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Airport
privatisation not right, says Left Drugs to be sold
on MRP, says Paswan Proposed cess on
idiot-box irks TV makers Settlement scheme
for industry
Hong Kong
shopping festival from June 26 E-shopping losing
sheen |
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Visa delays cost
US firms $30 b
Broadband a necessity
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Airport privatisation not right, says Left New Delhi, June 3 While Mr Patel had even visited CPM and CPI headquarters for consultations before his yesterday’s announcement of reduction of FDI cap to 49 per cent from 74 per cent for airport modernisation, his initiative apparently has failed to impress the “comrades”. “We are opposed to privatisation of profit-making PSUs as are those in the United Progressive Alliance (UPA). Our Common Minimum Programme includes this. The government must take the workers and managements of AAI into confidence before deciding anything on the matter,” CPM Politburo member Sitaram Yechury said at a rally organised by the Airports Authority Employees Union (AAEU) here. The AAI employees staged demonstrations in different parts of the country on the issue. CITU President M K Pandhe, another Politburo member, and other senor party MPs Sunil Khan and Dipankar Mukherjee also maintained the same refrain at the rally. Their warning came a day after Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel announced reduction of private or foreign direct investment limit for modernisation of the two airports to 49 per cent from 74 per cent fixed by the erstwhile Vajpayee government. Meanwhile, CPM General Secretary Harkishan Singh Surjeet has shot off a letter to Mr Patel requesting him to “shelve any plans to privatise airports in our country”. Earlier talking to The Tribune, Mr Patel said that since the last date of expression was being extended to July 31 from June 4 deadline, the issue had assumed urgency. “I didn’t want to lose time as a new policy was also needed, I decided to visit the CPM and CPI headquarters with relevant date so that the project of modernisation of Mumbai and Delhi airports was not delayed,” the Minister said adding, “I had an excellent discussion with the CPM and CPI leaders”. “Obviously, I had taken the necessary instructions from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh,” he said that the Prime Minister was not in favour of any policy reversal. “I was convinced that financial institutions, corporations and companies in India had the capability to make available the huge capital needed for the project”, Mr Patel observed. Moreover, not a single existing employee of the Airport Authority of India would lose his or her job, he said adding that workforce at both the airports would be absorbed by the new company. The AAI would take proper care of its employees, Mr Patel stressed. The airports of Delhi and Mumbai are being leased and not sold, he stressed and added that it is a restructuring and not privatisation. Mr Surjeet observed that the decision to privatise these airports “under the garb of restructuring” was taken by the NDA government. He said the profits earned from Mumbai and Delhi airports, if these were privatised, would not be available for the upkeep and maintenance of other airports in the country, as was being done now. The IAAI Officers Association, in a statement, opposed the privatisation of the two airports.
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Drugs to be sold on MRP, says Paswan New Delhi, June 3 Addressing a press conference here today, Mr Paswan said he had ordered the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA), working under his Ministry, to conduct a thorough examination of the pricing mechanism of drugs. “An administrative order will be issued by June 28 to make it mandatory for retailers not to charge more than maximum retail price (MRP) printed on drug strips. The MRP will also include local taxes as well.” Mr Paswan said he had received numerous that the retail pharmacists were charging exorbitant prices from the customers in the name of local taxes. He said if the companies could sell other products at the same printed price, why they could not sell drugs at uniform prices. He also announced to set up a vigilance cell in the ministry to monitor the wholesale and retail pricing of medicines for controlled and un-controlled medicines. Mr Paswan said his ministry was considering segregating the medicines for the domestic and export market. Those for domestic use would be priced in the lower range.
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Proposed cess on idiot-box irks TV makers New Delhi, June 3 They are
worried that the proposed cess will affect the industry that is now growing at an annual rate of 15 per cent. “If the government decides to implement the proposed cess, it would hit the sale of TV sets, especially in the rural areas. How will the government justify cess that may affect the common man in villages, main viewers of Doordarshan channels” asked Mr Suresh Khanna, Secretary-General, Consumer Electronics and TV Manufacturers Association (CETMA). Minister for Information and Broadcasting S. Jaipal Reddy has recently proposed to impose a cess on sale of new TV sets to run Doordarshan channels on the pattern of the BBC in the UK. According to him, to make Prasar Bharati an autonomous body, the government would have to make it a self-reliant body. On the other hand, Mr M. V. Kamath, Chairman, Prasar Bharati Board, has recommended to the government to impose a licence fee on every house that has TV to generate required funds. Says Mr Khanna, “There are around 82 million houses that have TV sets in India. It will not be easy for the government to collect licence fee from the households, so it may follow the route of cess in the coming Budget. But we think that the government can easily provide required funds to the Prasar Bharati Board from huge excise duty on TV sets.” In the UK, the government charges £121 annually from each home with a colour TV set and £40 and 50 shillings from the households with B&W TV sets. However, there is no licence fee on radio sets. The Prasar Bharti Board opines that the licence fee can provide “sufficient funds to fulfil its social responsibility” and to face the onslaught of private TV channels. Industry experts said due to higher taxation, the sale of TV sets was around 10 million sets annually as against 35 million sets in China. Levying of the cess even at the rate of 4-5 per cent would hit the sales in the rural areas.
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Settlement scheme for industry Shimla, June 3 A spokesman of the PHDCCI said Mr Virbhadra Singh, Chief Minister, had accepted the demand for introducing a one-time settlement scheme for sales tax, power charges, excise and other taxes so that all cases pending before tax tribunals could be settled amicably by allowing waiver of interest. The assurance to set up committee came when a deputation of the PHDCCI met the Chief Minister. Regarding the entry tax in Manali, the Chief Minister said that it was imposed in accordance with the orders of the high court and money thus collected would be utilised for the development of the town. He said there was no proposal to levy similar tax in other towns.
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Hong Kong shopping festival from June 26 New Delhi, June 3 The “2004 Shopper of the Year” contest will also serve as an attraction to the Hong Kong Shopping Festival which begins from June 26. The winners of the contest from the 15 countries will go to Hong Kong on July 20 and 21 July to vie for the title of the “Shopper of the Year”. Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) Executive Director Clara Chong said today that the fun-filled contest would help create extensive publicity for the Shopping Festival internationally. “The contest will enable visitors to enjoy many activities during the festival period and the ‘total experience’ offered by Hong Kong,” she remarked.
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E-shopping losing sheen Chandigarh, June 3 “I purchased a T-shirt, online. But what was exhibited on screen was totally different from what I got, finally. Perhaps this has more to do with the fact that a conventional shopper touches and feels the apparel before purchasing it. This factor is totally amiss here,” says Lucky Malhotra, an IT professional and an occasional online shopper. “This can be attributed to hyped-up advertisements,” is what Mr Damanpreet Singh, Business Development Manager, Glide, an ISP (Internet Service Provider) thinks. He says usually advertisements are not the true portrayal of the actual product picture and that is why there remains a difference between what is exhibited and what is finally purchased. Prof S.C Vaidya, Dean, Faculty of Business and Commerce, Panjab University, Chandigarh, avers that most of the online shopping sites are into the “navigation business” wherein they have a tie-up with some manufacturing companies. The online shopper is shown a nicely displayed product of a particular company’s on the home page. “Whenever the company fails to be up-to-the-mark, the site’s credibility suffers,” he says. Mr K. Vaitheeswaran, Chief Operating Officer, Fabmall.com, an online shopping site, says that the problem surfaces only on those sites, which sell unbranded products. “When the product is branded the question of what customers gets being different from what they sees does not arise,” he says. Spokesperson from baazee.com, another shopping portal, says that such issues can be tackled if a site has a feedback rating and buyer protection platforms in place online.
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Visa delays cost US firms $30 b Houston, June 3 Due to government delays, business travellers from countries had the greatest difficulties obtaining timely visa processing from the US authorities, according to the survey sponsored by eight trade associations. The estimate includes revenue losses of $25.5 billion and indirect costs of $5.15 billion, “It is a dramatic difference” in the number of companies reporting their businesses being affected by visa rules since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the USA, said Charles Santangelo of the Santangelo Group Inc., which conducted the study for the associations. According to the findings of the survey, nearly three-quarters of companies had experienced unexpected delays or arbitrary denials of business visa applications, while 60 per cent said the delays had hurt their companies through increased costs or lost sales. The report cites examples that include Boeing Co. jets left sitting on a tarmac in Seattle because foreign buyers could not get visas for pilots to retrieve them, Motorola Inc. facing the loss of a $10 million contract to supply two-way radios to the Vietnamese government and Lucent Technologies Inc.’s problems getting visas for 14 Chinese employees needing to come to the US for training. The severest impact on business came from procedures implemented in July, 2002, that require background checks of anyone, including potential foreign business customers, working with technologies deemed sensitive for national security reasons, such as aerospace, chemicals or advanced computers.
— PTI
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