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Tuesday,
May 27, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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Time to market Punjab abroad
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Industry ridicules govt claims
PNB records 50 pc rise in net profit
Promote cluster units in Haryana
BIS guidelines must for home appliances
Scams to be probed: Coop Bank chief
Crude oil production falls 1.9 pc
Jalan
says no to repo rate cut
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Time to market Punjab abroad Chandigarh, May 26 The theme of the two-day round-table conference is “The Indian Economy in the Coming Decade: Completing Reforms at the Centre and States’’. Punjab is the special invitee. Informed sources told TNS today that two senior bureaucrats would represent Punjab at the conference to be held at Stanford University in California, the USA, on June 6 and 7. It is being hosted by the university’s Centre for Research on Economic Development and Policy Reforms. Its Director is Mr Roger Noll. The topics include an assessment of India’s progress in structural reforms to partisan politics and reforms in a federal system; response to policy reforms of India’s agriculture during 1990s and after, rural development: agricultural productivity, non-farm sector and migration. Besides the current unease with Indian economic reforms; government, schooling and poverty: the trickle down benefits of secondary schooling to higher education, research, industrial competitiveness and thinking health reforms. Punjab will primarily focus on power reforms, infrastructure, social sector (education and health), fiscal consolidation, rural and urban development. It will share its experience as to how it is making a turnaround in its fiscal policies to put the state back on the rails. Sources say a detailed presentation on these aspects will enable Punjab to share its experience in implementing the reforms aimed at better governance and providing quality service to the people. From the preliminary information gathered by TNS, it shows that while quoting a recent survey by India Today that has placed Punjab at the top among 15 major states, the presentation will also unfold its agenda on the need and urgency of reforms, required frame work and elements and steps already initiated in respect of the identified areas—power reforms, infrastructure, social sector (education and health), fiscal consolidation, rural and urban development. Punjab’s major concern is state’s slow economic growth, which was only 4.5 per cent during 1985 to 2000, as compared to over 6 per cent growth of the nation’s
economy. Therefore, a major task still remains the restoration of financial health. The sources say in tune with the Congress agenda, besides fiscal reforms and infrastructure development, Punjab is keen to develop a sound social sector in respect of education and health. This will mean a change of mind-set from “government schools to community-owned schools, government budget to school budget and government teachers to school teachers by encouraging neighbourhood schools and involving panchayati raj institutions and local bodies’’. Punjab is conscious that the present cost of education in government schools is $15 per child per month, same as the cost of education in the best school say in Delhi. But quality of education in Punjab is poor. Therefore, a proposal before Punjab is to change syllabus: first 4 to 5 years: mother tongue,
English, Maths, general education; 6th class—computer, 9th class—vocational education. Likewise, in health delivery system, there is a need for reforms. At present with 70 per cent infrastructure, government hospitals catered to only 30 per cent patients. Therefore, Punjab envisages primary health care by the government through panchayats, secondary at cost recovery and tertiary health care by private sector. As in the case of education, mind-set has to change in respect of health care from “government hospitals to community-owned hospitals, government budget to hospital budget and government doctors to hospital doctors” with effective check on drugs, their quality and, of course, quacks. Some invitees to the conference include N. K. Singh, Member, Planning Commission, Abhijit Banerjee, Arvind Virmani, Montek Ahluwalia, Ashok Gulati, R. Gopalakrishnan, Robert Evenson, Kathleen Mullen, Suman Bery, T N Srinivasan, I. G. Patel, David McKenzie, Paul Schultz, Kenneth Arrow, Pradip Ghosh, Anne Krueger and Nicholas Hope. |
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Industry ridicules govt claims Ludhiana, May 26 He observed that the Punjab State Electricity Regulatory Commission (PSERC) ought to have taken into consideration the laxity on the part of Punjab State Electricity Board (PSEB) for improving its efficiency by reducing heavy transmission losses, right sizing of its work force and maintaining regular supply of quality electricity without any shut downs. Mr Chopra pointed out, it is also within the purview of the commission not to take into account the transmission and distribution losses and it can deny the transfer of the cost of unreasonable losses on to the consumers. It is expected under the act that the commission is to determine the tariff keeping in view consumer interest and efficiency apart from other factors. As per the Act 1998 the PSEB cannot levy minimum charges, misuse charges and requirement of municipality licence as these are redundant clauses. The act forbids giving undue preference to any consumer. He said that the Mandate of Reforms Act 1998 as held by the Supreme Court of India in a recent landmark judgement is that Commission should decide the tariff keeping in view parameters as efficiency and that interest of the consumer along with other parameters. Thus if a licensee does not carry out the work of electricity supply efficiently, the Regulator can even alter the percentage of reasonable return so as to ensure that the consumer is not burdened by undue cost of these inefficiencies. The federation stressed that Punjab Government should rise to the occasion to safeguard the interests of the industry and other consumers to help the industrial sector to get out of the grave crises being faced in Punjab in the larger interest of economy of the state. The hike should be withdrawn and other requirements as per the Act be observed. |
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PNB records 50 pc rise in net profit
New Delhi, May 26 “Our board has approved to return Rs 130 crore of government capital,” PNB chairman S.S. Kohli told reporters here but declined to say whether that would be at premium. At present the government capital stands at Rs 212 crore of the total paid-up capital of Rs 265 crore. That is proposed to be reduced to Rs 80 crore or 60 per cent equity. The proposal would have to be approved by annual general meeting of the bank followed by permission from RBI, he added. “Net profit of the bank rose to Rs 842.2 crore in 2002-03 compared to Rs 562.39 crore in the previous year,” he said, adding that total business of the bank rose by 17.8 per cent to Rs 1,16,044 crore as compared to Rs 98,492 crore in 2001-02. The bank has recommended a dividend of 35 per cent (Rs 3.50 per share) for the fiscal 2002-03.
PTI, UNI |
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Promote cluster units in Haryana New Delhi, May 26 Development of clusters for specific industries should be promoted at identified locations like textile cluster in Panipat, can be modernised and textile zone with garment park, process houses, knitting units can be promoted a PHDCCI release said. Such cluster approach could also be useful in attracting investment in large projects. In short and medium terms focus should be on to attract mega projects with concentration on priority basis like IT, engineering, agro processing, dairy development. The chamber urged the state government to make a law for setting up SEZ as it was necessary to facilitate exports from Haryana. The state enjoyed the advantage of proximity to Delhi which was a market for international connectivity and enjoyed superior infrastructure. Advantage could be taken to export-processed food and textiles from the state, the chamber added. |
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BIS guidelines must for home appliances Chandigarh, May 26 As per the recent notification issued by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, the Centre has made it mandatory that electric appliances like electrical immersion water heaters, electric iron, electric stoves, radiators and other instruments cannot be manufactured without adopting the BIS norms, said Mr K.K. Sharma, Deputy Director General, BIS, here today. He said as part of its strategy to upgrade the quality of household items and check the use of spurious and low quality products, the BIS was making efforts to create awareness among public and manufacturers through meetings with industrial associations, District Industry Centres and awareness campaigns in the manufacturing clusters. ‘‘A number of manufacturers in the region have already taken licence from the BIS to comply with the new
guidelines. We have made it clear to them that either to comply with the new guidelines or be ready to face the action under the act’’, he added. Manufacturers of electric appliances in Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Ambala, Patiala and other towns have also been asked to dispose of sub-standard and defective electric wires, cables appliances or other raw material as scrap, which do not conform to the specified standards. However, 18 manufacturers have been given time till August 16, 2003, to comply with the BIS standards after which they would be prohibited to sell these items in the market. These items include self-ballasted lamps for general lighting services, circuit breakers for over current protection for household and similar installations. The manufacturers of low and high voltage fuses, switchgear and control gear, circuit breakers, disconnectors, PVC insulated cables and transformer operated watt hour meters would have to take licence from the
BIS. |
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Scams to be probed: Coop Bank chief Shimla, May 26 Talking to newspersons soon after his election here today, he said taking action against the corrupt would be his first priority and no one would be spared. Referring to the functioning of the bank, he said the financial viability of branches would be examined and to keep them on sound financial health, the branches perennially incurring losses would be merged with other branches. The process for consolidation of branches would be started soon. |
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Crude oil production falls 1.9 pc
New Delhi, May 26 Crude production from prime Mumbai High offshore fields fell by less than a percentage point to 1.310 million tonnes as opposed to 1.317 million tonnes produced in April 2002, according to the latest figures released by Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas here. India is 70 per cent import dependent to meet its annual 110 million tonnes crude oil requirement.
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