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Bombay HC upsets Rs 5,500-cr NTC mills' land deal
Reliance eyes Haryana for SEZ
Gowda accuses Infosys of grabbing land
Tata Teleservices ‘congestion most’ in Chandigarh
CITU opposes move to tax saving schemes
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Oil prices jump
Honda to spend $98 m in China
PTL announces 45 per cent special dividend
5-day course on intellectual property rights
Allahabad Bank gains Rs 168 crore
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Bombay HC upsets Rs 5,500-cr NTC mills’ land deal
Mumbai, October 17 Hearing a petition filed by the Bombay Environment Action Group, the court has ordered a complete halt on the sale of more than 600 acres of land owned by the National Textile Corporation in Central Mumbai. The land is estimated to be worth Rs 5,500 crores. The petitioners had challenged the sale of land on the ground that the government had violated the development control norms to raise funds. Under the original plan, the government was to provide one third of the land for low-cost housing and another third for open spaces for public use, leaving the rest for commercial development. However the rules were modified to suit builders in the city, including several companies owned by Maharashtra politicians. While several plots of land owned by private mill owners have already been sold, today’s court orders are likely to halt the process. In 2001, the Maharashtra Government quietly amended the development control rules to reduce the amount of land allotted for public use. The court ruled that that whenever the mill land is sold, one-third of it should be reserved for open space, one-third for low cost housing by the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) and one-third for mill-owner’s benefits. Private mill owners and the NTC had held that mill land needed to be developed commercially in order to enable the redevelopment of mills in and around Mumbai. Mill land is being sold for astronomical sums. A company floated by former Lok Sabha Speaker Manohar Joshi and senior Shiv Sena leader Raj Thackeray paid a whopping Rs 421 crore for a 4.8 acre plot of land owned by NTC’s Kohinoor Mills. This and several other deals are likely to be put in the cold storage in the wake of today’s judgement. So far, the NTC had garnered more than Rs 1,900 crore from the sale of land in five mill in Mumbai this year. However, most of these plots were still in the process of being developed by the new owners. UNI adds: The Bombay High Court said the sale of National Textile Corporation (NTC) mill — Jupitor, Appolo, Elphinston and Kohinoor and Mumbai Mill — were not in accordance with the Supreme Court order. Giving its ruling, a Division Bench, comprising Mr Justice S. Radhakrishnan and Mr Justice S.D. Dharmadhikari, said those builders who have undertaken construction on the mill land should also take the clearance from the environmental department. If such a clearance is not obtained, an action should be initiated against builders, the court observed.
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Reliance eyes Haryana for SEZ
Chandigarh, October 17 This was disclosed by the Chief Minister, Mr Bhupinder Singh Hooda, while talking to mediapersons shortly after having a meeting here with the Chairman-cum-Managing Director (CMD) of Reliance Industries, Mr Mukesh Ambani. The statement of intent was signed by Mr Mukesh Ambani and Managing Director, HSIDC, Mr Rajiv Arora, in the presence of the Chief Minister, Mr Bhupinder Hooda, Principal Secretary to Chief Minister, Mr M.L. Tayal, Financial Commissioner and Principal Secretary, Industries, Mr P.K. Chaudhary and senior officers of the Reliance Industries. The details of the project were not disclosed. The Haryana CM said that the government was in the process of working out the details of the proposed SEZ. It was learnt that the proposal, which is in the preliminary stage, could bring in investment amounting to Rs 10,000 crore by the Reliance Industries. The SEZ is proposed to be developed somewhere in the national capital region (NCR) and is intended to be utilised for multiple products.
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Gowda accuses Infosys of grabbing land
Bangalore, October 17 Mr Gowda has made this demand in a letter written to Chief Minister N. Dharam Singh recently. The letter states that Infosys has sought 845 acres of land in eight villages in Sarjapur district and that various zoning rules had been bent during the past few months to ensure land for the IT major. He also claimed that the government department concerned was being “forced” to make changes in the zoning rules. The letter states that even the final approval of the Bangalore Metropolitan Regulatory Development Authority (BMRDA) master plan was delayed so that the request of Infosys and other IT firms for additional land could be accommodated. Mr Gowda also states in his letter that though he does not have anything against the IT industry per se, the way in which valuable land has been acquired by certain leading IT firms in the name of developing the sector requires examination. Mr Gowda also claimed that a number of IT firms which had acquired land in the past had not utilised it as per the master plan. Some had only built a compound wall around the land so as to make use of it for real estate purposes subsequently. Giving details of land acquired by Infosys, he said the company had acquired 78 acres of land in Bangalore, 350 acres in Mysore and 311 acres in Mangalore. The letter said details of employment generated by firms which had been favoured by the government through land acquisitions should be compared with companies like Wipro, Intel, Accenture, IBM, HP and Honey Well which were functioning mostly from rented premises. He claimed on his part that he was sure the latter firms were providing as much as 85 per cent of the jobs in the IT sector in the city. Meanwhile, an Infosys spokesman said as the company’s chief mentor N.R. Narayanamurthy would respond with appropriate data. The official said the company had applied for allotment of land in South Bangalore as it was near its existing campus in the electronic city.
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Tata Teleservices ‘congestion most’ in Chandigarh
New Delhi, October 17 The congestion is largely between the private operators and the BSNL. The benchmark for the inter network congestion for an acceptable quality is less than 0.5 per cent. Trai found that in a number of major and minor cities, the level of congestion is far more than this benchmark. Trai today said network congestion of Tata Tele Services beyond the acceptable quality in the region were Chandigarh (75.93 per cent), Sonepat (44.50 per cent), Yamunanagar (59.30 per cent), Ambala fixed NLI (100 per cent), Ferozpore (40.79 per cent), Nawanshahr (70.13 per cent) and Patiala (56.82 per cent). For Hutch, it was Jalandhar (86 per cent) and for Bharti, it was Palanpur (94.81 per cent) and Jammu (84.90 per cent), TRAI said. In case of BSNL, in a number of service areas, there is congestion in its radio network. Against the benchmark of 2 per cent for the TCH Congestion, the figures for the service areas of Orissa, Haryana, UP-W, Bihar and Rajasthan are 15.3 per cent, 15.1 per cent 14.0 per cent 12.1 per cent and 11.0 per cent, respectively. In January 2005, there were about 24 places having congestion level of more than 10 per cent, that is 20 times worse than the benchmark. In July 2005, the number of such places had increased to 86. With the exponential increase in the number of subscribers in the past two years and the number of operators in each service area, the issue of efficient and adequate interconnection between operators has become very important. Trai has been monitoring the provision of interconnection between various operators.
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CITU opposes move to tax saving schemes
New Delhi, October 17 “The imposition of tax at the withdrawal stage is nothing but cumulative taxation on the entire corpus and will naturally be at the peak rate of tax. This would cause serious financial hardship to millions of workers and the vast community of small savings public, including senior citizens,” CITU said. The CPM-backed trade union asked the UPA Government to “give up this retrograde move and continue the decades- old EEE (exempt, exempt, exempt) mode for all savings instruments. ”The savings instruments comprising provident funds, small savings, insurance policies etc. have all along been exempt from taxation at all three stages viz. contribution, accumulation and withdrawal, known as the EEE system. The EEE system is currently being examined by an expert committee for the proposed migration to the EET system will virtually make the exemption at the earlier stages of contribution and “accumulation a mockery,” the trade union said. The NDA regime had, over the years, cut down the administered rate of interest, payable on all these instruments, from 12 per cent in June,2000, to 8 per cent from April, 2002. The Finance Minister generously abolished the tax on long -term capital gain and imposed a Securities Transaction Tax at 0.15 per cent but later buckled in to the blackmail of the brokers to reduce it to 0.015 per cent last year. He also reduced the rate of corporate income tax, bringing it on a par with the personal income tax in the current year
Budget. But he is out to squeeze regular income earners at the bottom rung for his fiscal
management, it said.
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Oil prices jump
London, October 17
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Honda to spend $98 m in China
Tokyo, October 17 Honda Auto Parts Manufacturing Co., wholly owned by Honda Motor (China) Investment Co., will start production in 2007 and hire about 500 workers, the Tokyo-based automaker said today. The plant in southern Chinese province of Guangdong will be able to make 240,000 transmissions a year, Honda said. Honda, the first Japanese automaker to build vehicles in China, will supply the components to its two ventures and its third plant which makes cars solely for export. The three companies will be able to build 530,000 units a year in the second half of 2006. The car-maker currently produces five models, including the Accord sedans and the Fit compact car in China and imports the Stream minivan and Legend luxury sedans from Japan.
— Bloomberg
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PTL announces 45 per cent special dividend
Chandigarh, October 17 PTL has also announced second quarter net profit of Rs. 16.8 crore, a strong 55 per cent growth over Rs. 10.8 crore net profit posted for the second quarter of 2004-05. Total revenue for the quarter rose 12 per cent to reach Rs. 216.5 crore. Operating profit from July to September, 2005, moved to Rs. 30.2 crore, a rise of 35 per cent over corresponding performance of previous year and represents an improved margin of 13.9 per cent (11.5 per cent second quarter 2004-05).
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5-day course on intellectual property rights
Sangrur, October 17 Inaugurating the programme, Dr N.P. Singh, Acting Director of the SLIET, said the 21st century would be a knowledge-based century. He said the foundation of knowledge-based economy would be intellectual property. Dr A.N. Pathak, Professor and Head, Department of Applied Sciences, NITTTR, Chandigarh, in his keynote address said future belonged to those who were intellectual property right educated and were willing to carry out research in intellectual property segment. About 40 participants from different departments of the SLIET attended the programme.
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