Tuesday, August 4, 1998
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B U S I N E S S | Tuesday, August 4, 1998 |
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spotlight today's calendar |
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Delhi plan outlay up by |
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SC issues notice to RBI on
NPAs |
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DoT monopoly to continue Order
on edible oils put in abeyance UTI
mobilises 3,105 crore |
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‘Whole-time’ milk booths in city
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HP dairies head for recession
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Delhi plan outlay up by 15 per
cent NEW DELHI, Aug 3 — The Planning Commission today fixed the Delhi plan outlay for the year 1998-99 at Rs 2700 crore, which is about 15 per cent more than the last year. The size of the plan was finalised here today after a meeting between the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, Mr Jaswant Singh and the Delhi Chief Minister, Mr Sahib Singh Verma. The plan outlay for the year 1997-98 was Rs 2331.73 crore.Explaining the delay in finalising the plan outlay, the Chief Minister said in view of the Lok Sabha poll, the plan outlay could not be finalised earlier. While the Central plan assistance would be 296.73 crore, Mr Verma said an additional Central plan assistance for externally aided projects had been fixed at Rs 85 crore. Delhi Chief
Minister said he had informed Mr Jaswant Singh that the
state government was not getting its due share in the
Central taxes. |
SC issues notice to RBI on NPAs NEW DELHI, Aug 3 (PTI) — The Supreme Court today issued notices to the Union Finance Ministry and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on a public interest petition seeking directive against them to recover non-performing assets (NPAs) worth Rs 43,000 crore accrued over the years by various nationalised banks. A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice M.M. Punchhi issued notice to the respondents on a petition by the Common Cause through its president H.D. Shourie which alleged that NPAs have “accumulated to an astounding figure of Rs 43,577 crore. ”This amount, with the inclusion of appropriate interest accrued thereon, would be four to five times of the original figure comprising the non-recovered loans which to a large extent have become irrecoverable,” Mr Shourie said. Criticising the attempts made both by the Finance Ministry and the RBI, Mr Shourie said this enormous accumulation of NPAs was stated to have been caused by the policy adopted by them to encourage the banks to liberally advance loans to the “needy and weaker” sections which were renamed as priority sections. The petitioner alleged that after earmarking credit to the extent of 50 per cent for the government securities, 40 per cent was directed to be advanced to the weaker section and the balance was to be used for assisting medium and large industries and wholesale trade. The petitioner said the recovery efforts by banks had not been effective and sustained, with the result that the funds advanced as loans had remained unrecovered to a large extent. Mr Shourie said this inevitably was harmful to the interests of the economy of the country, which in turn adversely affected the interest and lives of the people and country’s future development. He said the
court should direct both the ministry and the RBI to
ensure that effective steps were taken by the banks to
secure recovery of loans advanced to the maximum extent
possible.The petitioner also said that the court should
ask the respondents to ensure that in future advancement
of loans by the banks do not continue to jeopardise the
interest of the country. |
"Set up weavers' centre in
Punjab" NEW DELHI, Aug 3 — The Punjab Minister of State for Industries, Mr Sucha Singh Langah, has suggested setting up of a weavers service centre in Punjab to cater to needs of handloom weavers, especially in the districts of Amritsar and Gurdaspur. Addressing a conference of state ministers for handlooms here today, Mr Sucha Singh pleaded for the continuation of the Janta Cloth Scheme, which was discontinued in April. Mr Sucha Singh said the government should continue the scheme for grant of 20 per cent rebate on handloom products sold in and handloom expos by the apex cooperative societies and handloom corporations. The apex
society, the Handloom Development Corporation and primary
handloom cooperative societies should also be given help
in maintaining their products, he said. |
‘Stage managing’ your business NEW DELHI, Aug 3 (PTI) — “Stage managing” events — corporate press meets, fashion shows, rock concerts and sometimes even high society marriages — has suddenly become big business. Over 100 event management firms operate in the country. Industry sources put their annual revenue in hundreds of crore. “Events are seen as a direct marketing tool to be integrated into mainline advertising, direct marketing and public relations,” says Raj Gopalakrishnan, head of New Delhi branch, of Wizcraft. The business, which only started off by arranging occasional press conferences and small entertainment shows today takes up assignments as varied as brand and product launches, mega theme parties, concerts, exhibitions, dealer meets, pub promotions, weddings, fund-raisers and entertainment extravaganzas involving international mega stars. “In stage management,
ideas and their execution are very important. The concept
of event management that has emerged has an important
role in brand-building and promotions,” says
Rehmatali Tobaccowala, Managing Director, Shobiz.F.S.
Advertising recently hived off its event management and
public relations divisions into separate companies, named
“Lexicon Events and Promotions” and
“Lexicon Public Relations and Corporate
Consultants”. |
DoT monopoly to continue NEW DELHI, Aug 3 (PTI) — The Department of Telecom (DoT) looks set to retain its monopoly in basic services and inter-connectivity with the government disallowing non-telecom agencies from offering telephone services to the public. This is contrary to the action plan of the task force on information technology and software development set up by the Prime Minister wherein free inter-connectivity was mooted. The notification issued on July 25, while accepting all other recommendations of the task force, disallowed agencies like the railways and electricity boards from offering telephone services to the public.On the issue of private networks seeking direct inter-connectivity, the government asked DoT to come out with a detailed inter-connectivity policy with the help of the task force in a month, sources in the task force told PTI. The notification has made mandatory for private networks to go through DoT networks for linking each other, and direct inter-connectivity will be allowed only for government networks and closed user groups (CUG) networks. The decision to stop
direct private interconnectivity — linking two
networks — was taken in view of apprehensions raised
by DoT over losing its monopoly, the sources said. |
LAHORE, Aug 3 (ANI) — Pakistan’s Finance Minister Sartaj Aziz has said that a high defence budget, low tax collection and exports of low value-added products have taken the country’s internal debt to Rs 1,100 billion and an external debt to $ 31 billion. The annual debt servicing of Rs 275 billion in 1998-99 is about 55 per cent of the total revenue and 40 per cent of the total expenditure.On the external front, the total debts servicing of $ 2.8 billion on official debt in 1998-99 in now almost equal to the gross inflows of $ 3 billion. After three years of slow growth of the Benazir Bhutto government, lower exports and large budget and current account deficits between 1993 and 1996, one year of the Nawaz Sharif government is not a sufficiently long period to overcome the chronic imbalances, he said. The current problems in the external sector are the direct result of the economic sanctions imposed by the USA and their extension to international financial institutions.The sanctions have not only affected the flow of new funds of about $ 1.5 billion from the World Bank and Asian banks but also disturbed the regular cycle of private flows of about $ 2.5 billion. Trade deficit Dispelling the impression about the fragile economic condition of the country, Dar insisted that the impression was actually “misinformation from certain quarters.” He did not identify the quarters.“Actually the economic indicators have been moving swiftly upward since we came to power in February last year,” the minister said.He however admitted the weak foreign exchange reserves level, saying that these currently stood at $ 550 million. Islamic
Bank’s aid Of this $ 400 million will be in direct assistance, while another $ 200 million will be in the form of guarantees for the delivery of palm oil from Malaysia. The balance $ 100 million will be given for funding the sale of Pakistani rice to Indonesia.“In addition,” said the minister, “fraternal Muslim states of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait have promised to supply petrol and petroleum products on two-year deferred payment to Pakistan.”The help has come handy to cash-strapped Pakistan facing economic sanctions triggered by its nuclear test conducted in May. Currency exchange |
Order on edible oils put in abeyance NEW DELHI, Aug 3 (PTI) — The government has decided to put in abeyance the Vegetable Oil Products (Development) Order, 1998, aimed at liberalising the edible oil industry due to a sharp rise in the prices and shortage in the domestic market of the commodity. “As the prices are ruling high, notifying the order at this juncture would only invite criticism and send out wrong signals,” a senior official in the department of sugar and edible oil said here today. A notification was
expected to be issued earlier by the Food Ministry for
bringing into effect the order known as “VOP
(Development) Order, 1998”, as it had completed all
the procedures relating to it. “The order is ready.
But we are waiting for the prices to ease”, the
official told PTI. |
UTI mobilises 3,105 crore MUMBAI, Aug 3 (PTI) — UTI mobilised a whopping Rs 3,105 crore under its flagship “Unit scheme 1964” during July 1998, recording over 50 per cent of its US-64 sales projection of Rs 6,000 crore for 1998-99. The collections, which
included Rs 2,205 crore of fresh investments, were 30 per
cent higher than the amount mobilised in July 1997, UTI
Executive Trustee P.J. Nayak told reporters here today. |
Assocham
strategy for farming NEW DELHI, Aug 3 — The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) has unveiled a multi-pronged strategy for the agriculture sector so that India can achieve 500 million tonnes of foodgrains production by 2020. The “Strategic Plan” targets foodgrains production in 2020 at 500 million tonnes comprising 213 million tonnes of rice, 182 million tonnes of wheat, 69 million tonnes of coarse grains and 36 million tonnes of pulses.Real investment in agriculture is targeted to go up by 70 per cent to achieve an annual growth rate of 4.2 per cent per annum in the real capital stock in agriculture. It is envisaged that India will emerge as a major exporter of foodgrains by 2020, with its share of world exports of rice at 19 per cent, wheat at 5.7 per cent, coarse grains at 2.9 per cent and total foodgrains at 6.7 per cent.In pulses the country is projected to achieve self-sufficiency by 2020.The growth of real GDP during 1996-97 to 2019-20 is targeted to be 7.5 per cent per annum and 5 per cent for the agricultural sector. As a result,
the share of agriculture in GDP will fall from 26.1 per
cent in 1996-97 to 15.2 per cent. |
HP dairies head for recession SOLAN: Unavailability of quality fodder, incentives and remunerative prices had dragged state’s dairy industry towards a recession. The state government has completely failed to bring “White Revolution” in the state which largely depends on Punjab based private dairies for milk products. Milk production in the state has never been encouraging as compared to the population growth. The milk being collected by the H.P. Milk Federation through 190 functional milk co-operatives is just 18000 litres whereas the average daily milk consumption in the state is 12 lakh litres. Milk production in the state, despite various dairy development schemes, has not increased beyond 2-3 per cent per annum. The milk procurement figures for the year 1996-97 shows 55.44 lakh litre collection which could not rise beyond 56.80 lakh litres in 1997-98.The present state of dairy industry in Himachal Pradesh is the outcome of poor planning. Improper planning has also dragged H.P. Milk Federation towards crippling losses. The accumulated loss figures have now touched Rs 8 crore mark. The annual loss being incurred on the procurement and processing of milk has been estimated around Rs 60 lakh. The losses according to the HPMF sources, are due to the higher processing expenses. Transportation, chilling and processing expenses per litre in Himachal are higher as compared to the neighbouring states. The Nalagarh chilling plant reportedly gets only 80 litres milk daily processing and transportation of which costs more than double the charges as compared to the actual cost of the milk.Milk producers blame unavailability of remunerative prices and other incentives for the poor state of dairy industry in the state. The state besides direct private supply also get 8 different milk brands from Punjab and Haryana based dairies. The procurement price being offered by the HPMF, according to the private milk producers is Rs 7 to 9 per litre whereas the procurement prices in the open market range between Rs 12 to Rs 16. Poor procurement prices have only chased away the milk producers. The reason which accounts
for the poor performance of dairy industry is the
unavailability of improved fodder species which also
result in the poor quality of milk. The milk being
produced in the state lacks quality fat contents and
solid not fat (SNF). |
‘Whole-time’ milk booths in city CHANDIGARH,
Aug 3 — The Ropar District Co-operative Milk
Producers’ Union Ltd. at a meeting with the UT
Administration yesterday decided to run milk booths on a
whole time basis. Mr Amrik Singh, Managing Director,
Milkfed Punjab, while inaugurating a whole-time Verka
milk booth in Sector 20-A, said the scheme has got a
positive response. This booth is the 16th in the series
to be started for whole time the remaining booths will
start functioning shortly. The booths are being operated
by the licencee on behalf of Milk Plant, Mohali, which
has to pay a nominal amount of Rs 1000 per month towards
maintenance charges and other services. |
Clutch Auto net slumps NEW DELHI, Aug 3 (PTI) — Clutch Auto Limited (CAL) is tying up with German firm Raybestos Industrie-product GMBH to manufacture and market clutch facings in the country. In the first phase of the joint venture, of which Raybestos will have 51 per cent stake, CAL would import finished products from the German company. CAL has registered a 10
per cent slump in its net profit during the first quarter
of the current fiscal at Rs 69.77 lakh as against Rs
77.90 lakh posted in the same period last year. The net
sales of the company declined by 6 per cent to Rs 15.34
crore during the same period |
ET & T tie-up with Tava Tech NEW DELHI, Aug 3 (PTI)
— ET and T Corporation Ltd and the Department of
Electronics today tied up with Tava Technologies and
E-Source Inc of the USA, to address a special aspect of
the Y2K problem in the “embedded system.” With
the agreement et and T will be geared up to provide
solution to process and plant industries to resolve Y2K
related problems. |
Priority lending MUMBAI, Aug 3 (PTI) —
Bank credit to eligible non-banking finance companies
(NBFCs) for financing transport operators will henceforth
be treated as priority sector lending, the RBI announced
here today. |
Testing
times for textile companies GTN
Textiles Himatsinghka
Seide Patspin
India Coats
Viyella |
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Oberoi Plastic Hotel complex CII workshop PF function Money transfer Hyundai |
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