Friday, September 18, 1998
today's calendar
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B U S I N E S S | Friday, September 18, 1998 |
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spotlight today's calendar |
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Move to recast Separate
expressway authority likely |
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RIB bonanza for 46 banks
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Panipat
refinery’s completion this year IT
rules amended |
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Move to recast Planning Commission NEW DELHI, Sept 17 (UNI) — Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Jaswant Singh today said a note is to be sent soon to the Cabinet on restructuring of the Planning Commission. Addressing the Economic Editors Conference here, he said the plan for restructuring of the commission was submitted to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister, after examining it, sent it to the Committee of Secretaries who gave their comments. The committee has suggested some modifications. One of the elements of the restructuring is that the Finance Commission should have closer interaction with the Planning Commission and that its Deputy Chairman should have a greater say in the operations of the Finance Commission. The restructuring will take two to three years. Mr Jaswant Singh expressed himself against capital account convertibility of the rupee saying that it was a saving grace that this had not been done. This probably is the reason why globalisation has faltered. The Economic Advisory Council of the Prime Minister will meet tomorrow to take stock of the present economic situation. Mr Jaswant Singh said it was a misconception that the planning commission is merely a fund allocating body. It keeps the federal structure of the country glued together. No other agency has this ability to strengthen the federal structure. Member secretary to the
Planning Commission S.R. Hashim said even in pure markets
there was planning. In federal set up and in order to put
the economy on a high growth rate, planning was
essential. |
RIB bonanza for 46 banks NEW DELHI, Sept 17 — The SBI has decided to park Rs 6,000 crore of the total Rs 16,000 crore overseas funds mobilised through the Resurgent India Bonds scheme with the 46 collecting banks. Part of the funds would be lent to financial institutions like IDBI, IFCI while the remaining would be put by the banks directly into infrastructure projects. Speaking to newspersons here today, the SBI Chairman, Mr M.S. Verma, said that about 40 per cent of the total funds mobilised through the RIBs would be put into government securities . The SBI would lend directly for infrastructure projects about Rs 3,000 crore. Earlier speaking at a conference of global banking organised by the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) here today, Mr Verma said there has been a qualitative change in banking paradigm in recent times and Indian banks will have to develop a self-regulatory mechanism to monitor activities of members, lay down ground rules and settle disputes among members. Regarding mergers, he said
that it was an inevitability, but without adequate
rationalisation of workforce and branch network, the
desired results may not be forthcoming. |
Separate expressway authority likely NEW DELHI, Sept 17 (PTI) — In its bid to attract foreign investment in the surface transport sector, the government is considering permitting 100 per cent foreign capital from the existing 74 per cent. Addressing the Economic Editors Conference here today, Minister for Surface Transport M. Thambi Durai said the government was in the process of finalising a model concession agreement format to financial institutions to give loans for developing highways. There is a proposal for
creating a separate expressway authority the look after
the development of expressways linking major ports and
the ports with centres of industry and commerce. |
Want power? Wait, PSEB
can’t buy cables CHANDIGARH, Sept 17 — Many industrial units in Punjab are awaiting power connections. In Ludhiana, alone 800 industrialists, who had applied for power connections during the past two years, are awaiting the connections. Despite investments of crores of rupees, their units are non-functional for want of power connections. The PSEB has surplus power, but no transformers, meters, cables, polls etc to supply electricity. As the power board faces a financial crunch, payments to suppliers of these equipment have got held up. The suppliers have stopped the supplies. The Ludhiana Small Scale Manufacturers Association and the Industry and Trade Forum, Punjab were assured by the PSEB, Chairman, Mr S.K. Tuteja, yesterday that all power connections would be released within three months. While the power supply was erratic in cities like Ludhiana, Mr Tuteja told the delegation that the PSEB had surplus power these days and had to shut its units to match the demand. The PSEB asks for no-objection certificates given by municipal corporations and the pollution control board even in the case of industries falling in the “green category”, complains the association. Urging the PSEB to replace all faulty meters, the association said industrialists faced problems during inspections by PSEB flying squads or other officials. Fines were imposed even when meters were found faulty. Suggesting the setting up
of zonal dispute settlement committees, the association
urged Mr Tuteja to increase the power load limits for
small units from 20 kva to 50 kva, for medium units from
100 kva to 150 kva and for large units from 100 kva to
150 kva. |
NEW DELHI, Sept 17 (UNI) — Royal Enfield Motors (REM), part of the Eicher group, has decided to price its much-awaited 624cc motor cycle, to be rolled out by the year-end, around Rs 80,000, Eicher group Chairman Subodh Bhargava said today. Production of the 535cc bike has already commenced. The 535cc engine has been developed and tested while the design and development work for the 624cc engine is in progress and the prototypes are expected to be completed by the third quarter of the current fiscal. Santro export Santro, to be launched in India shortly, has cleared the two road tests under the specifications of VDA, the German Association of Automobile Industry. “Santro has successfully cleared the ‘ELK’ test and the ‘narrow slalom’ test as per specifications certified by the VDA”, HMIL Executive Director J.H. Kim said here yesterday. BMW cars “It does not make good business sense to come to India with a luxury car right now,” Mr Brij Mohan Lall Munjal, chairman of the Hero group, MBW’s joint venture partner for the India venture, told UNI here. Daimler-Benz |
ABOUT two years ago, an enterprising college student in Bangalore challenged the monopoly of the postal service in his own small way. He began, using the Internet, to act as a post office for foreign mail. His subscribers, consisting of neighbours, relatives and friends, would give messages and letters to be send to their children in North America, Europe and Australia. He would send it to their e-mail addresses, receive their replies, take print-outs and distribute them to the subscribers. To the young man, this was one way of helping people keep in touch, at a nominal cost. And at the same time, earn some money, utilising the modern technology at his disposal. Today, more and more people in different parts of the country are providing this kind of “quick mail service” through the electronic mail, thereby reducing the time taken for communicating outside the country. Some of them have even engaged the services of newspaper distributors to collect the mail and again to distribute the replies. Of course, the only disadvantage with this service is that your letter can be read by the person operating the e-mail service. This should certainly come as a rude shock to the postal department, which believes in its invincibility, thanks to Section 4 and Section 6 of the Indian Post Office Act. While Section 4 ensures the monopoly of the government to receive, collect, send, despatch and deliver letters, Section 6 protects the postal department and its employees from inefficiency and sloth by stating that the government shall not incur any liability for loss, misdelivery or delay or damage to any postal article during the course of transmission, except when it is caused fraudulently or by wilful act or default. Just a few years ago, communication through the Internet was the exclusive privilege of a small minority, which had access to computers and Internet service. But not any more. Today, you don’t even need to own a computer to run a “quick mail service” like the engineering student in Bangalore. There are any number of computer schools and commercial institutions which are providing “computer time” for a small payment. And Internet connections cost very little for students. So the postal department,
which as already lost a large chunk of its business to
private courier companies, will at least now have to pay
heed to these developments, modernise, reduce flab and
become efficient. It should also become accountable to
consumers. |
Reliance enters agriculture BHOPAL, Sept 17 (PTI) — Madhya Pradesh Government has decided to allow private sector participation in agriculture for the first time by accepting the bid of Reliance Agrotech Pvt Ltd to invest in the mechanised agriculture farm at Babai in Hoshangabad district. Announcing this at a press conference here last night, Chief Minister, Digvijay Singh said here that Reliance, which was an established name in the field of petroleum, chemicals and textiles, had now decided to diversify by entering the field of agriculture. The Chief Minister said Reliance Agrotech Pvt Ltd would make an investment of Rs 42.1 crore in the Babai farm over the next two to three years. The Chief Minister said
since its inception, the farm had been incurring losses
and that its cumulative loss at present was around Rs
3.20 crore, which works out to an average loss of Rs
11.85 lakh per year. |
Panipat refinery’s completion
this year NEW DELHI, Sept 17 — Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) will complete projects worth Rs 5,500 crore, including the six million tonnes Panipat refinery, during the current financial year. Chairman of the IOC, Mr M.A. Pathan, said here today that during 1999-2000, branch lines would also be commissioned to Meerut and Saharanpur from the Mathura-Jalandhar pipeline. Another product pipeline is expected to be commissioned between Mathura and Tundla. The IOC has also decided to expand the Panipat refinery by another three million tonnes per annum. Five power projects are also on the anvil under the joint venture at Panipat, Savli in Gujarat, Kosi Kalan in UP and Haldia and Bathinda. These projects of capacity 1750 MW would have an investment of about Rs 7000 crore. The joint venture partner for the 301 mw Panipat power project is Marubeni of Japan. The corporation has opened
offices in Kuala Lumpur, Kuwait and Dubai. A few other
markets are under active consideration. |
IT rules amended NEW DELHI, Sept 17 — The Central Board of Direct Taxes will now allow employers to allow loss under the head “Income from house property” while deducting tax at source from salaries of employees. This measure will obviate the need for salaried employees to claim refund directly from the Income Tax Department. The Central Board of Direct Taxes has issued a notification to this effect. Rule 26 B of the Income Tax rules, 1962 and Form No 12 C in Appendix two of the rules have been amended. The employees can now also furnish the particulars of such a loss. Section 192 of the Income Tax Act relating to allowing loss from house property was amended by the Finance Bill this year. Simultaneously, the current year’s Budget also raised the deduction for interest on borrowed capital in case of self-occupied property from Rs 15,000 to Rs 30,000. In another notification, the CBDT amended Income Tax rules to provide 25 per cent depreciation for know- how, patents, copyrights, trademarks, licences, franchises or any other business or commercial rights of a similar nature. The notification also
provides for a 60 per cent depreciation on computers. |
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| Shimla to host sugar meet NEW DELHI, Sept 17 (PTI) — More than 350 sugar technologists, engineers and co-product experts from the country and abroad are expected to attend the three-day annual convention of the Sugar Technologists Association of India scheduled to be held in Shimla from September 21. Munjal Exhibition Forex rates Gold falls Godrej soaps |
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