Morning Buzz: Top Tesla officials to meet commerce minister, ITC demerges hotel business but retains stake, and more

A top team from Tesla is expected to meet the commerce minister Piyush Goyal soon to discuss plans to set up car and battery manufacturing plants in India. Image: Kunal Patil/Hindustan Times via Getty Images

Markets to settle transactions instantly

Market regulator SEBI is considering a system to allow market transactions to settle instantly. After the smooth rollout of ASBA (Application Supported by Blocked Amount) this will be the next step where given the technology stack, UPI facility and online facility market transactions can be settled instantaneously. This would mean that investors could move from one trade to the other on the same day as well as the fact that investors would not be able to trade if there are no funds in their demat accounts. As of now the settlement cycle is T+1, which means funds are credited to investor accounts the next day.
(Economic Times, Business Standard, Mint, Financial Express)

Top Tesla officials to meet the Commerce Minister

A top team from Tesla is expected to meet the commerce minister Piyush Goyal soon to discuss plans to set up car and battery manufacturing plants in India. This comes after Elon Musk had a meeting with Goyal two weeks ago to discuss these plans. The company currently has plants in the USA, China, Germany, Canada, Mexico and the Netherlands. Setting up a plant in India would require extensive coordination between the commerce ministry as well as the electronics ministry. Tesla has been angling for subsidies but it is unclear whether the Indian government plans to change rules for the carmarker.
(Economic Times)

IT department sends 100,000 tax notices

The government has sent 100,000 tax notices to assesses whose income was above Rs50 lakh and where it suspects they may have not declared income correctly. The notices have been sent for the last six assessment years and the IT department plans to close the cases by 31 March 2024. For the current tax filing year it plans to clear all filings by early next month and start issuing refunds.
(Business Standard, Economic Times)

ITC demerges hotel business but still retains a stake

ITC has separated the hotel business into a wholly owned company but will still retain a 60 percent stake in the demerger company. This would mean the company still controls the company and resulted in the demerger plans falling short of market expectations. The news sent the stock price plunging 3.87 percent. Before the demerger announcement ITCs market cap had briefly surpassed Hindustan Unilever’s market cap.  
(Economic Times, Business Standard, Mint, Financial Express)