Maharashtra govt bats for FDI in its new housing policy

The Maharashtra government has in its draft of the new housing policy proposed foreign direct investment (FDI) for the development of special townships.

Grant of additional floor space index (FSI),  especially to encourage affordable housing and creation of land bank are among the proposed measures.

The policy is currently being circulated among legislators for their views.

The draft has envisaged time-bound approval of clearances, promotion of self-certification and dis-incentivising retention of vacant land and flats in urban areas, through capital value-based property tax with reference to admissible FSI.

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The draft policy suggests creation of transfer of development right (TDR) bank, use of TDR to use private land for civic and public amenities with a mechanism to prevent malpractices. It also proposes property value-index based TDR and fungible FSI to augment housing stock for low-income group and middle-income group in specified zones in metropolitan regions.

The draft policy states a “mere increase in FSI cannot be a solution for enhancing the affordable housing stock in cities. The FSI can be alternatively defined as a function of supporting infrastructure, which means the permissible FSI should be accompanied by optimum social and civic infrastructure.” These slew of steps will help the state achieve its objective of providing two million houses by 2022 in Maharashtra.

According to the policy, special township with FDI would be allowed. State-run City and Industrial Development Corporation would be the special planning authority. It would have 20 per cent housing on the built-up area for economically weaker sections.

The policy has said availability of land was the main factor affecting affordability. “It is necessary that government as well as the lands at the disposal of urban local bodies, CIDCO, Maharashtra Housing & Area Development Authority, Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority and Pune Metropolitan Region Development Authority are pooled and used for affordable housing through land bank. This will help to check the price of affordable housing units.”

Furthermore, the policy suggests involving employers to provide housing for employees. Employers can be encouraged by providing concession in value-added tax, stamp duty, professional tax. They can be given similar sops in income tax, service tax and excise at the central level.

Sunil Mantri, President, National Real Estate Development Council, said: “The main hurdle is getting building permission. The government is charging a heavy premium, making housing expensive. Few days ago the state government took a decision that TDR be charged at 60 per cent of RR value as against 10-30 per cent of 2008 RR value. TDR prices have increased from Rs 3,000 per sq ft to Rs 6000 sq ft which will choke up housing supply as many projects have become un viable. The government needs to address these issue on a priority basis and see that how housing can be made cheaper,'' he noted.

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Microsoft emerges as top software vendor in India

Microsoft maintained the No. 1 position in software revenue in India, accounting for 25% of overall sales in 2014. 
India software revenue totalled $4 billion in 2014, an 8.3% increase from 2013 revenue of $3.7 billion, said IT advisory firm Gartner. 

The enterprise software marketplace is dynamic and ever-changing. Its growth and structure are being shaped by the factors and forces of decentralized purchasing, consumerization and mobility, influence of emerging markets, cloud-based implementations, and new consumption models," said Bhavish Sood, research director at Gartner."

"Improvement in global economic conditions has somewhat relaxed the strain on the Indian economy, thereby boosting corporate sentiments. Along with a new stable government at the center, this has helped in alleviating concerns about economic growth — to a certain extent — with early signs of spending in growth initiatives beginning to emerge," he added. 

Several leading trends that are common across the India software market include software as a service (SaaS) adoption and development, open-source software (OSS) adoption and its broader market implications and changing buying behaviors and purchasing styles associated with the digital business. 

Microsoft maintained the No. 1 position in software revenue in India, accounting for 25% of overall sales in 2014. The top three vendors in the market (Microsoft, Oracle and IBM), represent 50% of total software sales in India. 

Among the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), the India software market experienced the highest growth rate. Apart from mega vendors there's a thriving ecosystem of product startups that are getting incubated in India, and as such, they are helping drive software adoption through their innovative, small footprint low-cost products.

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Chandigarh happiest city in India, Guwahati least: LG Survey

NEW DELHI: Chandigarh has emerged as India's happiest city and Delhi the happiest metro, according to a study done by LG and IMRB International. It found Chandigarh, Lucknow, Delhi, Chennai and Bengaluru as the nation's five happiest cities. 

Respondents in the age group of 35-45 were happier than the younger ones aged 18-24, according to the study. "While the importance of being happy is most for younger age groups, with 58% aged 18-24 ranking happiness as their most important core value, it is the older people aged 35-45, with a Happiness Index of 103, who are happier as compared to the younger people," it said. 

Happiness has been found to be the most important value of life for Indians across the nation, compared with other sentiments like respect, trust, success or recognition, it said. 

The study was conducted by IMRB International with a sample size of 2,424 respondents aged between 18 and 45 in 16 cities. 

LG India is looking to conduct the study annually, Managing Director Soon Kwon said. 

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Smart devices, TVs pushing digital ad market: Study

New Delhi: Growth in smartphones, tablets, TVs and laptops has pushed the Indian digital advertising market, which is expected to expand at an annual rate of 30 percent to cross Rs 3,675 crore by month-end, says a study.

The joint study by ASSOCHAM and Deloitte said that digital ads are more effective catching consumers attentions due to the two-way interactive capability and the ability to customise ads for target audience.

While releasing the study, MP and Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Industry K C Tyagi said: "Predictive analytics is helping e-tailers to provide better solutions in real-time enabling compelling user experience even on mobile screens."

The availability of eCommerce applications on various mobility devices is helping drive sales and revenue, he added.

"Growth of smartphones, tablets, TV, laptop has pushed the digital advertisement industry and may likely to cross Rs 36.75 billion by April 2015 growing at a CAGR of about 30 percent," the study said.

Deloitte India Partner TMT leader Hemant Joshi said that domestic firms need different metrics to preserve the investor confidence against global players such as Amazon and Alibaba, which have deep pockets to rely on their parent companies for continuous funding support.

New technologies that can significantly bring a paradigm shift in online businesses are analytics, autonomous vehicles, social commerce, and 3D printing and domestic firms should start utilising them, he added.

Alibaba.Com Country General Manager Khalid Isar said the future of eCommerce is bright and growth will come from mobile platforms, personalisation, social media analytics, omni channel service and sharing economy business models.

"The industry is an exciting place with the interplay of social, mobility, analytics, cloud (SMAC), digital, 3D and, virtualisation. The current high valuations, in spite of losses, perhaps, are indicative of the future potential," he added. 

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Chinese People Read WeChat More than 40 Minutes a Day: Survey

Chinese adults read news and threads on smartphone app WeChat for more than 40 minutes a day on average, according to the latest annual survey of China's reading habits released on April 20.

Reading on WeChat was included for the first time in the annual National Reading Survey released by the Chinese Academy of Press and Publication. The results show that on average, Chinese adults use WeChat to read twice a day for a total length of more than 40 minutes.

The survey showed that 66.4 percent of adults in China used WeChat to read, of which 72.9 percent read news, 67.1 percent read their friends' updates and 20.9 percent read threads on public accounts.

The 12th annual survey was conducted nationwide, covering a sample size of 49,802 people, which was double the size of the survey last year.

"We found that reading special coverage on hot topics increased significantly on WeChat, and the platform is now offering more systematic, coherent and well-rounded information," said Director of China Academy of Press and Publication Research Institute Xu Shengguo. "Some of the public WeChat accounts are publishing magazine-like analysis reports that are more than tens of thousands of words long," added Xu.

Professor Wang Yuguang of the Department of Information Management in Peking University said the dream of having libraries all over the world is still not realized, and the presence of WeChat is filling this void to some extent.

"In a day and age where the penetration rate of libraries is so low, this kind of reading is supplementing the lack of public libraries to a certain extent," said Wang. "But personally, I think WeChat is taking too much of our time. Students are too reliant on WeChat."

"Reading on WeChat is fragmented and salutatory, not to mention the inaccuracy of some of the information," said Dean of Chinese Academy of Press and Publication Wei Yushan.

Experts believe that children's stories, academic reports and classic literature should still be read on paper.

"The main purpose of WeChat is entertainment and web browsing. I don't recommend children to start their reading on WeChat as its tendency to disperse children's attention is not beneficial in shaping good reading habits for them. Reading on paper lets you read without disruptions. You can read and think at the same time," said Wang.

Nevertheless, Wang is not denying the benefits of WeChat. "We should research more into the beneficial effects of reading on the WeChat platform."

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Banking, securities companies' IT spends to rise 15% to Rs 53,600 crore

MUMBAI: IT spends by domestic banking and securities companies may grow by 15 per cent to Rs 53,600 crore this year and rise further on expectations of more companies using RBI's 'on-tap' bank licensing, global technology consultancy Gartner said today.

"The domestic banking and securities companies will spend Rs 53,600 crore on IT products and services in 2015, an increase of 15 per cent over 2014 spend of Rs 46,600 crore," it said in a statement.

The forecast on spends includes internal IT (largely personnel), hardware, software, external IT services and telecommunications, it added.

IT services will witness the largest spending at Rs 18,300 crore, which confirms the banking industry's interest for information technology, its research director Vittorio D'Orazio said.

On the growth front, software spending will have the maximum growth at 19.2 per cent, it said.

Growth in IT spending is slated to continue into next year as well, it said, making an apparent reference to RBI's announcement of moving new bank licensing "on tap" and added that 2015 will be a "turning point."

"India might see up to six new banks set up by the end of 2016 and up to 50 by 2020," it added.

The entry of new players will intensify competition and banks will invest more in technology to win market share and drive expansion, he said.

"Specifically, we expect an increase in IT spending correlated to branch technology, inclusive of core banking systems, and in the mobile channel space," D'Orazio said.

The Reserve Bank last year granted in-principle nod to micro-lender Bandhan and infra lender IDFC to enter universal banking fray.

The central bank is also going over applications of over 75 entities which have evinced interest to set-up payments banks and small finance banks, which are slated to be very IT-intensive.

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Mobile phone market expected to cross 300 milion devices this year

NEW DELHI: Mobile handsets market in India is expected to cross 300 million devices this year while only 46 million are likely to be built locally, says a report.

"The domestic market for mobile handsets is expected to cross 300 million devices in 2015, while the number of devices being manufactured locally is expected to be only 46 million," said a report by Ficci-EY titled 'Speeding Ahead on the Telecom and Digital Economy Highway'.

Citing the example of Vietnam, which has emerged as a global hub for manufacturing of mobile handsets because of favourable incentive schemes and stable regulatory environment, it said there is a need for incentives for setting up of new handsets and tablets manufacturing units in the country.

In spite of India's market growing at a robust rate, almost 83 per cent of the demand is met via imports, while domestic production and manufacturing continue to lag, the report said.

"It is imperative that measures are taken to address this mismatch and reduce dependence on imports. Correcting this imbalance will not only lead to saving of foreign exchange but also result in build-up of local capabilities and job creation," it said.

To further the efforts under 'Make in India' programme, DeitY has established a joint task force of industry representatives and government officials with an aim to achieve production of 500 million handsets by 2019, it said.

"The task force aims to rejuvenate the mobile handset and component manufacturing ecosystem in the country and targets to create additional employment opportunities for 1.5 million people," it said.

It recommended bringing handsets under provisions of 'Goods of Special Importance' of the Central Excise Tax Act, 1956, thus capping the maximum VAT levied by states at 5 per cent and also endorses a 10-year tax holiday on a block of 15 years on all profits and gains for manufacturing in the mobile phone industry.

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