Thursday, September 3, 1998
today's calendar
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B U S I N E S S | Thursday, September 3, 1998 |
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spotlight today's calendar |
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Tata withdrawal will not
hit FDI: FM HMT
units face difficult times |
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Scope demands PSU member on
CVC Coops
plan foray into insurance sector |
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State intervention in
education to continue: Joshi EU
invites business proposals Powergrid
earns Rs 337 crore profit Essar
introduces full cellphone service Onion
prices likely to ease next month |
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Tata withdrawal will not hit
FDI: FM NEW DELHI, Sept 2 — The decision of the Tatas to withdraw its Rs 1,475 crore proposal to fly a domestic airline will “in no way” have a bearing on the foreign direct investment flows into the country, Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha said here today. “Let me state categorically that this development will have no impact on the flow of foreign direct investments into the country”, he said.“Now if one major proposal is withdrawn do you think it will effect the whole lot of FDI proposals”, Sinha told reporters after addressing the meeting of the world association of small and medium enterprises here. When asked the reason for the final withdrawal of the Tatas from the much talked of airline project, Sinha quipped this should be discussed with the Civil Aviation Minister Ananth Kumar. “You talk to Ananth Kumar”, he said.“There are some projects which are delayed or which are expedited or which are held up due to some reasons. That does not mean it will adversely affect the inflows of FDI into the country”, Sinha said. The Tatas have charged successive governments with holding back clearance for the project for over three years and announced withdrawal from the project yesterday. Mr Sinha also took exception to what he called some distortion in a section of the media about his statements on revival of the industry from September.“Let me clarify what I had said was that the budgetary proposals will start getting implemented more speedily from September 15. I did not say that the government will bring a new Budget or a new set of measures for giving a boost to the economy,’’ he said. Mr Sinha refused to comment on the government’s view of going ahead with the disinvestment process in the wake of adverse international conditions. On a query whether the government was considering relaxing the non-performing assets (NPA) regarding loans to small and other industries, Mr Sinha quipped “the government would be working on so many things’’. He said the decision to
raise and rationalise duty drawback on exports will give
an impetus to exports, especially in the garment
sector.Asked on the 7.71 per cent growth in exports
registered in July, the Finance Minister said he was
always optimistic of a turnaround of the economy in
various sectors. |
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Scope demands PSU member on CVC NEW DELHI, Sept 2 (PTI) — The apex body of public sector enterprises today demanded that government appoint a public sector representative as one of the vigilance commissioners in the new multi-member Central Vigilance Commission (CVC). Welcoming the appointment of N. Vittal as Chief Vigilance Commissioner, Secretary General of Standing Conference on Public Enterprises (Scope) M.A. Hakeem said government should consider a person with experience of running a PSU. After Vittal’s appointment yesterday in accordance with Supreme Court directive, the government will have to appoint two more vigilance commissioners to make the CVC a multi-member body like the Election Commission.Hakeem said that Scope had been demanding that PSUs should be kept out of the ambit of CVC and be allowed to function like any other commercial entity. The commission has to be appreciative of the commercial needs and pressures of the PSUs, which account for about 65 per cent of corporate investment in the country, to differentiate between “bonafide and malafide” decisions, he said. Commercial importance of PSUs could be gauged by the fact that out of the 42 corporates which posted net profit over Rs 100 crore each during the last financial year, 23 were PSUs with over two third share in the total profits of these corporates.“Till such time that PSUs’ continue under CVC’s surveillance a PSU representative should be part of CVC keeping in mind the large number of cases from these corporations referred to the vigilance body,” he said. This is a “reasonable demand” of PSUs and government should agree to this, he said.Even board level appointment at PSU necessitates a CVC clearance and a person familiar with functioning of the state owned organisations alone could appreciate our problems and concerns, he said. To save PSU executives from harassment for their genuine commercial decisions, Scope had suggested a mechanism for scrutinising their dealings before the case was referred to CVC or CBI, he added.The disinvestment commission also made an identical recommendation, wherein it suggested setting up of a “pre-investigation board” to differentiate between “malafide and bonafide commercial decisions”. Scope also
wrote to Industry Minister Sikander Bakht recently urging
that present system of vigilance and investigations be
reformed keeping in tune with enhanced commercial
obligations of PSUs in the liberalised economy. |
HMT units face difficult times PANCHKULA, Sept 2 — About 100 ancillary units and vendors of the tractor division of the Hindustan Machine Tools, Pinjore, are facing difficult times due to inordinate delay in the release of their payments by the public sector undertaking. The ancillary units, mainly based here and at a few places at Baddi in Himachal Pradesh, produce goods worth about Rs 80 crore per annum and give direct employment to over 2000 workers. These units have been facing payment problem from their mother plant for the past over one year. According to the president of the HMT Ancillary Entrepreneurs Association, Mr C.B. Goel, the problem during the current financial year has assumed serious proportions because of a 20 per cent decline in the sale and production of tractors by the HMT. He says the units are unable to pay not only the salaries to their employees and make payments to raw material suppliers but are also not in a position to clear various government dues. The units have become defaulters of the banks also. According to Mr Goel, the HMT owes about Rs 30 crore to ancillary units and another about Rs 30 crore to vendors. An official spokesman of the HMT, when contacted, admitted delay in making payments to ancillary units and vendors. He, however said the undertaking had cleared the payments of the goods supplied to it till May last.He also admitted that funds from tractor division had to be diverted to the machine tool division for the payment of salaries to its staff and to clear certain other dues. He said there was nothing wrong in this diversion of funds because both divisions were part of one corporate body.The spokesman said the rainy season had always been a lean period for the tractor industry. However, the sales would pick up from this month. Moreover, the machine tools division, too, would come out of the red. Recently it had received an order to supply about 70 machines of various types worth about Rs 45 crore. He said all dues of the
ancillary units would be cleared soon.Admitting a fall in
the sale figures of HMT tractors, the spokesman said the
division planned to manufacture 20,000 tractors this year
as against 19,000 manufactured last year. |
Coops plan foray into insurance sector NEW DELHI, Sept 2 (PTI) — While foreign and private companies are eyeing the lucrative upper end of the Indian insurance market, cooperative unions have evinced interest in tapping the huge rural population in the country. The National Cooperative Union of India (NCUI), the apex body of cooperative unions, has submitted a draft proposal to the government highlighting its intention to enter both life and general insurance to provide insurance cover to its members. “Present insurance set-up in the country has failed in providing need-based and effective services in rural and semi-urban areas, especially to cooperative societies,” the NCUI proposal said. The cooperative union has proposed setting up two separate companies for general and life insurance — National Cooperative Insurance Society Ltd and National Cooperative Life Insurance Society Ltd — to cater to the rural population. Highlighting the “negligence” of the rural sector by state-owned insurance companies, the proposal claimed rural sector insurance was hardly covered by Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) and General Insurance Corporation (GIC) as they do not fall in their priorities. “Circumstances are
such that rural sector feels neglected and denied of
insurance coverage”, it added.NCUI said its
cooperative membership of over 16.5 crore provided huge
potential of committed population within the cooperative
fold. |
State intervention in education NEW DELHI, Sept 2 — The Union Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister, Dr Murli Manohar Joshi, today said that state intervention in education would continue since it is the duty of the state to provide basic education to citizens. Inaugurating a national seminar on “Role of private sector in human resource development”, organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) here today, Dr Joshi said education could not be left exclusively to the private sector as there was the possibility of an imbalanced coverage. Calling for meaningful participation from the industry, Dr Joshi underscored the need for industry coming out with specific programme to supplement the government’s efforts in areas like nutrition, female education, printing of quality books etc. Dr Joshi said for universalisation of primary education, an estimated amount of Rs 1,25,000 crore had to be spent by the government.The minister agreed that reservation on the basis of economic conditions would be the ideal yardstick but it was difficult to be achieved within the existing framework. Redefining the educational
agenda, Dr Joshi said the present tendency imitating the
West in the educational field had to be done away with.
The superficial and cosmetic changes that are borrowed
from the West should not be superimposed since it would
be counterproductive”, he said. |
EU invites business proposals NEW DELHI, Sept 2 (PTI) — The European Union (EU) today invited proposals from Indian entrepreneurs seeking EU financial aid in a bid to facilitate direct cooperation between small and medium sized enterprises in the two regions. This is the second call from EU after the one issued in April for funding under the “Asia investment programme”, which is aimed at enhanced investment cooperation between EU and India, a Commerce Ministry press release said today. EU considers India as an important partner country for the implementation of its regional project, towards which it provides $ 50 million as co-finance for direct cooperation between small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) of the two regions. Different instruments under Asia invest could be tapped by European and Asian SMEs to globalise their business strategies and also to identify suitably cooperating partners, the release said.The programme would also provide information to take the right decisions on partnerships, markets and investments. Industry organisations and individual enterprises could send proposals seeking technical and financial assistance from EU under different facilities of Asia invest. Proposals could be submitted for market research, monitoring activities and tie up for possible cooperation projects. Priority sectors identified were information technology, telecommunications, machinery, automotive, building materials, industrial chemicals, processed foods, transport, environment, energy and service sector industries. Proposals need to be
preferably supported by counterpart European companies or
organisations, the release said.The last date for the
submission of proposals is September 29 and further
details will be available at the European Commission
office here or APEC Chambers of Commerce and Small
Industries Development Bank of India. |
Powergrid earns Rs 337 crore profit NEW DELHI, Sept 2 (UNI) — Powergrid Corporation of India Limited (PGCIL) Chairman-cum-Managing Director R.P. Singh today paid Rs 20-crore dividend for 1997-98 to Power Minister P.R. Kumaramangalam. The public sector mini Ratna paid the dividend for the fifth consecutive term in its short span of six years.Presently, Powergrid operates approximately 31,000 circuit km of transmission lines, that carries about 18,000 MW of the total power in the country. The company stands on an
gross asset base of Rs 8000 crore supported by Rs 3037
crore of paid up capital.The turnover of the company went
up from Rs 1058 crore in 1996-97 to Rs 1,434.68 crore in
1997-98. The profit netted at Rs 337.16 crore, according
to a press release here. |
Essar introduces full cellphone
service LUDHIANA, Sept 2 — Essar Telecom has finally introduced full mobile cellphone service in Ludhiana and Jalandhar, two major cities of Punjab.The introduction of full service has come in the wake of the company securing Department of Telecommunication (DoT) connectivity in the two cities with effect from September 1, according to Mr Vijay Kaul, Vice-President, Essar Telecom. The full service was due to be introduced in Ludhiana with effect from April but could not be done in the absence of DoT connectivity. The connectivity was held up as the telecom engineering centre of the DoT was unable to test the equipment installed by the company head office at Chandigarh for some reason.In the absence of the DoT connectivity, the subscribers here could make only mobile-to-mobile phone calls. For some time, they were allowed to make free calls to landsets at Chandigarh but this was later greatly restricted by the company.Mr Vijay Kaul said DoT connectivity would soon be available in Amritsar too. As regards Ludhiana and Jalandhar, the company would allow 40 days’ free air-time to old subscribers in the two cities for new subscribers, they would have to pay as per the tariff which was being worked out. Mr Kaul, however, indicated that the tariff in Ludhiana and Jalandhar might be less than the flat rate of Rs 4 per minute of air-time in force in Chandigarh. He said Essar Telecom would now expand its network all along the GT Road in Punjab. The mobile cellphone
service provided by the company was already available on
Shatabdi Express between Delhi and Amritsar, he added. |
Onion prices likely to ease next month NEW DELHI, Sept 2 (PTI) — Onion prices currently ruling over Rs 20 a kg at retail outlets, are expected to ease next month with the arrival of kharif crops, official sources said today. “Prices are expected to decline with arrival of new crop towards the month-end,” a Civil Supplies Ministry Official told PTI.For the time being, prices are expected to be steady though government is taking all steps to keep the rates on leash. Finance Minister Yashwant
Sinha had told reporters in Hyderabad on Sunday that
prices of essential commodities are expected to decline
in the next four to five weeks with arrival of new crops,
onion is among the items for which prices had
sky-rocketed during June-July. |
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Seminar CITU agitation Redressal Cell ECGC Gold firm Forex rates Coop Bank |
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