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Nathpa Project generates 1,000 million units
Tatas, Reliance lock horns over bandwidth
BSNL to decide on ILD carrier next week
Shourie rejects US criticism over outsourcing
Top e-mail providers sue spammers
Dalda re-enters market |
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Pak rice millers to buy Indian machinery
Self-help groups told to take banks’ help The Sensex tumbled further by 109.43 points to end at a 2-week low of 5,649.86 points today as share prices sank deeper into red on the third straight day today on persistent selling pressure, triggered by weak global advice and fears of slowing foreign fund inflows, brokers said. 
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Nathpa Project generates 1,000 million units New Delhi, March 11 He said the corporation had so far generated revenue of Rs 218 crore from the project. “ We have already given Rs 18 crore to the Himachal government as their share of free power from this project up to January 30, 2004,” he added. The Union Government and the Government of Himachal Pradesh are the main equity holders in the ratio of 3:1. Mr Apparao claimed that with the successful testing of the fifth 250 MW unit of the project on March 9, the total capacity of the project will reach 1250 MW. It will be the highest capacity of any hydroelectric project in the country under operation. The project has been partly funded by the World Bank amounting Rs 1,537 crore or 23 per cent of the project cost. The total project cost of the project has been worked out about Rs 8,600 crore. Other refinance agencies include Power Trading Corporation, the Rural Electrification Corporation and the Life Insurance Corporation of India. Commissioning of the five units of 250 MW each aggregating to 1250 MW within a period of six months was a unique achievement in the history of hydropower development in the
country. The project will be a trendsetter for the mega hydro-electric projects and a big step towards realising the country’s dream of adding 50,000 MW of hydro electric power by 2017, the end of the 12th plan, he said. He disclosed that the Himachal government had agreed in principle to allot 439 MW Rampur Hydro-electric project to the company. The government had already sent a communication in this regard to the company, he maintained. Mr Apparao stated that Rampur project, which was a down-stream project of the Nathpa Jhakri
project on Satluj, will be commenced shortly. He also added if the national grid was also completed, SLVNL would be in a position to meet part of the southern regions requirements as well.
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Tatas, Reliance lock horns over bandwidth
New Delhi, March 11 After months of discussion with ILD operators who had approached the regulator for debottlenecking the landing facilities and VSNL, Trai told the erstwhile PSU that it would be forced to intervene if the issue was not resolved soon. Shortly after issuing the direction to VSNL during a meeting yesterday, Baijal told PTI “we have asked them to sort out bottleneck issues or else we may have to intervene.” In the meanwhile, VSNL has offered FLAG to negotiate in “good faith” in respect of allocation of bandwidth facilities by the global major. Baijal refused to accept that the issue was between Reliance and Tatas saying “the issue is not Reliance... It is a matter between VSNL and ILD operators.” Asked if Reliance had approached the regulator for removal of bottleneck problems to enable it cut international bandwidth prices by upto 70 per cent, Baijal said “ILD operators have been approaching him for the last 4-5 months.” According to Reliance officials, the ILD operators had to pay about $ 5 million for 155 MBPS under the present dispensation for landing in India and the same could be brought down to one fifth at $ one million if bandwidth facilities were liberalised. It is in this backdrop Manoj Modi, Executive Director of Reliance Infocomm, had told PTI that they could reduce the prices of international bandwidth by upto 70 per cent, but Tatas feel it was going as per the agreement with global operator FLAG, taken over by Reliance for over $ 200 million earlier in 2004. “VSNL and FLAG are engaged in a dialogue at this point of time and VSNL will not be in a position to comment further,” S.K. Gupta, Managing Director of VSNL, said in a statement last night. In fact, VSNL has recently questioned the allocation of bandwidth by FLAG to its new owner Reliance saying it was violative of the international operator’s prior commitment to other players like MCI and AT&T.
— PTI
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BSNL to decide on ILD carrier next week
New Delhi, March 11 The tenders for the carriers, invited by Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd, has stirred a controversy with Tata-managed VSNL quoting significantly lower rates than charged by it for the last two years. VSNL has quoted a settlement rate of Rs 2.2 per minute for the United States, United Kingdom and Canada sectors, which is significantly lower than Rs 6 per minute that the company is charging from BSNL for the last two years. Data Access had, in fact, quoted Rs 1.69 per minute to the US and UK. The tender is applicable for the month of April. “The international rates have been fluctuating rapidly. So we had called for a quote on a monthly basis,” the official told UNI. He disclosed that low rates would not be the only criteria to select the carrier. “The quality of services would also be taken into account,” he added. VSNL, Data Access and Reliance Infocomm had bid for the tender. While reliance infocomm has emerged the lowest bidder for Southeast Asia route, Data Access quoted the lowest rates for US, UK, Canada and West Asia. VSNL is the cheapest for Europe, Australia and New Zealand, Africa, Saudi Arabia and SAARC. The official also said BSNL would hold talks with VSNL for lowering its rates at par with those offered by Data Access. VSNL officials also said the company would offer BSNL lower rates in the next few days, comparable with Data Access’ offer. On the controversy over the alleged overcharging BSNL by VSNL, the state-owned telco sources said the media reports over the loss to BSNL are exaggerated. “Where does the question of loss come, when we had an agreement with VSNL to use it as ILD carrier.” The reports had said that BSNL charged VSNL with overcharging it by about Rs 850 crore during last two period. BSNL suffered an annual loss of Rs 182 crore alone on these three routes, on which the monthly traffic was around 40,000,000 minutes per month, the report added.
— UNI
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Shourie rejects US criticism over outsourcing
New Delhi, March 11 “Our imports have grown by 25 per cent... Is this not openness?”, IT and Communications Minister Arun Shourie retorted when asked to respond to US Trade representative Robert Zoellick’s comments yesterday on the issue of outsourcing and trade. Shourie said the Indian industry is not nervous over the issue and will devise creative solutions to it. The US had conceded that the issue of outsourcing was “complex”, but stated India had no right to complain about the proposed legislation in Congress and some state legislatures prohibiting the trend as it was one of the most “closed” economies in the world.
— PTI
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Top e-mail providers sue spammers
New York, March 11 The suits, filed under new federal anti-spam law, which went into effect on January 1, come in the wake of increasing percentage of junk mail. The lawsuits were filed in federal courts in California, Georgia, Virginia and Washington state. Almost 62 per cent of all e-mail in February was junk up from 58 per cent in December, ‘The New York Times’ quoted Brightmail, an e-mail filter company, as saying. America Online filed a case against Davis Wolfgang Hwake, Yahoo against Golddisk and Microsoft JDO Media of Ocala. The Times described Hawke as a former leader of a neo-Nazi organisation. Besides, they are suing 220 others who they say are sending junk mail but have not been identified so far. “We are trying to find the biggest, the baddest and the most notorious,” Randall Boe, the top lawyer for America Online told the Times. “When we work together it helps us find the most high-impact defendants.” Expert, however, do not expect their efforts, including legal action, would be able to stop junk mail. “We have been operating under a regime where ISP’s can sue spammers for eight years. When you cut off one head of the hydra, two more heads pop up,” David Kramer, an expert in anti-spam law at Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich and Rosati, a law firm in California was quoted as saying.
— PTI
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Dalda re-enters market
New Delhi, March 11 "We hope to regain the 100,000 tonne market that Dalda once enjoyed across the country," Christopher White, regional general manager of Bunge Limited — a global oil major that acquired Dalda in August, 2003 — told a press conference. Dalda is estimated to cover 5 or 6 per cent of the 1.3 million tonne vanaspati or hydrogenated vegetable oil market in India — about 60,000 tonnes. Hindustan Lever Ltd. (HLL) had sold Dalda to the US-based Bunge for Rs.900 million when it decided to exit the edible oils and fats business in India and Nepal as part of its restructuring strategy. HLL will continue to market Dalda as it has a well-established distribution network, White said. Bunge will take advantage of HLL's expertise to build a captive outlet for its edible oil products. "Vanaspati has, unfortunately, been given a black eye by being projected as unhealthy," White told IANS. "It is in fact a more robust cooking oil." He attributed the decline of Dalda to poor advertisement post HLL exit. A gap had been created in the edible oil market that was captured by a range of refined oils, which also played up a campaign on healthy eating habits, White said. "The health issue has been exaggerated," he said. What is more important is the eating habits, he contended, refuting as "baseless" fears of vanaspati being high in cholesterol and bad for the heart. Bunge has now drawn up plans to push Dalda into the premium segment of the market by bringing out packaged oil, strengthening its rural market and extending into other cooking media such as ghee and margarine, White said. The company has drawn up an integrated marketing strategy of consumer and trade promotion that would include a 422-town direct contact programme. White is confident that Dalda would find its way back into the kitchen as it was more cost effective as compared to ghee and imparted "that certain feel and taste to food". "So, regardless of ghee's availability, Dalda will enter Indian kitchens," he asserted. "Our aim is to revitalise Dalda, which is one of the country's heritage brands."
— IANS
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| Pak rice millers to buy Indian machinery
New Delhi, March 11 Mr Rahim Janoo, leader of the 26-member delegation visiting the five-day Expo at Pragati Maidan, said they intended to buy six or seven rice processing plants and are hopeful to clinch a deal in the next couple of days. Already, Indian-made eight odd plants are operational in Pakistan and millers are satisfied with the performance and quality of that machinery. Mr Janoo represents the Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan (REAP) which has a membership of 950 traders running 67 rice mills spread across Pakistan. To boost the rice export, Pakistan is creating a separate rice processing zone in Karachi and intends to import machinery from India for technology upgradation, he said. The Pakistan rice exporters want that their Indian counterparts should join hands in protecting Basmati exports from both countries to American and European countries. Otherwise, both Basmati producing countries will stand to lose in the wake of brand patenting of Basmati by the trading companies of those countries.
— UNI
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Self-help groups told to take banks’ help
Shimla, March 11 The Governor said Nabard had sanctioned loans amounting to Rs 893 crore to the Himachal Pradesh Government since 1995-96 and loans worth Rs 593 crore had been disbursed till February, 2004. Nabard was preparing potential-linked credit plans for all districts of Himachal Pradesh and the credit potential for the priority sector was estimated at Rs 1,545.40 crore during 2004-05 which would also help in improving the credit-deposit ratio, he added. The Governor gave awards to commercial banks, cooperative banks, regional rural banks, non-government organisations (NGOs) and some individuals for outstanding performance under the SHG-Bank Linkage Programme.
— PTI
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Sensex sheds 109 pts
Mumbai, March 11 The market stayed in the negative territory throughout the session after a gloomy start, with the continuous fall in the US markets in the last three sessions, fears of slowing foreign fund inflows and income-tax considerations ahead of the fiscal year-end, prompting players to unwind positions in both old and new economy stocks, Anish Marfatia, analyst at the Asit C Mehta Intermediaries said. The 30-stock Sensex which has resumed 22 points lower at 5,737.69 points, touched a high of 5,763.71 points and hit a low of 5,634.40 points, finished at 5,649.86 points, its lowest closing since February 26, and losing 109.43 points or 1.90 per cent from Wednesdays’ close of 5759.29 points. The S&P CNX Nifty of the NSE was also lost 38.95 points at 1805.40 points. With large domestic players reportedly busy in preparing their balance-sheet and tax returns for the fiscal year, little buying interest were seen.
— UNI
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