Muqbil Ahmar | Blog

A shot in the arm for infrastructure, India inaugurates its longest river bridge at a whopping cost of around Rs 2,056 crore. The 9.15-km  Dhola-Sadiya bridge  across the  river Lohit  is situated at the eastern tip of  Assam  and is a tributary of the  river Brahmaputra . The bridge is around 3.55 km longer as compared to the  Bandra-Worli Sea Link  of Mumbai. The bridge will connect Assam with eastern  Arunachal Pradesh  and is expected to reduce travel time between Arunachal Pradesh and Assam by 5 hours, bringing the previous 6 hours to 1 hour and reducing the distance by 165 km. Around Rs 2,056 crore was invested in the Dhola-Sadiya bridge, whose construction started in 2011 by Ministry of Road Transport. The bridge can endure 60 ton weight, including battle tanks. The river bridge would make it easier for the  Indian Army  to reach areas near the  China border  and the development surely has a strategic angle to it. The bridge, with a three-lane carriage way, would d

Information technology (IT) major IBM  has decided to layoff a few thousand employees from the Indian unit, according to media reports.  IBM India  is looking at "achieving 100 per cent utilization" across projects with shift in business and increased demand for digital-technology-based services, said a source to the media outlet. Recently, there has been a flood of layoffs in the IT sector by some of the biggest names in India.  Tech Mahindra , India’s fifth-largest IT services firm, is laying off 1,500 employees across job levels.  Infosys  is planning to give pink slips to hundreds of mid- as well as senior-level employees. Other corporate giants such as  Wipro  and  Cognizant  have announced job cuts in the recent past in response to what some industry experts term as cost control measures. However, IBM India has denied the media report. "This is factually incorrect. We are not going to comment further on rumors and speculation,"  an IBM India spokesma

By Muqbil Ahmar According to a survey by global research firm  Ernst and Young  (E&Y) among Indian bankers, 87% said that  Non-Performing Assets  ( NPAs ) occurred due to diversion of funds to unrelated business or fraud, while a further 64% attributed them to lapses in due diligence. Around 72% of the survey respondents were of the view that the crisis is set to get worse. In the worst ever financial crisis since 1991, bad loans in India grew to Rs. 3,41,641 crore in September 2015, striking at the root of India’s Rs. 95 trillion banking sector. Total NPAs, as a percentage of the total loans, has grown from 2.11 per cent to 5.08 percent. Eight out of 10 banks featuring on the list are from the public sector. The banking system is veering on the verge of a crisis. Stocks of state-run banks have plummeted.  Banking regulator RBI  had fixed March 2017 as the deadline for banks to fix their balance sheets; however, little has changed on the ground. According to the Ernst and

By Muqbil Ahmar Tech Mahindra,  Infosys, Wipro, Cognizant ; all these Information Technology majors have fired thousands of employees.  India's Information Sector  seems headed for an uncertain and tumultuous future. According to a top  HR firm , the dark clouds hovering over the IT sector are here to stay. HR firm Head Hunters India has said that 5–6 lakh engineers are set to lose jobs in the next three years, that is, between 1.75 and 2 lakh per year for the next three years. "Contrary to media reports of 56,000 IT professionals to lose jobs this year, the actual job cuts will be between 1.75 lakh and 2 lakh per year in next three years, due to under- preparedness in adapting to newer technologies," Head Hunters India Founder-Chairman and MD K Lakshmikanth has said, while analyzing a report submitted by McKinsey & Company at the Nasscom India Leadership Forum on February 17. The  McKinsey report  has said that nearly half of the Information Technology se

By Muqbil Ahmar The current scenario of the  logistics industry  in  India  is far from ideal. Today, Central and state governments levy different taxes separately. A  Ministry of Road Transport and Highways  report says that a typical truck spends 16% time at check-posts. On an average, a truck in India runs an annual distance of 85,000 km compared to 150,000 to 200,000 km in the Western countries. The industry is fragmented due to the state-level tax structures, which forces enterprises to put up warehouses in every state. This makes the  supply chain  longer than necessary and to a certain extent inefficient. Additionally, due to the complex tax structure, the transport industry spends 50--60 percent of resources on  tax compliance  and deposit of interstate sales tax. GST implementation aims to remove complex web of tax structure The  Goods and Services Tax  ( GST ) will be implemented this year. The new law is expected to help the overall growth of  economy  and a so

By Muqbil Ahmar According to the  Economic Survey , annual  employment   growth  in  India  was barely 0.5 percent during 2004-12, whereas the labor force growth was around 2.9 percent. According to  Indian Government 's very own  Labor Bureau , India created only 135,000 jobs in eight labor-intensive sectors in 2015, whereas the number of people working or looking for jobs grew by more than 10 million. The situation is alarming. India Skills Report  suggests that by 2025, more than 250 million of India’s youth would have entered the workforce, whereas job growth has been at an all-time low. What will India's youth do? The crisis could lead to social instability together with turmoil in the country. In such a situation there is a bottom-up solution that can be tried by the Indian Government. In a developing country like India, the focus of  education  must shift from being “ qualification-based ” to “ skill-based .”  Educational institutions  need to ramp up skills re