New Delhi, November 8
Ahead of Parliament session beginning from November 22, the government has assured the Left parties that it is open to review the controversial rules relating to special economic zones (SEZs) besides putting a limit for IT SEZs to 148 for the time being.

He said the Law Ministry has asked the Commerce Ministry to clarify some rules. For instance, “ In multi-product SEZs, there is a provision that area should be contiguous, but it may be divided if say a village road passes through the land. Some stakeholders are interpreting whether it will be within rules if say 500 hectares fall in Maharashtra and 500 hectares in Andhra Pradesh.”

Review in 3 months “We will review the rules governing SEZs in the next 2-3 months as we have come across various procedural hassles faced by stakeholders at the ground level,” Commerce Secretary G.K. Pillai told reporters on the sidelines of a seminar on SEZs, organised by Assocham.

The committee will look into all such issues, he said, adding the Board of Directors had agreed to concede to the demand of Left parties and others to put a temporary limit for IT SEZs to 148, formally approved. It is in addition, he said, to 78 IT SEZs which have been given ‘in-principle’ approval.

He said the current thinking in the Board was that IT SEZs approval at 148 was enough for a couple of years and it should be increased once a large number of them become operational. It would require development of over 1 million square feet area and employment to 12.5 lakh persons.

However, in other areas like textile, leather, gem and jewellery, there was still scope for further approval.

Mr Pillai further said the government was open to any proposal to set up a service sector SEZs like for education sector. “We have not received any such proposal so far. If any such proposal relating to opening of service, including education comes, we will consider it,” he said.

On a query if Finance Ministry raised reservations on the SEZs for loss of revenue, Mr. Pillai said the Commerce and Industry Ministry has recently written to Finance Ministry that in next 3 to 5 years, the government would earn an additional revenue of Rs 50,000 crore after these SEZs become operational and that there won’t be any government loss.

Referring to the delay in formulation of rules by the RBI regarding financial services in SEZs, he said, “ We have written to the RBI to issue guidelines for the operation of financial institutions in SEZs.”

Allaying aside doubts of the Left parties, he said, “We are equally concerned that there is no fraud or misuse of rules in the SEZs. So far, we have given formal approval to 237 SEZs, involving 34,510 hectares of land, besides in principle approval to 166 SEZs, where land has still to be acquired.”

Earlier, CPI National Secretary D Raja said his party wanted a central legislation to create model which should be followed by states under which land acquisition for establishing the SEZs should be done to avoid acquisition of fertile and agriculture land.

New Delhi November 8
On the second day of the Economic Editors' Conference here today, Petroleum Minister Murli Deora rejected the demand for an oil price cut as Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar faced the heat on the emotive issue of costlier dal-roti and a beaming Lalu Prasad hoped to sustain the turnaround in the Railways' fortunes.

Oil consumers will have to wait a little longer for a domestic price cut despite a sharp reduction in the global crude oil prices as the Petroleum Ministry believes the global prices have not gone down enough to warrant a cut. Besides, the price projection in the futures market for January is $60 a barrel and for February it is even higher at $75. The Left parties and the BJP have been pressing for a cut in the oil prices.

Not many might have seen it, but on paper at least petrol with a 5 per cent blend of ethnol is supposed to be on sale from November 1, 2006.

The ethnol blend will cut the petrol prices and help farmers too. Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar doesn't foresee a steep rise in the prices of wheat, pulses, sugar and oilseeds as in the current year as he claims there is a healthy buffer stock, thanks to wheat imports, and a good rabi crop is expected following a good monsoon and an increased area under wheat.

He gave no satisfying answer when told that private traders, like last year, could lift wheat stocks at prices higher than the minimum support price of Rs 750 a quintal and why, over the years, the country had become an importer of pulses, oilseeds and now wheat. Wheat imports at zero duty are allowed only until December, 2006.

The good news, however, is agriculture as per CSO figures, grew at 3.9 per cent in 2005-06 and at 3.4 per cent in the first quarter of the current fiscal, which is close to the UPA target of achieving 4 per cent agricultural growth. Happily, cotton as well as sugar has fetched bumper gains for growers.

Chemicals Minister Ram Vilas Paswan was sore that the pharmaceutical industry had taken the government for a ride by announcing cuts in the prices of 886 drugs which were neither manufactured nor sold by them. Only 11 companies had given a list for cutting drug prices, but most drugs of common use were not covered.

Mr Lalu Prasad announced with glee how domestic and foreign business institutes were wondering at the Indian Railway achieving a cash surplus of Rs 13,000 crore in 30 months without privatisation, retrenchment and raising passenger fares.

He gave figures to deny the charge that the turnaround was a media hype and window dressing.

New Delhi, November 8
Barely a fortnight before Chinese President Hu Jintao's official visit to India, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee categorically said yesterday that denial of permission to any single firm to invest in this country "did not mean that a nation as a whole was barred from doing business" in India.

"We are inviting everybody. Our policy is not related to any country specifically," Mr Mukherjee explained to reporters on the sidelines of the silver jubilee celebrations of the think tank ICRIER.

The minister said it was inherent in globalisation that "everybody is welcome to come here. You just cannot hype one odd case. If one company is not considered, you cannot say that China is not taken into account. I don't know why there are such questions."

Earlier, in his address at ICRIER, Mr Mukherjee said the opposition to economic reforms was from within the country by raking "non-issues", which in turn were hampering efforts in attracting foreign investment.

He emphasised that economic issues would form the mainstay of India's diplomacy. The country will require aggressive foreign investment and diversification of energy sources to enable it achieve double digit growth.

In an oblique reference to the Left parties, he said the "problems are not from outside but from inside. If we can reconcile that position, people will be too ready and too willing to come and make investments here." However, "sometimes we are quarrelling over some issues, which to my mind are non-issues. Sometimes we concentrate and waste our energies on non-issues. If we can avoid that I don't think there will be any problem in attracting investment from abroad."

Outlining the measures required for achieving over 10 per cent growth, he said there was an urgent need for stepping up investment in infrastructure through greater public-private partnership and FDI. The other components accelerating the growth rate included access to quality education for all, investment in R and D, energy security, greater global economic integration and a prospective role by India in multilateral economic processes.

Mr Mukherjee also asked Pakistan to remove obstructions and allow free trade under the SAARC Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA), failing which operationalisation of the mechanism would be difficult.

He hoped India would be able to convince Pakistan as it wanted to encourage SAFTA for which New Delhi has offered highly substantive tariff reduction to all countries of the regional grouping.

New Delhi, November 8
World's largest software vendor Microsoft, which employs over 4,000 professionals in India, today said it was scaling up presence in the country but finds hiring just out-of-college IT engineers a problem.

However, the Redmond-based company suggested that imparting practical training could help overcome the dearth in availability of trained manpower.

"There is certainly a worldwide need for IT engineers and there are two issues. The first issue being — is the world able to apply the talent that is graduating from the Indian universities each year. Twentyfive-30 per cent of the worldwide engineers graduate from India," Mr Steve Ballmer, CEO, Microsoft said here.

"The other situation is to ensure that when somebody comes out of the university, (whether) they are immediately employable by the companies seriously doing IT works... (as) sometimes that requires a little bit of training which people don't get in universities. The fact that I highlighted this (is) because we see that an issue in India", he said.

Mr Ballmer said Microsoft was doing its bit to remove this problem through training that would make engineers employable.

Microsoft, which has the largest R&D centre in India outside Redmond, has continuously grown its presence here. But Mr Ballmer did not give any specific headcount figures that is up for increase.

"We are scaling up our team in India. Our R&D, global support, customer service team are growing dramatically in India. India deserves a lot of my attention as I see the growth with economy, vitality, mobility, PC market all are growing", he said.

Earlier, he called on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and IT Minister Dayanidhi Maran.

"We discussed about the IT industry, IT user community, mobility, PCs and consumers in India as well as top and bottom of the economic pyramid. We discussed on the need for additional innovation which will be helped by PC penetration.

The minister gave his perspective on the innovation in software which will have an impact on the PC market," Mr Ballmer said.— PTI

New Delhi, November 8
Encouraged by the performance of the public sector, the government is considering to grant more autonomy to public sector units. A decision in this regard is expected to be taken by the Group of Ministers at its meeting scheduled for November 13, said Mr Santosh Mohan Dev, Minister for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises.

He was speaking while presenting the SCOPE Meritorious Awards, 2004-05, and inaugurating the Directors Conclave on Corporate Governance jointly organised by the Standing Conference of Public Enterprises (SCOPE) and the Academy of Corporate Governance (ACG) under the aegis of the DPE here today.

The performance could be significantly improved by internalising good governance ethics into every day practices in the interest of the organisation, he said, adding that such programmes would help the Directors use corporate governance as a strategic management tool for sustainable development of the company.

The SCOPE Meritorious Awards 2004-05 in Specialized Fields were received by Mr Sarthak Behuria, Chairman, IOC for Research and Development and Innovation; Mr S.K. Roongta, Chairman, SAIL for Environmental Excellence and Sustainable Development; Mr T Sankaralingam, CMD, NTPC for Best Practice in HR Management; Mr S Jayaraman, CMD, Neyveli Lignite for Corporate Social Responsibility; Mr G Mohapatra, MD, Gujarat Alkalies and Chemicals for Good Corporate Governance and Mr A.A. Naqvi, MD, National Backward Classes Finance & Development Corporation for Best Managed PSE set up under Section 25.

New Delhi, November 8
The IOC said today it was incurring a daily loss of Rs 50 crore on the sale of all fuel products but petrol.

IOC Chairman Sarthak Behuria said the corporation was making a profit of Rs 4 per litre on the sale of petrol.

However, the corporation continued to lose Rs 1.50 per litre on the sale of diesel and Rs 12 per litre on kerosene. The company was also losing Rs 114 per cylinder of LPG.

Meanwhile, the IOC has started the production of Euro-III petrol at the Gujarat refinery "The motor spirit (known popularly as petrol) quality upgradation project has been successfully commissioned at the Gujarat refinery," the IOC said here. — PTI

New Delhi, November 8
Coca Cola is pumping in about $250 million to consolidate its bottling operations in India. Market sources said amongst others, the fresh funds would be utilised by the company's bottling arm, Hindustan Coca Cola Beverages (HCCB), for a one-time buyout of excess capacities from its bottlers instead of paying them an assured sum over a period of time as agreed upon earlier.

Ropes in Hrithik Extending its successful brand promotion exercise achieved through 'Rang De Basanti', Coca Cola is planning a repeat of the same with Hrithik Roshan starrer 'Dhoom II', scheduled to be released later this month.

The company had in 2002-03 signed a 10-year co-packing agreement with bottlers for different plants set up across the country, including Kanpur, Aurangabad, Orissa, Balla and Bareily.

Coke is understood to have started parleys with franchise bottlers to buy out plants set up for the production of 200 ml bottles.

The decision to buy out excess capacities comes in the wake of the company's shift in strategy as it has chosen not to push for volumes. — PTI

New Delhi, November 8
The persistent bullish trend witnessed by the Indian stock market for the past few months might not be sustained for long and a correction might soon set in, economic think tank NCAER fears.

Though the market has stayed above the 13,000 level and continues to be on the radar of investors, the NCAER believes that the patterns of peaks and troughs indicates that selling pressure might creep in.

The NCAER's indication is based on the study of Sensex movement for between January, 2004, to September, 2006.

The index touched an all-time high of 13,300 yesterday but has been closing in the red for the past two days amidst sharp fluctuations.

In spite of FII sentiments being restored in the face of good news of robust economic growth and encouraging corporate results, recent movements have led to an increase in volatility and uncertainties, the NCAER said, adding that the P/E ratio was also much above the long-term trend.

It said the growth in Sensex had also been driven by the capital goods sector and if investment was not supported by the policy environment, performance of this sector would be adversely affected, thereby affecting the performance of the benchmark index.

Market analysts believe that a correction of about 400-500 points on Sensex is healthy as a one-way linear move northward move is not possible.

But irrespective of the hiccups and aberrations, which show themselves by way of corrections, some analysts said the long term bull story would still remain intact.

According to a global investment banker, given the present P-E ratio, the Indian market was fairly valued at 11,000 mark. The price earning ratio for the market seemed to be overstretched at the current level.

However, some analysts feel that though a short- term correction might set in the market, it would see a big upmove prior to next year's Budget. — PTI

New Delhi, November 8
The CDMA-based cellular operators, including Tata Teleservices and Reliance Communications, today asked the government to reduce revenue share in the licence fee to 6 per cent from 8-12 per cent.

"We have taken up the issue of reducing revenue share in the licence fee to 6 per cent very strongly with the Ministries of Communication and IT and Finance," Mr B. Anand, the newly elected President of AUSPI, told reporters.

He said the total levies, including licence fee, service tax and spectrum charges on the telecom sector, are around 26 per cent of the revenue and customers pay at least 30 per cent of the telecommunication bills directly or indirectly as taxes and levies.

He said as per TRAI estimates, the total government levies in 2007-08 would be about Rs 30,856 crore.

The association also expressed concern over delays in getting inter-connection from BSNL, and said they were working closely with the telecom PSU to resolve the pending issues.

Commenting on the recommendations of TRAI on spectrum allocation for 3G mobile services, AUSPI Vice-President Ashok Sud said they were "extremely" balanced for both CDMA and GSM operators.

He called for a timebound roadmap for making available additional and sufficient spectrum based on international average.

Sud said spectrum usage charges should be reduced to cover only the cost of administration and management of spectrum and there was need for delinking corDECT and CDMA frequency allocation and further simplification of SACFA procedure.

For enhancing rural teledensity, he said an innovative mechanism like sharing of infrastructure needed to be introduced, including effective utilisation of the USO fund.

New Delhi, November 8
Hutchison Essar has tied up with global software giant Microsoft for a mobile search alliance in India, as part of which Hutch subscribers can access 'Windows Live' services.

The 'Windows Live' search for mobile and other services, including Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Mail and Windows Live spaces will provide power for mobile Internet to the customers. — PTI