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India plans to tap oil refineries for forex
Service tax on flats from June 16
Hyundai cuts Santro Xing price by Rs 19,000
ADB to assist FinMin
Pagrexco gets plants from TERI
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REL to set up three power plants
Singapore Airlines woos students
Cisco bullish on Punjab
After textiles, EU alarm on Chinese shoes
Fiscal deficit 84.1 pc of Budget Estimates
Essar Steel acquires two UK firms
Fortis to invest over Rs 1,100 cr
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India plans to tap oil refineries for forex
Karachi, June 8 The “export-blueprint” envisages converting present and planned coastal refineries into export-oriented refineries with large capacities so that export earnings pay for import of crude oil and gas, he said here. India spent Rs 117,032 crore on import of crude oil in 2004-05 while its earnings from export of petroleum products were Rs 14,950 crore — making it the fourth biggest revenue earner through exports for the country. Given this backdrop, the Petroleum Ministry is bullish on a strategy to compete with Singapore and Middle East refineries in the international arena. Under the new strategy, coastal refineries, which are economic and competitive compared to neighbouring overseas refineries, would be equipped to focus on exports while new inland refineries would be built soon to meet the hinterland demand-supply gap. Currently the government incurs huge expenditure on account of moving petroleum products from coastal refineries to the hinterland. The coastal refineries have been exporting surplus petrol, diesel, naphtha, fuel oil to sustain their profits as well as earn foreign exchange. Meanwhile, India is eyeing possibilities of its firms picking up stakes in oil and gas fields in the Caspian region to meet its fuel needs. Mr Mani Shankar Aiyar will pay a two-day visit to Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, from tomorrow to explore the possibilities of tapping Caspian oil through a pipeline from the southern tip of Azerbaijan across Iran to the Gulf from where crude can be shipped to India. The Caspian Sea region, located about 1,600 km south of Moscow, has emerged as the focal point for untapped oil and natural gas resources.
— PTI
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Service tax on flats from June 16
New Delhi, June 8 A notification issued today said that service tax of 10 per cent and 2 per cent education cess on it will be extended to nine new services including construction of residential complexes having more than 12 residential houses or apartments together with common areas. The service tax will be levied only on the construction services, senior Finance Ministry officials said, adding there would be 67 per cent abatement for turnkey contracts and the tax would be levied on the remaining 33 per cent of the cost. In the case of labour contract, the service tax would be on the entire contract rendered by the builder as the owner bears the input material costs, Advisor to Finance Minister Parthasarathy Shome told reporters. The Budget for 2005-06 had brought in nine new services under the tax net taking the total taxable services to 80 besides extending the scope of 12 existing services to mop up Rs 17,500 crore as against Rs 14,000 crore in the last fiscal. The other services that are to attract tax are transport of goods through pipeline, site formation and clearance, excavation and earth-moving and demolition services, dredging of rivers, ports, harbours, backwater and estuary, survey and map making other than government departments, cleaning services, membership of club or association, mailing list compilation and
mailing. — PTI
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Hyundai cuts Santro Xing price by Rs 19,000
New Delhi, June 8 Santro Xing XK has been priced at Rs 3.27 lakh down from about Rs 3.46 earlier while top end model of Santro
Xing, which has been named Santro Xing XL now will be priced at Rs 3.46 lakh down by over Rs 16,000. The company also launched a new variant — Santro Xing XK Non AC with higher price tag of Rs 2.79 lakh up by Rs 7,794, the company said in a statement. The new Santro Xing variants —
XK-non AC, XK and XL — will have the latest 1.1 litre engine with eRLX Active intelligence technology resulting in better pick-up, better fuel efficiency and lower maintenance and enhanced engine life. Commenting on the value-additions to the Santro, Mr
W.S. Win, Executive Director, Sales and Marketing, Hyundai Motors India, said: “Hyundai has a tradition of providing value for money to its customers. Each year we introduce design and technology upgradations in our cars. The new launch is another step to offer something new to our customers at affordable prices.” According to sources, all carmakers have been feeling the need to remain in competition following Maruti’s launch of new mid-segment car Swift last month. The company has received tremendous response in bookings.
— PTI
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ADB to assist FinMin
New Delhi, June 8 The technical assistance from ADB would cover both Central Board of Direct Taxes and Central Board of Excise and Customs, official sources said today. The steering committee set up after Budget by Finance Minister P. Chidambaram to look into the tax matters
has suggested that ADB could be roped in for this purpose. Mr Chidambaram had earlier stated that tax rates should be moderate, procedures made user-friendly and enforcement should be strict. Sources said ADB would look into various aspects of tax administration so as to improve collections.
— PTI
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Pagrexco gets plants from TERI
Chandigarh, June 8 In phases, TERI will supply eight lakh virus free tissue cultured rootstock plants to
Punjab. A spokesman of the Pagrexco said that in spite of tremendous potential of citrus farming, the state has been facing an urgent need for large amounts of virus free certified plant material, difficult to get in a short period of time through conventional methods. According to Mr Himmat Singh, Managing Director, Pagrexco: “With the arrival of the virus-free cultured rootstock plants, commercial cultivation of citrus in Punjab is all set to get a major boost. Through the use of superior and promising varieties of scion and rootstock, farmers will be able to produce fruits of higher quality and be able to increase their production, The season is also likely to be extended, because of the availability of required rootstock plants. As a result of this, we expect that more and more farmers will diversify into commercial cultivation of citrus. Says Mr Himmat Singh: “Looking at the needs of the farmers and the industry, Pagrexco has imported a wide range of finished trees, rootstocks, rootstock seeds and budwood of citrus from the USA. Farmers will also have the choice of planting an early maturing crop, a mid-maturing crop or a late maturing crop. All this will result in a stable supply of quality and authentic planting material and will immediately put in place cultivation of desired cultivars of citrus,” he added. A state-of-the-art greenhouse and screen-houses have been set up at Jallowal village in Jalandhar for production and multiplication of plant material of various cultivars.
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REL to set up three power plants
Mumbai, June 8 Addressing shareholders at the 76th Annual General Meeting of the company, he said REL subsidiary Reliance Energy Generation Ltd has initiated steps to develop the ultra mega 12,000-MW coal-based power generation project in phases in Orissa with an estimated investment of Rs 48,000 crore. “This will be the world’s largest pithead coal-based power plant at a single location,” he
claimed. REGL is also developing a 3740-MW gas-based power generation project at the Dhirubhai Ambani Energy Centre near Dadri in Uttar Pradesh. The project, to be developed in phases, will need an investment of Rs 11,000 crore. Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) has assured its subsidiary Reliance Energy Limited
(REL) of the availability of gas from the Krishna-Godavari basin for the 3,740-MW Dadri power project in Uttar
Pradesh. REL Chairman Anil Ambani said today that the proposed plant is likely to be commissioned in 2008-09 as per a revised
schedule. REL has also bagged the 280-MW run-of-the-river Urthing Sobla hydropower project in Uttaranchal. The estimated investment is over Rs 1,500 crore while the cost of power generation is expected to be around Rs 150 per unit. Mr Ambani’s 40-minute speech revealed details about the other plants with a total capacity of 5,500 MWs but did not divulge information on investment.
— UNI
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Singapore Airlines woos students
Kolkata, June 8 SIA is offering a one-way fare of Rs 26,400 to Los Angeles for students as opposed to normal one-way fare of Rs 32,000, according to an SIA press note issued here today. The student fare for New York is Rs 27,000 as opposed to normal one way fare of Rs 30,000 while student fares to San Francisco were priced at Rs 31,200 as against a normal fare of Rs 39,000.
Malaysian Airlines
Malaysian Airlines will expand its services from India by adding three more destinations and starting three additional flights between Delhi and Kuala Lumpur this winter. “Our very next step in the expansion plan would be to launch services from Amritsar in October, followed by Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram early next year. Three destinations have been allowed as part of India’s liberalised open sky policy for the ASEAN nations,” The airline’s new Regional Manager (South Asia), Mr Christopher Yek, said in Delhi. Another official, Mr Syed Abdilllah Aziz, said the additional destinations would take the total number of Indian cities served by the airline to 10. the other destinations are Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Hyderabad.
Air Deccan
Air Deccan on Wednesday announced an additional return flight from Kolkata to Guwahati for which bookings will open on Thursday. Air Deccan has plans of making Kolkata a major hub for expansion of the North-Eastern operations. The other sectors to be opened in the near future are Jamshedpur and Aizawl.
— Agencies
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Cisco bullish on Punjab
Chandigarh, June 8 Talking to The Tribune, Mr Suprabhat Chatterjee, National Business Development Manager, Cisco (India & SAARC), who was in the city today to oversee the company’s strategy, said that though Chandigarh had been a bit slow in adapting IT technologies yet has become a market mature enough to be tapped by big-time players. “Now getting networked has become a compulsive business decision,” he said. “There has been a rapid proliferation of regional clusters in the country. Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh have particularly experienced rapid industrial growth and they are having an impact on Chandigarh’s industrial scene. We plan to develop domain specific solutions to help SMEs by providing tailor-made solutions for each sub-vertical,” he said. Cisco’s clients in the education sector in Punjab currently include a university and a deemed university. He said that Cisco, which commands 76.5 per cent market share in Local Area Networking (LAN) market generated $ 2.5 billion from the Asia-Pacific region. “For India, the figures stood at Rs 1,630 crore,” he said while parrying the question on revenue generation from North India. “But now Punjab is being noticed from our focus point of view,” he said.
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After textiles, EU alarm on Chinese shoes
Brussels, June 8 “The European Commission has noted the concerns of the EU footwear industry that this rise is causing considerable market disruptions to EU producers,’’ the 25-nation bloc’s executive said in a statement. The spotlight on cheap Chinese exports of shoes and slippers comes amid mounting tension over moves by the USA and the 25-nation EU to curb a huge rise in imports of textiles and clothing from China. Pressed by Italy, which has a tradition of shoe production, the EU Commission monitored imports of six categories of footwear after the elimination of quotas, finding a year-on-year rise of 681 per cent for the first four months of this year. It said the unit price of these imports fell by 28 per cent.
— UNI
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Fiscal deficit 84.1 pc of Budget Estimates
New Delhi, June 8 Revenue deficit for April-February 2004-05 was put at 121.7 per cent of BE as compared to 83.1 per cent in the year-ago period. The Economic Report for May 2005 released here showed the fiscal deficit for April-February 2004-05 as Rs 1,154,98 crore as against Rs 1,104,70 crore for April-February 2003-04. The Budget Estimate for 2004-05 is Rs 1,37,407 crore. The revenue deficit was Rs 92,674 crore in April-February 2004-05 as against Rs 93,368 crore in April- February 2003-04. The Budget estimate for revenue deficit was Rs 76,171 crore for April-February 2004-05. The total expenditure, which stood at Rs 4,052,06 crore during April-February 2004-05 was 84.8 per cent of BE, as compared to 87.5 per cent in April-February 2003-04.
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Essar Steel acquires two UK firms
Mumbai, June 8 The acquisition of HGPL and SCGL were completed at a cost of $ 450 million (equivalent of Rs 1950 crore). This has helped Essar Steel to become a totally integrated steel producer with end-to-end control over raw materials, processes, technology and finished products, the company’s press note said here.
— UNI
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Fortis to invest over Rs 1,100 cr
New Delhi, June 8 Fortis Chairman Harpal Singh said the company had already opened four multi-speciality world-class hospitals and could revise its investment plans if the returns were encouraging. He said there was a great potential in the sector as 80 per cent of the people in future would be looking upon the private sector for their health needs.
— UNI
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UPL acquisition
Richard Gere BSNL-Star pact Nagarjuna Const HSIDC to build food park in Dabwali Haseeb Drabu is J&K Bank chief IVRCL bags Punjab road project |
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