Realty Hits a Green Hurdle Bundles of Documents Containing Details of Farmers Whose Loans Had Been Waived Off
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
8 ISSUES AND INSIGHTS MUMBAI | WEDNESDAY 08 MAY 2019 > ter. Most publishers and advertisers > CHINESE WHISPERS know this. Not having a metric simply The good ‘news’ in newspapers gave them a tool beat down rates and they want to keep it there. Total readership is up and everybody is happy with the new Indian lion Indian broadband subscribers are The silver lining is the growth in Dumping proof now downloading the equivalent of total readership and the huge uptick Readership Survey. Will revenue growth follow? over eight films every month. It could in online. According to IRS 2019, about be films, TV shows, sports or news. 54 million people are reading a news- circulation in India has continued to by data from EY. Funnily enough the Some OTT or streaming video apps paper online. comScore, which focuses grow over the last decade. The Audit reasons have less to do with the inter- now command over 100-200 million on digital media, puts the number of Bureau of Circulations data for 10 net — the usual suspect in other mar- unique users. The consumer now has people reading news online at over 279 years ending 2016 shows average cir- kets — and more to do with the indus- more distractions than he did when million. Of the top 20 online publish- culation grew 4.87 per cent to a total try itself. publishers started squabbling in 2013. ers from India, 11 are mainstream of 63 million copies. Print media has The biggest, which this column has By the time an IRS that was accept- media houses such as Times Internet, been among one of the most talked about, is readership data. It is able to everyone came out, early in HT Media, India Today Group and The profitable segments of the ~167,400 the currency used to buy and sell 2018, it seemed like it was too late. So Indian Express Group going by crore media and entertainment advertising space, the source of over far ad revenues haven’t picked up. One comScore. Most publishers are pretty industry in India. 70 per cent of industry revenues. For reason, say advertisers is that the key much on the ball on digital. Online Former chief minister of Madhya Pradesh Why then have revenues been stag- four years from 2013-2017 publishers metric that IRS touts post the fracas revenue and profit numbers — which and senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader MEDIASCOPE nating for the last three years? re-jigged the metric, then sulked and is total readership (in the last month) I analysed recently for some — are Shivraj Singh Chouhan found himself And that brings me to the worrying fought about the results it threw up. instead of average issue readership or looking good. Early trends, especially facing the wrath of an agitated group of VANITA KOHLI-KHANDEKAR part. Over the 10 years ending 2018, In those data dark years, advertisers AIR (yesterday). Going by AIR the on subscription, too are encouraging. Congress workers on Tuesday. Chouhan print’s share in the media revenue pie shifted their spends to other media, numbers haven’t gone up substantial- Rising online and offline reader- had attacked Congress President Rahul irst the good news. More than fell from 30 per cent to just over 18 per including digital, even as demoneti- ly. Advertisers, however, continue to ship should eventually give a nice Gandhi and Madhya Pradesh Chief 425 million Indians read a news- cent. This was on a growing base, so sation and then the goods and ser- buy ad space based on AIR. bump to revenues, especially in this Minister Kamal Nath for "deceiving" Fpaper in the first quarter of 2019. in absolute numbers the print indus- vices tax hit the print industry hard. You could argue that advertisers election year, pushing revenue growth farmers of the state. He had alleged that That is up from 407 million in the first try almost doubled in size. But the last Reliance launched Jio that sent data are likely to use the metric most likely back to 7-9 per cent levels again. while Gandhi claimed that loans of quarter of 2017, says the IRS or Indian three of those 10 years have been prices crashing and consumption to push down rates — whether it is By IRS 2020 the news from the farmers had been waived within two Readership Survey 2019, released in tough. From ~30,330 crore in 2016 the jumped from 0.8 gigabytes per person cost per rating point in TV or AIR in newspaper business should get even hours of the Congress forming a the last week of April. That is not sur- (ad plus subscription) revenues that per month in 2016 to over 8 GB in 2018. print. Also AIR doesn’t work for all better. government in the state, in reality, Nath prising. Defying trends in most other newspapers and magazines earned Think of it this way — one film advertisers. For long term brand had sent messages to lakhs of farmers markets, newspaper readership and inched to ~30,550 crore in 2018 going takes about a GB of data. Over 550 mil- building goals total readership is bet- Twitter: @vanitakohlik saying that the waiver couldn't be carried out since the Model Code of Conduct was in place. To clear the air, a Congress delegation, led by leader Suresh Pachouri and attended by a large group of party workers, reached Chouhan's residence carrying huge Realty hits a green hurdle bundles of documents containing details of farmers whose loans had been waived off. They handed over a list containing Easing rules to improve Ease of Doing Business required. The multiple permits are the details of 21 lakh farmers who had required under three different envi- benefitted under the loan waiver ranking has ended up in court ronmental laws — the Environment scheme. Pachouri's entourage left after (Protection) Act, 1986, the Air dumping the bundles of documents at (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Chouhan's residence. NITIN SETHI changes the Union government intro- Act, 1981, and Water (Prevention and duced to help the real estate sector by Control of Pollution) Act, 1974. ne of the National Democratic tweaking the environment regulations Ideally, to do away with multiplicity Reel vs real Alliance government’s major was three-fold. First, the tweaks of green permits the government His vitriol against the enemies across O achievements in the last year sought to reduce the number of green needed to amend the latter two. But the border in movies such as Gadar: Ek of its tenure has been to improve permits required. Second, they passed these are implemented by the states, Prem Katha and Border might have India’s rankings in the Ease of Doing the onus of giving these clearances to which would have entailed the ensured box office success, but the Business index. India moved 23 stops municipal authorities. Third, they laid painful if eventually more effective Bharatiya Janata Party's Gurdaspur up the charts to reach 77 on the Ease down simple and preset conditions route of bringing states on board. The candidate Sunny Deol doesn't seem of Doing Business ranking. A key con- under which these clearances would Union government instead passed willing to display the same machismo in tribution to this improvement came be granted. These relaxed norms were executive orders trying to overrule the real life. The actor-turned-politician for from simplifying the layers of per- designed to help particularly large laws. Executive orders and notifica- admitted at a campaign rally in Haryana missions required for the real estate construction projects, such as malls tions by governments cannot subvert that he doesn't know much about the and construction industry. and housing colonies. the letter or spirit of principle laws Balakot air strikes or the state of India- The ranking system The permits, the gov- that they are drawn under. Pakistan relations. Talking to journalists assessed how few and how ernment decided, would be At a more fundamental level, at a gathering on Tuesday, Deol refused fast construction permits given by municipal author- GREEN SIGNALS while decentralisation was the right to take a stand on these two issues in are secured in Delhi and ities with barebone condi- Environmental norms NDA relaxed for the real-estate sector that the courts stayed direction to take, the government did particular. “I am here to serve people, if Mumbai. The government tions that were preset. not propose a robust state and I win then maybe I will have my secured a better ranking in These the builders could June 2016 notification stayed by NGT June 2017 stayed by NGT municipal level system to actually opinion, not now,” said the 60- 2018 through this narrow secure along with the | To exempt building construction | Notification to relax norms for built assess how each real-estate project something candidate. focus of bringing reforms in building plan approvals projects of built-up area between up area permissible for a land would fit into the development plan the two major cities but it that are given by district 20,000 and 1,50,000 sq m from development project of the cities. The ease with which also made a concerted authorities. The real estate need to get environmental city-level master plans are altered effort to provide an overall projects were also exempt- November 2018 notification stayed and land-use patterns changed with- Mamata finds a gap clearance from Centre regulatory relaxation for ed — through executive by Delhi High Court out considering carrying capacities Observers have pointed out how the the real estate industry orders — to not require | Exempt the requirement of “Consent | To exclude building construction projects or the overall environmental foot- term "secularism" has been missing across the country, particularly additional permits under the Acts that to Establish” for building construction of built-up area between 20,000 and print of urbanisation in different from the speeches of various Congress tweaking norms for environmental regulate air and water pollution.