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Tuesday,
June 26, 2001, Chandigarh, India  
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Zee eyes
prime slots on DD Metro Bankers
told to increase lending areas
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PM urged
to open trade with Pak Skoda to
drive Octavia in Sept Rs 45 cr
package for industry HP banks
achieve 118 pc of target Bank
deposits cross 10 lakh cr German
coaches withdrawn from Indian rails Playboy
and techno-nerd LIC
gears up to face competition Indian
Rayon to buy Groupe Bull’s stake
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Zee eyes prime slots on DD Metro New Delhi, June 25 Zee’s renewed interest comes at a time when the other contenders — KFCL Nine Broadcasting, Star as well as Sony — have shown at best a tepid response to government’s efforts to put life back into the bidding process. In fact, the HFCL-Kerry Packer joint venture has announced its decision to exit the country after its current run on the metro channel expires in September, and has said a firm no to placing a rebid. When contacted, Senior Vice-President (Marketing) for Zee Network Partho Sinha said over phone from Mumbai: “We are reconsidering bidding for the DD Metro slots. The initial bid terms did not make any business sense to us and thus we had refrained from expressing interest formally.” He said Zee would place a bid for only the 7-9 pm slot, and was confident of turning up a winner since it had a vast variety of content to leverage from. Dividing the time band into one-hour slots, it laid the floor price of Rs 22.5 crore, Rs 32.5 crore, Rs 42.5 crore and Rs 17.5 crore for the four hourly slots between 7 pm to 11 pm. But after its earlier call got no bidders, Prasar Bharati invited fresh bids for the 7 pm to 11 pm slots on DD Metro, this time without a floor price. The fresh bids were decided on June 20, two days after the deadline for the first one expired without getting a single bid and under the new tender, there is no floor price for the hourly slots from 7 pm to 11 pm. Programmes in Hindi will be telecast between 7 to 10 pm and are thereafter optional with English till 0.30 a.m. Bidders could apply either on an hourly basis or for the entire three-hour slot of the seven to 10 pm time band. None of the broadcasters bid for the 7-10 pm slot though a Delhi-based company had given proposals for the 11 pm to 3 am slot, when the deadline expired on
June 18. The last date for submitting proposals for the fresh invitation is July 4.
PTI
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Bankers told to increase lending areas Chandigarh, June 25 Mr Goyal was addressing the 76th State Level Bankers Committee Meeting, Haryana convened by the Punjab National Bank here today. SLBC was convened to review the overall performance of the banks . The Chief Secretary said each bank in the state should adopt two-three districts and each officer, say around 10 cases. There needs to be then, a proper monitoring, analysis of time taken in loan sanctioning, the difficulties etc, which would increase the level of customer satisfaction. Small scale Industries have to be provided with more and better facilities like lower interest rates and facilitate more credit, said he. Mr S.S. Kohli, Chairman and Managing Director, Punjab National Bank, who presided over the meeting said due to irregular rainfall for the second consecutive year, agriculture had remained almost stagnant during 2000-02. As per the Finance Ministers Union Budget speech, the banks would cover all eligible farmers under the Kisan Credit Cards Scheme within the next three years. On the recovery of the bank dues, Mr Kohli said the same has improved to 72 per cent as on December 2000 compared to 69 per cent on December 1999, however, the recovery under government sponsored schemes was witnessing a continuous decline. . The recovery under various government sponsored schemes was as low as between 25 per cent and 44 per cent at the close of year 2000. During the review period, 15 new branches of commercial banks and Regional Rural Banks were opened, thus raising the total number of branches from 1487 to 1,502. While the deposits of the banks in the state increased by 14.87 per cent (from Rs 16, 813 crore to Rs 19,289 as at March 2001) compared to 17.7 per cent during the same period last year. Mr Virendra Nath, Financial Commissioner and Secretary, Institutional Finance and Credit Control, Haryana, Ms Kesani Anand Arora, Director Institutional Finance and Credit Control, Mr A.K. Bhargava, General Manager PNB, Head Office New Delhi, Mr U.S. Bhargava, GM PNB North Zone, Mr A Ramanathan, CGM NABARD and senior officers of the state government and controlling heads of banks in Haryana also attended the meeting.
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PM urged to open
trade with Pak Ludhiana, June 25 Mr Satish K. Dhanda, vice-chairman, Engineering Export Promotion Council, said, “Even today, Pakistan is importing Indian goods worth Rs 35-50 crore via Dubai and other routes. Before the Kargil war, exporters from Mandi Gobindgarh and other towns were directly exporting steel and other goods worth Rs 30- 40 crore annually to Pakistan. It has been stopped after the war, resulting in losses to the industry.” He pointed out that there was a potential of about Rs 300- 400 crore exports from the state to Pakistan, especially in light engineering goods. A delegation of the FICCI and the CII, that had recently gone to Pakistan, had also observed that with the opening of trade, both countries would benefit. India can import cotton, dry fruits and other agricultural products from Pakistan. Mr Sanjeev Gupta, president, Apparel Exporters Association of Ludhiana observed that the garment manufacturers would get another supplier of cotton and a big market and a channel to enter the Central Asia. He, however, said, “It is premature to expect too much from the high level summit of two countries. But both the countries will have to open the trade some day. The sooner they do, the better it is.” |
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Skoda to drive Octavia in Sept New Delhi, June 25 Octavia is being placed between General Motors’ Opel Astra and Daimler-Chrysler’s Mercedes C-class with a price range of Rs 1.1 million, Dietrich Kebschull, director of Indo-German Export Promotion Project (IGEP), told IANS. Skoda, a part of the Volkswagen group, will be initially rolling out the Octavia diesel version, followed by a 1,984 cc petrol version by the year-end from its wholly owned company in Aurangabad. Volkswagen will invest $50 million in Skoda’s Indian subsidiary. Skoda had held back further investment plans after setting up its greenfield project in Aurangabad with investments of over $6 million, as it was awaiting Indian Government clarification on the automobile policy with regards duty structures. “Initially the Indian unit will import completely knocked down (CKD) kits of Octavia from its parent company. In a year’s time it hopes to start test production activities before embarking on comprehensive manufacturing operations,” said Kebschull. A rapidly growing company in Europe, Skoda plans to study the Indian market for other models, mainly various version of the smaller Fabia, which is higher than the smaller car segment like Maruti. “With the European and American markets in a sluggish mode, automobile manufacturers in Europe are keenly looking to Asian markets. Germans will look with lot of interest at this venture to see how it performs,” said Kebschull. Based on the performance of the venture, the official expects new component manufacturers from Germany to look at the potential in India. With a production capacity of around 20 cars a day, the Skoda India is targeting sales of 500 to 600 units this year, including exports. “As the company is trying to get a foothold in the country, it is planning a small and modest start and is not looking at huge sales in the Indian market. From India, it will be looking at neighboring markets in Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. The thrust would be on untapped Volkswagen/Skoda markets in ASEAN region,” said Kebschull. Small cars dominate the Indian car market with engine capacities ranging between 800 cc and 1000 cc. South Korean automobile giants, Hyundai and Daewoo, have been able to establish themselves as key players in the segment and challenge the near monopoly enjoyed by Maruti Udyog Ltd for over a decade.
IANS
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Rs 45 cr package for industry Chandigarh, June 25 At a high-level meeting presided over by the Chief Minister, Mr Parkash Singh Badal, it was decided to waive 4 per cent purchase tax, 2 per cent market development fee, 2 per cent rural development fee and 1 per cent infrastructure cess on wheat and maize purchased by the wheat and maize processing industries for the manufacture of wheat flour, starch and its derivatives, glue, biscuits and bread in the State. These concessions will help in revival of flour milling industry in Punjab besides making it more competitive. It would also provide a fillip for the setting up of new wheat and maize based industry in the State. Another significant decision pertained to waiving of 2 per cent rural development fee, 2 per cent Mandi development fee, and 1 per cent infrastructure cess on fruit and vegetables purchased by the processing industry through contract farming. A time period of two years would be allowed for the young and new entrants to source their raw materials from farmers directly even if they have not established a contract farming relationship with growers. It may be mentioned here that the Union Government has already exempted the fruit and vegetable processing industry from excise duty of 16 per cent and with the tax relief announced by the State government, the food processing industry in Punjab may look up. Besides, these tax concessions may help in achieving desired diversification of crops from wheat and paddy rotation to fruit and vegetables. The meeting
was attended among others by Mr Gurdev Singh Badal (Agriculture Minister), Mr Chaman Lal Bains (Development Commissioner), Mr Y.S. Ratra (Taxation Commissioner), Mr Ramesh Inder Singh (Principal Secretary, Industries and Commerce), Mr A.R. Talwar (Managing Director, Punjab Agro Industries Corporation) and the Vice-Chancellor of Punjab Agricultural University beside others.
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HP banks achieve
118 pc of target Shimla, June 25 Stating this while inaugurating the 19th state-level meeting to review the performance of banks here today, Mrs Asha Swaroop, Financial Commissioner said the credit disbursement had been Rs 724.31 crore against a target of Rs 613.36 crore during the past financial year. She said the non-priority sector showed an increase of Rs 202.92 crore against the annual commitment of Rs 127.82 crore. There was, however, a need to increase the flow of credit to minor irrigation, land development, animal husbandry, fisheries and small-scale sectors, she said, and asked the bankers to ensure adequate financial assistance to same so that the potentials available in these sectors could be fully tapped. Mrs Swarup said the state government had already decided to set up an information technology corridor in Shimla-Parwanoo-Barotiwala areas to give a boost to the IT industry and provide necessary incentives. She said the state government had also decided to develop Shimla as a hi-tech city and added that government would play a pro-active role and act as a facilitator. She said the city would be made a model city for the growth of IT-enabled services. She asked the bankers to increase their advances by giving full financial support to the entrepreneurs. She said the banks had fixed Rs 764.79 crore as target for their annual credit plan 2001-2002. The distribution of sector-wise targets was agriculture: Rs 216.92 crore, small-scale industry: Rs 76.42 crore, Services sector: Rs 316.84 crore and non-priority sector: Rs 154.62 crore, she added. Earlier, Mr J.P. Singh, General Manager,
UCO Bank, said the total deposits of banks in the state had increased to Rs 9,471.23 crore as on March, 2001 from Rs 7,789.23 crore in March, 2000, Which showed a growth of 22 per cent. He said the total advances had also increased to Rs 2,734.64 crore as compared to Rs 2,110.84 crore in March, 2000. He said 37,337 kisan credit cards also had been issued to the farmers by the banks with credit limit of Rs 85.58 crore. He further said out of 2,753 self-help groups formed in the state, 1,880 groups with a membership of 17,176 had been linked with various branches of the state. Mrs Swarup gave away
"Rajbhasha Puraskar” for the year 1998-99 to the Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, Central Bank of India and State Bank of India for being adjudged in category “A” for the use of Hindi as official
language.
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Bank deposits cross 10 lakh
cr New Delhi, June 25 Aggregate bank deposits grew by 19.2 per cent in the last 12 months to Rs 10,03,032 crore as on June 1, 2001. Excluding India Millennium Deposits
(IMD), the growth in deposits works out to 16.5 per cent, PNB Gilts said in its latest ‘Economy and Debt Market Review’. Deposits were up by Rs 45,024 crore or 4.7 per cent over that recorded on last reporting Friday of March, 2001, it said. Despite the booming rise in deposits, the growth in bank credit continues to be sluggish, PNB pointed out. Bank credit was up by 16.1 per cent during last 12 months ending June 1, 2001 to Rs 5,15,693 crore on account of growth in food credit, PNB Gilts said, adding non-food credit grew by only 13.1 per cent to Rs 4,66,962 crore as a result of the continuing industrial downturn. Credit offtake showed a growth of only Rs 6,611 crore or just 1.3 per cent over the last reported Friday of March 2001. The index for Industrial Production
(IIP) grew by 2.7 per cent in April 2001 as against 6.5 per cent during the same month last year. “Substantial deposit growth with sluggish credit offtake resulted in increase in investments of banks. At Rs 3,98,266 crore as on June 1, 2001, the investment of banks increased by Rs 28,433 crore or 7.7 per cent over last Friday of March, 2001, compared to Rs 22,486 crore or 7.3 per cent in the same period last year,” the report said.
PTI |
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German coaches withdrawn from Indian rails New Delhi, June 25 Fixed to the high-speed Shatabdi Express plying between New Delhi and Lucknow, the imported coaches got stranded after the joints linking them gave way, a Railways official said today. The coaches are now being shifted to the yards for a thorough check-up before they are returned to the tracks. Indigenous coaches would instead be used now, he added. A Railway employees' union has joined issue with the Railways,
blaming the latter for using the faulty coaches without checking on their safety features. "The Railways authorities say the fault would not cause accidents. How is that possible? Any train can ram into a coach that has unhooked from its train from behind," said Mr S.C. Bassi, secretary of the All-India Railwaymen's Federation. The union will meet Railways officials tomorrow to ensure that the issue is properly investigated, he said. The Railways had bought 24 coaches worth over Rs 1 billion this year from Alstom LHB as part of an Indo-German technology transfer pact. Their features include high-powered pneumatic brakes and devices to reduce noise levels. The fare on the new coaches was fixed 10 percent higher as compared to the normal ones. But the "new generation" coaches, introduced last month, reported several glitches. Passengers in the coaches also ended up getting locked up in the washrooms. The Railways authorities said they would refund the extra 10 per cent charged from the passengers who had booked tickets for travel in the imported coaches. The German company would be asked to rectify the faults or replace the
coaches, the official added. The German coaches, with a seating capacity of 78 against 67 in Indian coaches, are still within a two-year warranty period. According to the agreement, the blue and white coaches would be later indigenously built at the Railway factory in Kapurthala. Three months ago, 18 such coaches were extensively damaged when villagers on New Delhi's outskirts stoned them during a test run.
IANS
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Playboy and techno-nerd London, June 25 The two billionaires’ lives are lived in total opposition. Where the Microsoft boss is happily married, the head of Oracle is now rumoured to be heading for wedding number four. Gates built a $ 75 million house in Seattle; Ellison is building a $ 150 million complex near the Silicon Valley. Gates keeps a low profile; Ellison delights in defying local bylaws by flying his private jet after dark. Ellison has long wanted Gates’s crown. Last year, as Microsoft’s value crashed during the anti-trust court case, the Oracle chief suddenly found his stake of nearly 30 per cent in the business was worth some $ 60 billion: he had eclipsed his rival at last. But the tech shares meltdown has since relegated Ellison to only the fourth-richest man in the world. This month’s Forbes magazine puts his personal fortune at $ 26 billion, compared with Gates’s $ 58.7 billion. The two men’s backgrounds couldn’t be more different. Ellison refers to Gates as ‘William Jefferson the Third’, a dig at the privileged upbringing of the Microsoft founder, who went to Harvard. Ellison was adopted, grew up in a lower middle-class area of Chicago and did only one semester at the city’s university. As Gates started his mission to have Windows software in every PC, Ellison targeted the corporate market. Ellison floated Oracle on March 12, 1986, a day before Microsoft. Since then, they dominated the software industry. The feud boiled over last year when Oracle admitted paying detectives to expose Microsoft’s ‘underhanded attempts’ to win its anti-trust case against the US Justice Department. The detectives sifted Microsoft’s trash. This got out and became a PR disaster. With typical bravado, Ellison called it a ‘public service’ to reveal hidden information. Ellison called for Microsoft’s directors to be jailed following the case. Microsoft appealed, and a verdict is due soon. However, recently he has taken a softer line on what’s wrong at Microsoft: ‘They were five years late to the internet and they’re going to pay for that.’ A key target of Ellison’s scorn is Gates’ huge, well-publicised philanthropy. ‘I don’t issue a press release every time I donate money. I have no PR department around my medical foundation. My measurement is how many lives have we saved? Have we made the world a better place? It’s easy to write a cheque.’
By arrangement with
The Observer |
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LIC gears up to
face competition Kolkata, June 25 Although the new entrants with meagre presence in the Indian market may pose a threat to a behemoth like the LIC, however, in future, they may eat into the clientele base of the age-old organisation, LIC sources said today. The LIC having a strong infrastructure with a network of 2,048 branches all over India, seems to be well equipped to deal with the new players in the market. However, in the long run, the stiff
competition was bound to pinch the behemoth, sources said. Mr A.K. Bose, Regional Manager (PR and Publicity), however, refuted such apprehensions and said the organisation was prepared to deal with the new players in the insurance sector. “On the contrary, the new entrants have to compete with the well-knit organisational structure of the LIC” he maintained. He, however, stressed the need to launch new schemes and provide better customer services in the coming days so that the customers of the LIC did not go to new business houses in the insurance sector. “Our main aim would be to focus on customer retention and mobilisation.” Mr Bose said. The Insurance giant was also focussing on better marketing efforts so that the consumers could know about the various products and facilities the LIC offered. In the insurance coverage arena, the LIC is making efforts to improve its presence in rural areas.
UNI
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Indian
Rayon to buy Groupe Bull’s stake New Delhi, June 25 Bull’s decision to divest its stake in PSI Data Systems was a result of a strategic review of alternatives. However, Bull intends to maintain strong business relations with PSI, keeping it as a business partner. |
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LG plans to sell stake in power unit Crude oil expected to rise
Steep rise in UK house prices Beijing merges two top TV stations |
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HSIDC Sunsilk |
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