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Saturday,
May 19, 2001, Chandigarh, India  
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TRAI fixes 450 rent for WLL mobile
VSNL dividend issue still undecided
350 cr Nabard loan for Haryana soon Govt plans 100 pc FDI for food processing
units National policy on coops
finalised Tata Infotech now offers ‘Ambition’ |
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IA
raises fares from May 25 Hafed turnover may touch 1238
cr Indian pharmacies face ruin in
UK CORPORATE
NEWS 80 lakh Guj Amb
shares for Affinity
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TRAI fixes 450 rent for WLL mobile
New Delhi, May 18 Ideally, the authority would have preferred to fix a single value for monthly rental, i.e. a spot rental, but it has chosen to specify a range because of the wide variation in costs for different situations covered by WLL-M. Besides, the estimates received from almost all operators are tentative and their plans regarding WLL-M are yet to be finalised. TRAI announced its monthly rentals for WLL-M, taking into account the costs submitted by basic service providers and the likely investment scenarios for WLL-M in the next one year. Some uncertainty in the situation has been added following the recommendation of the GOT-IT that roll-out of WLL-M should take place in such a manner that urban, semi-urban and rural SDCAs should be equally covered. In the circumstances, a range for WLL-M rentals has been used so that the two main objectives of consumer benefit and encouraging producers to extend the service, particularly in the initial stages of its introduction, remain balanced. In its recommendations on WLL-M, TRAI had stated that it would provide a cost-based rental for the service within the next three months. The period was extended in view of inadequate data available to make the calculations. In due time, when TRAI was at the end of its process for determination of monthly rental for WLL-M, a report of the Group on Telecom and Information Technology Convergence (GOT-IT) was released with certain recommendations which implied adjustments to the calculations of cost based rentals. The authority is aware that some service providers are charging or have announced a lower rental than the specified floor. In the authority’s view, such rentals are unlikely to be sustainable any more in view of the likely increase in the costs of WLL-M service arising from the changes in the conditions, particularly those relating to its rollout, recommended by the GOT-IT. The authority fixed the floor and ceiling of monthly rentals on the basis of the estimates of cost-based rentals for the “most efficient private operator” where for the lowest cost-based rental for the private sector operator for various subscriber bases. The different subscriber bases considered were of : 2,500, 5,000, 10,000, 20,000, and 50,000. The cost for most efficient private operator was chosen as a benchmark for two main reasons. Firstly, that the private operators are not constrained by the incumbent’s market power and ability to keep the rentals unduly low with the help of cross subsidy and that investment in the sector is encouraged. And, secondly to provide incentive to all for bringing costs down and for improving efficiency. For fixing a floor for the rental the authority considered an investment in the most profitable circle (“A” category circle) with a large subscriber base to estimate the relevant costs for urban, semi-urban, and rural SDCAs. For the deposit and rentals for handset the handset for WLL-M connection may either be supplied by the service provider or procured by the user himself. In case it is supplied by the service provider he may ask for a deposit for the handset from the consumer up to an amount of Rs 10,000. This amount will be refundable in full to the consumer on the cessation of the service.
UNI
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VSNL dividend issue still undecided
New Delhi, May 18 The decision on the dividend will be taken over the next two months, Pradeep Baijal, Secretary Disinvestment, said after the meeting in Mumbai which lasted four hours. The meeting, which was held earlier today, was attended by officials of the Disinvestment, Finance and DoT and had been widely expected to consider a plan to pay VSNL’s shareholders a pre-privatisation dividend of Rs 100. Other issues that were to be finalised during the meeting were ESOP options for employees and certain long pending perks demanded by the workers and officers unions of the VSNL. Also to be decided were Productivity Linked incentives (PLI) that would mean 5 per cent of the profits of the PSU would go to the employees. The government plans to bring down its stake in the New-York Stock Exchange-listed overseas telephony monopoly to 26 per cent from 52.97 per cent. This is proposed to be through a sale of 25 per cent stake and management control to a strategic partner and another 1.97 per cent to VSNL’s employees. Mr Baijal said he expected that the decision on the strategic investor would be taken by August. Some of those who attended the meeting, besides Mr Baijal, were Pushkar Bhatnagar and K.K. Gupta from the Ministry of Disinvestment, Joint Secretary Ministry of Finance — S. Bhrua, N.K. Singh and Senior Deputy Director General, Department of Telecom. VSNL, a monopoly provider of overseas telecommunication and India’s largest internet access provider, is one of the top picks for privatisation by the government this year. “VSNL has cash worth Rs 50 billion and this meeting is expected to give us the green signal to distribute a part of this to shareholders before the privatisation,” said the official, who did not want to be identified.
UNI
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350 cr Nabard loan for Haryana soon Chandigarh, May 18 Chief General Manager of Nabard A Ramanathan who held a meeting with Mr Om Prakash Chautala said funds, especially for power projects, irrigation and rural
development, would be sanctioned on a priority basis so as to enable the state government to continue development at an accelerated pace. Nabard would sanction a loan of Rs 50 crore more for the power sector. It was revealed that the state government had already obtained a loan of Rs 7 crore from Nabard. The interest rate had already been reduced by 1per cent on RIDF VII projects. Principal Secretary to Chief Minister S Y Quraishi said a shelf of projects might be prepared by each department so that these could be forwarded to Nabard as and when funds became available with it. Financial Commissioner A N Mathur said some departments of the state had submitted projects involving investment of Rs 150 crore to seek assistance from it but there were still others who were yet to submit their proposals.
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Govt plans 100 pc FDI for food processing
units Chandigarh, May 18 Mr D P Tripathy, Secretary, Food Processing, said while speaking at a session on "Food Processing Industry: Challenges and Opportunity" organised by the CII and the Punjab Agro Industries Corporation here today . The challenges of the WTO have to be converted into opportunities by the food processing sector to access the global market, he said. The need, at present, is to focus more on the domestic market since this is the area which the foreign companies are also eyeing at . "Once we are able to create a niche in the domestic market, facing global competition would not be tough", said he. Conceding that the industry is facing challenges in terms of infrastructure, taxes, high interest rates, weak marketing and absence of crop insurance schemes, he observed that initiatives were being taken by the government. Mr Jagjit Singh Ghungrana, Chairman, PAIC, cautioned that farmer and traders would suffer if they are not able to bring themselves at par with the national standards within four years . He said venture in to the food processing industry today is very costly and the
government needs to take several initiatives both at the Central as well as the state level. "While the industry has been always protected, agriculture has still not been able to come out of the wheat paddy cycle syndrome", he said. Speaking on the policy initiatives in Punjab, Mr A R Talwar, Managing Director, PAIC, outlined the state's unique food park models which covered all stages of the food processing chain right from special nurseries to market outlets. With 1,000 farmers registered for contract farming and
satellite units, such a park is shortly coming up in Fatehgarh Sahib, followed by Amritsar and Bathinda districts. Of the estimated cost of Rs 18 crore, the Centre had sanctioned Rs 4 crore while the state has sanctioned Rs 10 crore, he said. Other policy initiatives included establishment of horticulture estates, agriculture export zones, service facilities, pre-cooling and outlays ranging from packaging to air freight. He also said 10 other projects are in outline involving a total outlay of Rs 200 crore. Mr N. A. Brar, Additional Managing Director, PAIC, highlighted the initiatives being taken by the government to promote the industry. The state government is offering land for agro- based R&D units. The state has two projects — frozen vegetables and tomato processing and six units for cooling. Vegetables like coreless carrots, okra, broccoli have been identified for export. Describing the PepsiCo's experience in contract farming, Mr Abhiram Seth, Executive
Director, Exports, of the company said the tomato initiative had resulted in three-fold increase in the yield. A lender's perspective was provided by Mr Sumit Gupta, Senior Manager, Rabo India Finance. The new success factors in the current scenario are sensitivity of global conditions, environment concerns, value chain linkages, economies of scale and human resource deployment , he said. He listed the key risk factors ailing this industry. Dr Alok Kumar of Proagro-PGS India spoke on how biotechnology could help increasing productivity of crops and its application in food processing . Mr C.L. Bains, Financial Commissioner and Secretary Agriculture, Government of India was also present. |
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National policy on coops finalised New Delhi, May 18 “The proposed Task Force will chalk out an action plan to ensure that the policy is implemented effectively to enable the cooperatives to meet the challenges of globalisation”, Kumar said at a conference of Cooperation Ministers of the states here which formally endorsed the draft policy. The policy while curtailing government interference in the functioning of cooperatives to give them autonomy, would ensure accountability, he said, adding that the regulatory role of the government would be mainly limited to the conduct of timely elections and audit. He said a well-defined policy on cooperatives was needed for sustained growth of self-reliant cooperative societies for meeting the sectoral and regional aspirations of the people. On the increasing role of cooperatives under economic liberalisation and globalisation, he said internal and structural weaknesses of cooperatives combined with lack of proper policy support had neutralised the positive impact. In view of several institutional, financial and governance problems faced by cooperatives and wide regional imbalances in their development, the national policy would facilitate all round development of the sector. Minister of State for Agriculture Sripad Y.Naik said the policy aims at professionalisation of the cooperatives and democratisation of their operations for making them self reliant and economically viable. Nitish Kumar said cooperatives would be provided necessary support, encouragement and assistance to ensure that they work as autonomous, self-reliant and democratically managed institutions accountable to their members. Keeping the needs of the rapidly changing economic scenario, the government has already introduced the Multi-State Cooperative Cocieties Bill 2000 in Parliament which would be a “model cooperative law”. He said cooperatives can play a significant role in making the food processing sector vibrant and in raising the level of processing in the country from a meagre 1.8 per cent to 10 per cent by 2010. To ensure accelerated growth of the processing sector, the government would soon come out with a National Food Processing Policy and a Processed Food Development Act, he said, adding that the aim was to attract investment of Rs 140,000 crore in the sector which would generate over three crore jobs. While the Centre has announced excise duty exemption for the food processing sector, states have been asked to consider sales tax holiday for the sunrise sector to create conducive environment for investment, he said. Asked about the move to lift restrictions on export of onion and some other agricultural items, the minister said it would benefit the
farmers in view of abundant stocks.
PTI |
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Tata Infotech now offers ‘Ambition’ Chandigarh, May 18 Conveying the corporate decision, Ms Venu Kashyap, Managing Director of the local centre of “Ambition” covering Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir, said in a statement here today that all such courses requiring skill upgradation in the advanced, introductory and value-added computer-training segment will now come under the ambit of “Ambition” in place of its old name — Professional Learning Centre (PLC). The Sector 34 Tata Infotech centre started its operations in the first week of March this year. Exclusively short-term “Ambition” range of courses are being offered to IT professionals, beginners and working professionals. These include Wings, Concepts, Mastering Office 2000, Internet Technologies HTML at the introductory level, then intermediate and advanced courses like Java, JavaScript, Oracle 8i, ASP and value-added like Mapx & Mapxtreme, which are tutored by the Tatas’ trained faculty. Ms Kashyap said Tata Infotech, in association with US-based “Smart Force” has brought softwares, which have been approved by 19 Infotech Vendors like Cisco, Microsoft, Oracle, Intel, SAP, Sun and IBM.
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IA raises
fares from May 25 New Delhi, May 18 The national airline, the first Indian carrier to introduce flexible fares in an effort to move towards a situation where ticket prices will not remain constant, had until now been holding on to the price line to keep its market share. But with the increase in prices of Aviation Turbine Fuel (ATF) costing Indian Airlines an additional Rs 290 crore in 2000-2001, the fare hike had become inevitable. But while there was an across the board hike of 11.2 per cent from October 1, 1998, this time it will vary from sector to sector and season to season. The factors determining fares are market share, market size, price sensitivity and other service-related matters.
UNI
Hafed turnover may touch 1238 cr Chandigarh, May 18 While stating this, Haryana Cooperation Minister Kartar Singh Bhadana said that concrete steps were being taken to further increase the turnover of the federation in the coming years.
UNI
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Indian pharmacies face ruin in
UK London, May 18 The good news for consumers could spell disaster for the small pharmacies. An estimated two-thirds of about 12,000 small pharmacies across Britain are owned by Indian migrants. The change came following a legal action by the Office of Fair Trading that sought to end resale price maintenance that had been in force under an old law for the past 30 years. The price maintenance had been in force primarily to protect small pharmacies. The Community Pharmacy Action Group (CPAG) had opposed the move in the high court, but withdrew after the judge observed that there was insufficient evidence that small pharmacies would close as a result of the removal of price maintenance. The fallout of the court action will be devastating for community pharmacies, CPAG Chairman David Sharpe said. "Many pharmacies will simply not be able to survive given the buying power and aggressive pricing tactics of the supermarkets," he said. "It's a sad day for Britain as this outcome threatens yet another community service on the high street." For the consumer, the court move has meant an immediate slashing of popular products across the board. The prices of most medicines sold across the counter (without a doctor's prescription) have fallen by 40 to 50 per cent, and at the very least by 20 per cent. A bottle of 60 primrose oil tablets fell in price from £5.59 to £2.79, a box of aspirin tablets from £1.75 to 87 pence. Pharmacists argue this is not as good as it looks. "Medicines are not lumps of coal or sugar," Shree Prakash, a London pharmacist, told IANS. "Many of these medicines taken without advice can be very harmful, and it is no good for people to be able to simply pick them up from supermarkets." The blow is expected to fall immediately. "Most of us will have to close down," said Shree Prakash. "The sale of these medicines was a substantial part of our business. We will try to make up by selling more prescription medicines but I don't think it will add up." The move comes as yet another victory for Britain's supermarkets. The supermarket boom has already closed down thousands of small retail stores across Britain. These stores, known as the corner shops, were also owned overwhelmingly by British Indians. Now about 85 per cent of the total value of the retail market is spent in just 1,500 stores in Britain. The number of corner shops has come down from 47,068 to 28,319 over the past 15 years. The number is dropping about 10 per cent every year. Much of the British Indian middle class success rode on a dominance of these small retail stores and pharmacies. To add to closure of pharmacies, knock-on effects will mean job losses for thousands of the Indians who were employed in pharmacies. The pharmacy business has been popular particularly among Gujaratis. In a desperate bid asking consumers to remain loyal to their local pharmacies, the CPAG has launched a publicity campaign to advise people to continue to buy in the local pharmacy. Primary among the benefits is that consumers can get advice from the local pharmacy, which they cannot in a supermarket. The National Pharmaceutical Association says doctors spend about 40 per cent of their time dealing with complaints that can be handled safely by the local pharmacist. A loss in pharmacy will mean a loss to the National Health Service where an average consultation costs 24 pounds, the association says. But no one expects the consumer to go locally and pay twice as much for a medicine. Small pharmacies are expected to cut prices to an extent. But falling profits are expected to lead to a loss of business.
IANS |
co
80 lakh Guj Amb shares for Affinity The Board of Gujarat Ambuja Cements (GACL) on Friday approved the issue of equity shares and warrants to Affinity Investments at Rs 225 per share. The company, in a notice to BSE in Mumbai said 80 lakh equity shares would be issued to Affinity, an affiliate of Warburg Pincus Equity Partners L.P, at Rs 225 per share totalling Rs 180 crore. In addition to this, 80 lakh warrants, each convertible into one equity share at a price of Rs 225 per share, would also be issued. Wipro Wipro Technologies has set up an office in Frankfurt to expand its operation in Germany, the company announced here. Wipro’s portfolio of service offerings in German market will address IT requirements of enterprises for business applications as well as R & D outsourcing requirement of technology companies. Currently, Wipro delivers IT and product design services in Germany to some leading banking and technology companies. There are about 100 consultants working for German clients, both in Germany and from Wipro’s software development centres in India. VST Ind VST Industries has convened its Annual General Meeting on June 14 even as Bright Star Investments. And ITC subsidiary Russell Credit are trying hard to acquire a 20 per cent stake in the company through their individual open offers. The proposed AGM, according to market observers, will have far reaching effect and the company’s board will have to make things clear before the shareholders over the open offer and counter open offer made by Bright Star and Russell Credit. Reliance Petro Reliance Petroleum (RPL) on Friday announced its international global depository receipts offering in one or more tranches to strategic or financial investors. The shareholders would have two options on pricing — to indicate a minimum price, at which they would be willing to offer their equity shares as part of the GDR or to opt for the cut-off pricing, as determined by the lead managers, it said. Nirma Nirma Limited has registered gross sales of Rs 2,428 crore, achieving a growth of 41 per cent, during the financial year ended March 31 this year, an official release of Nirma said here today. The Board of Directors has recommended a dividend at 35 per cent for the year 2000-2001. This dividend will be payable from August 2 this year, if cleared by the AG M.
PTI, UNI |
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Mitsubishi net loss rises to $ 2.27b Alcatel in talks to buy Lucent for $40 b Tokyo Electron posts record profit Slowdown begins to bite China Honda Motor to develop diesel engines |
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United Airlines Hartron centre Octroi Luminous Egmont Nutraceuticals C-DAC HDFC opens ATM LIC |
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