Weekly Numerics | Investment project completions dip, internet freedom shrinks, but 5G adoption marches forward

A weekly series from Moneycontrol

Weekly Numerics is a weekly column where we bring you three to five charts based on major events or interesting data points that emerged during the week. Several key numbers were released in the week gone by. Here are some of the figures we found interesting.

Despite a capex splurge by the government, investment activities in the first half of FY24 largely remained disappointing. There was a 48 percent year-on-year (YoY) increase in government spending on capex between April and August 2023. But even that did not move the needle on total investments, according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE).

In the quarter ending June 2023, a total of 481 projects worth around Rs 1.5 lakh crore were completed. In the July–September quarter, 377 projects worth around Rs 1 lakh crore have been marked as completed so far. While around 600 projects are generally completed per quarter during non-pandemic years, this number seems to be inching closer to 500 in 2023.

The transport infrastructure sector was the largest contributor to finished projects in the quarter ending September 2023, completing 70 projects involving a total investment of Rs 27,000 crore. Meanwhile, the largest project completed during the quarter was a greenfield steel plant built by NMDC in Chhattisgarh at a cost of around Rs 24,000 crore.

If continued at this pace, by the end of the fiscal year, only projects worth close to Rs 6–6.5 lakh crore would be completed, showing stagnant growth in comparison to the previous two years.

The April-June quarter saw less than 1 percent of the total projects envisaged being turned into completed new capacities. Estimates for the July–September quarter place this figure at just 0.67 percent.

Meanwhile, there has been a drop in the number of new investments announced as well. As many as 1,295 new projects were announced in the last quarter of FY23, but in Q1 FY24, this figure stood at just 414. And it declined further to 404 in the second quarter.

“The fall in new investment proposals and the concomitant fall in completion of projects seem to suggest that the overall investment climate in India is subdued,” said the economic think tank in a bulletin.

The 2023 edition of the Freedom on Net report published by Freedom House, a Washington DC-based non-profit, shows a dip in India’s internet freedom score, following a marginal improvement last year.

India got a score of 50 out of 100, compared to last year’s score of 51. According to the report, this is a wider trend, with global internet freedom seeing a decline for the 13th consecutive year.

“Of the 70 countries covered by Freedom on the Net, conditions for human rights online deteriorated in 29, while only 20 countries registered overall gains. For the ninth consecutive year, China was found to have the worst conditions for internet freedom, though Myanmar came close to surpassing it,” said the report.

On India, the report highlights the several internet shutdowns that were announced in various parts of the country over the course of the year, increased government orders to remove content online, and amendments to the IT Rules, among others, as incidents that have negatively impacted freedom on the internet.

The Pradhan Mantri Street Vendor's AtmaNirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi) scheme, an initiative under the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), now covers more than 50 lakh street vendors across India.

The scheme, which provides collateral-free working capital loans to street vendors, was launched with the objective of rejuvenating the sector, which was badly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, and bringing them into the fold of the formal economy. The scheme also provides incentives in the form of cashback to promote digital transactions.

Around 67 lakh loans have been disbursed so far under the scheme, with a total value exceeding Rs 8,600 crore. More than 22 lakh loans have already been repaid.

The scheme incentivises regular repayments with a 7 percent interest subsidy, and digital transactions are rewarded with cashback up to Rs 1,200 per year. More than Rs 58 crore has been disbursed as cashback to beneficiaries till date.

An estimated 31 million users in India plan to buy 5G smartphones this year, according to a report by Ericsson Consumer Lab. Interestingly, the early adopters of 5G technology in India are generally more advanced users than their counterparts in mature markets.

The country has a larger share of users engaging in 5G-enabled activities such as enhanced video streaming, video calling, multiplayer mobile gaming, and augmented reality (AR) services to a significantly higher degree than countries where the technology has been deployed for a few years. On average, Indian users engaging in these activities spend around two hours more on them than users from mature markets.

Indian users are also generally happy with 5G, reporting a nearly 30 percent increase in satisfaction compared to 4G users. Meanwhile, around 15 percent of the consumers showed a willingness to pay a premium of up to 14 percent for adding application bundles, including video on demand, gaming, and music, to their 5G plans.

The report also says that around 58 percent of Indian users generally find themselves having more than 30 GB unused by the end of the month.