Thursday, December 23, 1999
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B U S I N E S S | Thursday, December 23, 1999 |
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 SINGAPORE : A Singaporean shop assistant retrieves a packet of portable cooking gas cassettes for a customer at the Daimaru shopping centre in Singapore on Wednesday. The Japanese owned store is offering special deals on items such as corned beef, sardines, water and beer for those worried about supply problems caused by the Y2K bug as the millennium changes. — AP/PTI |
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Tatas sell half of ACC stake to
Gujarat Ambuja MUMBAI, Dec 22 — The Tata group has sold about half of its nearly 14 per cent holding in Associated Cement Companies (ACC) to a wholly-owned subsidiary of Gujarat Ambuja Cements Ltd. Microsoft to offer Hindi software Union
Bank puts defaulters in dock Faridabad
fair opens Banks’
recovery slow in Haryana
MoU with NABARD Centre’s
plan to curb oil adulteration |
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Free tele facility for
villagers soon NEW DELHI, Dec 22 — Ever thought of talking to your near one from a village in India to the USA or Canada or the UK? And that too at no cost — either to the caller or to the receiver? And from a local public call, that is, if you do not have a telephone at home? Well, from the Lohri day in the year 2000, Punjab is all set to revolutionise through this communication system when the Punjab Chief Minister inaugurates this facility at Chandigarh through electronic telecom messaging — e-TelM. A New Delhi-based company, Thind Infotec (Private) Limited (TIPL), promoted by Hydel Constructions Ltd, is all set to diversify into information technology. Talking to The Tribune, Mr Dalbir Singh Thind, Director of TIPL, said that all one will have to do is to access the nearest telephone to use the facility. This service will be available totally free of charge to all its subscribers and will provide them with the latest in messaging technology. There is no registration fee although one will have to get registered with the company to get the password and toll-free number. The person will send the message in his voice and it will be retrieved by the other person who can hear his or her near one’s voice over the telephone. According to Mr Thind, the users will first be required to subscribe to the service by registering themselves with e-TelM. Upon registration, the subscriber will be issued a user ID and password. To use the service, the registered subscribers need only to walk up to the nearest telephone and dial a toll free number of the e-TelM messaging service and enter their user ID and password. The user will then be given a menu of what he wants to do: send a message or retrieve his mailbox. On choosing the second option, the user can listen to all the messages in his box. In case he chooses the first option, the user can record a message in his voice up to a maximum duration of 120 seconds. Once the user hangs up the phone, the voice message is automatically transmitted to the destination server from where it reaches the mailbox of the user at the destination. The destination site could be a booth a few feet away or an office across the world. Mr Thind said that a complete directory of registered users will be maintained and password security would ensure privacy at all times. e-TelM will bring instant voice messages to one’s mailbox, allowing one to send high priority messages and exchange information. According to Mr Thind,
the other facilities which will begin in Punjab include
Internet Service Provider to whole of the state;
establishing a Call Centre under the aegis of STPI at
Mohali; Software Development Centre at Mohali; and a web
portal on Punjab. |
STD for rural phones NEW DELHI, Dec 22 (PTI) — Department of Telecom Services today said it would provide STD facility in all village public telephones (VPT) with all the rural exchanges being upgraded for meeting this requirement. An internal committee set up by the department has recommended induction of wireless in the local loop to increase telecom penetration in rural areas, satellite terminals to reach out to remote areas and installation of VPTs in village grocery shops, Communications Minister Ram Vilas Paswan told reporters here. The committee, headed by
Minister of State for Communications Tapan Sikdar, also
recommended that security deposit to provide STD on VPTs
should be reduced from Rs 500 to Rs 250 and the minimum
guarantee of minimum monthly revenue of Rs 100 should be
removed. Receiving the report from the Sikdar, Paswan
said most of the recommendations would be positively
implemented. |
Tatas sell half of ACC stake to Gujarat Ambuja MUMBAI, Dec 22 (PTI) — The Tata group has sold about half of its nearly 14 per cent holding in Associated Cement Companies (ACC) to a wholly-owned subsidiary of Gujarat Ambuja Cements Ltd. ACC officials told PTI here ‘‘the promoter group — the Tatas — sold 7.2 per cent of its holding to Ambuja Cement Holdings Pvt Ltd on December 21.’’ Gujarat Ambuja had last week acquired Rajasthan-based DLF Cement Ltd at a total cost of Rs 349 crore. The Tatas, claiming to be the promoter group of ACC, had sought to increase their shareholding in the company through the preferential route, but the move was blocked by the financial institutions. The sale of half of its shareholding is seen as a move by the Tatas to get out of ACC. The scrips of both
Gujarat Ambuja Cements and ACC hit the upper circuit
breaker on the Bombay Stock Exchange and were quoting at
Rs 360.70 and Rs 260 respectively. |
Microsoft to offer Hindi software NEW DELHI, Dec 22 — Microsoft Corporation will launch its first Hindi software “Microsoft word India” by February next and the Punjabi software is under its consideration. The Hindi software is expected to be launched along with “Windows 2000”, the new operating system from the Microsoft stable, Microsoft India managing director Sanjay Mirchandani said in a release today. He said the Microsoft is planning future support for Punjabi, Gujarati, Telugu, Kannada, Oriya and Bangla. The Hindi application will have features similar to the English version right from spell-check and thesauras to automatic highlighting of grammatical and spelling errors with the characteristic green and red lines. Hindi, Marathi, Konkani
and Sanskrit in Devnagiri script and Tamil are also among
the 134 international languages that the new operating
system - Windows 2000 - has been designed to support, the
release added. |
Union Bank puts defaulters in dock MUMBAI, Dec 22 (PTI) — Union Bank of India has filed liquidation proceedings in the Mumbai High Court against half a dozen of its main defaulters, who have to pay back a total of about Rs 200 crore to the bank. “We have decided not to take a soft stand on the issue of default. We do not believe in evergreening of bad and doubtful assets and so have taken 6-7 of the biggest defaulters to the court,” Union Bank Chairman and Managing Director A T Pannir Selvam told PTI here. These cases of default are in the manufacturing sector including the steel and chemical industries, he said. He said the legal action was already showing results as several defaulting borrowers had approached the bank with compromise packages for the repayment of outstandings. “The defaulting company’s assets are stuck during the court proceedings, however long they may take. This will incur large losses to the firms, and to avoid this they might choose to make the repayments,” Pannir Selvam said. Union Bank is also taking the help of the Debt Recovery Tribunal (DRT) to quicken the process of recovery. The bank currently has a net non-performing asset (NPA) level of 8.1 per cent. Selvam said the bank had recovered about Rs 150 crore in the last six months. However, the bank has no
plan to set up any specialised asset recovery branches on
the lines of a current trend in the banking sector, he
said. |
Faridabad fair opens FARIDABAD, Dec 22 — The Haryana Governor, Mr Mahabir Prasad, today inaugurated the 6th Industrial Trade Fair (FARINDEX1999) here. The fair has been organised by the industrial associations located at Faridabad with the cooperation of the district administration. It will conclude on December 28. The Governor went round the fair and took keen interest in various industrial products. He appreciated the concerned efforts of the entrepreneurs of Haryana who were producing quality goods which had a fair demand in the national and international markets. About 40 stalls had been set free of cost in the fair for rural industries, artisans, handicrafts and other beneficiaries with a view to encouraging self-employment. Mr Anand Mohan Sharan, Deputy Commissioner, informed the Governor that the main theme of this year’s fair is “millennium advantage” and many leading industrial houses such as Eicher Good Earth Ltd., National Thermal Power Corporation, Whirpool etc had set up their pavilions, besides participation by a large number of small, medium and large industrial units. Automobiles and auto-components, textiles, garments, household and domestic appliances, crockery, footwear, sanitarywares, machine tools, hightech and electronics items, rural and cottage industries etc, industrial products have been displayed for the benefit of customers and promising entrepreneurs. Entertainment and
cultural programmes will be organised everyday in the
auditorium of the fair, besides business seminars, loan
melas and open houses. |
Banks’
recovery
slow in Haryana CHANDIGARH, Dec 22 — Mr Rashid Jilani, Chairman, PNB said today that the economy of India has shown signs of recovery during first half of 1999-2000. He was presiding over the State Level Bankers Committee meeting held to review the performance of the banks in Haryana. Mr Jilani said the deposits of the banks in the State increased from Rs 13,190 crore as on September’ 98 to Rs 15,393 crore as on September 1999, showing a growth of 16.7 per cent as compared to the growth of 17 per cent during the same period of last year. Similarly, advances have also increased from Rs 5,275 crore to Rs 6,112 crore during the review period. Recovery of bank’s dues was slow, said Mr Jilani. Although, overall recovery position in the State has improved to 69 per cent as on June, ‘99 from 63 per in June, ‘98, and under PMRY, it has declined from 53 per cent to 47 per cent during the same period. Mr A.N. Mathur, IAS, said Haryana has witnessed certain uncertainties on the political front, as a result the State has witnessed certain recession, thereby having some affect on development programme of the State. Prominent among those
present were Mrs Keshni Anand Arora, Special Secretary
and Director, Institutional Finance and Credit Control
Haryana, Mr Sukhbir Singh, GM, NABARD, Mr C.P. Swarankar,
GM, PNB, New Delhi, Mr R.K. Bhargawa, GM, Chandigarh and
Mr R.K. Goyal, AGM RBI. |
UT to privatise power supply CHANDIGARH, Dec 22 — Power distribution will be privatised in Chandigarh. The Union Power Ministry has appointed a committee to undertake the privatisation work and appoint consultants to do valuation of the distribution assets in the city. The ministry has not set any deadline for the privatisation but the process is expected to get under way by February. One of the objectives of privatising power distribution in Chandigarh is to enable it to buy power from mega-power projects, according to a report in Business Standard. As per the Ministry
figures, Chandigarh does not have power shortage. From
April to October, 1999 Chandigarh’s power
requirement was 659 million units, which was fully met.
Chandigarh gets most of its power from the Bhakhra hydel
project at a cheap rate. |
MoU with NABARD CHANDIGARH, Dec 22 — Mr Rakesh Singh UT Secretary (Cooperation), and Mr Ashwani Kumar, Administrator of Chandigarh State Cooperative Bank, today executed an MoU with NABARD. Mr Sukhbir Singh, who
signed the MoU on behalf of NABARD, said Chandigarh State
Cooperative Bank will now be eligible to avail various
grants and refinance facilities such as assistance for
installation of computers and setting up of technical and
monitoring evaluation cell from NABARD. The State
Government is also eligible to avail facilities for
completion of various infrastructural development schemes
such as rural roads etc. |
Antakshari on web MUMBAI, Dec 22 (PTI) — “Close-Up Web Antakshari”, India’s first multi-user gaming concept, was launched by Antakshari TV musical anchor Annu Kapoor here today. The gaming concept,
conceived and hosted by youth and entertainment portal
“hungama com” is targeted at youth, who are
getting more technology savvy these days, and it is
centred around the nation’s favourite pastime —
Bollywood, Hindustan Lever, Ltd senior Product Manager
Sanjay Gupta said. |
Centre’s plan to curb oil
adulteration NEW DELHI, Dec 22 — The Centre today asked the State Governments to take necessary action to implement the Edible Oils Packaging (Regulation) Order to prevent adulteration of edible oils with non-edible and toxic substances. “We have written to State Chief Ministers requesting them to seriously consider implementation of the order in view of the recent instances of adulteration in the “national capital”, Public Distribution and Consumer Affairs Minister, Mr Shanta Kumar told newspersons here. The directive comes in
the wake of reports of adulteration of rapeseed and
refined palm oil with textile dyes in the capital. |
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