India Joins Global Markets In Greenland-Triggered Fall
Global markets fell once again as US President Donald Trump dug his heels on Project Greenland and ratcheted up the pressure on European leaders
On Episode 778 of The Core Report, financial journalist Govindraj Ethiraj talks to Professor Prasanna Tantri, Associate Professor of Finance and Executive Director of the Centre for Analytical Finance (CAF) at ISB as well as Ambareesh Baliga, Market Expert.
SHOW NOTES
(00:00) Stories of the Day
(00:50) India joins global markets in Greenland-triggered fall
(04:28) Silver and gold continue to rise
(05:36) The US attacked Venezuela for its oil but American oil companies are dragging their feet
(07:47) Why really are Indian markets falling the way they are?
(16:10) Should the Government reduce capital expenditure in this Union Budget?
Register for India Energy Week 2026
https://www.indiaenergyweek.com/forms/register-as-a-delegate
NOTE: This transcript contains the host's monologue and includes interview transcripts by a machine. Human eyes have gone through the script but there might still be errors in some of the text, so please refer to the audio in case you need to clarify any part. If you want to get in touch regarding any feedback, you can drop us a message on feedback@thecore.in.
—
Good morning, it's Wednesday the 21st of January and this is Govindraj Ethiraj broadcasting and streaming weekdays from Mumbai. India's financial capital.
Our top stories and themes...
India joins global markets in a Greenland triggered fall.
Silver and gold quite obviously continue to rise to new highs.
Should the government reduce capital expenditure in the coming union budget?
Why really aren't Indian markets falling the way they are and are there any silver linings ahead?
And the US attacked Venezuela for its oil but American oil companies continue to drag their feet on going back in.
Global Markets
Global markets fell once again as US President Donald Trump dug his heels on Project Greenland and ratcheted up the pressure on European leaders even as he waited to see what the other side or sides would come back with in what clearly is a well-established and documented negotiating tactic which of course causes considerable damage across global markets. Trump intensified his rhetoric on Greenland, threatening to impose new tariffs on countries opposing the sale of that Danish territory to the United States. On Tuesday morning, futures were pointing to a drop of 718 points for the Dow Jones Industrial Average according to CNBC.
Trump announced in a Truth Social post on Saturday, which is where he usually unleashes these bombs, that eight NATO members, US imports will face escalating tariffs until such time as a deal is reached for a complete and total purchase of Greenland. The tariffs would start at 10% on February 1st and rise to 25% on June 1st. Indian markets plunged as well, though for an additional reason, a disappointing earnings season, which appears contrary to expectations, which must also prompt the question why were the expectations so off since analysts track companies and industry performances quite closely.
The larger problem as we see here in the core report is the narrative damage, which suggested that the economy and companies were on the path to firm recovery or even a turnaround by the third quarter leading on to the fourth quarter of the current financial year, which of course does not seem to have happened, or at least the way it appears right now. And of course, foreign portfolio investors are continuing to sell Indian stocks. They've sold over $3 billion in January now, including some on Monday, which makes it the highest since August.
Not surprisingly, Indian stocks fell to their lowest levels in over three months in a broad sell-off led by IT, shares, and reliance industries, according to Reuters. Now, IT companies, incidentally, that have reported numbers so far have largely taken a hit to their bottom line due to India's new labour codes, which is mostly in the form of gratuity payments. The nifty 50 and Sensex fell to their lowest closing levels in more than three months.
As we said, the broader small caps and mid caps fell almost 3% each, that's 2.9 and 2.6% to close at 8 months and 3 months. The Sensex continued its downward journey to fall 1,065 points or 1.28% to close at 82,180. The nifty was down 353 points to close at 25,232.
This was the steepest single day decline since April 2025. The nifty now is at its lowest closing level since October 15, 2025. While the Greenland factor weighed on markets globally, India is still grappling with the unresolved bilateral tariff agreement with the United States, which demonstrates the breakdown of relations more than anything else.
Markets are, of course, set to be volatile for some time. The union budget is coming up on the 1st of February, and it will need to provide some extra strong dose of medicines to inject some life into both the markets and industry and the economy as a whole. As we've argued before, unless the budget outlines radical steps, whether in opening up of the economy further, like crashing import tariffs or reducing taxes on consumption further, and elsewhere on investments into the market, like long-term capital gains, not much will change, at least sentimentally.
The rupee extended losses to a fifth consecutive session on Tuesday as strong dollar demand continued to put pressure, while a fresh low was averted after possible Reserve Bank of India intervention, according to Reuters, which added that the rupee closed at Rs 90.97 to a dollar, just under 91, and the unit has lost about 1% in five sessions. The metals, of course, continued to shine. Gold went past the $4,700 an ounce mark for the first time on Tuesday, and silver was just below a fresh record high.
Spot gold is at about $4,727 per ounce, and silver is at about $95.34, having gone above that a little earlier, all of this on Tuesday. So gold has now climbed 9.5% in just 20 days this year, and over 70% since Trump's second term began a year ago. This figure is from Reuters.
So if you were to bet on Trump, at least when it comes to silver and metal, you would have gained about 70% since Trump took over. Silver, meanwhile, rose 147% in 2025, also supported by its designation as a US critical mineral, and silver in 2026, or the last three weeks, has gained 33.7%. So note that down. It's almost 34% gain for silver in the month of January, and January is still 10 days to go.
The India Energy Week Segment
Oil prices were steady on Tuesday as investors waited and watched what happened to President Trump's threats of higher tariffs on various European countries over his drive to acquire or buy Greenland. And on the other hand, there was better than expected economic data from China, which provided a floor to prices according to Reuters.
Brent futures were down slightly at about $63.83 on Tuesday, and West Texas Intermediate was at about $58.95. Meanwhile, a Wall Street Journal report says a rapid escalation in oil investments in Venezuela isn't on the cards, even for Chevron, the only US oil company operating in the oil-rich Latin American country. Chevron wanted a piece of Nicolas Maduro's Venezuela so it could make significant investments when the country's political fortunes changed. Maduro is of course out, but President Trump's Venezuela does not look much different, says the Wall Street Journal.
Trump wants US oil companies to pour something like $100 billion into Venezuela's neglected oil sector and to do so as soon as possible. But before making an investment there, and I guess this is the big lesson for business in general and for politicians who think business will jump at a snap of the finger. Before making a big investment there, oil executives want to see stability in Venezuela and higher oil prices that translate to profits, according to sources who spoke to Wall Street Journal, which of course is a larger lesson.
Businesses and business leaders want certainty first before they make investments, and most large investments, whether in oil or elsewhere, have gone slow globally in the last year, and particularly after July. Chevron's caution also shows how far Trump's aspirations for a speedy Venezuelan oil revival are from what the US oil industry considers to be a realistic timeline, according to Wall Street Journal.
The Market Fall
The year 2026 has not begun the way we thought it would, and markets have been taking a beating almost since the year began, and it's just three weeks. What explains the heightened negative sentiment in the markets, and what are the symptoms telling us? I reached out to veteran market expert Ambareesh Baliga, and I began by asking him how he was seeing the damage of the last few weeks, and what was indeed driving it as a principal reason.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Ambareesh Baliga: See, in fact, if you see the last couple of months, the markets have been falling, but Nifty was touching new highs. So when I say markets were falling, it is most of the other stocks other than the index stocks were in fact falling. Most of the portfolios were bleeding, except for mutual funds, which have comparatively done better, and because of which they continue to get the liquidity and the SIPs.
So why have the markets been falling? I think the major issue has been Mr. Trump and the geopolitical issues around that, which we have seen escalating in the recent past. And right now, I think it's mainly because of whatever is happening on as far as Greenland is concerned.
So there is a fear that it will have possibly far-reaching consequences. And because of which we have seen like gold and silver also shooting up. We have never seen these sort of levels ever in the past.
Now, the question is, can the US go to war for Greenland? And I think the other issues which are there, like I mentioned, clearly tariffs, because there's nothing called a long-term agreement. I mean, things can change for the whims and fancies of Mr. Trump. I mean, I would surely look at it in a different way altogether. Can America go to war over Greenland? The question which I asked earlier, I mean, will people within support this?
I think there's a big question mark on that, because even internally, a lot of people have been warning him about what he's doing as far as Greenland is concerned, may actually boomerang. And it could possibly turn out to be a waterloo. On the other reason is, I mean, the way President Trump has been adding adversaries globally, Euro was his ally.
And see what's happening now. So he's in fact ensuring that the rest of the world comes together. I mean, like everyone is signing off trade agreements with each other.
And we have already signed a few. I think next is going to be EU, after that possibly Canada. So over the next few months, I mean, we could see the beginning of a new global order.
I mean, things don't happen overnight, but over a period of time. And I suppose India will finally be in a position to play a major role in that new order. So the way I see it is, after every crisis, you'll have a new sunrise.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Okay, you said that basically, the markets have been falling consistently. And you really said that beyond the nifty, you know, the smaller caps and so on have been sort of sliding. Now, my question is, apart from the Trump factor, which of course has been with us one way or the other since August in at least on the day, we saw those 50 percentiles, what else is keeping or driving the markets down?
Ambareesh Baliga: No, I think the other reason was that we have seen an extremely good move post COVID till about September 2024. A lot of stocks are becoming multibaggers, like I don't remember seeing so many multibaggers in my close to about 40 years in the market. I mean, out of the listed about two and a half, three thousand stocks, we have seen more than 600 to 700 multibaggers during that period, which means that most of the stocks which had become multibaggers clearly had become overvalued.
And somewhere it had to correct. So the correction, which started post September 2024, and that's what we saw initially happening as far as the small and mid caps are concerned. And if you're talking about valuations overall, yes, valuations were expensive.
And that's the reason we saw overall correction in the market. And even the earnings did not really keep pace, because at least till Q1 of FY26, we have seen some sort of a slowdown. Only from Q2 onwards, we saw at least some slightly better earnings coming.
Even Q3 we are seeing is more or less mixed. But Amrish, Q3 was supposed to be the turnaround quarter, isn't it? It was supposed to be a turnaround quarter.
I think it's still a bit too early. The earnings are just about to start coming. Like I said, it is more or less mixed.
I mean, you have a couple of decent ones and you have some which are disappointed. But I still expect that Q3 should be slightly better than what we saw in Q2.
Govindraj Ethiraj: And how are you seeing the different classes of investors react? So foreign portfolio investors are clearly continuing to sell. They have sold almost $3 billion or a little more in January itself, which is three weeks, which is higher than previous months.
And how are you seeing other classes of investors behave right now? And could anything change?
Ambareesh Baliga: No, what has changed like the last four years post-COVID and the last few months is that the retail investors who are investing directly, I'm not talking about retail investors who are investing through mutual funds, but retail investors who are investing directly, even HNIs, and I would even include family offices and PMSs out there. Their portfolios were majorly in the red because most of these people invest more into the mid-cap and small caps as compared to the large caps. I mean, I've seen portfolios which are down 30, 40, even 50% from the peak they had seen.
So once it starts hurting you, I mean, initially the behaviour is that, I mean, when the markets come down, you tend to invest more. If you see the past three, four years, five years, whenever the markets are corrected, you are invested, you made money. So the general behaviour is that you keep investing at every fall.
But at some point of time, you tend to run out of liquidity and then you're left with just a portfolio, which is bleeding. So at some point of time, either you stop investing fresh or you possibly say, quit and exit the portfolio completely. I mean, that has happened to a number of investors.
And quite a few of them have also been forced to exit because there are a lot of people who possibly are going for margin funding. So they are forced to quit. And when this happens, then you have a cascading effect because it keeps affecting one after another till the last man standing is there.
Govindraj Ethiraj: And as you look ahead, Ambrish, are there any silver linings in all of this? One, of course, must be better valuations, but that's assuming people have the propensity or desire to buy in. And the second is the budgets around the corner.
Is there a sort of expectation from the budget, at least a market expectation?
Ambareesh Baliga: No, I mean, see, what has happened again in the last 10-12 years is the effect of the budget does not really last beyond a day or two. I think only two budgets in the last 10 years had an effect beyond 10 days. I think 2016 and 2021, if I'm not wrong.
Other than that, none of the budgets had much of an effect. So I really don't think this time it will be very different because, again, I think the finance minister will have to do a very tightrope walk because the revenue collections have been lower than projected. But expectations are still quite high about the sort of a spend which should be there on infrastructure.
Because of US treaty not happening, I think the support to a number of sectors have to increase. So I think from that point of view, I don't think the finance minister will be able to do anything much.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. So last question. So the only sentiment turnaround, as you say, or from what I can gather from what you're saying is really this Greenland thing dying down, which is, of course, very recent.
It only started over the weekend. And then the larger bilateral tax agreement being signed. Absolutely.
Ambareesh Baliga: At the same time, see, at some point of time, you will have the valuations, I mean, to be extremely cheap. I mean, you'll have a lot of screaming buys in the market and you need some smart investors to start buying. It's not that no one would be sitting on cash.
I mean, you surely have some smart investors sitting on cash and starting to buy. So once that starts happening, I think we will see some sort of a turnaround as far as the small and mid caps are concerned. And when it comes to the large caps, we still have mutual funds having a decent amount of liquidity.
So I think that's what will take the markets up at some point of time. Because when you have that initial buying starting to happen, irrespective of whatever happened in the past, you will have people coming back to join that momentum.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. Ambareesh, thank you so much for joining me.
Ambareesh Baliga: Thank you.
Expenditure
The private sector is not stepping up, so will the government continue to boost capital expenditure at the intensity it's done before, and if so, where? Reports and projections suggest the government is likely to maintain its focus on capital expenditure in the upcoming budget with a 10-15% increase in its target. There are of course other figures, but also questions on where the government should be funnelling its capital expenditure, and indeed where else it I reached out to Prasanna Tantri, an Associate Professor of Finance and the Executive Director of the Centre for Analytical Finance at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, who in 2024 was appointed as a member of the Technical Advisory Committee for the Evaluation of Schemes for the Promotion of Digital Payments in India under the NITI Aayog, among other positions, and I began by asking him the one aspect of the budgeting process he was most focused on.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Prof. Prasanna Tantri: My focus has always been on government expenditures. Look, budget is about government, you know, revenues and spending. And government expenditure is what drives the whole thing.
And from, we had touched like 15-15.5% of the GDP in terms of our total expenditure. We used to be at 13-13.5% understandably due to COVID. That's totally understandable.
And the good news is we have started our downward journey. Last year was 14 odd percent. So, I would like to see back to like 12 and I wouldn't say immediately.
Let's say our GDP is going to be FM, let's say predict 370-380 lakh crores. So, that makes the budget 37 and around 50-53 lakh crores of total budget expenditure. Not more than 52 lakh crores.
So, last year was 50. So, I hope this does not cross 52.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Okay. So, where is this going for someone who's trying to understand why it went up and then why it could go down or how it could go down? Could you walk us through those details?
It went up for two reasons.
Prof. Prasanna Tantri: One is I think is a genuine reason during COVID. Tax collections went down and government had to stimulate the economy. And that is totally understandable.
That is one reason. Second reason is a bit, I'm going to be a contrarian here and I've been for a while. Hopefully, I'll have more sympathisers going forward.
People don't like. Is this capex? We have, some people have sold this idea that as long as you classify an accounting term something as capex, it's productive.
Even if it's an airport in a godforsaken area, you know, as long as you account it as capex, suddenly it's supposed to lead to multipliers. So, this whole idea that, and as long as you call something as non-capex, it's supposed to be wasteful. For instance, I have studied Ayushman Bharat very, very carefully and I can watch, I published a paper in the management science.
I think conservatively multiplier of Ayushman Bharat is five. I don't see any expenditure, which has such large multiplier. And we spend like 15, budget spends 10, 12,000 crores and totally stays together 20,000 crores.
In my books, there is a case for Vande Bharat, but there is no case for budget tax money being used for Vande Bharat. There is a case for building village roads. There is a case for making highways where private sector is unwilling to invest.
There is a case for Mumbai metro. There is a case for a lot of things. So, capex, we have to, you know, this 12 lakh crore, 13 lakh crore has to happen in capex.
That is one big thing that I think last two years, if you see, if you check actual sources budgeted, I think we have already hit capacity. It's the first time actuals have been lower than budgeted in the last two years. And I think it's a good thing because FM has delivered a great tax cut.
After delivering great tax cut, if you're going to see deficits and then we will have, you know, that's what's happening in the market. If you observe now, interest rates on 10 year is 6.7. As we spoke, it used to be 6.2 not long ago. The jump has come after the GST cut.
And despite repo rate cut, now the repo rate is going down. If we should remember the list trust episode, I'm not quoting history, you know, where the government cut taxes, did not cut expenditure, you know, what happened, we know. And when central bank is cutting rates and the markets are increasing rates, you know, that's a very clear signal.
And this is not centre. The other problem is state governments. Other thing I would want to see this repeated expansion of FRBM target for state government.
There is a policy that central government is well-intentioned policy. Again, I don't question motives that if you do, let's say LXCB reform, you can borrow half a percent extra. If you do some other reform, the carrot central government gives is you can borrow half.
The carrot is too expensive, you know, half a percent if they borrow. In fact, going, I used to tell students that state governments cannot print money. But as we speak, state governments are printing money because they are borrowing and RBI is doing OMOs.
So basically, state governments are printing money. It's a very strange situation we are in. So I think government expenditure needs to be to make the tax cut a real reform and not just a stimulus.
The question is, was the GST cut a stimulus or a reform? If the whole idea was a stimulus, the question comes at 8%. Why do you need a stimulus?
If it was stimulus, then fine, you know, then don't cut expenditure. But if it's a reform, then the real benefit is when you cut expenditure and let private sector have more resources. Remember, our savings rates are going down from last 15-20 years.
It's nothing to do with the government. It seems to be like preferences and FDI has become scarce. So if you don't invest and our capital stock is increasing, so depreciation is increasing.
So given all of that, resources need to go to private sector. Government should not take away the benefit of they have given through tax cut by not cutting expenditure. So my only one wish from the budget, cut expenditure and cut capital expenditure.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. So you said that, I mean, I'll pick on both the points that you made. One is you said that there are things being classified as capex, which should not be.
Prof. Prasanna Tantri: No, I didn't say they are capex in an accounting sense, but not in an economic sense. Just because you put material together and build a building does not make it productive. It needs to add to the, you know, there needs to be labour.
For instance, I build an airport in some very random place. Only one flight goes. It doesn't add to the economy.
In fact, it's a drain because you have to maintain it. It sucks resources. There's no multiplier there.
So the question is, ask this simple question, a rupee from the taxpayer I've taken, where is the multiplier higher? Don't go by accounting classification and put it.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Got it. I think the government's argument would be that we build and they will come. So with all capex, right, we'll build highways or expressways, we'll build airports, we'll build ports and private sector will catch up and demand will catch up.
So, I mean, that's the thinking. But you're feeling that points are not converging. Yeah, I like your pushback.
Prof. Prasanna Tantri: But then look at the evidence, you know, then show me evidence that it has led to businesses in those regions, you know, many of them are shutting down. Or show me evidence that this kind of taxpayer funded some trains have added to the economy. I can clearly see Mumbai metro adding to the economy.
If given an opportunity, I can study and show. See, if something is positive in PV, we have to make two arguments. One, first, we have to argue that markets are unable to fund it.
First argument is why our markets are not funding it. You have to first show a market failure. Why is that?
See, Vande Bharat is a commercial thing, you know, market should fund it. If the market is not funding it, then you should ask why? That means what is the market failure?
If there is no market failure, then if you take away taxpayer's money and put it, there are alternate uses. So I'm not saying all these are useless. The question is there is only limited resource.
We don't have the luxury of spending and waiting. The point is our savings rate is going down. We have important things, you know, like health, education, even infrastructure in urban areas, you know, there is needed.
For instance, the government's own programme, 100 smart cities. I'm not against, I'm not a deficit hawk or anything. For those kinds of things, I would say happily borrow, you know, because I can clearly see it's positive NPV.
So the question is, it's a simple finance perspective. If it is positive NPV, borrow. Don't borrow for negative NPV stuff.
Unless it is socially important, somebody is dying, some poor person, you know, there is a, again, there I can see. I don't see a reason for spending on things which are neither socially important nor positive.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. So since you quoted the example of Ayushman Bharat, which is an insurance scheme, health insurance scheme. Now, and you said there is a multiplier effect.
I mean, just so that since you mentioned it, could you explain what you meant by that? And this is to illustrate non-capital spending.
Prof. Prasanna Tantri: Yes, we are far more careful. So we use the fact that four states did not adopt Ayushman Bharat. Now most of them are adopted for political reasons.
That's from Orissa, Bengal, Delhi and Telangana at that time. And then I went to the border regions of the states versus the neighbouring states which did adopt, which included Congress ruled states as well, like Punjab, for instance, you know, they did Andhra Pradesh was the TDP. I looked at the border regions.
First thing I found was the default rate on microfinance loans was 30% lower after Ayushman Bharat rollout among Ayushman Bharat beneficiaries. It's a triple difference. Treated controlled regions before and after and among Ayushman Bharat beneficiaries.
Because there is a very nice cutoff that if your Kisan credit card limit is above 50,000, you don't get Ayushman Bharat. So I find that an Andhra farmer versus a Telangana farmer who is less than 50,000, he starts defaulting less after. Then I looked at their medical expenditure, out of pocket expenditure fell by like 20%.
Then what's the channel? Channel was very interesting. Poor people, I realised, then I did, you know, when I went and spoke to them, they do precautionary savings.
Because there are health shocks before Ayushman Bharat, there's nothing. See, one of the things some state governments say we have so many programmes, but you know it, they don't have money to fund these programmes. These programmes are there, but Ayushman Bharat was the first time where there was a lot of money provided.
So what I found is the precautionary savings is going down. And earlier, they would rather default on a loan and keep money because of precaution. Now they use it for loan repayment, which improved access to credit.
So only through loan repayment channel, I could establish that it's a multiplier is at least, you know, I said three to five in the paper. There could be other benefits also. So I don't see a reason why Ayushman Bharat cannot be expanded.
For instance, private, you know, there also is tremendous scope for reforms. We have artificially capped prices for private hospitals. And we hope, you know, why should doctors subsidise Ayushman Bharat?
Why should private hospitals subsidise? Then everybody should subsidise. So I think there is scope to do this, remove those restrictions and be generous with these kind of programmes, which actually contribute to the economy.
And that's what I'm saying, don't go with classification. Let's look at the NPV or the multiplier in crude language, NPV in a more sophisticated language and fund those programmes.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. Last question, Prasanna, if I were to come back to where we started. So if I ask you to identify one head of capital expenditure, which you think we should consciously do away with starting February 1st, what would that be?
Prof. Prasanna Tantri: One is obviously, as I said, airport expansion in non bigger areas and rather I will go with district hospital if you really want to do capex there. The other thing is trains. IRCTC is now stop borrowing.
Can you believe because they are budget funded? You know, why can't you borrow? You know, let them borrow because if you borrow, then your market discipline comes into picture, at least where you charge.
I understand the trains where you subsidise, it's not positive NPV, I get it. But where you charge fully, there is no reason for using taxpayer money. Absolutely no reason.
I think overall, again, just to clarify, I'm just all that same is don't make it 12 lakh crore, make it 10 lakh crore. And maybe 1 lakh crore you lose by taxes. 10 lakh crore is also huge.
It's two and a half, 3% of the GDP. And during UPA, it used to be one and a half, 2%. It's still much, much higher.
It need not be watch space 4%. That world was different. You know, we had no infrastructure then.
And savings rate used to be 40%. Now our savings rate we have to realise is 30%. We don't have savings.
WatchBJ when he did 4%, savings rate used to be 40%. We don't have savings. So otherwise interest rates will go up.
If RBI artificially tries to suppress, like we are saying, 10 year is going up and then eventually things will go out of control. RBI cannot control long term interest rate. This is something they have to realise very soon.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. Prasanna, we've run out of time. Thank you so much for joining me.
Prof. Prasanna Tantri: Thank you.
No More Cancellations
Meanwhile, IndiGo, the airline, has promised to behave in a manner of speaking.
It informed the DGCA, the Airline Regulatory Authority in India, that it will not cancel any flights after February 10th when it will start implementing the full set of Flight Duty Time Limitation or FDTL norms, as it now has a sufficient number of pilots on its rolls according to a report in the Business Standard. Last December, the DGCA placed some FDTL rules in abeyance for IndiGo until February 10th to allow it to stabilise its operations following a complete meltdown in early December, something that many of us had the misfortune of experiencing or if not us, those close to us. IndiGo had cancelled 4,290 flights between the 1st and 9th of December after it fell short of pilots to implement the new FDTL rules, which introduced more humane working hours for crew and came into effect in November, which means less working hours.
On Monday, the DGCA met with IndiGo and the latter apparently said they have enough pilots to meet their projected operational requirements. They said they would need 2,280 captains by February 10th and they had 2,400 and they would need about 2,050 first officers and they had 2,240 on the rolls. Meanwhile, the general feeling is that IndiGo has got away with a slap on the wrist for its mess-up in December.
It was fined just Rs 22 crore for these lapses and directed to furnish bank guarantees worth about 50 crores to be released only after visible improvements in operations. For the last financial year, IndiGo reported a net profit of roughly Rs 7,250 crore and presumably most people are seeing these fines and bank guarantees in that context as I would too and saying that it is not enough.
