New Delhi, July 28
Growth in key infrastructure sectors slowed to 3.4 per cent in June, the lowest performance in 10 months, prompting economists to hint that robust industrial expansion may drop to single digit.

The six infrastructure industries, with 26.7 per cent weight in the total factory output, saw its pace slowing down in June under the impact of a sharp decline in output growth in cement, electricity and coal.

The infrastructure industries had expanded by 6.3 per cent in June last fiscal. In May this year, the growth was five per cent.

The year-on-year growth in June this fiscal was the lowest since July 2009-10 when it expanded by only 3.2 per cent.

For the month under review, growth in coal and cement production dipped by 0.9 per cent and 3.6 per cent, respectively, over 15.2 per cent and 12.7 per cent in June 2009-10.

Increase in electricity generation came down to 3.4 per cent against 7.7 per cent in the same period last year.

"IIP will slow down and go in single digit. We need to clear the projects much quickly to add more and more capacities," economic think tank ICRIER Director Rajiv Kumar said.

"The dip will impact the IIP which may come down to single digit," Crisil principal economist DK Joshi said.

Industrial output in May grew by 11.5 per cent in May.

Crude oil and petroleum refinery products grew by 6.8 per cent and 2.9 per cent in June compared to 4 per cent and (-) 3.8 per cent in the year-ago period, respectively.

Finished steel production grew by 3.5 per cent in the month under review from 3.6 per cent in the year ago period.

In the first quarter of this financial year, the six core sectors registered a growth 4.6 per cent against 4.3 per cent in the same period last year.

During April-June 2010-11, growth in crude oil and petroleum refinery products grew by 5.9 per cent and 5.3 per cent as against a negative growth of 1.3 per cent and 4.2 per cent, respectively.

In the first quarter of this financial year, coal production dipped to 0.4 per cent compared to 13 per cent in the same period last year.

Finished steel grew by 3.6 per cent from 1.7 per cent in April-June 2009-10.

The growth in electricity generation and cement production slowed to 5.6 per cent and 7 per cent, respectively from 5.8 per cent and 12.1 per cent in the same period last year. — PTI

New Delhi, July 28
The government today amended telecom licences making it mandatory for equipment suppliers to share the "source code" and the "design details" to address the security concerns.

It also said a penalty, equivalent to 100 per cent of the contract value, shall be imposed on telecom equipment suppliers in case of detection of any security breach. Operators also face a fine of Rs 50 crore for every purchase of equipment.

The DoT officials said that the information like "source code" (password) and "design details" would be kept in the escrow account in encrypted form and would be used only in case of security emergency.

Most of the telecom vendors, including Ericsson, had opposed to share the "source code" saying it is a proprietary information and cannot be kept in an escrow account. DoT asserted that this has been done for all vendors and is not limited to vendors from China.

Two telecom operators' association COAI and AUSPI did not offer any immediate comments and said they will react only after studying the amendments in detail.

Main telecom vendors are Ericsson, Nokia-Siemens, Alcatel Lucent and Chinese players like Huawei and ZTE, among others. The DoT has sent the amended licence agreement to all the operators for their consent.

The DoT is also understood to have included a clause which mandates that Indian engineers operate and maintain the networks of service providers. The amendment comes in the wake of concerns raised by the security agencies regarding the equipment imported from China. — PTI

New Delhi, July 28
HDFC Bank today became the first lender to increase its fixed deposit rates by up to 75 basis points after the RBI raised key short-term rates.

With deposit rates going up, the bank may also raise lending rates in the next few weeks, a bank official said.

The revised fixed deposit rates would be effective from July 30.

When contacted, HDFC Bank Executive Director Paresh Sukthankar said, "We have decided to raise deposit rates across various tenor between 25-75 basis points." The rate hike was logical as the banking system is expected to remain in marginally deficit situation coupled with expected strong credit growth in the coming days, he told PTI.

Giving details, Sukthankar said term deposit rate with maturity in between 91 days and 6 months would be raised by 75 basis points to 5.25 per cent from the existing 4.5 per cent.

For fixed deposits between 9 months and a year, the new rates would be higher by 50 basis points at 6.25 per cent while for 1 year 16 days category it will be 7 per cent, 25 basis points more than the existing rate of 6.75 per cent.

Asked if it would translate into higher lending rate, he said, "It would not immediate, but as we move along short term lending rates would go up. I do expect the lending rates would reflect this in the next few weeks."

The term deposit rate for 181-270 days has been raised by 50 basis points to 6.25 per cent from 5.75 per cent. — PTI

New Delhi, July 28
The major telecom companies of the country together owe the government more than Rs 400 crore towards spectrum charges and licence fees.

This has emerged following the disclosure by Minister of State for Telecom and IT Sachin Pilot in a written reply to Parliament. The total outstanding amount, including interest, against GSM operators as on March 31, 2010, is Rs 451.75 crore, he informed Parliament.

According to figures given by the minister, Bharti Airtel owes the government Rs 152.77 crore, the highest outstanding among all operators. It has an outstanding of Rs 135.11 crore towards spectrum charges and Rs 17.66 crore towards licence fees.

Vodafone has the second highest outstanding of Rs 71.77 crore (towards spectrum charges) among the private GSM players.

Anil Ambani group firms, Reliance Communications and Reliance Telecom, have a combined outstanding of Rs 53.07 crore, mainly towards licence fees, as on March 31, 2010.

Among the state-owned firms, BSNL has dues of Rs 84.44 crore towards licence fees, while MTNL has an outstanding of Rs 17.22 crore.

Chandigarh, July 28
The recent controversy over high residual levels of fungicide (isoprothiolane) in Indian basmati has sent the alarm bells ringing in Punjab and Haryana. The two states, which account for 75 per cent of basmati exports from India, have issued a manual of best practices to farmers, asking them to take adequate precautions.

As the basmati transplantation in the fields gets underway, the Agriculture departments in Haryana and Punjab have asked the farmers to ensure that disease- free seeds are taken from a healthy nursery; are properly treated with fungicides before being sown; besides giving them time of watering the fields to avoid heat stress. These practices have been framed by the agriculture universities at Hisar and Ludhiana, and farmers are being asked to follow them to the hilt.

Though agriculture experts and agriculture department officials in both the states have rubbished the claims made by a private laboratory in Hamburg, Germany, regarding the high residual levels of fungicides in Indian basmati, the state governments as well as the rice exporters are concerned over its fallout on the economics of the premium basmati produced here.

Agriculture experts and both state governments are more concerned about this controversy as the area under basmati is expected to go up, especially in flood-ravaged Haryana, where large tracts of paddy (non-basmati) crop have been damaged. Officials in the Agriculture Department, Haryana, expect that 65 per cent of the total area under paddy (11.50 lakh hectares) will be under basmati varieties as against 55 per cent under basmati varieties last year. With enough basmati production, the state wants an assured market abroad so that the farmers can get good renumeration for their produce.

Punjab, too, has rubbished the German lab report. “This report is totally unsubstantiated, and is part of the dirty international trade politics. The idea is to defame the Indian basmati, as such a news will have an adverse affect on its retail in Europe. Last year, too, Iran had banned the import of PUSA 1121 (the largest grown basmati variety in Haryana and Punjab) citing high levels of heavy metals in this. To ensure that this variety is safe, we collected 120 samples of this variety from various mandis in Punjab and got 60 samples tested. None of the samples were found to have traces of heavy metals. The controversy in Iran managed to bring down the price of this variety substantially in the West Asian market. Now, the new controversy is again aimed at spoiling the economics of the premium Indian basmati in Europe,” said BS Sidhu, Director, Agriculture Department, Punjab. He said almost 20 per cent of the area under paddy is expected to be under basmati varieties this year.