole second grid’s-worth of green power in just eight years. To reach that goal, India will need to invest some $500bn in clean energy and improvements to the grid, according to an estimate by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (bnef), a research firm.
Such a feat would not be unprecedented. China went from 44gw of solar capacity to 300gw in six years, and from 50gw of wind to 330gw in 11 years. But it was helped both by a huge manufacturing base in renewables and by an economy that excels at steering capital to favoured industries. Those are advantages that India lacks.
Renewable power is growing very fast in India. Solar generation capacity has increased 50-fold since 2012, to nearly 50gw at the end of last year. In the first half of 2022 another 7.4gw of solar was added. Indeed, when it comes to building new generating capacity, renewables have already supplanted coal. The capacity of new solar, wind and hydro plants constructed last year was nearly double that of new coal-fired plants (see chart 1).
Even so, investment in renewables is not proceeding fast enough to meet Mr Modi’s targets. The 11gw of renewable capacity added in 2021 is far less than the annual increment required. Nonetheless, there are good reasons to take India’s new green revolution seriously.
For one thing, reducing emissions is not India’s only motive for overhauling its energy system. Mr Modi also wants both to spur manufacturing and to trim the bill for imported fuel. “How long will we be dependent on others in the field of energy?” he asked during his address on Independence Day in mid-August. India spent more than 4% of gdp on imports of fossil fuels last year, a particularly vexing sum for a country with a persistent current-account deficit.
Greening India’s energy supply would also help reduce air pollution, a deadly scourge for many of its inhabitants. The World Health Organisation reckons that in 93% of the country, the level of air pollution is well above its guidelines. A study published in 2019 by the Lancet, a British medical journal, found that more than 1m Indians die each year as a result of the foul air. The choking smog that blankets much of north India especially at this time of year is a perennial political liability for the government.
Best of all, a big shift to renewables could help cut the cost of power generation. India’s sunny climate and low labour costs make it one of the cheapest places in the world to produce solar power. In fact, an analysis by the International Energy Agency (iea), a watchdog-cum-think-tank for energy-consuming countries, concluded that, after stripping out the effects of government subsidies, only the United Arab Emirates could rival it (see chart 2). That means that solar plants are a cheaper option for new electricity generation in India than coal- or gas-fired power stations. Power from windmills in India, although not the cheapest in the world, is also less expensive than that generated by burning fossil fuels.
What is more, India’s government is coming up with all manner of inventive policies to incentivise investment in clean energy. One of the big obstacles to any overhaul of the power industry is the sorry state of the electricity-distribution companies (discoms). Many of these state-controlled entities are all but bankrupt, with collective debts of perhaps $73bn. They do not look like the safest of counterparties for investors seeking to sell clean energy. So Mr Modi’s government has introduced a mechanism that in effect makes India’s federal government the financial backstop for new long-term contracts to provide renewable energy to the grid. It is also allowing solar and wind generators to bypass discoms completely to sell power directly to manufacturers of green hydrogen.
To overcome India’s ever-present problems of red tape and nimbyism, officials are setting up clean-energy parks with connections to the grid and speedy processing of the necessary permits. The government also uses reverse auctions to maximise investments in renewables at the lowest possible cost: developers state the minimum price they would be prepared to accept for the power they generate, with the lowest bids winning. It has conducted similar auctions for “round-the-clock” green power, meaning renewables coupled with some form of energy storage, to get around the intermittency of wind and sunshine.
These policies are working. Investors including Adani Group, one of India’s biggest conglomerates, are rushing to a renewables park in Kutch, a sun-drenched and windswept region of the state of Gujarat, for instance. With a planned output of 30gw, it will be the world’s biggest combined wind and solar farm.
By the same token, India is likely to receive offers to build generation capacity in excess of 25gw at its solar auctions this year. That is over ten times more than any other country (see chart 3). In August it held one of the world’s biggest auctions for grid-scale battery storage.
Industrious industrialists
Indeed, one of the strongest indications that India’s green ambitions are more than hot air is the enthusiasm of investors. Mukesh Ambani, the boss of Reliance Industries, another sprawling conglomerate, gushed in his latest message to shareholders, “We will have the world’s most affordable green energy within this decade, and these solutions will then be exported to other countries.”
Mundra, a busy port in Kutch developed by Adani Group, encapsulates the shifting priorities of India’s industrialists. It is one of the world’s busiest coal-handling ports, serving two huge coal-fired power plants nearby. But it is also home to a new solar-panel factory, a pilot plant building 160-meter-tall onshore wind turbines (among the world’s largest) and new buildings where equipment to produce hydrogen will be made.
“We welcome you to a future powered by the SOLAR REVOLUTION” bellows a billboard. Adani is “indigenising the entire supply chain” for clean energy, explains Arun Kumar Sharma, a senior manager.
Gautam Adani, the group’s founder and chairman (whose personal fortune of well over $100bn makes him one of the world’s richest people), claims his companies will spend $70bn on greenery in India by 2030. With nearly 5gw of solar generation capacity as of mid-2021, Adani Green Energy, one of the group’s divisions, is already on par with Italy’s Enel Green as the world’s leading developer of solar energy.
Not to be outdone, Mr Ambani plans to spend $80bn on clean energy in India. Reliance, like Adani Group, has made a mint from fossil fuels. But now it is developing a clean-energy cluster in Jamnagar, another port in Gujarat, which also houses the firm’s massive petrochemicals complex. Mr Ambani plans to build 20gw of solar generation capacity by 2025, all of it to be consumed by his group for captive needs. “Once proven at scale,” he says, “we are prepared to double the investment.” Morgan Stanley, an investment bank, describes Mr Ambani’s strategy as “full spectrum”, stretching from the manufacture of solar panels and batteries to the development of devices to make and use green hydrogen.
It is not just India’s behemoths that are embracing Mr Modi’s green vision; smaller companies are investing heavily, too. A firm called Greenko, for instance, is building the world’s biggest network of grid-scale energy storage using a technology called pumped hydro. It will use power from solar panels or windmills to pump water into elevated holding tanks. The water can then be released to turn turbines and generate power whenever electricity is needed. Mahesh Kolli, Greenko’s president, says it will spend $5bn by 2025 to construct 50gw of storage capacity.
ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel, an Indian joint-venture between steel giants from Europe and Japan, has just signed a $600m deal for Greenko to provide round-the-clock clean power to one of its mills. It chose this option not simply because the power will be green, but because it was cheaper than building a coal-fired plant.
In the longer run Mr Kolli sees his technology as the solution to the intermittency of power generated by windmills and solar panels. He wants to build a nationwide, grid-connected “energy-storage cloud”, akin to Amazon’s data cloud. When the wind drops or the weather clouds over in Gujarat, say, the firm’s pumped-hydro plants in Andhra Pradesh, to the south, could supply a compensating amount of clean power via the national grid to aluminium smelters in Odisha, to the east, run by Hindalco Industries, a big new customer. Unlike America, which has only limited connections between regional grids, India has a much better-integrated national grid, which makes such an idea feasible. The iea projects that it will have more pumped-hydro than any other country by 2026.
India is beginning to develop domestic supply-chains for clean energy. For example, Pune, a city in the state of Maharashtra which is already home to a cluster of car-part manufacturers, is becoming a clean-energy hub as well. Siddharth Mayur, a local and founder of h2e Power and homiHydrogen, has developed batteries for electric motor-scooters and auto-rickshaws that can be quickly swapped for fully charged ones when they run down. He is now making stacks, a component of fuel cells (which can be used to generate electricity from hydrogen), and is helping to foster local production of other parts. “By next year, 98% will be made within 60km of where we are sitting in Pune,” he says.
Ravi Pandit, chairman of kpit, an Indian software firm that counts big foreign carmakers as customers, thinks the inexpensive software and engineering talent that fuelled India’s success in information technology a few decades ago will help in green energy today. Thanks in part to the widespread desire not to concentrate too much manufacturing in China, he points out, foreign capital and technology is pouring in.
The focus of a lot of the investment is green hydrogen, which, it is hoped, will allow big industries such as steelmaking and fertilisers to decarbonise. India produces almost none of it at the moment, although it does consume some 7m tonnes a year of ordinary hydrogen, made using fossil fuels. Investors think it will be a good place to make the green sort, since the process requires a lot of clean power, which India’s solar industry can provide cheaply. India also produces very little natural gas, so there are few lobbyists campaigning against the development of a rival industry. The government has promised to provide incentives to green-hydrogen firms in a detailed policy to be unveiled soon.
With help from Stiesdal, a European clean-technology firm, Reliance is building a large factory in Jamnagar to manufacture electrolysers. These devices, powered by clean electricity from Reliance’s planned solar farms, will then be used to manufacture green hydrogen. Mr Ambani asserts that these investments will make India the first country to produce green hydrogen for $1 a kilogram, within a decade. (The current cost is more than $4/kg.) He dismisses doubters, pointing to his recent success in delivering data to mobile telephones at the world’s lowest cost.
Indian Oil, a state-owned energy giant that is the country’s largest consumer of dirty hydrogen, announced in August that it, too, was entering the green hydrogen business. It plans to invest $25bn in that and other clean technologies by 2046, as part of an effort to reach net-zero emissions by that year. “We will make India a green hydrogen hub,” says S.M. Vaidya, the firm’s chairman.
Foreign investors are also enthusiastic. John Cockerill, a Belgian technology firm, has established a joint-venture with Greenko to produce 2gw-worth of electrolysers a year. Ohmium, a buzzy American startup making electrolysers, has built its only factory in India. It hopes to reach an annual output of 2gw by the end of this year. It recently dispatched to America the first Indian-made electrolysers ever to be exported, and expects to begin sending consignments to Spain soon as well.
Goldman Sachs, an American investment bank, has a stake in ReNew Power, a renewables firm which is working with Indian Oil on its green hydrogen plans. TotalEnergies, a giant French oil firm, has bought a quarter of a division of Adani Group that is developing green hydrogen.
India’s green-hydrogen firms are even venturing abroad. Acme Cleantech Solutions, a solar-generation pioneer, has pivoted to making clean fuels. Together with Scatec, a Norwegian clean-energy firm, it is investing over $6bn to produce green ammonia (a derivative of green hydrogen) in Oman. The project is the first of its kind to be certified as carbon neutral. It also won commercial validation when Yara, a Norwegian fertiliser giant, agreed in July to negotiate a long-term contract to buy its green ammonia.
Rystad forecasts that India will be making more than 8gw of electrolysers a year by 2025 (roughly half the planned output of Europe, the world leader). Sanford C. Bernstein, an investment bank, reckons the hydrogen market in India could be worth $15bn to $20bn a year by 2030. Although it is not quite as bullish as Mr Ambani, Bernstein reckons “under $2/kg seems achievable towards the end of the decade”.
Much could still go wrong. For a start, India’s tycoons may not keep all their grand promises to lavish billions on the new green revolution. CreditSights, a research firm, has raised concerns about Adani Group’s high levels of debt. Especially with global interest rates rising, Indian conglomerates may struggle to finance vast investments in clean energy.
Even if the billionaires spend as lavishly as they have promised to, the lion’s share of the $500bn needed to meet Mr Modi’s targets will probably come from abroad. But foreign investors do not see India as risk-free. The rupee has depreciated steadily over the years, reducing outsiders’ returns. Mr Modi’s tendency to stoke sectarian tensions creates political risks. And foreign investors, too, may feel the pinch as interests rates rise and the world economy slows.
Yet India’s economy is growing faster than China’s. Demand for electricity is increasing fast enough that the country will need to build as much generating capacity by 2040 as the European Union currently possesses, whether green or not. The $30bn or so that bnef thinks India will need to invest in renewables each year to meet Mr Modi’s target, although a daunting sum by local standards, is only a tenth of the money put into wind and solar globally last year.
It is early days for India’s second green revolution, but the first shots have already been fired. Mr Pandit observes that the West had a hundred-year head start in the conventional automotive industry. It has been a long, hard slog for Indian firms to catch up and compete. In many areas of clean technology, by contrast, India suffers no comparable disadvantage. As a result, he predicts, it will excel: “India will do for hydrogen what China did for batteries.” ■
If you care about the climate a crucial question is how emerging economies, which accounted for 67% of carbon-dioxide emissions from energy last year, can shift to a cleaner approach. They derive a third of their primary energy from coal, and must meet the aspirations of poor citizens who lack cheap electricity.
China offers one template: its energy industry is shifting towards renewables. Yet it is still moving far too slowly to reduce its emissions and many countries may be wary of replicating its state-led approach. An alternative model is now visible in the other Asian giant, India, which is in the early stages of a green boom led by the private sector. Although it has obvious flaws, it provides hope that India can make the green leap.
India has immense energy needs. It is forecast to be one of the fastest-growing big economies this decade and will need to add capacity equivalent to the size of the European Union’s power system by 2040. After a flirtation with hydro in the 1950s and 1960s it came to rely heavily on coal, which met 58% of its primary-energy needs in 2021. Like many governments, India’s has committed to reaching net-zero emissions (by 2070).
The big surprise is that major changes are happening on the ground. In the past decade India has seen a 50-fold increase in installed solar power. In 2021 its renewables accounted for 5% of its primary-energy consumption, and 5% of global renewable primary-energy consumption. Private firms have plans to invest perhaps $200bn in the coming years in everything from generation facilities to green hydrogen plants (by comparison, global investment in wind and solar last year was about $300bn, and India’s was roughly $15bn). The government wants to triple non-fossil-fuel capacity by 2030.
Behind the boom are a number of forces. One is the country’s underlying attributes: sun-drenched India has some of the cheapest solar power in the world, and the life-cycle cost of new plants is lower than for coal ones. The government has helped by introducing guarantee mechanisms so that firms forced to deal with rickety power distributors can still secure funding. The prime minister, Narendra Modi, views clean energy as a catalyst for an industrial boom based on cheap power, batteries and electric vehicles that may shift manufacturing supply chains away from China. Clean power will help cut a large import bill for fossil fuels and, by lowering pollution, save millions of lives.
The final force is that India’s big local conglomerates (including Reliance Industries, Adani Group and Tata Group) are deploying capital at scale. Whereas previously they would have been wary of such investments, now they think they have the certainty, financial clout and expertise to plough ahead. One gauge of the boom is that some investors and firms are getting more nervous about long-run coal projects, as cheap renewable power starts to undercut coal-fired power on price. Between 2010 and 2022, proposals for over 600gw of coal-fired power in India (about three times its installed base of coal plants) have either been put on hold or scrapped, with another 15gw-worth of coal generation retired from service.
Yet for all its successes India’s surge faces several hurdles. One is financing. Experts reckon it will take over $500bn of investment by 2030 in clean energy, transmission lines, grid-scale batteries and related kit to achieve the government’s 500gw. That is at least twice the present investment plans of the big firms, so India will have to attract new sources of capital at a time when interest rates are rising. The financial strain of huge capital projects could yet weaken the appetite of the big conglomerates: Adani Group, for example, is significantly indebted.
Power struggle
The biggest hurdle of all relates to government policy, which needs to be predictable enough to provide certainty to investors. It also needs to anticipate challenges—redesigning electricity grids, for example, as the share of intermittent power rises. India’s officials have a good sense of what to do. But they face resistance from a coal lobby which controls vast budgets and employs millions. A state-run firm, ntpc, has just gone ahead with its first new coal plant for about six years; a government advisory body has called for more coal capacity. India’s green boom is a test of the private sector’s ability to marshal resources—and also of the government’s ability to overcome vested interests.
Ceylon Coal Company says that a coal ship needed for the Norochchole thermal power plant is scheduled to arrive on the island next Tuesday (25).
Namal Hevage, the company’s general manager, said that steps were taken to get this coal stock from the same company that had previously contracted for importing coal.
According to that, the work of Norochchole thermal power plant can be continued without shortage of coal, he said.
The current stock of coal at Norochchole Thermal Power Plant is going to be exhausted by the end of this month.
The National Animal Producers Association said that it was decided to reduce the price of chicken.
Accordingly, it was decided to reduce the price of one kilogram of chicken = to 1080 rupees, said the convener of the association Sujeewa Dhammika.
He also mentioned that since he received information that there are preparations to import chicken meat from foreign countries, the price will be reduced.
He also said that they are discussing to reduce the price of eggs to some extent.
The price of one kilogram of chicken was at a level of 1500 rupees.
According to the Importers of Essential Foods Association, the price of wheat flour has been reduced by another 25 rupees.
Accordingly, the new price of one kg of wheat flour, which was Rs.290, will be Rs.265.
Last Friday, the price of a kilo of wheat flour was reduced by 85 rupees and accordingly, the price of a kilo of wheat flour has decreased by 110 rupees in a week.
However, the All Ceylon Restaurant Owners’ Association points out that some shops are still selling wheat flour at the old price without giving relief to the people.
Opposition political parties agree to take “all possible measures within the constitutional framework” to defeat the Government’s alleged efforts to postpone the Local Government elections.
President Ranil Wickremesinghe says immediate measures are being taken to create an investment-friendly environment in Sri Lanka: also says laws will be re-enacted to encourage foreign investments.
CB Governor Weerasinghe says there’s no alternative other than IMF; after 7 months of seeking IMF assistance, no funds received yet from anyone: staff level agreement not disclosed: massive taxes imposed: interest rates, “money printing” and inflation up to astronomical levels: debt defaulted: projects stopped: growth down to minus 8 4%.
Renewable Energy Developers, Apparel Exporters and Motor Traders warn of serious setbacks if corporate taxes are increased to 30% from 14%: Ceylon Chamber of Commerce has however been clamouring for tax increases since 2020.
Foreign Affairs State Minister Tharaka Balasuriya says Kazakhstan is keen to set up an oil refinery and bunkering facility in Hambantota.
President’s Office says “Itukama Covid-19 Fund” (chaired by CB Governor Dr Weerasinghe) has been wound up: remaining funds transferred to the President’s Fund.
ASPI falls 1.7% to a 7-week low of 8737 points: turnover also slumps to its lowest since the last week of August: analysts say economic uncertainties loom over new tax hikes: tax hikes attributed to impending IMF programme.
Private Bus Associations to launch countrywide bus strike from 25th October: say they are unable to pay the leasing installments due to increase in interest rates: also object to the seizing of buses due to non-payment of leases.
Director General of Sports gives an undertaking to Court of Appeal that elections for the Sri Lanka Football Federation will be held within 69 days.
Sri Lanka win ICC Men’s T20 World Cup – First Round Group “A” match against Netherlands, by 16 runs: qualify for Super-12 stage: SL -162/6: NED – 146/9.
