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Tuesday,
May 14, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Court grants bail to Reliance President
Maruti sale to be finalised today
A look at businessmen’s budget!
Withdraw 4 pc entry tax, say industrialists |
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Solan boy wins Pepsi contest GRAPHIC:
FUNDS BLOCKED IN SMALL SCALE INDUSTRIES
Tata Tea plans acquisition in Africa
Rice whisky set to go global
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Court grants bail to Reliance President New Delhi, May 13 The Reliance official had been issued non-bailable warrant by the court for his non-appearance despite summons, but the execution of the warrant was stayed till today after the counsel for Subramaniam gave an assurance that he would appear today. Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sangeeta Dhingra Sehgal ordered his release on bail on his furnishing a personal bond of Rs 5 lakh and a surety of like amount. She had on April 30 ordered Subramaniam to surrender before her by today. The Chief Metropolitan Magistrate had taken cognisance of the complaint filed by the CBI against the Reliance Industries, Balasubramanian, Sethuraman and Adwal on April 6. According to the complaint, the Reliance Industries, and its three employees had been charged with possessing official documents on economic matters, disinvestment policy and rationalisation of customs tariff rates in 1998. During a raid on the corporate offices of the Reliance Group in New Delhi and Mumbai on October 28, 1998, the CBI sleuths had found the highly-classified documents from the drawers of these officials. The documents include copies of discussions held by the Group of Secretaries and notes of the Cabinet Secretariat, the CBI said. The raids came on the heels of the arrest of small-time politician Romesh Sharma in 1998, when it was established that he had close links with the Reliance Group. The company officials had been interrogated to establish the source and purpose of procurement of the secret documents.
UNI
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Maruti sale to be finalised today New Delhi, May 13 According to official sources, the government’s negotiating team headed by Disinvestment Secretary Pradip Baijal had completed the negotiations with the Japanese partner in MUL joint venture and finalised the control premium for handing over the management of the company. However, the CCD is not likely to take up the disinvestment of IPCL price bids for which were submitted to the government on April 29, 2002, by bidders including Reliance, IOC and Nirma. As for MUL, the government will bring its stake to 25 per cent in two stages-first by way of renunciating its rights in favour of Suzuki and then through an initial public offering, Disinvestment Minister Arun Shourie had told reporters last week. Without giving details on the price of the deal, he had said the agreement reached with Suzuki now was ten times better than the one that the then Congress Government had reached with the joint venture partner in 1992. The government had then reduced its stake in MUL from 60 per cent to 49.7 per cent at the rate of Rs 269 per share without charging the control premium.
UNI
Suzuki unaware of Maruti selloff plan Tokyo, May 13 “The government is saying it want to privatise it, but other than that, we don’t know,” said Suzuki spokesman Takeaki Nukii yesterday. But a newspaper reported that India had agreed to hand control of Maruti to Suzuki through a $ 80 million rights issue and would dispose of the remaining shares through a multi-stage public offering. “The draft deal has been approved by Indian officials and Suzuki,” the paper quoted Mr Arun
Shourie, Privatisation Minister, as saying.
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A look at businessmen’s budget! Chandigarh, May 13 As yet, there is no culture of ‘’openness’’ in the making of a state budget that involves direct participation of the people. Yes, indirectly, it is there through their elected representatives. Not in making but in passing. Thus a budget is a collective responsibility of the legislators. But in practice, the common perception is that it is of the government that is usually influenced by the corporate sector. If that be so, were businessmen to frame Punjab budget, what would budget be like? Produced below are the broad contours of the proposals submitted by PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry to Punjab, as a pre-budget memorandum. Left to the Chamber, objective of its budget (2002-03) would be to achieve fiscal stability since deficit was Rs 2336 crore in 2001-02 and allocate additional funds for development. It would accelerate the pace of economic development to a level of 8 per cent, per annum, in the Tenth Plan period. It would ensure such ‘user charges’ that adequately correspond to ‘’quality’’ socio-economic services. It would follow the recommendations of the 11th Finance Commission when it comes to tackling debt burden. It would stop use of borrowings for meeting current financial needs for day-to-day running of the government. On tax and non-tax sources of revenue, it is convinced it was not possible and desirable to raise tax revenue that is already on the higher side. Certainly, it prefers higher user charges, management contract system in urban areas, private partnership, recovery of cost to the extent of at least 50 per cent of the services like electricity, higher education etc. provided to the people, enhance minimum support produce for farm produce to compensate farmers etc. It favours expansion of technical and professional education base and envisages greater role of the Chamber in this venture. It recommends winding up of loss-making public sector undertakings (PSU). If Chhattisgarh can fold up 26 PSUs, why can not Punjab? Simultaneously, it would quickly and adequately dis-invest in commercial concerns and restructure profit-making PSUs. Business chambers focus will be on development with at least 10 per cent additional allocation for development projects. For effective, transparent, responsive and accountable governance, the Chamber would opt for ‘’e-governance’’ besides evolving a strategy to reform functions of the government by reducing ‘’decision-layers’’ and introducing ‘’executive-oriented’’ governance. Equally imperative will be focus on creating ‘’self-employment’’ opportunities in the service sector and roads apart from government-sponsored job schemes. It would identify tourism, rural development and poverty eradication, etc. as some of the job inducing avenues. Of course it lists a chain of concessions /exemptions for itself as much as for revenue mopping for municipalities. It has its own plans on taxes, both state and central, VAT system etc. It also will go in for human resource development, particularly in the field of technical education. It shows its awareness of the future needs of the economy and employment requirements. |
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Withdraw 4 pc entry tax, say industrialists New Delhi, May 13 The state government earlier this month had imposed this additional tax for goods manufactured in Haryana and sent outside the state. This tax is in addition to the 4 per cent tax already imposed on such goods. Mr H L Bhardwaj, secretary-general of the Federation of Industries of India, said the entry tax would cause a fatal blow to the industries and many would be forced to close down. Most of the industries in the state are operating on a very small margin and the imposition of the entry tax makes the goods manufactured in Haryana uncompetitive in the market.
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Solan boy wins Pepsi contest Chandigarh, May 13 Adorned in an oversize Pepsi T- shirt and a matching cap, Kanak, dazzled among the dignitaries at Hotel Mountview, the venue for the coronation function of the Star- e-Punjab. “Though I have been singing at school level contests this is the first time I have won something this big,” says Kanak, a student of Fifth Standard from Geeta Adarsh Vidyalaya, Solan. Kanak who aspires to be a professional singer will be cutting his first solo album with the T-Series. An ardent admirer of Mohammad Rafi, Sonu Nigam and Hans Raj Hans, Kanak would like to be a folk singer. The final leg of the “Pepsi Banjaa Stara Yaara Contest which took place at Ludhiana yesterday also awarded Sanjay Khan, a 30-year- old professional singer from Ludhiana as the first runner-up and Sukhdev Sagar of Jalandhar, who runs a Music group, was declared the second runner up. Jasmeet Kaur, a 16-year-old student from Ludhiana, was given the Pepsi Star-e-Punjab (female) award during the function. The contest which was conducted in Bathinda, Moga, Hoshiarpur, Amritsar, Jalandhar, Patiala and Ludhiana had screened about 140 students from about 3,000 participants who were later narrowed down to only six for the final contest. The winner Kanak had participated from Moga. The six finalists had performed in front of a panel of judges which included Sardool Sikandar, Shankar Sawhney, Paramveer Singh, Chandan Das, Noorie, Simran and music Director Jaidev, Atul Sharma and others like Rajie Shinde of ETC Channel (Punjabi), Pradeep Gangal of T-Series and Mr. Kewal Dhillon, Chairman, Dhillon group of Industries. |
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