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April 3, 2001, Chandigarh, India   
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Made-in-India vehicles’ exports rise
Maran allays fears
‘Happy hour’ offer for Netizens Rs 500 cr sales at Kundli Tycoons to make movie |
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Kapkids awards for kids CII hails power tariff regulatory authority Sterlite eyes US
firms HVPNL working
deteriorates Demand for tech experts drops
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Made-in-India vehicles’ exports rise
New Delhi, April 2 All major segments like cars, commercial vehicles and two-wheelers posted positive export growth during the period, figures released by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) showed. Strong performances by the two South Korean car makers — Hyundai and Daewoo — helped cars register a 9.1 per cent growth in exports during the review period, even as market leader Maruti Udyog recorded a dip in exports. Hyundai Motor India car exports touched 5,260 during April-February 2000-01 over 30 units in the year-ago period. Daewoo Motors India exported 1,551 cars, up 57.4 per cent as against 985 cars in the year-on-year period while Tata Engineering (Telco) exports rose 17 per cent to 469 cars (401 cars during April-February 1999-2000). Exports of Maruti cars fell by 22 per cent to 13,329 units during April-February 2000-01 (17,077 units last year). Maruti’s March sales up
Maruti Udyog announced a marginal 0.1 per cent rise in domestic car sales at 37,900 units during March over 37,940 units sold in the same month last year. The company, however, said it has achieved its all-time high monthly sales in its 18-year history during the month by selling 40,487 units, including 1,798 units of Gypsy multi-utility-vehicle and 749 units of exports. The March sales were up by 28.3 per cent compared to 29,569 cars sold in february this year, Maruti said in a statement here. Cumulative sales (April-March 2000-01), however, dropped by 9 per cent to 3.36 lakh cars from 3.70 lakh cars sold in the year-ago period. The company sold 15,880 units of its entry model ‘800cc’ car, 6,510 Omni vans, 6,272 ‘Zen’, 2,229 ‘Wagonr MAV’, 4,265 ‘Alto’ cars during the month. Sales of the mid-size Esteem and the premium mid-size car Baleno stood at 1,508 units and 276 units respectively.
Record sale of Qualis
Qualis, the premium MPV offering from the Toyota stable, has achieved record sales in its history of 3,010 vehicles for the month of March 2001. Toyota Kirlosakar Motor Ltd has also reached the highest level of production of 2,877 units in March 2001. Since its launch in January 2000, Qualis has had an “overwhelming response” from the customers with 21,785 Qualis being sold in its first year of operation only. During January and February 2001, the numbr of Qualis sold was 4,126 units.
Corsa, Astra sales up
General Motors India (GMI) announced a 30 per cent rise in March sales at 1,056 cars comparted to 750 cars sold in the same month of 2000. It comprised 739 units of the mid-size car ‘Corsa’ and 317 units of the premium mid-size ‘Astra’, GMI Vice-President P Balendran said. The March sales were also higher by 50.6 per cent as compared to 701 cars sold in February 2001. Cumulative sales (April-March 2000-01) stood at 8,254 cars, up 170.4 per cent over 3,053 cars sold in the same period last fiscal.
Telco exports
Telco, posted a 35 per cent rise in M&H Vehicle exports at 2,810 units during April-February 2000-01 (2,079 units last year). Telco’s LCV exports rose by 107 per cent to 6,334 units over 3,060 units in the year-on-year period.
Ashok Leyland
Ashok Leyland posted a 9.3 per cent rise in M&H exports at 1,849 units (1,691 units). However, its LCV exports fell by 24.8 per cent to 103 units from 137 units last fiscal.
Bajaj Auto, LML
Bajaj auto’s exports rose by a moest 8 per cent at 6,079 scooters (5,630 units) while LML posted a 77.2 per cent rise at 9,296 scooters (5,244 units). Scooter exports of Kinetic Motor company increased by 5.3 per cent to 7,238 units during April-February 2000-01.
Yamaha, Hero Honda
Motorcycles exports grew by 26.5 per cent at 38,960 units with Yamaha Motor Escorts recording a 51.7 per cent increase at 20,190 units over 13,306 units in the year-on-year period. Exports of Hero Honda Motors grew 6.5 per cent to 9,144 bikes (8,583 units) while Bajaj auto’s exports went up 17.6 per cent to 6,161 units (5,236 units). However, TVS-Suzuki’s bike exports dipped by 4.4 per cent to 2,636 units in the reference period.
PTI
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Maran allays fears New Delhi, April 2 “Article 21 of GATT relating to security concerns, covers everything except toys, games, hotels, restaurants and legal business”, Mr Maran said while speaking at a seminar organised by FICCI. The Minister said there are enough weapons in India’s armoury such as tariff adjustments, anti-dumping, subsidised countervailing duty, temporary quantitative restrictions (QRs), etc to protect the interests of the domestic industry. While Article 20 allows a country to adopt measures to protect human, animal or plant life or health for conservation of exhaustible resources, Article 18-B provides for reimposition of QRs in case of a balance of payment crisis. “WTO is a rule-based game and we should play according to rules and India is also capable of bowling googlies”, Mr Maran said. Citing examples of the USA, France and other countries, the Minister said in 1974 the USA blocked a Kuwaiti attempt to block Grumman and in 1988, Exon-Florio provision was enacted to enable government to prevent foreign MNCs from acquiring control of companies of national security. “ France remains vigilant, shrewd and innovative in safeguarding interest of French firms and looks for `French solutions’ to invoke national security”, he observed adding that “ we will invoke Indian solutions”. Allying fears that under the post-QR regime the Indian industry will be adversely affected, he said “everything is under control”. Urging the industry to improve competitiveness, the Minister said “ rapid export growth is sine qua non for rapid economic development”. Responding to the criticism that the government had over-reacted for import of second-hand vehicles, the Minister said the government cannot allow the country to become a “junk yard” of second-hand automobiles.
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‘Happy hour’ offer for Netizens
New Delhi, April 2 One of the major causes of worry for the Netizen is a huge phone bill. BSNL is introducing new “happy hour” prices by increasing the pulse rate of local calls from 11 pm to 6 am. Currently, BSNL charges local calls on the basis of a three-minute pulse rate, which stands at Rs 1.20. Now it is considering higher pulse duration during happy hours at the same cost. The move will help BSNL on another front too, as the company has an ambitious plan to provide Internet connections to at least 300 cities in the next few months. “ISPs like Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL) have already provided ‘happy hours’ for the benefit of their Internet customers. But it is the telephone charges which discourage Net buffs and consequently slow down the growth of this medium,” said BSNL sources. As of now, an hour of surfing costs Rs 24 in a dial-up connection. But if the pulse rate is increased from three minutes to five minutes, the cost will significantly come down to Rs 14.40 per hour of surfing. BSNL expects the loss in revenue to be compensated by an increase in volume.
UNI
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Rs 500 cr sales at Kundli Sonepat, April 2 Deputy Commissioner, Sudhir Rajpal, told mediapersons here today that this park is spread over 107 acres and offers good infrastructure to entrepreneurs. As many as 182 more industrial plots were carved out in this park and of these, more than 100 plots were allotted 1999-2000. The allottee were required to export 33 per cent of their projected turnover to other countries. Four export-oriented industrial units have already gone into production which are manufacturing electrical brass items, food processing, utensils and readymade garments. At least 20 other such units for the manufacturing of readymade garments, automobile parts, footwears, etc. are likely to start their production in the near
future. According to the DC, the industrial units set up in the Phase I and Phase II in the industrial complex are registering sales of Rs 500 crore annually and had employed 5,000 skilled and semi-skilled workes. Both these complexes, were set up in 1980 and 1984, respectively, by the HSIDC. In the first phase, only 67 were acquired for 107 industrial plots while in the second phase as many as 92 plots were carved out in 33 acres. In all there were 199 industrial plots and 80 per cent industrial units have started their production in them. The DC also said since the Kundli industrial complex had a good potential for the industries, the HSIDC has acquired about 400 acres for the development of industrial estate Phase IV. As many as 500 industrial plots have been carved out in the Phase IV and about 100 plots had already been allotted to entrepreneurs. After developing the Phase IV and the park, the turnover from the sales would cross Rs 5,000 crore annually. These industrial units would provide employment to 10,000 persons. The HSIDC has invited applications from entrepreneurs of Delhi who are shifting their units on the orders of the Supreme Court and the HSIDC authorities had received a very good response from them as they wanted to set up their units in the Kundli and Bari industrial complexes. The HSIDC would allot industrial plots to the entrepreneurs of non-polluting units and their number is about 800. According to the DC, the state government has decided to transfer 560 acres to the HSIDC at Rai to meet the rising demand of the entrepreneurs from Delhi. The HSIDC would spend Rs 180 crore on the development of this industrial complex there and Rs 120 crore would be spent on providing modern infrastructure to the entrepreneurs in this new complex. About 1,000 industrial plots will be carved out and the total turnover of the industrial units in this complex will touch Rs 5,000 crore annually. At least 10,000 workers would get employed from these units.
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Tycoons to make movie Bangalore, April 2 The large-screen movie to be shown in special theatres will involve a budget of up to $10 million and a host of big "Bollywood" names, director Ganapathy Bharat told Reuters on Monday. "It is not just for India ... it is going to be released all over the world," Bharat said, adding that he expected the project to be the biggest international movie venture out of India since "Gandhi". Richard Attenborough's epic based on the life of Mahatma Gandhi won several Oscars nearly two decades ago. Imax Corp creates the illusion of depth and movement through its large-format film and theatres fitted with huge, curved screens. India's first Imax movie theatre opened in Bombay last week. Aishwarya Rai, after winning the Miss World pageant, ventured successfully as an actress in Mumbai's "Bollywood" cinema. With beautiful eyes, a shapely figure and graceful manners, Rai is considered to be hottest talent in India. Bharat said she was an obvious choice because she would carry the idea of an Indian beauty with a global appeal in a movie on the 17th century marble mausoleum inspired by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan's love for his favourite wife, Mumtaz. The movie is expected to be released in July next year. "This is an intense, passionate story of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz," said Bharat, who has written the story for the movie with his wife, Kanika. The male lead to play Shah Jahan is still a secret, and the name is expected to be revealed later this month. Silicon Valley tycoons usually known to fund hot technology startups with venture capital have chipped in to form a company to back "Taj Mahal," the movie. Bharat said they include K.B. Chandrasekhar and B.V. Jagadeesh, co-founders of Internet infrastructure firm Exodus Communications Inc, Gururaj "Desh" Deshpande, Chairman of optical networking firm Sycamore Networks and Kanwal Rekhi, former chief technology officer of Novell Inc. These and other technology millionaires from the Silicon Valley have joined to form a company called India Lotus Inc to fund the movie. "Pre-production work is in full swing," Bharat said, referring to casting, set design and research ahead of shooting. Bharat, popularly called Bala, has won acclaim in India for combining with his long-time friend, composer A.R. Rahman, to make novel video versions of patriotic songs, including the Indian national anthem "Jana Gana Mana."
Reuters |
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Kapkids awards for kids Chandigarh, APRIL 2 There were two slots and three categories. The group A was for the kids from Class 1 to 4 and group B was from Class 5 to 8. This was further divided into three categories i.e. Always Number 1: 91 per cent and above; Super Star: 86 per cent to 90 per cent and Bright Kid: 81 per cent to 85 per cent. The winners in group (A) Always Number 1:Rajdhan Gupta, Dhaninjaya Saini , Vasu Khurana; Super Star: Sehar Bir, Tanya Shreedhar, Ratul Jain; Bright Kid: Karan Bajaj, Shantanu Gupta, Ishita. Group (B) Always Number 1: Inderdeep, Shashank, Adit Bedwal; Super Star: Sneha Walia, Armaan Mann, Himanshu; Bright Kid: Divya, Aditi Chawla, Ankita. The winners were awarded discount coupons of Rs 1,000, Rs 750, Rs 500 and Rs 250 . All the participants were given certificates and candies, besides surprise gifts.
CII hails power tariff regulatory authority Chandigarh, April 2 CII is advocating for such an authority which would recommend the power tariff rate revision in the state. Mr Oswal said the constitution of the authority for tariff fixation was ‘one of the main recommendations of CII in the pre-budget presentation of the Finance Minister of Punjab. CII Punjab chief also called for the formation of a state advisory committee as laid down in the Electricity Regulatory Commission Act, 1998. The state advisory committee should have the representatives of industry as its members with a view to reflecting a balance of various interest groups in the state energy sector. Mr J.R. Singal, Vice Chairman, CII, Punjab State Council, hailed the state government’s decision to appoint Mr R.S. Mann, former Chief Secretary of Punjab as the Chairman of the authority. |
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Sterlite eyes US firms New Delhi, April 2 “The Sterlite group will invest $ 50 million annually for the next three years (totalling about Rs 700 crore) in optical fibre operations,” Sterlite Industries Chief Anil Agarwal told PTI. “We will seek to acquire some US companies to improve our technological capabilities. We are talking to some companies which have state-of-art technology in optical fibre segment,” he said. The entire investment amount would be funded internally. GAIL: GAIL on Monday reported a 25.4 per cent increase in its net profit at Rs 1080 crore during the fiscal year ended March 31, 2001, as against a net profit of Rs 861 crore last year. The company turnover went up 19.31 per cent to Rs 10,040 crore in 2000-01 as compared to a turnover of Rs 8415 crore, GAIL Chairman and Managing Director J.K. Jain told reporters. Global
Tele: The Board of Global Tele-Systems on Monday approved allotment of 2.65 crore equity shares (Rs 10 each) to shareholders of Global Electronic Commercial Services pursuant to the scheme of amalgamation of the latter with it. Following this allotment the company’s paid up equity share capital would be enhanced to Rs 70.25 crore from the existing Rs 43.72 crore. Kalyani
Steels: Kalyani Steels said on Monday that it has sold equity shares amounting to 11.56 per cent of Bharat Forge and 74 per cent of Kalyani Carpenter Special Steels to group company KSL Holdings for Rs 960 million. While 43.53 equity shares of Bharat Forge have been sold, 2.22 crore shares of Kalyani Carpenter were sold to KSL. GCPL: Four independent Directors have been inducted on the Board of Godrej Consumer Products, the new company formed as a result of demerger of Godrej Soaps. The four Directors are Dr Bala Balachandran (Professor at Kellog Graduate School of Management), Rama Bijapurkar (marketing consultant), Bharat Doshi (Executive Director — Finance and corporate affairs with Mahindra & Mahindra) and Anupam Puri (former Director, McKinsey & Co). Adi Godrej will be the Chairman and Managing Director with H.K. Press as Executive Director and President. GCPL commenced operations from Sunday with focus on four key markets — personal, hair, fabric and household care. India
Nippon: The Board of India Nippon Electricals has approved the proposal for buyback of a maximum of 3,95,600 shares at a price not exceeding Rs 230 per share. The total cost of the buyback works out to Rs 9.09 crore. An extra-ordinary general meeting of shareholders will be held on April 30. Kirloskar
Ferrous: Kirloskar Ferrous Industries has allotted 47.22 lakh fully paid equity shares (Rs 10 each) aggregating to Rs 4.72 crore to the Industrial Finance Corporation of India. The shares were allotted by conversion of optionally fully convertible debentures into equity share capital.
PTI |
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HVPNL working
deteriorates There are some other startling facts that need to be highlighted. Arrears of dues because of non-payment of electricity bills on 14.8.98 (the day the HSEB was restructured) were Rs 758.64 crore and by 31.3.2000, arrears increased to Rs 986.50 crore. This shows that the performance of HVPNL during the first 19 months of restructuring in fact deteriorated, the backlog of unrecovered dues increased by 30%! What is no less intriguing is that unpaid dues of government offices were Rs 132.77 crore. Obviously, such a performance in collection indicates deteriorating efficiency in collection of dues that poses a serious threat to the financial viability of the distribution licensee. Another very alarming finding of the commission is that the load factor of small (LT) industrial consumers is abnormally low which implies that the small industries use electricity on the average 2.06 hours per day. Such a small daily electricity use time signals a case for large-scale pilferage of power. The commission has rightly recommended that meters of all LT industries may be got checked by some independent agency in order to plug leakage of substantial revenue, which appears to be taking place. The weakest link in the HERC order is its arguments to enhance tariff for domestic consumers. HVPNL had proposed that tariff be raised by 11 paise from 191 paise per unit to 202 paise per unit. However, the commission has ordered three slab based tariff structure: for the first 40 units consumption @ 260 paise per unit, for the next 260 units @ 360 paise per unit and for consumption above 300 units @ 425 paise per unit. The rationale provided by the commission is that its cost study shows that the cost of supply to domestic consumers was 451 paise per unit. This cost of service is based on the assumption that T&D losses are 40.76%. This implies that the genuine consumers have been asked to pay for pilferage of power of the order of 15% to 20%, which is not fair. The tariff rates for commercial consumers have been kept unchanged at 419 paise per unit. For HT industrial consumers, tariff has been reduced as they get supply at higher voltage for which cost of supply is lower. For metered supply to the agricultural sector, the commission has accepted the proposal of the HVPNL to allow a tariff increase from 50 paise to 62 paise per unit, an increase of 12 paise per unit whereas for flat rate supply, the commission has accepted the Government of Haryana’s request to reduce the tariff rates due to drought situation in lieu of which the government has agreed to provide an additional subsidy of Rs 413 crore in addition to the already committed subvention of Rs 412 crore. We think it is fair enough so long as the government compensates the electricity distribution company for the subsidised supply to any consumer category from the general budget after debate in the Legislature. In the approved ARR for the distribution business for FY 2000-01, after taking in to account the government subsidy, a deficit of Rs 432 crore still remains uncovered. To make up this deficit HVPNL has been allowed to borrow Rs 259.2 crore from the market and to make up Rs 172.8 crore through efficiency gains. Market borrowings for current consumption cannot be justifies, as it will add to the interest liabilities for which genuine consumers will have to pay in future. Such expedient option is non justified beyond a point. The regulatory process has highlighted the weak spots in the management and deficiencies in data system of the utility companies. The restructured transmission and distribution companies still remain effectively under the bureaucratic control. To bring professionalism in management and to change the old mindset will require sincere commitment and effort on the part of the state. The commission has followed the persuasive path while underlining inefficiencies and inadequacies in technical and financial performance. But the inherent conflict in the interests of the political powers that be, the bureaucracy, the licensees and the consumers continues. No institution like the Electricity Regulatory Commission will be in a position to stand pressure at its own. The consumer’s interest groups will have to act as watchdogs and actively participate in the regulatory process. The new institutional structure is fragile and needs to be nurtured otherwise there is every danger of vested interests taking over which will be worse than the cure. The writer is a Professor of Economics at Maharshi Dayanand University, Rohtak |
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Demand for tech experts drops Washington, April 2 Excerpts of the study released by Washington Post said the high tech industry across US plans to hire 9,00,000 technical workers during 2001 as compared with 1.6 million appointments last year.
UNI
Microsoft leads anti-piracy sweep London, April 2 Suzuki mini vehicles for Nissan Tokyo, April
2 IMF plans survey on ‘hot money’ Tokyo, April
2 Sony starts Internet bank Tokyo, April 2 “The bank was incorporated today,” said Sony spokeswoman Ayako Hashimoto. “It is expected to receive official approval (to start banking services) from the government in a month or so,” she said.
AFP
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PNB pay orders Hudco rates CNG stations LaSalle products Amway India Asianet Comm |
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