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Thursday,
June 20, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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PSUs
allowed to fix petrol price Industry
fears denial of capital subsidy DA freeze
stuns govt staff |
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TCS
subsidiary in China
Chautala calls for
Indo-Canadian ties CORPORATE NEWS
NZ
modifies immigration laws Gillette
guilty of patent infringement
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PSUs allowed to fix petrol price New Delhi, June 19 Speaking to newspersons here, Mr Naik said till the Petroleum Regulatory Bill is passed in Parliament, the Government will perform the functions of a regulator. “Oil companies have been given the freedom to revise petroleum product prices on their own based on the fortnightly average of international prices.” “Companies will make further adjustments, upward or downward, on fortnightly basis with the changes in the refinery gate prices which are fixed in line with the international oil prices,” Naik said. In June the prices of petrol and diesel had been hiked twice. While on June 4, the price of petrol was increased by about Rs 2.50 per litre and of diesel by Rs 1.50, on June 16 the prices of both fuels were increased by Rs 0.25 per litre each. Petroleum Secretary B.K. Chaturvedi said the oil companies determine refinery gate prices based on import parity and the local levies and other additional duties will be factored in subsequently. Mr Naik, however, said while the oil companies have been allowed the freedom to fix prices, the government, as a regulator, will ensure that “these (oil companies) do not indulge in profiteering.’’ The minister said the government was also in the process of working a system dissemination of information about changes in the petroleum prices in such a way that retail outlets cannot indulge in illegal profiteering due to frequent prices changes. Mr Naik also said the government was examining the proposal of IPO offering by IOC. IOC is reportedly planning a Rs 1,600 crore IPO offering during the current fiscal. BPCL, HPCL and Gail are also planning IPO offerings to the tune of Rs 1,000 crore, Rs 1,000 crore and Rs 500 crore each. The Minister said the public sector oil companies are in the process of upgrading some of the refineries and other infrastructure. Mr Naik, who has recently returned to the country after holding roadhshows in London, Houston and Calgary, said there was encouraging response by prospective bidders of the oil blocks to be offered under
NELP-III. |
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Industry fears denial of capital subsidy Chandigarh, June 19 While expressing satisfaction over the government’s decision not to introduce any new tax in the Budget, Mr S.C.
Ralhan, Vice-Chairman, Engineering Export Promotion Council (North Region), said, ‘‘We had also been assured by Mr Parkash Singh Badal for the past five years, but nothing did happen. Entrepreneurs had invested in units calculating the payment of subsidy on time, however, this government is also proposing to issue bonds instead of cash payments.’’ By dumping the rural focal points scheme, under which thousands units were set up, the government is now proposing to promote special economic zones, banking upon the Central Government’s aid. Mr
S.P. Oswal, member, CII committee on Punjab, seemed more realistic about the Budget. He said, ‘‘The over all Budget is good and well motivated. The government’s decision to disinvest in PSUs and slash expenses will help rejuvenate the state economy.’’ However, reacting on possible hike in power tariff, he said,‘‘ If the State Power Regulatory Commission is just interested in enhancing power tariff up to 90 per cent of the Haryana tariff, as asked by the board, then what is the need of this commission.’’ The PHDCCI reacting to the Budget, said the withdrawal of sales tax incentives to those units, which had been exempted through executive orders, would adversely affect them. The industry has also questioned the decision to continue octroi and impose Re 1 cess per litre on petrol and also levy tolls on roads and bridges at the same time. Mr Ralhan claimed that this would only desist the industry from investing in the state. |
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DA freeze stuns govt staff Chandigarh, June 19 Mr Lal Singh, Finance Minister, Punjab, today proposed drastic measures to cut down expenses on salaries and allowances of employees to restructure the state economy. He proposed to restructure all the major departments by identifying redundant staff to a surplus pool, and to introduce voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) to the employees in that pool. He claimed that share of salaries and pensions as per share of revenue receipts has increased from 64.83 per cent in 1996-97 to 82.78 per cent in 2001-02. He said despite government’s scheme to restructure all the public sector units, the salary budget was expected to increase from Rs 4,888 crore in 2001-02 to Rs 5054 crore in 2002-03. It seems that despite stiff opposition from employees, the government is quite serious to pursue the draft recommendations of the Public Sector Disinvestment Commission. Besides proposing fast-track disinvestments in the Punjab Communications Ltd, Punjab Alkalies and Chemical Ltd, Punjab Tourism Development Corporation Ltd, COWARE and PSIDC’s holding in PTL, as suggested by the commission, the government has decided to freeze LTC facility to all the employees, except for those who are retiring in the current block. There would be no more recruitment of permanent government employees, if the government has its say. As far as possible, the future employment in the government would be scheme and project specific and terminated with the completion of the project or scheme. The pays and allowances of the employees of the PSUs of the corresponding category would be aligned with that of government employees. The Joint Action Committee of Punjab & UT Employees, the Employees Mahasangh and various other organisations burnt the copies of the budget today in protest against these measures at Sector 17 today. The unions have called for a statewide protest rally to be organised tomorrow at Chandigarh against these measures. |
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Budget copies burnt Chandigarh, June 19 |
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TCS subsidiary in China New Delhi, June 19 TCS has acquired the licence to do business in China on Tuesday. Tata Sons Limited has already formed a subsidiary, Tata Information Technology (Shanghai) Company Limited, in Shanghai for this purpose. Speaking to newspersons here today, Executive Vice-President of TCS, Phiroz A. Vandrevala said that the framework of TCS China consists of three parts. Tata Information Technology ( Shanghai) Co. Ltd will be headquartered in Shanghai. The TCS office in Beijing will undertake marketing activities for the company’s China operations and will cover areas in client relationship management, public relations and legal areas, in addition to providing support to the Northeast and Northwest regions. In Hangzhou, TCS will set up a development centre which will provide end-to-end services for clients over the Asia Pacific region, in coordination with TCS’ delivery centres in India. The Hangzhou development centre is the
latest addition in the network of global development centres of TCS located in various parts of the world including the US, Australia, Hungary, Uruguay and the UK. Mr Vandrevala said that in the short term the objective was to meet TCS’ global customer needs in the Asia-Pacific region by expanding operations in China and create delivery capability to supplement India. The long term objective was to expand TCS operations by leveraging on the local market growth opportunities and meet global market needs. He said that the infrastructure in Beijing is complete; the office locations in Shanghai and Hangzhou have been finalised and work has started in these locations. Clients have also been identified. “For projects, in the short-term, we will depute people from India or source them from business associates. In the long term would conduct campus recruitments”, Mr Vandrevala said. He further said that the company could hire as many as 3,000 new recruits from various campuses across the world during the current fiscal year (2002-03). The Asia Pacific region contributes over 5 per cent of the overall revenues of the company. TCS already has sales offices in Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore. Its Asia Pacific headquarters are in Singapore. With over 19,000 professionals working at 107 branches in 30 countries and five continents, the company has over 1000 global clients. Its clients include companies as AIG, Boeing, Citibank, Dell Computer Corporation, General Electric, and Nike among others. TCS revenue
TCS has recorded a net revenue of Rs 4,187 crore for the year ended March, 2002, posting a growth of between 35-36 per cent, a senior company official said today. “In terms of pure TCS net revenues, we posted Rs 4,187 crore as per Indian accounting standards,” TCS’ Executive Vice-President Phiroz A. Vandrevala told reporters at a conference organised to announce TCS’ China initiative. |
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Chautala calls for Indo-Canadian ties Toronto, June 19 Speaking at a seminar organised by the Canada India Business here, Mr Chautala made a fervent appeal to the Indian Community in Canada to work for further strengthening trade and economic ties between the two countries. He said it was commendable that there was at least one Indian faculty member in every Canadian University and Medical College. Mr Chautala lauded the spontaneous response of the Indo-Canadian community in raising two million Canadian dollars in cash and kind as relief for the victims of the Gujarat earthquake. He said the Haryana government wanted to give an impetus to industrial growth in view of the inability of the agriculture sector to provide good employment opportunities for the youth. He said there were a large number of technical institutes, including engineering colleges, polytechnics and industrial training institutes in the state. These were producing thousands of well qualified students. Mr Chautala said the Haryana government wanted to utilise the vast experience of the
Indo-Canadian community in making Haryana the most industrialised and the most prosperous state in the country. Mr Divyabh Manchanda, Counsel General of India in Canada, described Haryana as a land with enormous potential. Chief executive officers of about 50 major Canadian companies attended the seminar. A visual presentation was made by Dr Harbakhash Singh, Managing Director, HSIDC on the initiatives by the Haryana Government in promoting industrial growth.
UNI
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CORPORATE NEWS New Delhi, June 19 The German firm will install a 500 tonne per day polycondensation plant, the single largest of its kind in India. The staple fibre plant will have a capacity of 145,000 tonnes per annum. “The project is proposed to be financed through a combination of internal accruals and export credits from German banks.” PunCom The Board of Punjab Communications today recommended a 15 per cent dividend for the financial year 2001-02, the company said. Shipping Corp Shipping Corporation of India (SCI) has posted a 36.86 per cent drop in its net profit at Rs 241.56 crore for the year ended March 31, 2002, against Rs 382.56 crore in the previous year. Net sales for the period under review were down 8.01 per cent at Rs 2,818.23 crore as compared to Rs 3,063.65 crore for 2000-01, the company said today. The net profit and sales for the fourth quarter of 2001-02 were down to Rs 31.70 crore (Rs 169.44 crore in Q4 of 2000-01) and Rs 623.7 crore (Rs 852 crore), respectively. Reliance Petro Reliance Petroleum is likely to increase capacity of its 27 million tonne Jamnagar refinery to about 30 million tonnes by 2004-05, senior company officials said here. “We plan to rake up Jamnagar capacity to 590,000 barrels per day in the next 2-3 years through debottling the present capacity of 540,000 barrels per day.” Reliance expects petroleum product demand to increase to 125 million tonnes by the end of Tenth Five Year Plan period (2006-07) from 103 million tonnes consumption in 2001-02.
Agencies. |
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NZ modifies immigration laws Chandigarh, June 19 He said that the pass marks have been possibly increased due to flow of increase in the skilled/ business stream which now accounted for 66 per cent of total approved cases for the current financial year. However, the changes will not affect the applicants who had already applied before June 18, 2002. Their applications will be assessed under the existing 25 points as passing marks, he added. Mr Lianne Dalziel, Minister of New Zealand has also announced that in future the pass marks would be reviewed monthly with the next review scheduled for August 1, 2002. |
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Gillette guilty of patent infringement
Chicago, June 19 The patents, issued to the late Jerome Lemelson and are now owned by Syndia, cover Gillette’s process of coating its razor blades with diamond-like carbon, or DLC, which permits the company to make thinner, yet stronger blades. Syndia was awarded $ 10 million in damages for past infringement with damages and injunctive relief for any future infringement yet to be determined.
AFP
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SEBI suspends LSE member
Mumbai, June 19 |
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Oracle
net falls Palo Alto, Calif, June 19 |
bb
Chambers meet Doctor’s software HCL Info United Bank ‘Challenger’ bike IIM programme |
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