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The <keyword id="19987636" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Bihar-government" source="keywords">Bihar government</keyword> is making serious efforts to give a fillip to <keyword id="23049947" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="small-scale-and-medium-enterprises" source="Orion">small-scale and medium enterprises</keyword> which would play a crucial role in the overall <keyword id="352701" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="economic-development" source="Orion">economic development</keyword> of the state, a top official of the Industries department said. Around Rs 2,900 crore have been disbursed to nearly 74,540 beneficiaries under two schemes, one of which was launched only last year, for promoting Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises ( <keyword id="19910977" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="MSMEs" source="keywords">MSMEs</keyword>) in the state, the official said. <keyword id="19903647" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="bihar" source="keywords">Bihar</keyword> has a strong MSME base. To promote innovation ecosystem and unlock the enormous entrepreneurial potential of the state, the Mukhya Mantri Udyami Yojana (MMUY) and <keyword id="23049946" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Bihar-Laghu-Udyami-Yojana" source="keywords">Bihar Laghu Udyami Yojana</keyword> (BLUY) were launched in 2018 and 2023 respectively focusing on promotion of MSMEs in the state. "A total of Rs 2,697 crore was disbursed to 34,441 beneficiaries from 2018 till now under MMUY. Similarly, till date Rs 200 crore of the first instalment has been disbursed to 40,099 beneficiaries under BLUY", Secretary, Department of Industries, Bandana Preyashi told PTI. On the one hand, Bihar is getting big ticket investments for major manufacturing units and on the other hand, the state government is also enabling an ecosystem where the MSMEs can thrive on the ground level for the benefit of the rural economy, Preyashi said. The Bihar Laghu Udyami Yojana aims to provide job opportunities to at least one member of poor families whose monthly income is less than Rs 6,000 a month, she said. The state government is providing Rs 2 lakh to each beneficiary in three instalments to set up and run micro and small industrial and processing units, Preyashi said. The government's objective is promotion of MSMEs through awareness, training and handholding support, the Industries secretary said. The state government is encouraging entrepreneurs and investors through the provision of a safe and sound work environment and basic infrastructural facilities which include land, roads, electricity, and water availability, she said. The Industries secretary further said, "With new policies of the state government, Bihar is witnessing significant investment promotion activities, reinforcing its position as an emerging business and industrial hub in the country. During the Bihar Business Connect 2023, 278 companies signed MoUs, committing to investments totalling Rs 50,530 crore." the secretary said. The state government has implemented the Bihar Industrial Investment Promotion Policy (BIPP), Bihar Logistics Policy 2023, Ethanol Production Incentive Policy 2021 and Textile and Leather Policy 2022 to promote industrial growth and investment in the state. "Under these policies, stage-1 clearance was given to 481 applications, with a proposed investment amount of Rs 4,512.85 crore. A total of 175 units were given clearance for financial incentives with an investment of Rs 2,195.10 crore, an all-time high, since the inception of the state investment promotion policies," she said. In 2023-24, 255 startups were recognized in the state and a total of Rs 11.92 crore has been disbursed as seed funding to these startups. From April 2023 to January 2024, Bihar Industrial Area Development Authority (BIADA) allotted plots/sheds to 427 units having a total investment size of Rs 6,145 crore covering 492 acres of land and also creating 35,224 employment in the state, said the secretary. "Infrastructure development in industrial areas was given top priority. Funds of Rs 409.33 crore were approved under Part I and Rs 212.68 crore for construction of unity mall under special assistance to states in 2023-24. In the current financial year of 2024-25,149 units have been granted stage I clearance for a proposed investment amount in Rs 3,950.48 crore in Bihar State Investment Promotion Board", she said. At present, Bihar's proposal to establish a multi-sector Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Nawanagar and Kumarbagh has been approved by the Government of India. "Authorities concerned are also working on the establishment of Export Promotion Councils (EPCs) in Bihar that will help Bihari Exporters to expand their businesses to international markets", said the secretary. Bihar Chief Minister <keyword id="19907431" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="nitish-kumar" source="keywords">Nitish Kumar</keyword> on August 3 this year laid the foundation stone for Rs 1,600 crore cement grinding unit of Ambuja Concrete North Private Limited, a subsidiary of Adani group's Ambuja Cements, in Warisaliganj block in Nawada district. This is considered the largest investment in the state by a cement industry player. "The project is expected to create 250 direct jobs and 1,000 indirect jobs on the site. The project will meet the growing infrastructure needs of Bihar. Adani Group has decided to invest additional Rs 5,500 crore in Bihar in various sectors, including cement manufacturing (in Muzaffarpur), logistics (near Patna) and projects related to agro-industry in Araria, Kishanganj and Begusarai. A total of 40,000 employment will be generated by these investments", said the statement issued by the CMO after the conclusion of the event on August 4.

Bihar government disburses Rs 2,900 crore to 74,540 beneficiaries for promoting MSMEs: Official

<ul><li>Integrated platform to be set up under insolvency and bankruptcy board to benefit stakeholders</li><li>IBC has recovered Rs 3.3. lakh crore for creditors, 28 cases worth Rs 10 lakh crore also dismissed </li><li>Additional tribunals will be notified</li></ul><keyword id="19912360" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Finance-Minister-Nirmala-Sitharaman" source="keywords">Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman</keyword> is set to present the Union <keyword id="15478236" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="budget-2024" source="Orion">Budget 2024</keyword> in the parliament at 11 am today and has arrived at the parliament with the paperless Bahi-Khata, a practice first followed by the minister while presenting the <keyword id="6360189" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="union-budget" source="Orion">Union budget</keyword> for 2021-22. This will be the seventh time FM Sitharaman will be presenting the <keyword id="6358021" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="budget" source="Orion">budget</keyword>, inching past the record of former <keyword id="19956758" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Finance-Minister" source="keywords" meta.keywordsubtype="org" meta.entityname="Finance Minister" meta.hostid="261" meta.entityid="Finance Minister">finance minister</keyword> Morarji Desai, who had 5 full-fledged and 1 interim budget presentation to his credit. President <keyword id="20109163" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="draupadi-murmu" source="keywords">Draupadi Murmu</keyword> had described this budget as historic, in terms of the reforms and announcements it will lay forth. Earlier in the day, the FM had met the president with a copy of the budget. The budget will set forth the tone for Modi's third tenure, and will be an important cornerstone for his vision for India's Amritkal, leading India towards becoming a developed nation, or Viksit Bharat. Sitharaman will begin her budget speech at 11 am in the Lok Sabha. You can watch the presentation live on the official Youtube channels of the government. After her speech, all budget-related documents will be available at indiabudget.gov.in <h2>FM Sitharaman tables <keyword id="20387181" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Union-Budget-2024-25" source="keywords">Union Budget 2024-25</keyword></h2>FM Sitharaman, "India's inflation continues to be low, stable, moving towards 4% target. We need to focus on Gareeb, Mahila, Yuva and Annadata (Poor, Women, Youth and Farmers). Budget to focus on employment, skilling, MSME and middle class. Allocations of Rs 1.48 lakh crore have been made for education and skilling in this budget". Productivity and Resilience in Agriculture <ul><li>Aim to develop climate resilient crop varieties. Over next 2 years, 1 crore farmers will be initiated into natural farming through structural support. 10,000 need based bio-resource centers will be established. </li><li>Financing for shrimp farming, processing and export will be facilitated through NABARD </li><li>Rs 1.25 lakh crore set aside for agriculture and allied activities. </li></ul> Employment and Skilling <ul><li>Scheme A: One month wage to all those entering the formal workforce across all sectors. The scheme is expected to benefit 210 lakh youngsters</li><li>Job creation in manufacturing: Incentives given to both employee and employer in the first 4 years of the employment, basis their EPFO contribution.</li><li>Support to employers: The govt. will reimburse Rs 3,000 per month for 2 years for each additional employee hired by employer. The scheme is expected to benefit 50 lakh people</li><li>Establish working women hostels and creches to facilitate women participation in workforce</li></ul>Infrastructure Development <ul><li>Bihar and Andhra Pradesh to receive additional monetary support in the current financial year. Development of new airports, roadways and sports infrastructure to be undertaken in Bihar.</li><li>Grants for backward regions in Andhra Pradesh will be provided</li><li>3 crore additional houses in rural and urban India have been made under PM Aawas Yojana.</li><li>Women led development schemes have received an allocation of over Rs 3 lakh crore.</li><li>Credit support to MSMEs during stress periods</li><li>SIDBI to open new branches in MSME clusters within 3 years and offer direct credit to them. 24 new branches to be opened this year, covering 168 MSME clusters</li><li>To enable MSMEs and artisans to sell products in international markets, hubs to be set up under public-private partnership model. </li><li>Encourage moderation of stamp duties, also consider lowering duties for properties purchased by women.</li><li>Infra investment in economy to stand at 3.4% of GDP</li></ul>Tourism <ul><li>Development of Vishnu Path, Mahabodhi temple corridor</li><li>Support development of Nalanda as a tourist center</li><li>Development of Orissa as a popular tourist destination.</li></ul>Research, Innovation and New Gen reforms <ul><li>Expanding space economy by 5x in the next 10 years via a venture fund of Rs 1,000 crore</li><li>Land management and urban planning to incentivised for timely completion</li><li>Digitisation of terrestial maps will be undertaken</li><li>Establishing land registry and linking to farmer registry as well </li><li>E-shram portal to be integrated with other relevant portals for seamless services </li><li>Shram Suvidha and Samadhan portal will be revamped to enhance ease of compliance</li></ul>Investments Introduction of NPS Vatsalya: Investments can be made on behalf of child. Once they turn 18, this can be converted into a normal NPS account. Budget Estimates 2024-25 Total receipts (sans borrowings) Rs 32.07 lakh crore Tax receipts; Rs 25.83 lakh crore Fiscal deficit at 4.9% of GDP Solar Energy Increase in list of exempted capital goods used for manufacturing solar products No extension in exemption of custom duty for foreign products used for solar manufacturing Income Tax A comprehensive review of the Income Tax Act, of 1961 is in order Merger of two exemptions for charities of donations TDS rate on e-commerce operations to reduce to 0.1% Provisions for reassessment to be simplified. Also read: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/budget/news/budget-2024-25-changes-to-tax-slabs-increased-standard-deduction-and-other-changes-to-direct-taxation/articleshow/111951205.cms" data-type="tilCustomLink" target="_blank">Budget 2024-25: Changes to tax slabs, increased standard deduction and other changes to direct taxation</a> Simplification of capital gains STCG on specified financial assets to be at 20% Other financial and non-financial assets to be taxed at applicable rates Long term capital Gains on financial and non-financial assets to be at 12.5% Annual limit on exemption raised from Rs 1,00,000 Rs 1,25,000 Listed financial assets will be considered long-term if held for more than 12 months. Other taxation highlights Angel Tax to be scraped away Simpler tax regime for foreign shipping companies Security transaction rates on trading in future and options to be increased Standard deduction to increase to Rs 75,000 from Rs 50,000 under new tax regime Deduction for pensioners enhanced from Rs 15,ooo to Rs 25,000 Tax slabs under new regime revised. Employee can save up to Rs 17,500 in income taxes annually. Total revenue foregone is about Rs 8 lakh crore.

Union Budget 2024-25 key highlights: Angel tax to be scraped

Finance Minister <keyword id="19916618" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Nirmala-Sitharaman" source="keywords">Nirmala Sitharaman</keyword> on Tuesday announced <keyword id="20404375" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="income-tax-relief" source="keywords">income tax relief</keyword> for the <keyword id="20071167" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="middle-class" source="keywords">middle class</keyword>, a Rs 2 lakh crore outlay for <keyword id="22517841" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="job-creation-schemes" source="keywords">job creation schemes</keyword> over the next five years and a spending splurge for states run by her party's new coalition partners as she unveiled <keyword id="20509939" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Modi-3-0" source="keywords">Modi 3.0</keyword> government's first budget after the general elections. With rural distress and unemployment being blamed for BJP losing its majority, Sitharaman in her seventh straight budget provided Rs 2.66 lakh crore for <keyword id="20027688" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="rural-development" source="keywords">rural development</keyword> and maintained spending on long-term infrastructure projects at Rs 11.11 lakh crore to boost <keyword id="19900794" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="economic-growth" source="keywords">economic growth</keyword>. She abolished 'angel tax' for all classes of investors in startups, cut customs duty on mobile phones and gold and simplified capital gains tax. She, however, raised the securities transaction tax (STT) on futures and options of securities, which led to tanking of stock markets. "India's economic growth continues to be the shining exception (in a world that is gripped by policy uncertainties) and will remain so in the years ahead," she said. "In this budget, we particularly focus on <keyword id="19898684" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="employment" source="keywords">employment</keyword>, <keyword id="20374219" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="skilling" source="keywords">skilling</keyword>, MSMEs, and the middle class." Besides Rs 2 lakh crore provided over a five year period for schemes and initiatives to facilitate employment, skilling and other opportunities for 4.1 crore youth, "I have made a provision of Rs 1.48 lakh crore for education, employment and skilling," she said. For Bihar, where assembly elections are due next year, the finance minister announced spending of Rs 60,000 crore on infrastructure projects like expressways, power plant, heritage corridors and new airports. The support to Bihar, whose ruling party and BJP's partner JD-U has been demanding an economic package and special category status for the state, is in the form of capital projects but not subsidy or cash dole. Similarly, for Andhra Pradesh, whose ruling TDP recently joined BJP-led NDA, she allocated Rs 15,000 crore in financial aid through multilateral agencies. A similar request for support to Bihar will be expedited, she said. For the middle class, she raised standard deduction -- a flat deduction from total salary earned by an employee in a year before calculating applicable income tax rate -- by 50 per cent to Rs 75,000 and tweaked tax slabs for taxpayers opting for the new income tax regime. This will lead to taxpayers under the new tax regime -- which offers lower rates of taxes but permits limited deductions and exemptions -- saving up to Rs 17,500 in tax annually, she said. To spur employment, the Budget provided for incentives for companies, including paying for one-month salary for first-time employees, incentive at specified sale to both employee and empower with respect to their retirement fund contribution in the first four years of employment and reimbursing employers up to Rs 3,000 per month for 2 years towards EPFO contribution of each additional employee. Also, a programme to improve skills as well internship for students and subsidised loans for higher education will be provided, she said. India's official unemployment rate in urban areas is pegged at 6.7 per cent but private agencies put it at much higher levels. Buoyed by robust tax collections and a higher-than-expected dividend receipt from the Reserve Bank, Sitharaman said the government's fiscal deficit -- the difference between the total revenue earned and total expenditure -- will be trimmed to 4.9 per cent of the GDP in 2024-25, below the 5.1 per cent figure estimated in the interim budget she presented in February. She reduced gross market borrowing marginally to Rs 14.01 lakh crore. The Budget for 2024-25 fiscal (April 2024 to March 2025) allocated Rs 1.52 lakh crore for agriculture and allied sectors, aid for building 3 crore affordable housing units in urban and rural areas, provided credit support to small and medium businesses, raised small loans to Rs 20 lakh for small business, proposed setting up 12 industrial parks, and provided for setting up a Rs 1,000 crore venture capital fund for space sector.

Modi 3.0 1st Budget: Tax relief for middle class, Rs 2 lakh cr job scheme

Bengaluru, June 4 (IANS) E-commerce major Amazon on Thursday announced that its sellers will now be able to register on Amazon.in marketplace and manage their online business in Hindi. This will include everything from registering as an Amazon seller for the first time to managing orders, inventory management and accessing performance metrics, all of it in the language of their preference, said an Amazon statement. "The experience has been made available on the Amazon seller website as well as on the mobile app. Amazon also provides Seller Support Services and Seller University videos and tutorials in Hindi," it said. According to the company, hundreds of Amazon sellers from tier-I, II and III cities across Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Telangana, Himachal Pradesh have switched to the Hindi experience to manage their accounts during the six-months testing phase. During the testing phase, for the first time new sellers from markets like Darbhanga in Bihar, Barmer in Rajasthan, Mahoba in Uttar Pradesh, Hailakandi in Assam and Bardhaman in West Bengal signed up on the Amazon.in marketplace. Gopal Pillai, VP Seller Services, Amazon India, said: "As we look at enabling more and more of Indian MSMEs to embrace ecommerce to grow, we continue to doubledown our efforts on vernacular, voice and video powered initiatives. The launch of the vernacular registration and account management experience for sellers starting with Hindi is a step in that direction." He said that this becomes all the more significant today as businesses emerge from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and explore new opportunities for growth. --IANS rrb/sn/vd

Amazon sellers can now register, manage online business in Hindi

Even as supplies of coal are being ramped up at power plants, supplies to non-power sector plants may be kept suspended. Southern Eastern Coalfields, a subsidiary of Coal India has finalised the supply matrix of coal rakes to critical power plants after a meeting held by the Coal Ministry. The power plants where coal rakes will be provided are Rajpura, HRVUNL, <keyword id="201425" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="kawai" source="Orion">Kawai</keyword>, <keyword id="201223" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="akaltara" source="Orion">Akaltara</keyword>, Binjkote, <keyword id="12306176" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="dspm" source="Orion">DSPM</keyword>, Pathad, Sabarmati, GSECL, Uchpanda, Annupur, <keyword id="173653" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="seoni" source="Orion">Seoni</keyword>, MPPGCL, Amrawati, <keyword id="4161340" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="warora" source="Orion">Warora</keyword>, Dhariwal, Tirora, NTPC, and <keyword id="6423479" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="mahagenco" source="Orion">Mahagenco</keyword>. Since the supplies of SECL are yet to be normalised, the supply of coal will be done equitably to these power plants. "Supplies to non-power sector plants may be kept suspended till further information," the SECL said. Meanwhile, the Aluminium Association of India (AAI) has written to Coal India on the alarming situation for the industry due to critical coal shortage and urgency for immediate resumption of coal supplies for survival of domestic industry. Despite untiring efforts of the Coal Ministry and the CIL to support the industry, the current acute coal crunch due to various factors which has created an immensely precarious situation, majorly for the highly power intensive industries like aluminium wherein coal accounts for 40 per cent of the production cost. Aluminium smelting requires uninterrupted quality power supply for production which can be met only through in-house CPPs which operate 24/7 and 365 days, and have signed FSA (Fuel Supply Agreement) with the CIL and its subsidiaries for assured long term coal supply. The recent decisions for stoppage of secured coal supplies and rakes for non-power sector is detrimental for aluminium industry and will jeopardize the sustainability as these continuous process-based plants are not designed for adhoc shut down and start of operations. Any power outage/failure (2 hours or more) results in freezing of molten aluminium in the pots which will lead to shutting down of plant for at least 6 months rendering heavy losses and restart expenses, and once restarted, will take almost a year to get desired metal purity. Aluminium is a sector of strategic importance and an essential commodity for diversified sectors crucial for nation's economy. Huge investment of Rs 1.2 lakh crore ($20 billion) have been made to double the domestic production capacity to 4.1 mtpa to cater to the country's increasing demand. The industry employs one million people and has developed 4000 SMEs in downstream sector. "The entire industry has been brought to a standstill and left with no time to devise any mitigation plan to continue sustainable operations. The coal stocks of operational plants have depleted to alarmingly low critical stocks of 2-3 days, from the level as high as 15 days in the month of April, 21, and plants are forced to operate at reduced power generation with huge risk of closure with threat of loss of huge employment and deterioration of MSMEs," the AAI said. Moreover, the ongoing global aluminium shortage due to supply demand mismatch is also adding to the woes for industry with the current coal situation in India. Adding to the plight of industry, the exponentially rise in coal prices have created a double whammy as the global coal prices have gone up exponentially and are on an upward trend while the ocean freight rates are also at all-time high. SEE ALSO: <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/india/news/coal-shortage-many-districts-in-bihar-face-more-than-10-hours-of-power-outage-in-last-few-days/articleshow/86987165.cms">Coal shortage: Many districts in Bihar face more than 10 hours of power outage in last few days</a> <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/android-phones-constantly-send-data-from-pre-installed-apps-even-if-theyve-never-been-used-before/articleshow/86988368.cms">Research reveals Android phones constantly send data from pre-installed apps even if they’ve never been used before</a>

Coal supplies to non-power sector plants may be kept suspended

New Delhi, Nov 14 () The fourteen-day India International Trade Fair opened here on Thursday albeit with lesser availability of space this year owing to Pragati Maidan's ongoing make-over.
 Union Transport and MSME Minister Nitin Gadkari inaugurated the fair and suggested that the ITPO (India Trade Promotion Organisation) should explore public-private-partnership model to build 30 to 40 mega exhibition-cum-convention centres across the country.
 "By supporting government as a facilitator we can make atleast 30 to 40 centres like Pragati Maidan in the country. This country needs and the government's capacity is limited, budgetary constraints are there but this activity by supporting some government equity, we can make it economically viable," Gadkari said adding that this type of activity is going to create more employment opportunities.
 Besides, Gadkari highlighted that the World Bank, ADB and KfW are ready to provide a credit line for MSMEs at a low interest cost and, he wants to provide this credit line to the poor and economically backward entrepreneurs in backward areas.
 Organisers of the fair ITPO expressed confidence that the redevelopment of Pragati Maidan into a state-of-the-art integrated exhibition cum convention centre (IECC) shall be completed before the end of next year.
 The ITPO is the nodal agency under the administrative control of the Commerce Ministry entrusted with the redevelopment of Pragati Maidan.
 In his address, ITPO CMD L C Goyal gave an assurance that the IITF 2020 would be five times bigger than the scale on which the fair is being held this year.
 "I am quite confident that before the end of next year would deliver this project (IECC)," Goyal said.
 Several countries, including Australia, Iran, the UK and Vietnam will participate in the 14-days fair.
 The theme for the 39th edition of the fair (November 14-27, 2019) is 'Ease of Doing Business' inspired by the unique achievement of India for rising to the 63rd rank on the World Bank's Ease of Doing Business Index from 142nd rank in year 2014.
 This year the status of 'Partner Country' has been accorded to 'the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan' and 'the Republic of Korea' will be the 'Focus Country'.
 Bihar and Jharkhand will be the focus states in this edition of the fair. Entry tickets for business days per person will be available for Rs 500 and season ticket for Rs 1,800.
 For all visitors during public days (November 19-27, 2019), ticket charges will be Rs 60 (adult) and Rs 40 (child) on working days and on Saturday or Sunday or Public Holiday the tickets will be Rs 120 (adult) and Rs 60 (child). RSN SHW
SHW

India International Trade Fair opens with ease of doing business theme

(Eds: Adds details) New Delhi, May 13 () Over 50 per cent of households in rural India are cutting down on their food items following the COVID-19-induced lockdown, according to a study by leading civil rights bodies.The sample size of the collaborative study 'COVID-19 induced Lockdown-How is Hinterland Coping' was over 5,000 households in 47 districts in 12 states of the country.It was conducted by civil society organisations PRADAN, Action for Social Advancement, BAIF, Transform Rural India Foundation, Grameen Sahara, SAATHI-UP and the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme with research support of Vikas Anvesh Foundation and Sambodhi.The study showed that 50 per cent of households have reduced the number of meals ever since the lockdown was imposed as part of immediate adjustment for food security. About 68 per cent of households reduced the number of items in their meals, it said.The nationwide lockdown was imposed from March 25 to April 14, then extended to May 3 and again to May 17 to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus that has claimed 2,415 lives and infected 74,281 people in the country. The study showed that 84 per cent households received food items through the public distribution system (PDS), 37 per cent received take home ration.It said about 24 per cent households borrowed foodgrain in villages and 12 per cent people received free food.The findings of the study were released in a webinar on Wednesday.The study found that households have depended on Kharif stock more than Rabi, but that stock is now depleting fast."Households are coping with the shock by eating less food and fewer times, and with large dependence on PDS. There is a need for increased food support through PDS and promotion for food crop cultivation in Kharif," the study said.It said the preparedness for Kharif 2020 is low and there is a need for public support in terms of seed provision and credit. A large chunk of migrants are also yet to return to rural India, the study said."Lockdown and rumours have indeed adversely affected income - dairy and poultry. The coping mechanisms mostly clustered around change in food habits and reduction in expenditures," it said.The study said borrowing is taking place due to indebtedness and this might increase if the effect of shock prevails. Though asset sales are still low but they are already being reported by a small fraction of respondents, it said.The states where the study was conducted were Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.The study found that another worrying factor was that nearly one-third of the respondents reported that there is a possibility that their children will drop out of schools for discretionary expenses.Speaking at the webinar, Madhu Khetan, Programme Director at PRADAN, said the study was conducted in villages which were comparatively more accessible. The situation in remote villages might be worse, Khetan said.Girish Sohani, president, BAIF, said the survey also raises certain health aspects and there will be more such surveys to better assess the ground situation.India's economy has been severely hit by the coronavirus-induced lockdown with thousands of people losing their means of livelihood across the country.To deal with the situation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday announced an economic stimulus package for Rs 20-lakh-crore, estimated at 10 per cent of the GDP. The special economic package will have emphasis on land, labour, liquidity and laws, and will be for "our labourers, farmers, honest tax payers, MSMEs and cottage industry", Modi had said. UZM ANBANB

Over 50 pc of households in rural India cutting down on food items after lockdown: Study

<ul><li>PagarBook, a 7-months-old start-up, recently roped in Akshay Kumar as its brand ambassador and announced its goal to gain 10 million users by the end of FY2021. </li><li>The company has now launched its maiden mass campaign with Akshay Kumar to increase its visibility and gain user trust. </li><li>Siva Prasad, the Senior Vice President - Marketing &amp; Sales, PagarBook talks about the company's latest ad, some of the factors that helped PagarBook drive its growth and rope in a big name like Akshay Kumar in its 7 months of existence. </li></ul>PagarBook, a payroll and attendance management app for micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), has launched its maiden mass campaign with brand ambassador Akshay Kumar and veteran actor Kulbhushan Kharbanda. While PagarBook launched a year ago in October, it was only in February 2020 that it went live officially. It decided to softly launch its product into the market with small digital campaigns and it attracted thousands of downloads and an active user base in a few weeks. Over the last 6 months, PagarBook has increased its user base to 5 million and launched its User Interface (UI) in 13 different languages. And now, in less than a year of its existence, it is all set to roll out its first TVC with Akshay Kumar, who is known to charge an endorsement fee of around Rs 2-3 crore per day and as per Duff &amp; Phelps’ Celebrity Brand Valuation Study 2019, he is worth Rs 742 crore. PagarBook has released four advertisements; each extolling a particular offering: staff attendance, advance payment and overtime payment. The tagline, “Pagarbook Lagao, Business Badhao,” is also pretty direct and convincing like its brand name. Conceptualised by BBDO India, the campaign aims to target Hindi and English speaking entrepreneurs across the country. <div type="Youtube" id="zyU0RwTM7RQ" title="PagarBook Lagao Business Badhao l Staff Attendance, Salary &amp; Payments On Mobile | Akshay Kumar" thumbUrl="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/zyU0RwTM7RQ/mqdefault.jpg"></div> <div type="Youtube" id="21XUTEKOD78" title="PagarBook Rakhe Staff Attendance Ka Pakka Hisaab l Staff Attendance, Salary &amp; Payment On Mobile" thumbUrl="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/21XUTEKOD78/mqdefault.jpg"></div> <div type="Youtube" id="hr0ShzHtpUo" title="PagarBook Rakhe Staff Ke Advance Ka Pakka Hisab | Staff Attendance, Salary &amp; Payments On Mobile" thumbUrl="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/hr0ShzHtpUo/mqdefault.jpg"></div> <div type="Youtube" id="uOa73Bf1M5E" title="PagarBook | Har Payment Ka Message Bheje Automatic | Staff Attendance, Salary &amp; Payments On Mobile" thumbUrl="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/uOa73Bf1M5E/mqdefault.jpg"></div> Kumar was roped in for his boy-next-door image. With this ambassadorship deal of two years with Kumar, PagarBook is aiming to expand its user base and reach 10 million registered users by FY2021 and establish itself as a trust-worthy, easy-to-use app that empowers SMBs. In a virtual brainstorming meeting, Kumar was the first name to pop in the teams’ heads. They were looking for a face who would speak to an audience that toils all day to make ends meet and takes no break. It was an easy choice for PagarBook, who trusted Kumar’s consumer and media perception and their guts to go-ahead without any market research. Telling us why Kumar was a perfect match for the PagarBook, Siva Prasad, the Senior Vice President - Marketing &amp; Sales, PagarBook, said, “It was pretty easy for us once we decided we wanted to build trust through our campaign. And Akshay is someone who's a very disciplined man. He has a strong value system and has never been a part of any controversy. Secondly, we're not talking to a page-3 kind of audience. We are talking to someone in Bihar, Ahmedabad, Surat or Kerala. These are small businessmen who can never relate to a fashionista.” At the same time, PagarBook was also looking for an A-list celebrity who would help them reach out to a wider audience at a huge scale. “We wanted one of the top celebrities to build trust. Akshay was very relatable to our kind of an audience that way. He had that next door, my friend kind of perception. And if you look at the SMEs of our country, they are really hard working. They don't work like us: walk in, attend and walk out at five. They work day in and day out. Even if they're at home, they think of their business. So that was a third parameter. And again, Akshay was an organic fit because he is considered to be a very hardworking guy -- he wakes up at 5 am to diligently work out. We didn't have to do research because it drives by perception and that's the kind of position he has created out in the country. And lastly, most of our business owners are self-made businessmen and very grounded to the roots of our country. They are rooted because they are self-made and so is Akshay,” shared Prasad. But how did a 7-month-old start-up manage to rope an ambassador as big as Akshay Kumar? Prasad and his team believed in their product and its growth trajectory. They thought it was the perfect time to scale the start-up and become a brand. “It's too risky a proposition -- to launch a big campaign, bring in a Bollywood celebrity like Akshay Kumar. But we had enough confidence in the way the brand was growing -- our active user base and the way they were engaging with the product. So we wanted to scale up as soon as possible. At the same time, scaling responsibility. The objective was not to just burn a lot of money by hiring some celebrity because we were pretty confident that we could achieve unit economics somewhere down the line and the growth was pretty fast that way. Without even having a celebrity phase, we could grow this fast,” said Prasad. After deciding that PagarBook wanted to position itself as a trust-worthy app, the team was pretty clear that they wanted to keep their ads informative and functional because it fills an important gap in the market and would organically attract users after that. Prasad said, “A few important parameters we thought we should talk about in our campaign: employee attendance, advanced payments, overtime and special payments and how all of these records can be done on the app so that we could relate or rather, our users could relate to their problems very easily. We don't have to really sell the product after that because it was a typical problem-solution approach. Also, we wanted to tell them to go digital and it's time to change. Once all this pain is taken out of your life, you get more time to focus on your business. That is why the campaign's entire theme is ‘Pagarbook Lagao, Business Badhao’. At the same time, we didn't make it very mundane; it has the right elements of drama and relationship between the father and the son.” At the same, it did come up with a creative way to announce the launch of its campaign on social media. PagarBook decided to drop a creative that looked like Kumar’s upcoming film poster. It had his fans hooked and helped them garner more than a million conversations in two days before the final campaign’s launch. <div type="twitter" handle="akshaykumar" handlename="Akshay Kumar" image="http://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/1263033005758545921/4K0V7QQi_normal.jpg" favoritecount="22614" retweetcount="1236" status="The way India runs business is going to change. #AbBusinessHogaSmart. Coming to your screens tomorrow @ 11:30am.… https://t.co/4XtI3C5edn" createdat="1606889000000" id="1334015272332627968"></div> Taking us behind the poster’s execution plan, Prasad said, “It was just a random thought in one a casual conversation we had internally with our team. The poster was a novel idea but the magic was added because Akshay tweeted it. So the entire world thought that it's a new film by Akshay and Kulbhushan. So, it triggered a lot of conversations and since we sent out a press release a week before talking about roping in Akshay, people started really speculating and because of that, we got lots of mentions on social media. And that was intentional. We were pretty confident that people would start speculating and that’s why we put the word ‘pagar’ as a hint on the poster. And when we released the film yesterday, we were trending on Twitter for three-four hours. Just like that, we got more than a million conversations across two days and I think that’s magic.” From 1000 to 5 million users in 3 months The idea behind PagarBook was simple. While an increasing number of MSMEs are adopting digital ways of managing their business operations, many still continue to use pen and paper to keep track of employees’ attendance and manage payroll. PagarBook offers them a simple-to-use alternative that also saves a lot of time and paper. “We definitely knew that there is a problem with the way people manage their staff and employees and the payroll management, but we didn't expect that it's such a big problem that people would really accept our product this fast and at this scale,” said Prasad. When it started out on a small-scale, PagarBook made sure it responded to every query that came in their way to empower SMB entrepreneurs. Telling us how PagarBook identified product loopholes by interacting with users, Prasad said, “What we did from day one is that we had a live WhatsApp support, so we didn't have call center agents or you know, anything as such, anyone who knew the product really well, right from the founders and all the core team members and the growth team, all of us used to personally respond to the support questions which used to come through WhatsApp to us. In the last four months, whatever new features we have added, we didn't have to sit in a conference room and decide on a product roadmap. In fact, our users told us what to do. So we knew their problems in and out.” PagarBook focused all its efforts on the product-side for the first three months. It thought of new ways of updating its app and growth followed. Initially, the team wanted to launch the app in just 2-3 languages and today, they have 13 options. It also rolled out a paid desktop version to make managing business easier for its users. Talking about growth trajectory, Prasad shared, “So because the product was on the fly, things were changing everyday, we were gradually releasing updates but the growth numbers gave us the confidence that this has huge potential. And after three months, on a weekly average, we were onboarding at least 200k active users, not random installs. We are currently available in 12 to 13 languages, which helped us grow much faster and build a truly made-for-India kind of a product that people resonated with really well. So, from 200K to 5 million i.e., 15 lakh active user base, is the growth story which we have seen in the last couple of months, not even in a year's time in the last six, seven months.” Vision for the app Having built the category, Prasad is confident that new emerging competition won’t affect its goals. He considers the competition as a blessing that would help the industry grow. Its focus in 2021 would be on becoming the human capital app for the country and gain 10 million users. However, in our country, small-business owners still struggle to avail a bank loan due to lack of awareness. PagarBook is, therefore, working towards empowering these businessmen with one app update and marketing campaign at a time. “A small business owner will have to walk in maybe a 100 times to get a loan because there is no record how much salary he earns and we are giving him a salary slip for the first time and we cannot blame the financial institution because there is no record how much this guy has been making every month. So the kind of vision that we have is that we would definitely make them able and be instrumental in getting these guys their due and making them credit-worthy. And from the employer side, the story would remain the same -- we will make them more organized, take them digital and give them more time to focus on their business. So, the product we see today is just the basic version but our actual mission is to create a human capital platform for the country. Pagarbook should work like a swiss knife for the Indian businessmen. With this, we are confident about getting to a 10 million active user base in the next one year’s time,” concluded Prasad.

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