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| Monday, June 19, 2000, Chandigarh, India   
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Is it PETA campaign or conspiracy? FCI may lower retirement age Jobs shrink for Company Secretaries
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Greaves Ltd ties up with Cifa Spa FIIs net sellers A site for tuitions
Is it PETA campaign or conspiracy? JALANDHAR, June 18 (PTI) —Punjab’s leather industry, already passing through one of its worst recession phases, is hurtling head-long towards a crisis with many Western nations and top world retail store chains either slapping bans on leather produced in India or in the process of taking similar punitive decisions under pressure from animal rights lobby led by
PETA. Though the ‘People for Ethical Treatment of Animals’ (PETA) and over 37 European and North American animal protection organisations have now agreed to a 60-day moratorium on any efforts to pressurise overseas customers of Indian leather from buying such goods following assurances from the Council for Leather Exports to redress the issues raised by the lobby, Punjab leather traders and tanners said they are working under a Damocles’ sword. “The sword has already struck some of us,’’ said an exporter. With a turnover of Rs 400 crore even in an extreme recession phase, the leather trade in the State revolves around exports to Europe and the USA apart from Jalandhar, which has a multi-crore leather complex housing over 45 tanneries and an equal number of new tanneries coming up, the trade is concentrated in Kurali, Dera Bassi, Phillaur, Malerkotla, Kotkapura, Bathinda and Goindwal Sahib. The shrill and loud high profile campaign of
PETA highlighting the “unethical treatment’’ and the gory cow slaughter in India has raised the hackles of the trade which has already started feeling the impact. While no well-coordinated response has emerged from the leather sector to counter the
PETA propaganda, awareness about something major going on has percolated down to the man who skins the hide off dead carcasses in remote countryside. “With Gap, the US’ second-largest clothing retailer, slapping ban on use of leather from animals killed in India and China, my buyer company
BCC Overseas has already served notice saying they will no more buy Indian leather,” says Amandeep Sandhu,
Managing Director of Amson Leather Industries here. Gap has 3000 retail stores worldwide. The leather traders said: “We have urged Parkash Singh Badal to give us certificates that since slaughtering is already illegal in Punjab, our trade is free of such gory practices,’’ said Ajoy Sharma, a spokesperson of the Punjab Leather Federation. The traders and manufacturers in Punjab were looking towards bigger leather centres in Tamil Nadu, Calcutta, Kanpur, Agra and Delhi to hammer out a strategy to counter the threat posed by the bans triggered by
PETA's noisy campaign. While many leather manufacturers termed PETA's
campaign as a “Western firms-funded conspiracy aimed at killing the Indian trade in leather pegged at Rs 7000 crore,’’
PETA said it had a larger aim targeting all leather products and has roped in international glamour like Pamela Anderson and Paul McCartney in its efforts. Of the two million
persons employed in the leather industry in India and the 20 million working in
ancillary industries, only Jalandhar accounts for 25,000 persons. “All of us are worried about the long term impact of the
PETA campaign even as the government has yet to be goaded into coming forward to help the trade in meeting the challenge,” said Sandhu, President of Punjab Leather Federation. |
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NEW DELHI, June 18 (PTI) — The government is considering a proposal to drastically lower the retirement age for workers in the state-owned Food Corporation of India (FCI) to 45 years from 60
now. The Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution Ministry has sought the opinion of the FCI management on the proposal to lower the retirement age “keeping in view the hazardous nature of work the workers are to perform.” The proposal sent to the FCI is based on the recommendations of the Labour Ministry, and the FCI unions have sought intervention of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to stall the move. When contacted, Minister of State for Labour Munni Lal from whose ministry the proposal originated, said no final decision had been taken and the FCI workers union would be consulted before taking any step in this direction. “A tripartite committee involving representatives from the FCI unions, the Labour Ministry and the PDS ministry will debate on lowering of the retirement age from 60 to 45 before taking a final decision. No decision contrary to the national labour laws will be taken,” Munni Lal told PTI. In its communication to the FCI Managing Director, the Consumer Affairs Ministry said: “The Corporation should examine the matter regarding the age of retirement for the workers as per the standing orders issued by the Ministry of Labour in this regard.” FCI Workers Union General Secretary H.P. Singh said a majority of the workers were under contracts and were usually regularised around the age of 45 and reducing the retirement age would mean forcing out these workers when they were finally about to get benefits as departmental employees. The Consumer Affairs and PDS Ministry has also proposed that all inland depots which were not necessary to be operated by the FCI should be surrendered to private parties or sold to the Central Warehousing Corporation. As per the restructuring proposal, the FCI would retain 510 out of its existing 2,200 depots across the country. |
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Jobs shrink for Company Secretaries SHIMLA, June 18 — A sharp decline in the number of candidates pursuing the Company Secretary’s course coupled with emerging cybernated business environment have forces the Institute of Company Secretaries of India to restructure its curriculum. The number of candidates registered with institute has come down from over 30,000 to about 21,000 over the past three years mainly due to shrinking of job opportunities for qualified Company Secretaries. According to Mr S.P. Narang, Secretary of the institute, the failure of the companies, even public sector undertakings, to appoint Company Secretaries as required under the law has been largely responsible for the present dismal situation. He said under the Companies Act it was mandatory for every company with a paid-up capital of over Rs 50 lakh to appoint a Company Secretary. However, this clause was being violated with
impunity not only by private companies but also government undertakings. Himachal
Pradesh proved most glaring example of it. Only six out of the 20-odd public sector undertakings in the
State had Company Secretaries. He said the matter had been taken with the state government not only by the Institute but also by the Union Ministry of Law and Company Affairs. The institute was willing to even help the state in finding the right persons for filling the posts. The situation, Mr Narang said, was likely to change after the proposed amendment to the Companies Act. The emphasis under the amended Act would be on compliance even the companies with paid-up capital of less than Rs 50 lakh would have to submit a compliance certificate signed by a qualified Company Secretary to the effect that all the returns had been filed. On its part the institute had undertaken a major restructuring of the curriculum to meet the challenge posed by the information technology revolution and the fast changing business environment. The emphasis of course had been shifted to corporate restructuring with focus on mergers and acquisitions. Other new courses deal in detail with intellectual property rights, international business and corporate law and governance, disclosures, compliance and accountability which were very important in globalised trade regime. The new courses will take care of the requirement of corporate bodies for at least the next decade. Referring to the emerging business scenario, he said mergers of companies had not been very helpful in improving the financial health. Recent studies of 101 cases had revealed that the value of shares had not increased after mergers. |
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Greaves Ltd ties up with Cifa Spa MUMBAI, June 18 (PTI) — Greaves Limited, the Rs 700 crore engineering arm of the Thapar group, has entered into a technical collaboration with Italian construction equipment giant Cifa Spa for manufacturing equipment for ready mix concrete (RMC) construction. Greaves, which had tied up with Cifa last year as a sole marketeer and distributor of the latter’s RMC equipment in the country, would invest Rs 10 crore for upgrading its existing heavy engineering unit at Gummidipoondi near Chennai for rolling out the construction apparatus. “Our technical alliance with Cifa is part of a broader strategy to leverage our core competence in growth areas like construction equipment for highways, dams and bridges”, Praveen Sachdev, Managing Director and CEO, Greaves Ltd, told PTI. The capital expenditure of Rs 10 crore will be funded through internal accruals and manufacture of the equipment will begin next year, he said and added that for the time being the construction units from Italy were being assembled at Greaves’ plant at Gummidipoondi. |
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MUMBAI, Jun 18 (PTI) — FIIs and mutual funds together pulled Rs 700.87 crore out of the equities market during the week ended June 15, when
BSE sensex witnessed a fall of 75.59 points to 4653.22 points, in a market sans big swings effected either by bulls or bears. This prospect has also turned the net
FII investments in India during June till date, negative at Rs 355.3 crore $ 80.8
m), reported by SEBI. The FIIs were net sellers in debt market too at Rs 61.5 cr ($ 14
m), taking the total withdrawals from the country’s markets to Rs 458.40 crore ($ 104.2 ) during the week ended June 15. The
FIIs were net sellers to the tune of Rs 156.30 crore ($ 35.5 m) in equities, but net buyers in the debt market at Rs 61.7 crore ($ 14
m) during the previous week, when MFs also unwound their positions in equities by Rs 146.67 cr. MFs
were, however, net buyers in the debt markets with net investments of Rs 75.38 crore during the week against net purchases of Rs 37.22 crore
to previous week. Total FII investments during 2000 till June 15 were at Rs 6963.6 crore ($ 1596.8
m), while their investments since 1993, when they were first allowed to invest in Indian capital markets, touched Rs 42,431.3 crore ($11.80 bn). |
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A site for tuitions CHANDIGARH, June 18 — Integrated Business Networks limited, a new Delhi-base company, is shortly launching what is said to be India’s largest hometuitions network. This website, hometuitions. com, a student can put in his/her requirement for a teacher either for home study or for coaching. The student will be contacted by the local franchisee of the company within 24 hours of such submission of requirement. This service in the first phase will be available in 284 cities, including Chandigarh, all over the country, said a company release here today. |
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by J.C. Anand A neglected bluechip called MICO PROPER timing is the key to making good and profitable long-term investments. A wise investor has to spot scrips of companies which have good fundamentals and prospects but for some reason are underpriced. One such company is MICO. The MICO scrip (of the face value of Rs 100 each) is at present quoting in Rs 3700-3800 range. Even a year back, it was quoting in the Rs 5100-6100 range. Now, that the company is improving its profitability and the automobile industry has revived, it is only a question of time when this scrip crosses Rs 5500 range again. Bosch holds 51 per cent equity in MICO and provides it with technical support. Recently, the company had made an offer to the shareholders to sell a part of their equity and the offer price was higher than the market price, but the response was not encouraging. MICO has near monopoly in fuel injection equipment and spark plugs in our country. It also manufactures single cylinder and multi cylinder FIPs. It is also the market leader in portable electric power tools. Recently, it has set up its fourth plant at Sitapur near Jaipur to manufacture Rotary Diesel injection pumps. Apart from providing original equipment to almost all the diesel vehicles and tractors, MICO has more than 2,258 dealers in the country to serve the replacement market. The R&D centre has been designated as a Global Development Centre for single and multi cylinder diesel FIPs. A part of its products are also exported. MICO has an equity capital of Rs 38 crore and a book value of Rs 1328.3 for its Rs 100 face value share. The EPS for the accounting year ended December 31,1999, was Rs 278. The company is also planning to expand its production as well as diversifying the product range. Why has MICO been neglected by the market? There are many answers for it. First, the automobile sector was in depression and the corporate section dealing with it stagnated. Secondly, the company has been very conservative in its pay-out to the shareholders. The dividend has been in the range of 22 to 26 per cent during last three years. Even though the company is debt-free, its operating margin is low. MICO did not declare any bonus shares after 1986, when it had issued bonus shares in the ratio of one for one held. Its first quarter results are, however, better and the annual results for the accounting year December 31,2000, are expected to be much better than in the previous year. Since it has not declared any bonus shares for last 14 years, it is time for the company to consider a liberal bonus issue, particularly when its book value and reserves are satisfactory. Its profitability is also moving up. What about the timing for investment in this scrip? At present, the investors should place it on the watch list and pick it up when the scrip starts moving up. I expect it to happen in mid-July or August. When the market price of this scrip crosses Rs 4000 mark, it may be taken as a good indicator for picking it up for a long-term investment. |
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by R.N. Lakhotia Q: I am a employee of H.P. State Electricity Board and allowing Electricity Allowance @ Rs. 49 p.m. with my salary. Kindly confirm that the above allowance is taxable or not. Please also specify the section of the Income Tax Act. — U.S. Katwal, Simla Ans: The Electricity Allowance granted to you will be fully taxable in Income-tax. This is because this allowance is not specifically exempt as per Rule 2BB of the Income-tax Rules, 1962. Q: I am a Punjab Government pensioner and retired on 31-5-96. and deposited Rs. 20000 in N.S.S. (National Saving Scheme) on 5-2-91 and Rs. 18500 on 20-3-91 in Post Office. At present I have Rs. 50081 in my account after the accrual of interest from 1991 to date. I want to withdraw the whole amount. Kindly advise and intimate whether the whole amount will be included in my taxable income from pension or the interest part will only be included or the whole amount of Rs. 50081 will be exempt from income-tax. — Roop Rekha, Jalandhar Ans: You will be liable to pay Income-tax on the entire amount withdrawn by you from the National Saving Scheme. Thus, the principal amount as also the interest part both will be added to your taxable pension income. No part of the withdrawal from NSS A/c will be exempted from Income-tax. Q: I have following queries: (1) I am a bank employee, and I have encashed my leave for one month and my employer has deducted tax on it. (2) I have read in one of the bank’s magazine that it is a capital receipt is taxable under the provisions of Income-tax. Hence it is not taxable. And the same is decided in the case of Commissioner of Income-tax versus Tollygunge Club Ltd. West Bengal in the Supreme Court. (3) Tell me whether it is taxable or not. — Satish Dhamija, Ludhiana. Ans: The exemption in respect of encashment of leave is available of retirement. Hence, in your case the entire amount of leave encashment would be liable to Income-tax. Q: I am a pensioner having invested Rs. 2,00,000 in the Post Office Monthly Income Scheme in April 98. The tenure of the scheme is 6 years. Premature closure of the account is allowed after one year of its opening with a deduction of 5 per cent of the Principal amount. I needed some money in the month of November 99. I closed the account. The Post Office authorities have deducted Rs. 10,000 is to be shown in the income tax return for the
assessment year 2000-01 for the financial year 1999-2000. Can this loss be adjusted against the income under other heads of income? — R.K. Jindal, Panchkula Ans: The loss suffered by you on premature encashment of Post Office
Monthly Income Scheme is actually a loss of interest income. This amount will be adjusted against income from other sources. |
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Britons good at it! LONDON: Britons need no longer hang their heads in shame, they’re good at sex, have a lot of it and start young. The Penguin Atlas of Human Sexual Behaviour has exploded the myths surrounding British sexuality and destroyed the reputations of some other nations in the process, The Observer newspaper said on Sunday. The average Briton has sex 2,580 times in their lives with five different people and some 42 per cent of them manage a bit of sexual infidelity, The Observer said. But Italians long regarded as sex legends are the least sexually active people in Europe — less than 100 times a year — and when they have sex it lasts less time than anywhere in Europe — 14 minutes. The Brazilian’s have the greatest endurance with sex lasting an average of 30 minutes and Thailand produces sprinters who have sex the quickest — 10 minutes on average. The atlas also proves what many people think — everyone but you is having sex. Some 120 million acts of lovemaking occur every day, resulting in 910,000 conceptions, The Observer said. However Britons cannot compete with their trans-Atlantic cousins who have sex more often, for longer and earlier in their lives.
— Reuters Ikon for NRIs NEW
DELHI: Ford India Ltd has recently tied up with the Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India
(ICICI) to facilitate purchase of Ikon models by non-resident Indians
(NRIs) for their friends and relatives. The scheme also allows NRIs to book their Ikon directly on the Ford India website and make payments through
ICICI. The company will roll out a new variant of Ikon named ‘EXi’ next month to bridge the gap between the entry level versions ‘1.3 Ikon
CLXI’ and ‘1.6 ZXI’. — PTI Power-ful ! AMRITSAR: When queried about the 60 per cent tax on milk, ghee and poultry imports, Dr Rattan Singh, Minister for Animal Husbandry, Punjab, while talking to newspersons here on Sunday, evaded the question and said the Central Government has to decide about the matter of taxing such items and the state government has no say in it. Taking a dig at ministers in Punjab, he said the maximum “energy” of various ministers goes into effecting transfers of government employees. In a spirited mood, he said that the Punjab State Electricity Board “itself” is responsible for power thefts rather than the public which is repeatedly blamed. “No government department has a clean record, regarding prompt or complete payment of electricity bills,” he said. He admitted that several police
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