Budget 2008-2009-Excellent Job- Just the right stimulus!!

Dear All,

Government of India recently provided for USD 13.33 Billion loan waver to marginal/small time Indian farmers in its latest 2008-2009 budget. What a bold move to be taken up by any government. I truly appreciate what GOI has done in this budget- a complete plethora of killer goodies for under performing ass clowns. Whatsoever the case may be, personally I think this budget is well settled and has mass appeal, good enough to be called as a 'politically correct' budget. If you go in for critical evaluation of this budget, there are allot many things that could be looked upon. Sectors like healthcare, infrastructure, automobile, power have really been taken up well into consideration with many sops, policy changes and taxation rebates coming their way. However, major GDP contributors like IT, Telecom and Textile sectors have not seen the 'dew fading' with limited breakthrough coming their way. I say this because we very well know that International market is really making things difficult for Indian exporters. :-). Adding more buoyancy to Indian growth story and the budget lines, with changes in individual income tax slabs, enough room has been left for Indian consumer durables and FMCG sectors to re-establish a shining shadow of their own selves in this financial year as higher IT slabs shall bring enough money for consumers to spend on consumer products, gizmos and stuff. The agriculture sector is also not far behind with major duty cuts coming its way so as to achieve an annualized growth target of 4%. These policy changes are also going to go good with agri-companies dealing in micro irrigation projects (Jain Irrigation). seeding and crop development businesses (Monsanto) companies and cold chain infrastructure development companies. On the whole, a great budget. exactly for masses. In fact, if I was there on the FM's seat, I would have walked the same road with elections hanging round the corner. I think even the Indian stock market players should retain a polarized approach on this kind of budget as they have come across an increase in short term capital gain taxes. The FM has done the right thing as it brings greater depth for genuine long term investors and curbs speculation. Guys, hats off to Shri Palaniappan Chidambaram (Indian Finance Minister)...an excellent job.

ROBOTICS & RFID TECHNOLOGIES: Next Big Thing for Baggage Handling at Indian Airports- Sunrise Opportunity for SME players

With the recent developments in India’s Domestic Airline market and growth in the international and domestic passenger and freight (cargo) traffics, Industry players (Airline/Forwarders/Passengers), Ministry of Civil Aviation, Airport Authority of India and IATA have unanimously identified the need of lacking support infrastructure essential for stabilizing Industrial growth.

As the airline passenger traffic is projected to grow at 19% annually, Indian cargo market is expected to grow at 24% per annum for the next 5 years. Moreover, 91% of Industry players are bullish about the India’s growth story. Companies like Air India, Jet Airways, Kingfisher Airlines, Indigo, and GoAir have collectively ordered 300+ aircrafts since 2005 and have handled 106.97 thousand aircraft movements (excludes General Aviation movements), 9.37 million passengers and 142.42 thousand tonnes of freight since April 2007-August 2007 (Source-AAI Web).

All these developments have got the GOI (Government of India) mind rolling and to overcome the rising infrastructural bottlenecks, Ministry of Civil Aviation and AAI have decided to build 35 ‘Non-metro Greenfield airport projects’ to handle passenger and cargo traffic by 2010.

Besides Infrastructure projects, Ministry & AAI are bringing in World-class Supply Chain Mgt. and Logistics Handling practices to its Airport facilities for greater, improved and systematic baggage handling. IGIA (Indira Gandhi Int. Airport), plans to implement RAR (Regulated Agent Regime) and C-TPAT for obtaining Operational & Security competence in cargo handling.

Where RAR advocates Cargo receiving, handling and loading operations, C-TPAT deals with Cargo security through GSA, GHA, and Airline & Freight Forwarder participation. Complementary to the above case, AAI plans to introduce Robotics & RFID to ramp up baggage handling operations at 4 metro airports by 2009. AAI is in talks with leading IT software makers to provide Baggage Handling Mgt. systems & Ground Handling Agents (GHAs) for RFID Hardware.

This complete development involves a sunrise opportunity for SME hardware manufacturers as most of the RFID equipment is expected to be domestically procured.