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| Tuesday, July 18, 2000, Chandigarh, India   
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Reforms to cover education, agriculture NEW DELHI, July 17 — Smarting under criticism from a section of the Sangh Parivar, the Vajpayee Government today resolved to give a human face to the economic reforms programme by covering areas like agriculture, education and health. Urea prices to go up after fertiliser
decontrol by 2007 India, China sign
first-ever IT pact No LADT withdrawal: Haryana |
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| When staff outgrow office space ONE of the biggest headaches of working in cyberspace is finding the right hole in the real world to work out of. No matter how online you are, office space, equipment and all the other mundane needs of business have to be well managed. Shiv Nadar: modest pioneer of IT biz Lower roaming
tariff by Essar ‘Hike import duty
on valves & cocks’
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Reforms to cover education, agriculture NEW DELHI, July 17 — Smarting under criticism from a section of the Sangh Parivar, the Vajpayee Government today resolved to give a human face to the economic reforms programme by covering areas like agriculture, education and health. Areas like education, rural connectivity, agriculture, and drinking water will now be brought under the reform process as part of the government’s efforts to lay emphasis on quality of public life to make the reforms more meaningful to the poor. The decision to broaden the agenda of the economic reforms process was taken at the second meeting of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council (EAC), a high profile body that draws on the expertise of academicians, economists, industrialists and political leaders. Secretary to the Prime Minister, N.K.Singh, said the EAC also decided to prepare a common approach paper detailing the reforms programme. The paper would be widely debated for evolving necessary policy prescription and to ensure depoliticisation of the reforms programme. “The economic agenda which is in India’s long-term interest can and must be depoliticised”, Vajpayee, told the meeting. Calling for a concerted approach to sustain the momentum of economic changes to achieve the rate of growth necessary to eliminate poverty, Vajpayee expressed optimism that India would be able to achieve 7 per cent GDP growth during the current fiscal. He expressed concern over the power sector reforms and pointed out that financial closures of many long-delayed projects and removing hurdles for quicker implementation needed closer attention. He called for a pro-active approach to sort out project specific constraints, enhance investment flows and improve realisation ratio from the large volume and value of approved proposals for foreign direct investment. Stressing on the need for fiscal consolidation, the Prime Minister said while tax reforms had made progress, more needed to be done for improving tax administration. He wanted the time frame for introduction of value added tax to be adhered to by the states. Some difficult issues relating to subsidies, user charges, rationalisation of expenditure portfolio and manpower connected to it would be addressed in the coming months, Mr N.K. Singh
said. |
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Urea prices to go up after fertiliser
decontrol by 2007 New Delhi, July 17 — The Vajpayee Government has proposed total decontrol of the fertiliser sector in three phases by 2007. This is proposed in a background paper prepared by the Fertiliser Ministry which will form the foundation for the new policy. The Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertiliser, Mr Suresh P Prabhu, told a meeting organised by FICCI that “the new policy will balance interests of the industry and farmers.” Total decontrol may imply a rise in the prices of fertilisers. “One of the aims of total decontrol is to contain the burden of subsidy”, the minister said. The subsidy on fertilisers has reached Rs 13,975 crore (Budget estimates for 1999-2000) which is no longer sustainable. During the first phase (2000-01 to 2001-02), the policy aims to remove aberrations in the existing system and initiate steps towards systemic reforms that would lead to total decontrol in the long term. The measures include an increase in the price of urea at regular intervals; freeze on new capacities for production of urea till 2003-04; protecting industry from WTO impact by imposing 5 per cent customs duty; removal of distribution control on urea, which alone many save Rs 700 crore. During the second phase (2002-03 to 2003-04), the paper says there is a proposal to appoint a regulator; extend single rate of concession to all urea units till 2005; policy decision would be taken whether the MRP should be fixed by the government or left to market forces. During the third phase (2004-05 to 2006-07), the background paper proposes total decontrol to allow operation of free market forces and withdrawal of concessions to the industry. Even after the total decontrol, the government would rely on monetary and fiscal measures for regulating the industry. It would monitor the prices of fertilisers to ensure their balanced consumption and assess impact of the prices on
farmers. |
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India, China sign
first-ever IT pact NEW DELHI, July 17— India and China today signed an MoU on information technology, the first between the two countries, to facilitate greater economic and technical cooperation between enterprises, research institutions and economic entities of the two countries. The MoU was signed in Beijing by Minister for Information Technology and Parliamentary Affairs, Pramod Mahajan and Chinese Minister for IT Wu Jichuan. The MoU is for an initial period of five years and provides for the exchange of information of policies, technologies and strategies on the IT industry. The core areas identified in the MoU include computer enterprise networks, IT, micro-electronic technology and integrated circuit, software and its application and products, Internet technologies and their application, transfer of information technologies and establishing joint ventures of IT equipment. The MoU will also focus on exchanging information and strengthening cooperation in the IT organisations, exchange information on international legislation and international technological standards, organise training programmes and mutual visits for experts. |
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No LADT withdrawal: Haryana NEW DELHI, July 17 — The Haryana Government has ruled out withdrawal of the 4 per cent Local Area Development Tax (LADT). “The tax is on the entry of goods for use or consumption and not on entry of goods on sale,” the Principal Secretary of the state, Mr Vishnu Bhagwan, told a meeting organised by the PHDCCI. He said no LADT is payable in case of inter-state trade, adding that sales tax and central sales tax paid or payable is rebatable against validity LADT. The Finance Commissioner of Haryana, Mr M. Shankar, said the tax would generate a revenue of Rs 100 to Rs 300 crore for the state government. The chamber President, Mr K.S. Mehta, urged the state government to abolish the tax as it would adversely affect the competitiveness of existing industry and go against attracting new industry in the state. He pointed out that, financial impact of all units in Haryana put together would be over Rs 400 crore with steel industry facing an incidence of Rs 50 crore,
tractor and two-wheeler Rs 20 crore, spinning and weaving mills Rs 3.65 crore, textile Rs 120 lakh per annum. The members of the chamber fear that the industry in backward areas of Haryana and SSIs which operate on 2 to 3 per cent margin would be very adversely affected and forced to close down. Due to high power
rates, higher wage rates and steep land rates, the Haryana industry is already in a disadvantageous position as compared to the neighbouring states and the levying of LADT would only add to the woes of the Haryana industry, the chamber said. |
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Call for Ambala bandh AMBALA, July 17 (PTI) — The Haryana Exporters Association, Haryana Solvent Extraction Association , the Haryana Rice Millers Association and Beopar Mandal, Ambala, have urged the state government to withdraw the ST-38 challan form imposed on traders doing business over Rs 10,000 within and outside the state. Meanwhile, some of the
bazaar associations of Ambala Cantt have given a call for bandh for Tuesday to protest against ST-38 form recently introduced by the state
government.
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When staff outgrow office space ONE of the biggest headaches of working in cyberspace is finding the right hole in the real world to work out of. No matter how online you are, office space, equipment and all the other mundane needs of business have to be well managed. Believe us, we have seen the lot. There are Internet incubators with dot.com executives crammed into tiny spaces, established companies with huge corporate boardrooms and cutting-edge marketing teams working in loft-like luxury. For dot.coms, ``meeting and greeting’’ space in particular seems to be in scarce supply. As organisations recruit at pace, it seems meeting space gets pushed out in favour of work space. But you never know what to expect from start-ups. We had one meeting last week in a relatively small, unattractive open-plan office in London that was being shared by at least six dot.com start-ups. So packed was the office that we had to negotiate to get a square foot of privacy. For those start-ups selling things online, the problem of storing goods is as important as providing space for workers. One online retailer we visited didn’t bother dividing staff from products. They had solved the problem by having their people work around the products they sell. Every inch of space was taken. Alongside and in between the usual PCs and office furniture were piles of boxes which blocked out the light. The business was a success and the office - where around 30 people were based - had obviously been outgrown a long time ago. In the same week, and in stark contrast, we visited one of the country’s largest high street retailers. This was very much the traditional suit and tie operation with huge offices and a separate suite of meeting rooms. We were in with the top managers and looked on with envy. The first thing that struck us was that looking around the large and ornate meeting room with the four of us in it, we noticed how our entire workforce —10 and rising - could have happily occupied it with room to spare. Interestingly some large organisations have by accident rather than design created a busy start-up atmosphere with an economical attitude towards space and equipment. This tends to be where the parent company has set up a separate Internet business and given it clear resources and space to work with. The problem here appears to be how fast the new economy side of the business swallows up the old - and will the holders of purse strings let them have the office space to do so. (Adam Hamdy and Guy Mallison are co-founders of Rools.com, a service that lets teenagers buy securely online without a credit card) — By arrangement with The Guardain |
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Shiv Nadar: modest pioneer of IT biz NEW DELHI, July 17 — Of the 11 Indians who have figured in Forbes’ list of the rich and famous, 52-year-old Shiv Nadar is perhaps among the few not quite elated by the news. The soft-spoken Nadar is quite content with the fact that he is the founder of the country’s largest information technology conglomerate, known as the HCL group of companies. If India is going to be a force to reckon with in the world IT map, to Nadar goes the credit of pioneering it all. When Nadar started HCL (Hindustan Computer Ltd) in 1976, it was a Rs 10 million company. He has tended his firm in his signature style of decentralised management till it has grown into a $550 million group with offices in India and abroad. HCL broke into the league of the Rs 10 billion club of Indian companies in 20 years flat. With his sharp eye for the half-chance, Nadar tied up with Hewlett Packard (HP) as a partner to rectify his group’s deficiencies, which he had identified as manufacturing and customer support. HP was given a 26 per cent stake in HCL in 1991, and the HP connection brought in a record profit of Rs 202 million the following year. Several changes followed and, in his typical penchant for decentralisation, Nadar spun off several companies with an HCL-HP employee heading it. That was how Frontline solutions, HCL Peripherals and HCL Comet came into being. Nadar himself has been a visionary for his group companies and his operational role is restricted to HCL Technologies, but he keeps his place on the boards of the rest of the group’s firms. As a visionary, he dreams up the HCL group’s future strategy and leads the think-tanks which implements the plans. The group has now expanded into hardware, software, telecom, training, VSATs and networking. In the next couple of years, it hopes to enter the Rs 100 billion league of Indian companies. With the recent explosion of the IT sector in India, names such as Wipro, Infosys and Satyam have become the darlings of the investors and the media. The makeover of these players will hardly concern the reclusive Nadar, who will concede readily that his flagship company — HCL Infosystems — is just a hardware maker, even if it is the leading manufacturer of personal computers in the country. The HCL group also includes computer software and training major, NIIT, but Nadar will insist that he has little to do with the company these days. In fact, apart from HCL Technologies, where he is Chairman, President and CEO, Nadar is not involved in the management of HCL Infosystems or NIIT. HCL Technologies, founded in 1994, is among the bigger software companies with an income larger than Infosys, Satyam, Polaris and Wipro’s software businesses. The second largest exporter of software after Tata Consultancy Services, its 25 offices span over 15 countries. In January, its initial public offer brought in Rs. 8.23 billion ($187 million). —
IANS
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Lower roaming
tariff by Essar NEW
DELHI, July 17 — Essar Cellphone today launched new differential tariffs for its national auto-roaming card. The tariff structure aims to offer economical auto roaming facilities to subscribers who travel frequently and they would save nearly 40 per cent on their cellular bills. “A person roaming in any of Essar Cellphone’s circles and choosing the Essar network will be charged Rs 6 per minute. This is against Rs 10 per minute he would be charged if he chooses to log on to any other network,” a company release said. These new tariffs are a take-off from the tariffs which Essar Cellphone is already offering in its north card, which is available for similar differential charges to its subscribers in Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Delhi. The customer subscribing to the national card has the option of all-India roaming for a charge of only Rs 74 per month over and above Rs 25 which is the monthly rental for the north card. Those subscribing for the national card scheme before the end of this month, will be offered 90 days waiver of monthly rental and free roaming activation for the north card
subscription.
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‘Hike import duty
on valves & cocks’ CHANDIGARH, July 17 —- The Jalandhar-based Punjab Valves & Cocks Manufacturers Association, representing 280 units which meet the needs of the whole Indian market, has urged the Central Government to raise duty on imported valves and cocks. The units which have a turnover of Rs 250 crore and employ 35,000 workers, use imported gun metal scrap as raw material. The Central Government has imposed a heavy import duty on this raw material. Due to this , local finished goods can’t compete with valves and cocks imported from China and Taiwan. While local products carry ISI mark, imported valves and cocks are substandard and do not meet the specifications of the Bureau of Indian Standards, said Mr Vijay Kumar, President of the Association, in a statement here today. To save this industry, the government should increase the import duty on valves and cocks or stop their imports. Along with MPs from Punjab, the Association office-bearers will meet the Finance Minister and the Commerce Minister to demand steps to save the industry, which is on the verge of
closure.
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Male pill in five years LONDON: British scientists have made a breakthrough in the race to put the first male contraceptive pill on the market and it could be ready within five years. A six-month study involving 60 men in Scotland and China showed the pill had successfully made all the volunteers temporarily infertile, The Independent reported on Monday. Prof David Baird, a member of the Edinburgh University-based team of scientists, was quoted as saying the study was part of a programme aimed at providing a range of contraceptive options for men. “It is certainly very encouraging. We could have a male pill within five years. It could be as effective as the female pill, but more trials have to be done,” he said. The full results of the Edinburgh study will be presented at the world conference of gynaecologists and obstetricians in Washington in September. —
Reuters IT may hit family Singapore: President S.R. Nathan of high-tech Singapore has warned the information technology (IT) revolution may weaken family structures and called on parents to preserve time-tested values. Intense competition in the “new economy” would put pressure on family ties, especially on the young. “Our young will increasingly be exposed to alternative values and lifestyles brought about by the IT revolution,” he said in the speech to the Malay community on Monday. “The undiscerning acceptance of inappropriate value system by our youth will also weaken our family structure. These must be matters of concern and priority for all of us,” he said. Singapore, Asia’s leading financial hub, is also the region’s most high-tech society. The meeting, attended by the country’s key nationalist leaders, was told to find ways to “preserve and transmit the community’s time-honored values and norms to strengthen the family.” The President also felt that the IT age would result in the displacement of low-skilled workers. “We must find ways to soften the impact of harsh economic realities brought about by globalisation and the new economy,” he said. —
AFP Medicine sales on Internet Kuala Lumpur: The Malaysian authorities are cracking down on “virtual pharmacies”, following a worrying rise in Malaysians buying medicines over the Internet without a doctor’s prescription. Pharmaceutical officials say more Malaysians are resorting to buying medicines, from Viagra to pain-killers, over the Internet because it is convenient, private and they can skirt the required prescription laws. The Pharmaceutical Services Department is investigating three local dot com companies which advertise a range of medical products from alleged AIDS cures to Viagra. “Local companies that have flouted the law will face action,” warned the department’s Director, Anis Ahmad. However, the Malaysian authorities are only empowered to take action against foreign chemists or pharmacies advertising over the Internet. It is easy to buy medicines and drugs over the Internet as buyers only need to pay by credit card and provide a mailing address. —
DPA
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Sun Pharma
net up 55 pc HDFC floats 3 MF schemes Otis net spurts 90 per cent IPCL to quit India Vaccines
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FDI limit Aptech Refinery Dalbir Singh B.D. Narang IBM servers Markfed |
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