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Govt to lay down norms to acquire land for SEZs
Hyundai chief meets President, PM
Orissa clears REL project, to sign MoU for 11 more
Manpower shortage hits IT Deptt
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Rel Comm, Bharti mull cell sites sharing
BHEL wins Rs 1,224-cr order for UP power plant
Alstom bags Rs 330-cr orders
Tyre dealers oppose meagre cost cut
AppLabs buys US company
Elder Pharma to set up JV with Ghana co
STC pays 35 pc dividend
Vijaya Bank records 164 pc growth
IOB tax-saving scheme launched
Gold, silver lose
Fuel surcharge up
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Govt to lay down norms to acquire land for SEZs
New Delhi, September 20 "We are meeting representatives of the state governments tomorrow to advise them on land acquisition for SEZs. The Board of Approval will lay down some general guidelines on this," Mr G.K. Pillai, Special Secretary in the Commerce Ministry, said today. The meeting is also likely to consider norms for putting up social infrastructure such as schools, roads, parks and hospitals in the zones. Though no new cases would be taken up, the BoA would discuss the cases that have already been given in-principle approval. It assumes importance as the CPI today demanded re-examination of the SEZ policy and to halt the approval process of SEZs. CPI General Secretary A.B. Bardhan said, “a high-level commission should be set up to examine the issues involved in projects and for ensuring that the rights and interests of the affected people, especially the farmers are protected and that suitable amendments to the Land Acquisition Act be recommended.” Mr Pilai said the guidelines would cover issues such as processing arrears, infrastructure, norms for approval of the master plan as also the town planning guidelines. Mr Pillai spoke on the controversies that have come up in the wake of the government's SEZ Policy, announced last year. It pertains to the projected loss of tax of around Rs 90,000 crore over the next few years. "The ministry has analysed this and feels that the net benefit to the government through indirect taxes will be Rs 45,000 crore." Mr Pillai said, "Industry is attracted by offering land at concessional rates and social infrastructure. Developers get a 10-year tax holiday. In the process, India is creating world class infrastructure." To date, 150 SEZs have been set up covering 26,800 hectares, and no farmers have been displaced, said Mr Pillai. Another 225 applications are pending that will cover 75,000 hectares. "This is a tiny fraction of India's cultivable area and we need to keep a sense of proportion." On entry of real estate speculators, he said,” In IT SEZs, that are just 10 hectares, most of the area will be for processing and, therefore, the scope for speculation is limited.” In other SEZs, 50 per cent of the areas is for non-processing but even here speculation is negligible. In multi-product SEZs, up to 35 per cent of the land will be for processing. The Joint Secretary, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Mr Anil G Mukim, said SEZ-based industries were expected to employ half a million people by December 2007 and invest Rs 1,00,000 crore, including Rs 25,000 crore of FDI. In 2005-2006, the 18 operational SEZs exported Rs 22,500 crore worth of products and employed 1.23 lakh persons.
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Hyundai chief meets President, PM
New Delhi, September 20 Hyundai Chairman and CEO Chung Mong Koo, who called on Indian leaders, including President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, shared his company’s investment plans for India, where it already has a car manufacturing facility. “HMI will continue to be a responsible corporate citizen, creating additional employment in Tamil Nadu, contributing to the economy not only of the state but also the Indian economy,” he was quoted as saying in a company statement. Meanwhile, a Bloomberg report from Seoul quoting a separate statement said Mr Koo told Mr Manmohan Singh that Hyundai’s rolling stock affiliate, Rotem Co, would bid for a $500 million contract to build 400 trains for the second phase of Delhi Metro. As part of its global expansion strategy, HMI is setting up a second car manufacturing plant with a three lakh capacity, thereby doubling its production. In addition to this, HMI would also set up an engine and transmission plant and an R&D centre in India, it added. The setting up of the second plant and establishing the new R&D centre would increase the production as well as sales of Hyundai Motor India and also change the face of the company in India making it now a comprehensive automotive manufacturer, Mr Koo said. — PTI
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Orissa clears REL project, to sign MoU for 11 more
Bhubaneswar, September 20 Though REL had proposed to set up a 12,000 MW coal-fired plant, the largest in the world with an investment of Rs 54,000 crore, a high-level clearance authority, which met here today, decided to ask the company to go for a 4,000 MW plant at Hirma in Jharsuguda district. A separate task force would be constituted within a day of two to expedite REL's 12,000 MW project, a senior government official said. "As regards REL's proposal, we have decided to ink the MoU for a 4000 MW plant," Energy Minister Surya Narayan Patra said. The other thermal power projects will mostly be located in Angul and Jharsuguda districts and bring in an investment to the tune of Rs 63,245 crore for electricity generation of 15,920 MW. Other major players who will be signing MoU with the state government included Tata Power Limited (TPL), CESC, Sterlite Energy Pvt Ltd (SEL), Lanco Group Ltd (LGL), Bhushan Energy Pvt Ltd (BEL) and Jindal Photo. — PTI
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Manpower shortage hits IT Deptt
New Delhi, September 20 “We have collected Annual Information Returns (AIRs) for around 18 lakh high net-worth transactions amounting to Rs 13,40,000 crore in 2004-05 through banks, mutual fund, credit card, shares and registrar of properties by August last year. This year also, the department has got AIRs for 18.84 lakh transactions amounting Rs 23,46,000 crore for 2005-06,” said Mr A.K. Sinha, Commissioner, Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) here today. However, he admitted that the department was still to process the information collected for 2004-05. The department has urged the government to provide additional manpower to deal with the work load, he said. Official sources, however, maintained that the government was unlikely to allow recruitment of more than 3,000 persons this year, while emphasising on outsourcing of work. On the other hand, employees’ unions are opposing outsourcing move leading to harassment of IT assesses and tax evasion. To improve tax compliance, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram had introduced a scheme for collection of information about high value transactions from banks, credit card, mutual fund operators besides registrars of properties in states. Further, around 5 lakh new PAN card holders are adding every month, resulting in pressure on the department and poor assessment of returns. The department is expected to send show-cause notices to the IT assesses in case there is variation between the information provided in returns and AIRs. But officials admitted that shortage of staff at the field level was hitting the operations. The department is also finding it difficult to meet the deadline of December to weed out around 13 lakh duplicate PAN cards. Meanwhile, Mr Sinha said, this year direct tax collections had gone up by 37.7 per cent to Rs 70,748.60 crore as on September 15, 2006, as against Rs 51,378.9 crore collected during corresponding period last year. As against a target of Rs 11,000 crore recovery of tax arrears, he said, the department had recovered Rs 5,574 crore till now, thus achieving a target of over 50 per cent. Claiming that delay in the processing of information had no impact on the refunds, Mr Sinha said, the department had already disbursed refunds worth over Rs 17,000 crore this year as against Rs 14,000 crore last year.
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Mumbai, September 20 Addressing the company’s annual general meeting, Jet Airways Chairman Naresh Goyal said the airline had, however, resorted to short-term borrowings from the IDBI, SBI and ICICI Bank. “We are actively monitoring the market conditions... and will revive our efforts to raise additional capital as soon as a window of opportunity arises,” he said. Plans to raise $800 million through the issue of FCCBs, SDRs and ADRs would be revived once the market conditions become more conducive, he said. — PTI
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Rel Comm, Bharti mull cell sites sharing
New Delhi, September 20 According to sources, both companies are in advanced stage of discussions and a final decision on the infrastructure sharing could be announced in a couple of weeks. The number of shared sites could be in the range of 2,000, they said. The companies would use each other's infrastructure in the country, which will bring down the cost and enable them to offer quality services at further reduced tariffs to the users. When contacted, Reliance officials declined to comment. In July, Minister for Communications and IT Dayanidhi Maran had unveiled 'Project Most' in which telecom operators would share passive infrastructure like towers to save significant resources to fund further roll out, enhance aesthetics of the environment and lower the costs per operator. The project is aimed at lowering the cost of offering services, thereby enabling operators to reduce tariffs further.
— PTI |
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BHEL wins Rs 1,224-cr order for UP power plant
New Delhi, September 20 Uttar Pradesh Rajya Vidyut Utpadan Nigam Limited has placed a contract on BHEL for two units of 250 MW capacity at the expansion project of the Harduaganj thermal power station, a BHEL release said. Both units are slated for commissioning in fiscal 2009-10, it said. BHEL’s scope of work in the contract envisages design, engineering, manufacture, supply and commissioning of the main plant package along with associated auxiliaries and civil works for the main plant package. The equipment for the project would be supplied by BHEL’s Hardwar, Trichy, Ranipet, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Bhopal and Jhansi plants. BHEL’s Power Sector, Northern Region, will undertake commissioning of the equipment.
— PTI |
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Alstom bags Rs 330-cr orders
New Delhi, September 20 The NTPC contract is for executing the renovation and modernisation programme for the 4 x 110 MW Boilers at Tanda, UP. The Nalco project is for supplying pollution-control equipment for its smelter project at Angul, Orissa. The Tata Power order is for supply of two units of 2 x 230 tonnes per hour (TPH) blast furnace gas-fired boilers to be installed at Tata Steel at Jamshedpur.
— PTI |
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Tyre dealers oppose meagre cost cut
New Delhi, September 20 With a steep fall in natural rubber prices, the meager cut in the prices of tyres and tubes was unjustified, said Mr S.P. Singh, convener of the All-India Tyre Dealers Federation (AITDF). He said the companies had hiked the prices by 20 to 25 per cent during January to July when the prices of rubber grew but were unwilling to pass on the benefit to the consumer when the prices have fallen. The AITDF has written to each individual tyre company to see reason and roll back the tyre prices in accordance with the drop in the price of natural rubber. In a letter to Union Commerce Minister Kamal Nath, the federation has said the Centre should not to be swayed away by the token 4 per cent price cut by few tyre manufacturers as against the required rollback of 20 per cent to the Jan’06 level, where the natural rubber price has landed in past 7-8 weeks. In the past 7-8 weeks, the natural rubber price has dropped to Rs 82/- per kg from the peak price of Rs 115 per kg prevailing in May-June’ 06. In a meeting with a delegation of the federation, Mr Kamal Nath assured the tyre manufacturers would be asked to roll back the tyre prices in a pro-rata manner with the decline in the natural rubber prices.
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AppLabs buys US company
Mumbai, September 20 AppLabs CEO Sashi Reddi said all offices of IS Integration will continue to operate as they are and all staff will remain employed in the UK-based company. IS Integration will effectively form the European arm of AppLabs. The company will continue to operate as IS Integration for the next six months after which it will operate under the name of
AppLabs. — UNI |
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Elder Pharma to set up JV with Ghana co
Mumbai, September 20 The company and the Ghana firm will have 50 per cent each in the joint venture, which will manufacture pharmaceutical formulations, which would be marketed in Ghana and nearby countries. The company had recently recommended a dividend of 25 per cent for 2005-06 (ending March 31).During the year ended March, 2006, the income from operations (net of excise duties) went up by 25 per cent at Rs 354.83 crore as against Rs 285.34 crore in 2004-05. The gross profit, too, has shot up to Rs 52.41 crore from Rs 34.41
crore. — PTI |
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New Delhi, September 20 The STC is anticipating a turnover of Rs 10,000 crore in the current fiscal and had signed an MoU with the Government of India to achieve the set target by taking various new initiatives. The corporation has recorded a turnover of Rs 3,000 crore in the April-August period and its profit before tax in the period stood at Rs 23 crore. The STC is planning to foray into mining activities to achieve backward integration of its steel operations, the statement said. The Centre has appointed the STC as a nodal agency to monitor implementation of counter-trade obligations arising out of the purchase of aircraft by Indian or Air-India. — PTI
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Vijaya Bank records 164 pc growth
Guwahati, September 20 Recording an impressive growth of 164 per cent, a record for the bank, Chairman and Managing Director Prakash P Mallya said today the bank had achieved a capital adequacy ratio of 11.94 per cent as on June 30 as against the stipulated norm of 9 per cent. As per the corporate policy of the bank, special emphasis had been given on agricultural and SSI advances to its customers, he said. The total business of the bank in the entire North-East had been Rs 1,572 crore. Federal Bank dividend
Kochi: Federal Bank has announced a 35 per cent dividend as against last year’s 25 per cent. This decision was taken at the bank’s 75th AGM here where it also adopted the audited financial results of the bank for fiscal 2005-06. The bank posted a record net profit of Rs 225.21 crore, registering a 150 per cent hike over that in the previous fiscal. Chairman and CEO M. Venugopalan said the bank’s total business during fiscal 2005-06 grew by 23.32 per cent to Rs 29,615 crore.
— Agencies |
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IOB tax-saving scheme launched
Mumbai, September 20 Senior citizens stand to earn 100 basis points (1 per cent per annum) additional interest at the rate of 9.15 per cent per annum on their investment in the scheme.'' The minimum and maximum amount accepted under the new scheme is Rs 10,000 and Rs 1 lakh, respectively.
— UNI |
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Mumbai, September 20 Silver .999 fineness variety opened low at Rs 17,615 per kg on poor demand by industrial users. Later it closed low at Rs 17,645 per kg with a massive loss of Rs 255 from its yesterday’s closing. There was a sustained heavy selling pressure by dealers in view of discouraging advice from the overseas markets. Standard mint gold closed low at Rs 8,645 and pure gold at Rs 8,695 per 10 gm, losing Rs 125 and Rs 140, respectively, from their last closings. — UNI
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Fuel surcharge up
Bangalore, September 20 The revised fuel surcharge will be Rs 750 on all routes and applicable to all bookings made from today. It would not be applicable to tickets that have been booked or purchased in advance, an Air Deccan press note said
here. — UNI |
Mittal Steel Gabriel India R&D facility Abbott India |
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