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Sunday,
September 28, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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No public
issue for funding investment, says Thapar Oil firms
may not revise prices Free sale
of beer likely in Maharashtra Technology
mission for plantation crops |
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Forex
reserves cross $ 88 b Hamirpur
banks achieve targets
Air
traffic continues to remain dismal
Minus
HRA, LTA from gross income
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No public issue for funding investment, says Thapar New Delhi, September 27 The revamping exercise will also involve the establishment of garmenting capacity as part of the overall preparatory roadmap in anticipation of stiff competition after the quota system is abolished at the end of 2004 as mandated by the WTO. “We are working on new product development with appropriate technology infusion. We want to be ready by 2005 and do not want to be caught napping, especially Chinese producers”, Vice Chairman and Managing Director of JCT Limited Samir Thapar told The Tribune in an exclusive interview. He said that the company would exit from the steel business by next year. “We are looking around (for buyers). We do not want to invest in areas where we are clearly not leaders”, Mr Thapar said. Instead, he said, the company’s primary focus would be on flagship areas of cotton and nylon. To this effect an investment of Rs 70 to Rs 80 crore is being planned to be pumped into various areas including augmentation of the dyeing capacity in the Phagwara plant and power generation plants both at Phagwara and Hoshiarpur. The decision to set up dedicated captive power generation units has been necessitated by the high cost of power in Punjab where the average price is Rs 4 per unit. The company is also setting up a new garmenting capacity with an investment of around Rs 15 crore. “ The final modalities of the product mix are being worked out and we will gradually build up capacity”, Mr Thapar said. At the same time, he ruled out a possible foray into the competitive segment of creating their own garment brand. “We do not intend to get into the garment branding business. Our core competence is manufacturing and we plan to stick to that. We would be manufacturing garments which others will use for creating their own brands”, Mr Thapar said. The decision of the JCT to set up a garmenting capacity fits into a recent industry pattern where large textile groups are now foraying into or augmenting their garmenting capacities. A clutch of large textile companies such as Raymond, Vardhman, Zodiac, Madura Garments etc. are chalking out plans to up their garmenting capacities. Mr Thapar said that his company will achieve turnover of Rs 700 crore and is expecting a profit of around Rs 35 core in 2003-04. He, however, ruled out bringing out any public issue for funding additional investments as planned. “The investments will be funded partly from internal resources and partly through debt”, he said. Mr Thapar noted that the perception of financial institutions and banks have changed following the company’s turnaround. The company had slipped into red with a bleeding balance sheet with the debt liability reaching a whopping Rs 1,100 crore. Since last year, however, the company had started earning cash profits and the overall debt
liability last year was comfortably placed at Rs 160 crore. The JCT Limited Managing Director said the turnaround was achieved because of some “hard decisions” and exiting from the polyester business which was a major element of the restructuring exercise. Mr Thapar termed the recent revival package for textile mills as a “very good initiative by the government although there appears to be some discrepancies. The repayment period needs to be extended . A 10-year repayment period sounds more logical. The combined
liability of textile mills to banks and financial institutions is to the tune of Rs 1600 crore”, he said. The Finance Ministry has announced a Rs 260 crore package for the powerloom industry which includes increase in direct capital subsidy from the present 12 per cent to 20 per cent for loans under the technology upgradation fund scheme to the tune of Rs 50 lakh. Textile mills have raised a slew of objections to the debt restructuring scheme. They have said that five years is too short a time for repayment of debt under the scheme if it includes the period of availing of the benefits of the scheme as well. Mr Thapar said that the Indian textile industry should anticipate strong competition, especially from Chinese producers after the quota system is abolished by the end of 2004. “The competition will grow very firmly. Somehow or the other the Chinese have a knack of producing mass volume commodities at lower costs”, he said. At the same, however, he was very bullish about the domestic textile industry and exuded confidence that India will eventually emerge as a strong force if the right moves are made at the appropriate time. Mr Thapar also did not see a possibility of Chinese textiles and garments flooding the Indian market after 2004. “If dumping takes place, we take recourse to the anti-dumping laws”, he said adding that the world market, especially Europe and the USA could be the most competitive regions. JCT Limited is presently exporting mainly to Latin America, USA and Europe and its exports value have registered a big jump to Rs 80 crore compared to Rs 30 crore in the previous year.
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Oil firms may not revise prices
New Delhi, September 27 ''Oil companies as well as the government will like to see how the market reacts in the next few days to the OPEC decision,'' sources in the industry said, adding that if prices remained firm in October, consumers would have to face ''consequences.'' Petrol prices, which were ruling around $ 35 a barrel last month, have now come down to around 30 dollars while diesel prices weakened by more than a dollar per barrel. There was a possibility of a downward revision in the domestic prices prior to the OPEC
decision in the wake of weakness in prices. But the OPEC decision might force the oil companies to keep the prices unchanged. However, the government visualises that the decision of OPEC may not affect the market much and said international oil prices will fall in the ''medium term'' despite a cut in oil supply. This is in the hope that supplies from non-OPEC countries like Russia as well as from Iraq will increase in the coming months.
— UNI
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Free sale of beer likely in Maharashtra Mumbai, September 27 According to sources here, a notification to this effect is likely to be introduced in the next few weeks. After grocers buy licences from the state excise departments, beer would be sold freely. However, only the sale of mild beer with alcohol content of less than 5 per cent could be allowed to be sold through grocers’ shops, officials here say. The government is likely to fix licence fees to the tune of around Rs 50,000 to enable grocers to sell mild beer. At present beer can be sold along with hard liquor only through licensed liquor shops. Unlike elsewhere in the country, liquor vends are not auctioned by the government of Maharashtra. The government here, however, increases the licence fees from the wine shops every year. Though only a few wine shops have opened in the major cities and towns of Maharashtra, large-scale issue of liquor shop licenses happened last in 1973. In all there are nearly 4,200 wine shops in Maharashtra, of which nearly 300 are in Mumbai. In addition a large number of hotels have bars attached to them. Excise duties are levied on the volume and not by alcoholic content thereby making beer more expensive than hard liquor. The Maharashtra Government may also reduce duty on beer so that a bottle of beer may be priced cheaper than the present Rs 50 per bottle. The government may also allow people to consume mild beer in public without a permit, sources here say. The cash-strapped Maharashtra government has been attempting to increase revenues from excise by increasing license fees of wine shops and bars across the state. Earlier attempts to increase fees for bars from Rs 1,71,000 to Rs 5,00,000 were stiffly opposed by bar owners. The increase in license fees is much lower as bar owners threatened to shut shop en masse.
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Technology mission for plantation crops New Delhi, September 27 The technology mission would address issues relating to optimising productivity, processing, packaging, quality upgradation and marketing of value added products besides product diversification to increase farm income for plantation growers, an official release issued here today said. Addressing the annual conference of the United Planters’ Association at Coonoor today, the Union Commerce Minister, Mr Arun Jaitley also announced a separate fund would be created for the development, modernisation and rehabilitation of the tea plantation sector in India. Mr Jaitley noted that while the situation in the case of natural rubber had definitely shown some improvement recently with the prices moving up, the tea and coffee plantations continued to be affected by
depressed prices. The plantation industry is plagued by a number of critical problems like the low price realisation, increasing cost of production, declining export and fall in export price realisation. A general over supply situation and the slowing down of the rate of consumption growth in domestic market have affected the domestic market price. The industry is also beset with long term problems like old age of bushes, a high percentage of vacancies in existing plantation areas and low plant population per hectare. He said the government has in the past few years intervened in a number of ways to re-energise the plantation sector. The establishment of a price stabilisation fund with an initial corpus of Rs 500 crore for providing relief to the small growers of plantation commodities such as tea, coffee, rubber and tobacco is one of the major step taken in this direction and this is expected to bring some relief to the sector, the minister added.
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Forex reserves cross $ 88 b
Mumbai, September 27 The week’s inflows of $ 700 million has taken the country’s foreign exchange reserves to $ 88,556 million, according to Reserve Bank of India’s weekly statistical supplement. The foreign exchange reserves have grown by over $ 13 billion since April this year.
— PTI
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Hamirpur banks achieve targets Hamirpur, September 27 Presiding over a meeting of the district consultative committee of the banks here today, the Deputy Commissioner, Mr Devesh Kumar, said there was a need to improve the C/D ratio and make recoveries of the loans. He stressed upon the need for releasing credit cards in time, linking more self-help groups with banks and giving them fiscal benefits. Mr R.K.Sethi, Senior Regional Manager of PNB, was also present at the meeting.
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PTL, SBP sign pact Swiss watches BoP branch Zee Telefilms Pfizer net falls Max India |
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Having achieved a major turnaround
after nearly writing off a staggering debt liability, multi-crore
business conglomerate JCT Limited is presently working on a
restructuring plan involving an exit from its non-core steel business
and development of new product mixes in the flagship textile segment.
