Mumbai, May 30
Continuing its downslide, the rupee today lost 21 paise to end at new 10-month low of 56.38 on fag-end spurt in dollar demand after RBI Governor D Subbarao painted a dim macro-economic picture fuelling fears of local currency plunging to record low levels in the short-term.

Ahead of expectations of steady US GDP and jobs data that may force Federal Reserve to consider early withdrawal of stimulus, the US dollar strengthened against major rivals.

The rupee, which fell for the third straight day, ignored the $140 million capital inflows in equities. Forex dealers said there was no sign of RBI intervention in forex market.

At Interbank Foreign Exchange (Forex) market, rupee commenced slightly better at 56.15 a dollar from previous close of 56.17 and improved further to 56.04.

However, it turned negative tracking Subbarao’s comments and declined to a low of 56.39. It finally settled at 56.38, a fall of 21 paise or 0.37 per cent.

Subbarao in Ahmedabad said CPI inflation was still high.

“There are certain factors like sectoral imbalances...we have the highest fiscal deficit as compared to our peer emerging economies...Our external sector problem is large current account deficit,” he said.

In three-day downmove, rupee plunged by 81 paise or 1.45 per cent. In May so far, it has dropped by over 4.5 per cent.

Considering the global trends, rupee is likely to revisit record lows of 57-level, analysts said. All eyes are now on India's Q4 GDP data that will be released tomorrow.

"The rupee was trading quietly but RBI Governor's comments on current account deficit (CAD), balance of payments and inflation unnerved the currency. It can touch 56.6 level soon," said Dhanlaxmi Bank executive vice-president Srinivasa Raghavan.

"Rupee movement was mainly due to month-end demand for dollars by oil importers along with volatility in the equity market. Also, international factors like strengthening of dollar influenced the movement," said NS Venkatesh, Head of Treasury of IDBI Bank.

Global rally in dollar and concerns about India's CAD has depreciated rupee in May despite huge foreign inflows into stocks and debt. FIIs have pumped in nearly $15 billion in stocks alone in calendar year 2013.

CAD hit a record high of 6.7 per cent of GDP in Q4 2012 and was expected to narrow to 4-4.5 per cent of the GDP in the first quarter of this calendar year on the back of cheaper commodities.

Rupee is showing downward bias in near-term, Doshi added.

"Going ahead, today's US GDP numbers and tomorrow's Indian GDP figure will be closely watched by the markets," said Abhishek Goenka, Founder and CEO, India Forex Advisors. — PTI

Petrol prices may be hiked by up to Re 1 a litre this week, as the rupee hit a 10-month low making oil imports costlier. The price revision is due on Friday and if the Oil Ministry approves it, the new prices will come into effect from June 1, sources said. This will be the first price-hike in three months.

New Delhi, May 30
State-owned steel major SAIL today reported a steep 71.68 per cent fall in standalone net profit at Rs 446.53 crore for the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2013 due to a slew of reasons, including fall in sales and rise in cost.

New Delhi, May 30
Power Finance Corporation (PFC) plans to acquire a “substantial” stake in a public sector bank and has sought approval for the proposal from its parent Power Ministry.

The state-run major, which is already providing funds to the power and related sectors, is keen on entering the banking arena.

“PFC is exploring the possibility of acquiring a substantial stake in a public sector bank. We have approached the Power Ministry with the proposal about a month ago,” PFC chairman and managing director Satnam Singh said today.

Without divulging specific details, he said Power as well as Finance Ministries were examining the company's proposal.

On how much stake PFC is looking to acquire, Singh said the company was eyeing a substantial stake that would allow it to have a Board member in the bank.

The RBI had come out with guidelines for new bank licences in February and the aspirants have to submit applications by July 1.

Separately, PFC expects to soon launch a $1 billion private equity fund, exclusively for the power sector, along with Tata Capital.

“The initial investment would be around $300 million,” he said while announcing the results for the financial year 2012-13. — PTI 

New Delhi, May 30
A day after the government approved the setting up of a coal regulator, there was relief for power producers as the Board of Coal India Ltd (CIL) approved the signing of fuel supply agreements (FSAs) with them, even in the absence of long-term purchase pacts between generation companies and distribution firms.

The signing of the FSAs would help the power producers to plan their purchases even though the supply of coal would start only after signing of the buying agreements. The proposal had been taken up for consideration during the CIL Board meeting held recently.

The CIL has written to its subsidiaries that its Board had agreed to signing of the FSAs without insisting for long-term power purchasing agreement (PPAs).

The PPA is signed between a power producer and a electricity distribution company. The CIL has clarified that commencement of the coal supply would start only after the power producers furnish the details of the PPAs with the buyers.

The move from the CIL follows the intervention of the Prime Minister’s Office, which wanted that the FSAs should be with new power plants without waiting for PPA, subject to condition that the supply of coal will commence only after the plant is commissioned and long-term PPA is signed.

There has been a major controversy raging over the signing of the FSAs with the CIL and the power producers at loggerheads. So far, only 62 power plants have signed FSAs with CIL, while others have refused for varied reasons, including poor quality of fuel.

Country’s largest power producer NTPC and the CIL have been accusing each other and not signed the FSA. While CIL has been demanding the disbursement of its stopped payments, NTPC has refused to release the money saying that the coal subsidiaries of the largest coal manufacturer in the world have been supplying poor quality coal which was affecting the power generation.

New Delhi, May 30
The growing disenchantment of subscribers with their telecom operators has led to as many as 2.87 million people seeking to port their mobile number to another service provider in March.

As per data released by telecom regulator TRAI, as of March 2013 as many as 89.70 million people had put in their request for Mobile Number Portability (MNP), which is a 11.65 per cent increase from 2.56 million porting requests reported in February 2013.

Currently, India has a mobile subscriber base of 898.02 million (722.96 million active) and the percentage of those wanting to port the number has crossed 10 per cent.

For the month of March, the maximum number of requests in Zone-I (North and West India) were received in Rajasthan at 3 lakh. Jammu & Kashmir registered the lowest number of requests at 434 but that is quite expected, since it has one of the lowest user base.

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