Hindustan Times

The passion with which Pulkit Vij advertises budget properties on his YouTube channel, KamalAssociates, is remarkable. After joining his father’s business of constructing as well as brokering residential properties, this young graduate has infused an amazing amount of enthusiasm to the way of working in his Delhi-based company. However, the trust and loyalty that Kamal Associates commands in the market is a result of his father’s 20-years-long hard work and ethical business practices.

It is this trustworthiness that the company enjoys, which is responsible for Kamal Associates being one of the most sought after property experts in Delhi, especially in case of properties based in the areas between Uttam Nagar East and Dwarka. In fact, Pulkit is now ready to move beyond Delhi and build and broker properties all over India. The reason for such infectious enthusiasm for business is their honest and genuine work ethics.

As Pulkit says, “People know my father well and they know that we deal in honesty. Right with the groundbreaking ceremony, we manage to sell 30-40% of our property, then and there. And by the time the structure is ready, almost all of the property is sold already. That is the amount of trust that Kamal Associates enjoys from its investors as well as general public.”

You might wonder that at a time when the real estate industry, especially builders, are being looked at with suspicion, owing to a number of mishaps in the construction sector, what is the reason behind the properties of Kamal Associates selling like hot cakes! Well, it is because they enjoy a ‘clean image’ among their patrons.

Even during the Covid-19 pandemic, the market continued to grow for Pulkit’s business because of their resolution to provide “Apna Ghar, Sabka Ghar”, which he treats like a daily mission. In fact, Kamal Associates is also instrumental in helping the buyer arrange for loan to buy the property. So, not only are they building affordable housing, they are also creating opportunities for general public to be able to buy the property of their choice. That is the way Pulkit has decided to go a step further in becoming the “Property King” in Delhi.

They help the buyers arrange for upto 100% loans for properties ranging between 1BHK and 3 BHK. None of their properties cost more than Rs. 30-40 Lakh per unit, which means great affordability and that is the driving force behind their business. Every year, Kamal Associates successfully deliver 500-700 units to their clients, which includes their own buildings as well as brokered properties. The diversity of business is one of their hallmarks though they mainly deal in constructing and selling Builder Floors.

By 2022, Pulkit plans to take Kamal Associates pan-India and for that, he is already working hard, both on the ground as well as online, on social media like Facebook. On YouTube, Pulkit can be seen showing off the properties to his viewers in an enthusiastic manner. Perhaps that is why his viewership runs into millions and he is closer to hitting his first million subscribers soon. His robust presence on YouTube as well as Facebook is proof that this “Young Entrepreneur” holds the key to his own future, which also includes growth for his investors, whom he is currently in touch with, for the growth of his business.

Currently one of the youngest builders in the country, Pulkit manages a team of 200-250 persons, which includes a large number of indirect associates, such as vendors, marketers, etc.

Speaking about his plan for the future, Pulkit says categorically, “I am a second-general builder but my father’s foundation of business gives me the confidence to carry on providing affordable properties to Indians in a clear and transparent manner. We believe in growth that is unadulterated. Therefore, our inventory sells even before the construction is complete. With the market showing positive growth signs and rates set to rise 25% – 30% in the future, our commitment to provide budget homes to buyers will remain unshaken.”

Disclaimer: This is a company press release. No HT journalist is involved in creation of this content.

Bitcoin rallied back above $50,000, surpassing the key psychological level as bullish momentum returned after last week’s selloff.

The digital token climbed 8% to trade around $51,500 in early U.S. trading, reaching the highest level in a week. The cryptocurrency has been volatile. Prices plunged 21% last week and have recovered with the broad bounce back in equities.

The swings in Bitcoin and Ethereum give “the impression that they are a general barometer of risk sentiment,” said Steen Jakobsen, chief investment officer of Saxo Bank.

On Tuesday, prices dipped 2.9% after Gary Gensler, nominee for chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, said that making sure crypto markets are free of fraud and manipulation is a challenge for the agency.

Gensler, who served as a Commodity Futures Trading Commission chairman during the Obama administration, has been viewed as a strong advocate for digital assets. He serves as a senior advisor to the MIT Media Lab Digital Currency Initiative and teaches about blockchain technology and digital currencies.

“While the Bitcoin market reacted quickly to his comments, Gensler was largely positive about Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies,” said John Wu, president of blockchain technology firm Ava Labs. “I’m hopeful the new administration will help foster innovation in blockchains, cryptocurrencies and digital assets, instead of stifling it.”

The Goods and Services Tax (GST) council–the apex federal body on indirect taxation–is expected to consider removing inverted duty anomalies suffered by several sectors such as textile, fertiliser and footwear this month, two people aware of the development said.

This is an old issue that required urgent attention now as businesses involved in these sectors are unable to claim input-tax credit (ITC) because of higher levies on raw materials (or inputs) compared to the finished goods, they said requesting anonymity. Inverted duty structure is a situation in which inputs are taxed at a higher rate than finished goods.

The council could not correct it in the past, particularly during last year due to the pandemic, because it would have had an adverse impact on either GST revenue collections or consumer prices of the finished products, one person said. The GST council is chaired by the Union finance minister and has finance ministers of states as its members. The council’s decisions are often unanimous.

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The council is expected to meet this month, but a date is yet to be finalised, the first person said.

“Inverted duty structure can be corrected either by reducing GST on inputs or by raising levies on finished products. Now, with rapid economic recovery and robust GST collections, this matter could be resolved. But, the final decision depends on the GST council,” the second person said.

The Indian economy has come out of recession in the third quarter of 2020 ending December 31, with a 0.4% growth after remaining in contraction mode for two consecutive quarters due to a 68-day hard lockdown since March 25 to check the spread of Covid-19. This also reflected in the GST collections. After remaining in contraction mode for six months in a row, GST revenue increased from September 2020 and crossed the INR1 lakh crore mark in subsequent months.

Archit Gupta, the founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of the financial technology platform ClearTax, said the GST council had discussed the issue in the past, but without a conclusion. “The main reason is the loss of revenue resulting from any reduction of tax rates on the inputs,” he said.

“The inverted tax structure causes a ripple effect on the fund flow of a business. It blocks the working capital for businesses due to input tax credit accumulation,” he added.

According to Divakar Vijayasarathy, the founder and managing partner of consulting firm DVS Advisors LLP, said GST on input is higher than GST on output in some manufactured goods such as footwear, man-made yarn and LED lights. “The most critical impact is on the working capital of the businesses since GST paid at higher rates on inputs is blocked till the grant of refund,” he said. The refund process is cumbersome and tends to be vulnerable to litigations, he added.

Experts said such anomalies should also be corrected vis-a-vis service inputs. “The same situation arises when traders use e-commerce platforms to trade lower GST rate items or nil rate items and the platforms charge commission at 18% GST. Input-tax credit on commission pileups is of no use to the taxpayer, which ultimately affects business profitability and increased prices of items,” Kapil Rana, a chartered accountant and founder of HostBooks Ltd, a cloud-based accounting platform, said.

“The solution to inverted duty structure is imminent as has been mentioned by the FM in the Budget and the time has come to put the matter for the consideration of the council,” the first person said.

Delivering the budget speech on February 1, Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said: “The GST council has painstakingly thrashed out thorny issues. As chairperson of the council, I want to assure the House that we shall take every possible measure to smoothen the GST further, and remove anomalies such as the inverted duty structure.”

Technology giants Facebook Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Google and credit-card providers Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. are among those vying for unprecedented access to India’s burgeoning digital retail payments market.The companies are part of four consortia preparing to apply for licenses to operate retail payments and settlement systems in the country, people familiar with the matter said. More companies could band together before a March 31 application deadline.

In a market where cash is still king, digital payments are quickly gaining ground as India’s 1.3 billion people are starting to embrace online shopping and services such as online gaming and streaming. With Credit Suisse Group AG predicting $1 trillion in online payments in India in 2023, the companies chosen to enable such transactions stand to reap lucrative commissions.

“India’s mobile digital payments is seeing huge growth in a post-pandemic world,” said Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder and chief executive officer of New Delhi-based payment provider Paytm. “It’s a good time to open up more diverse payments solutions and keep the momentum going.”One of the consortia consists of Amazon, Visa, Indian retail banks ICICI Bank Ltd. and Axis Bank Ltd. as well as fintech startups Pine Labs and BillDesk. Another group is led by billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd. and its partners Facebook and Alphabet Inc.’s Google, which together agreed to invest more than $10 billion in Reliance’s digital services unit last year.

Sharma’s Paytm heads a group that includes ride-hailing startup Ola and at least five other companies. The fourth consortium consists of Tata Group, Mastercard, telecom operator Bharti Airtel Ltd. and retail banks Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd. and HDFC Bank Ltd.

Sharma, a spokeswoman for Tata Group and a spokesman for Google declined to comment on the potential bidders. Amazon and Facebook didn’t respond to emailed questions.The contest is fierce as regulator Reserve Bank of India is expected to give just one or two licenses, as implied in its notification inviting bids. The process to decide the winners could take at least six months and it could be a further year or more before the systems and solutions come into use.The winners will take on National Payments Corporation of India, the sole pioneering umbrella organization backed by more than 50 retail banks. Its Unified Payments Interface, or UPI, protocol debuted in 2016 and set the digital payments arena afire by allowing users to link their phone numbers to their bank accounts. That made transferring and receiving money via apps as easy as sending a text message, allowing large scale and high volumes of transactions to happen at minimal cost.”The regulator probably doesn’t want concentration risk as the UPI backbone has become critical to the economy,” said Nandan Nilekani, who conceived and built a biometric identity database the system uses to identify users. “With more licensees and these systems presumably being able to operate seamlessly with each other, the aim seems to be to reinvigorate innovation and push digital payments even deeper into the country,” said Nilekani, co-founder and chairman of IT services company Infosys Ltd.

Though commissions on digital payments are thin, the volume is potentially huge as India tries to reduce its reliance on cash. Card and mobile payments represented only 21% of $781 billion in retail purchases at brick-and-mortar stores in 2019, according to an estimate by S&P Global Market Intelligence.

The new licensees could make money by charging businesses transaction fees. They can also break new territory by setting up and operating ATMs, point-of-sale systems, remittance services and new innovative payment solutions.

“There seems to be a prime mix of regulatory support and innovation attracting investors to the space right now,” said Anis Uzzaman, general partner and chief executive officer of Silicon Valley-based Pegasus Tech Ventures, an investor in Robinhood and other fintech startups. “A new generation of entrepreneurs is grabbing the opportunity.”

The government has room to cut excise duty on petrol and diesel by up to INR8.5 per litre without impacting its target for revenue from the tax on the two fuels, analysts said.

Petrol and diesel prices hover at a historic high following a relentless increase in rates over the past nine months. There have been calls by opposition parties as well as sections of society to the government to reduce excise duty to ease consumer pain.

“We estimate excise duty on auto fuels in FY22 (April 2021 to March 2022), if it is not cut, at INR4.35 lakh crore versus budget estimate of INR3.2 lakh crore.

“Thus, even if excise duty is cut by INR8.5 per litre on or before April 1, 2021, FY22E budget estimate can be met,” ICICI Securities said in a note.

It expressed optimism for an excise duty cut given demand recovery, impending privatisation and inflation concerns but expected it to be more modest than INR8.5 a litre.

Excise duty was raised by INR13 and INR16 per litre on petrol and diesel between March 2020 and May 2020, and now stands at INR31.8 on diesel and INR32.9 per litre on petrol.

The increase in excise duty was to mop up gains arising from international crude oil prices falling to a two-decade low.

But, with oil prices recovering, it has not yet restored the taxes to their original levels.

“If the cut is more modest, which we expect, FY22 excise duty will be higher than the budget estimate,” ICICI Securities said.

Central and state taxes make up for 60 per cent of the retail selling price of petrol and over 54 per cent of diesel.

Petrol is priced at INR91.17 per litre in Delhi and diesel comes for INR81.47.

The rates of regular petrol had last month crossed the INR100-mark at a few places in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, which levy the highest value-added tax (VAT) on the fuel in the country.

Between November 2014 and January 2016, the government had raised excise duty on petrol and diesel on nine occasions to take away gains arising from plummeting global oil prices.

In all, duty on petrol rate was hiked by INR11.77 per litre and that on diesel by 13.47 a litre in those 15 months that helped the government’s excise mop-up more than double to INR2,42,000 crore in 2016-17, from INR99,000 crore in 2014-15.

The government had cut excise duty by INR2 in October 2017, and by INR1.50 a year later. But, it raised excise duty by INR2 per litre in July 2019. It again raised excise duty on March 2020, by INR3 per litre each. In May that year, the government hiked excise duty on petrol by INR10 per litre and that on diesel by INR13 a litre.