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Tuesday,
August 14, 2001, Chandigarh, India  
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Rs 122
cr Hafed facilities for farmers SC
dismisses Dalal’s plea
BSNL to roll out
mobile service by December Jet Airways to
touch Ludhiana |
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HDFC to apply for
non-life in Sept
HC dismisses
Whirlpool petition MRTPC exonerates
Nestle India Brazil lures Indian
pharma exporters Abolition move cuts
octroi collection Maharishi Fin loan
target at Rs 100 cr Godrej digital
printer
Compaq, Cisco
solutions for India
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Rs 122 cr Hafed facilities for farmers New Delhi, August 13 Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala laid the foundation stone of a modern warehouse and a cold storage to be constructed by Hafed at an estimated cost of Rs 7 crore in the Capital last evening. The warehouse would have a total storage capacity of 4000 MT while the cold storage would have a capacity of 1500 MT. Hafed spokesperson said the facilities in Delhi would be utilised for storing Hafed’s commodities like cotton, rice, oil, wheat, mustard oil, cotton seed oil, barley and malt and farm products on rent basis. The cold storage would help Hafed to diversity its activities to achieve more value addition and would also store various vegetables, furits, kiryana items, grocery and flowers. He said the tentative profit of Hafed for the financial year 2000-2001 is Rs 23.35 crore against the last year’s
profit of Rs 22.54 crore. He said a record procurement of 27.22 lakh MT of wheat was made by Hafed during 2001-2002 as against 19.26 lakh tonne during the previous year. The spokesperson said in order to avoid exploitation of mustard seed growers, Hafed procured 36,030 MT of mustard seed on support price during the last year. The incurred an additional benefit of Rs 2.65 crore to the farmers of the state. Hafed also set a new record by procuring 5.99 lakh MT on non-basmati paddy, which is many times higher
than only 1.40 lakh MT paddy procured during the previous year. The farmers
were benefited to the tune of Rs 60 crore by purchasing paddy. He said Hafed was giving rebate of Rs 25 per bag on 50 kg DAP and Rs 10 per bag on 50 kg of urea fertilizer. It was supplying quality agro chemicals like pesticides, insecticides and weedicides through its network of 2200 min banks and 63 cooperative marketing societies in the state. The state coordination committee for godowns had sanctioned
constructing of 2.77 lakh MT capacity godowns to Hafed, which would be constructed at a cost of Rs 28 crore. Godowns of 39,000 MT capacity had already been constructed and 85,000 MT capacity would be constructed before February 2002. He said two rice mills being constructed at a cost of Rs 4.25 crore would be completed at Kalanwali and Ding soon. There was also a proposal to modernize two rice mills at Radaur and Pilukhera by adding par boiling and drying units at a cost of Rs 1.80 crore. He also said that an animal feed plant of 50 TPD capacity at a cost of Rs 1.90 core would be completed at Saktakhere soon. He said Hafed was providing financial assistance in the shape of equity for promoting two cooperative sugar mills being set up at Paniwala Mota in Sirsa district and Gohana in Sonepat district. The capacity of Sirsa and Gohana sugar mills would be 1750 TCD and 2500 TCD respectively. The project cost would be Rs 34 crore and Rs 48 crore respectively, out of which Rs 23.31 crore and Rs 16.80 crore had already been given to Sirsa cooperative sugar mill and Gohana cooperative sugar mill respectively.
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SC dismisses Dalal’s plea
New Delhi, August 13 A Bench comprising Justice B. N. Kirpal and Justice N. Santosh Hegde dismissed the petition filed by Dalal seeking to place on record additional documents which would show that he owed no money to the bank. The Court on July 11 had upheld a 1993 judgement of a Mumbai Special Court sentencing Dalal for defrauding Standard Chartered Bank of over Rs 78 crore in connection with transactions in shares during the securities scam in 1991. Dalal was sentenced to one year rigorous imprisonment with a fine of Rs one lakh. Dalal said that “there is clinching material to establish that there was no debt or liability due and payable by the petitioner on the date of deposit of the cheques”. He said the custodian has also filed a petition stating that there was no amount payable by Dalal to the Bank in respect of any alleged liability. “Significantly the Standard Chartered Bank has not filed any suit for the recovery of the four cheques in question and on the contrary, even the two suits filed by the bank were unconditionally withdrawn. This itself is an indicator that no amount are due and payable by him to the bank,” Dalal said.
PTI
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BSNL to roll out mobile service by December New Delhi, August 13 Giving details of state-wise planned coverage, Minister of State for Communications Tapan Sikdar today said the launch in Maharashtra will cover the maximum number of cities totalling 124, followed by Kerala with 100 cities, Uttar Pradesh with 90 cities and Andhra Pradesh, 85 cities. Seventy-four cities in Gujarat will be covered, 68 in Tamil Nadu, 62 in Rajasthan, 54 in Madhya Pradesh, 49 in Northeast, 40 each in Haryana and Rajasthan, 32 in Bihar, 35 in West Bengal, 38 in Orissa, 26 in Karnataka, 23 in Assam, 15 in Chattisgarh, 20 in Himachal Pradesh, 17 in Jharkhand, 14 in Jammu and Kashmir, 13 in Uttaranchal and one in Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Plans for Assam, Jammu and Kashmir and North east are subject to government clearance for launching of the service, he said. Last evening at Hoshiarpur, Communications Minister Ram Vilas Paswan said the mobile phone services of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) will start in Punjab by November and other states by the end of this financial year. BSNL mobile services are already available as a pilot project in Patna, Hajipur, Biharsharif, Arra and Barh. The minister said in the next phase, which would be completed by the end of this financial year, BSNL mobile phone network will be extended to Jharkhand, Coimbatore, Madurai, Ranchi, Sasaram and Bhabua. Mr Paswan said about basic services, the minister said out of 6,700 villages in the country 4,250 villages have telephone facility. By 2002, all the villages would be covered, he said. Out of 6,043 block headquarters in the country, only eleven do not have STD facilities. Due to the improvement in technology, there are 17 workers per line coming down from 53 linemen per line. The government, he said, has done away with registration form charges. The forms now consist of one page instead of the previous four pages. The rents for basic phones have come down from Rs 3,000 to Rs 2,000. The local calls range has increased from 50 km to 200 km. The PCO operators have been compensated by increasing their compensation from 16 per cent to 25 per cent, Mr Paswan said.
UNI |
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Jet Airways to touch Ludhiana New Delhi, August 13 The flight 9W 3307/3308 (Delhi-Ludhiana-Delhi) will operate all days of the week, except Saturday. The flight will depart from Delhi in the afternoon 1245 hrs and arrive in Ludhiana 1355 hrs. The flight would depart from Ludhiana at 1430 hrs and arrive in Delhi at 1540 hrs. Ludhiana will be connected with Delhi effective Sunday, September 2.
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HDFC to apply for non-life in Sept
New Delhi, August 13 “We will apply to the IRDA within a month for general insurance. We are yet to finalise the foreign partner,” HDFC Chairman Deepak Parekh said. HDFC has shortlisted two foreign players for the non-life foray. “One of the foreign player shortlisted is an American company while the other is Asian,” Parekh said. Although industry sources said the country’s biggest housing finance company is likely to rope in US-based Chubb as its partner for general insurance venture, the HDFC Chairman declined to confirm it. HDFC is expected to hold 74 per cent stake in the venture and the foreign partner would be offered the maximum permissible 26 per cent. “We will start with a minimum capital of Rs 100 crore for the non-life venture,” Parekh said. HDFC, which forayed into life insurance with US-based Standard Life last fiscal, would be the fifth company after Reliance, ICICI, Bajaj Auto and Tata group to apply for both life and non-life insurance. Tata-AIG and Bajaj-Allianz have obtained clearance from IRDA for both of life and non-life ventures. ICICI started its life insurance operation with UK-based Prudential last fiscal while ICICI Lombard General Insurance has obtained “in principle” clearance. Reliance has obtained clearance for general insurance, but yet to receive licence for life insurance. So far, 20 companies have applied for licence and at least 15 have obtained licence till date. IRDA is processing proposals of Sahara Life, AMP Sanmar and Dabur CGU Life. Companies which are in an advanced stage to file application with IRDA are Hero-Zurich, Murugappa group and Bank of Baroda.
PTI
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HC dismisses Whirlpool
petition Chandigarh, August
13 Pronouncing the orders, the Bench, comprising Mr Justice Jawahar Lal Gupta and Mr Justice Ashutosh Mohunta, observed: “A perusal of the provisions (relating to commodities sold in packaged form) shows that whenever a commodity is contained in any form of packing, a wrapper or otherwise, the buyer should be able to get complete information regarding the identity and quantity in the terms of weight, measure and the price etc by a mere look at the item. It should not be necessary for the buyer to make inquiries or to open the carton to ascertain the specifications or the price”. The Bench further observed: “Similarly, the authorities would be in a position to check whether the goods conform to the declaration made on the wrapper or packing. The purpose is obviously to protect the consumer. In case the goods do not conform to the declared standards, the manufacturer can face trouble”. The Judges further ruled: “It is undoubtedly true that a customer who goes to a dealer to buy a refrigerator shall check it before he pays the price. He might even test it. For this purpose, the dealer shall have to necessarily remove the packing. However, this is of no consequence. The relevant Act postulates that the goods can be inspected by the Director or any person authorised by him while the goods are lying in any premises or are in the course of transportation from one state to another”. |
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MRTPC exonerates Nestle India New Delhi, August 13 Dismissing the complaint filed by Ahmedabad-based Consumer Education and Research Society (CERS) which charged that Nestle was not packing the actual net weight of the product as mentioned on the packet, MRTPC Chairman, C.M. Nayyar and member R.L. Sudhir, said “we do not find any ground to entertain this complaint.” The two-member bench, however, left it open to the complainant to take recourse to any other remedy in an appropriate forum in accordance with the law. The bench observed that the standard weight requirement was covered by the provisions of Standards of Weights and Measures Act, 1976 and reference was made prescribing maximum permissible errors on net quantities declared by weight or by volume. Any weight less than the weight which may be permissible under the provisions of Standards of Weights and Measures Act is not unfair trade practice, the bench observed and said “therefore any enquiry which will be relevant to determine the plea of the complainant will be more relevant to proceed under the provisions of the Act as it is contended that no violation is committed by the Nestle.”
PTI |
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Brazil lures Indian pharma
exporters New Delhi, August 13 Apart from slashing duty to zero, Brazil has reduced the duty on remaining pharmaceutical items to 2.5 per cent, the Commerce Ministry said here today. This measure has come into force from August 3, 2001 and would be valid till 28th January 2002. The initiatives have been negotiated during the last two months in the Chamber of Foreign Trade (CAMEX) and they aim to neutralise the impact of dollar highs on company costs. With these measures, the Brazilian government aims to reduce pressures on drug prices for consumers since January 2002 and to avoid the dispersion of investment in the manufacture of generics in the country. The exemption on Common External Tariff (CET) for pharmaceuticals was determined by a Presidential decree. From the list released, 147 items are generic medicines and the remaining are bulk drugs and other medicines. This offers a great opportunity for Indian exporters, the ministry said. |
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Abolition move cuts octroi
collection Ludhiana, August 13 In fact traders are delaying the import of goods expecting that the Chief Minister may make a announcement in this regard on the Independence Day. Though Mr Balramji Dass Tandon, Minister for Local Bodies, has denied any such move saying the Cabinet would consider the proposal after submission of the panel report that has been set up to study the impact of abolition of octroi. However, the Ludhiana Municipal Corporation, which collects more than one third of the state’s total octroi collection worth Rs 300 crore annually, is already feeling the heat. Mr Raminder Singh, Additional Commissioner, says, “The daily octroi collection that used to be Rs 30-32 lakh has come down to Rs 23-24 lakh with the rumour of abolition of octroi. The octroi on iron and steel has already been reduced to 4 per cent. The corporation has suffered losses in the past few days due to rumours. Mr Jiwan Dhawan, Chairman, Modi Nagar Hosiery Manufacturers’ Association, admitted that most of the manufacturers have delayed the purchase of raw material.
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Maharishi Fin loan target at Rs 100 cr Chandigarh, August
13 The target for the next financial year has been set at Rs 300 crore . “Growth potential in housing finance companies remains largely untapped . While at least Rs 95,000 of funds were required to be generated from this sector last year, the companies actually could hardly generate Rs 35,000 crore”, said Mr Sinha. Regarding the expansion plans of the company, Mr Sinha said the number of branches will be increased from 15 to 50 by the end of this financial year. While the net profit of the company for last financial year was Rs 1.83 crore, reflecting a growth of 95.5 per cent over the previous year.
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Godrej digital
printer Chandigarh, August 13 The company also launched eDoc, a knowledge-based document management system for the organisations. The software which costs between Rs 30,000 and Rs 50,000 can help users convert paper documents, microfilms or microfiche to digital images for centralised storage and speedy retrieval by authorised users. |
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Zuari Cement Hyderabad, August 13 |
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