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Saturday,
January 26, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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CORPORATE NEWS
AirTel, Essar slash pre-paid card tariff
Samsung expansion plan for Punjab |
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And, now factory production of papad
India Post, American Express sign MoU
India and Afghanistan sign pact
SBP business crosses 20,000 cr
Ashok Leyland net dips 30.2 pc
Cisco network for LIC
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CORPORATE NEWS Mumbai, January 25 Net sales/income for the period under review was up by 11.21 per cent at Rs 814.07 crore as compared to Rs 731.98 crore in the third quarter last fiscal, the company said in a release here today. Other income was down by 9.6 per cent to Rs 8.13 crore in the third quarter (Rs 10.41) crore in Q3 of 2000-01), it said. The interest expenditure was down by 8.83 per cent at Rs 40.76 crore (Rs 44.73 in Q3 of previous fiscal) due to improved financial, working capital management and repayment of costlier debts, it said adding that improved sales volume and realisation had contributed to higher levels of profit despite inflationary pressures. During the nine month period, net profit was Rs 77.91 crore as against a net loss of Rs 10.39 crore in the same period the previous fiscal while sales/income was Rs 2,357.83 crore as against Rs 2,134.59 crore. Sale of cement during Q3 was higher at 31.52 lakh tonnes as against 27.14 lakh tonnes during Q3 of previous fiscal. For the nine month period sales stood at 87.53 lakh tonnes (82.86 lakh tonnes). The company said the sales for the nine month period excludes 3.58 lakh tonnes of cement valued at Rs 73.49 crore was the trial production at the new plant at Wadi. Novartis India Novartis India Ltd has reported a 100.80 per cent rise in net profit at Rs 17.53 crore for the third quarter ended December 2001 compared to Rs 8.73 crore in the same period last fiscal. Net sales for the period under review rose marginally at Rs 125.48 crore as against Rs 122.97 crore for the third quarter of the previous fiscal. The net profit and sales for the nine months ended December 2001 stood at Rs 46.10 crore (Rs 30.79 crore in April-December 2000) and Rs 360.94 crore (Rs 343.34 crore) respectively, it said. Larsen & Toubro Larsen & Toubro Ltd’s net profit zoomed by 63.74 per cent to Rs 545.10 million for the quarter ended December 31, 2001 as compared to Rs 332.90 million in the same period last fiscal. Total income for the reporting quarter was at Rs 19,578.70 million as compared to Rs 19, 631.30 million in the corresponding period last year. SRF SRF Ltd has suffered a set back in net sales and net profits during the third quarter of the current fiscal. The net profit of Rs 6.16 crore registered during the quarter was 2.22 per cent less than Rs 6.30 crore earned during the corresponding period of the previous year. There was an increase of 29.76 per cent in the gross profit to Rs 21.54 crore from Rs 16.60 crore during this period.
UNI Tata Honeywell Tata Honeywell Ltd has posted a 120.22 per cent rise in net profit at Rs 1.96 crore for the third quarter ended December 31, 2001, compared to Rs 89 lakh in same period of previous fiscal. Finolex Cables Pune-based Finolex Cables Ltd has posted 13.97 per cent rise in net profit at Rs 27.09 crore for the third quarter ended December 31, 2001 compared to Rs 23.79 crore for the same period last fiscal. JB Chemicals JB Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals Ltd has posted a 75.02 per cent rise in net profit at Rs 10.04 crore for the third quarter ended December 31, 2001, compared to Rs 5.73 crore in same period of previous fiscal. Marico Industries Marico Industries Ltd has posted a 14.03 per cent rise in net profit at Rs 11.54 crore in third quarter ended December 31, 2001, compared to Rs 10.12 crore in same period of previous fiscal. The board has declared a third interim dividend of 35 per cent (Rs 3.50 per share) for the financial year 2001-02. Rossell Tea Rossell Tea Limited today reported a sharp decline in net sales during the third quarter ended December, 2001 leading to a net loss of Rs 0.90 crore. The company had reported a net profit of Rs 1.59 crore during the third quarter of previous fiscal. Rediff.com Nasdaq-listed Rediff.com today reported a loss of $ 1.47 million in the quarter ended December 31, 2001 as against a net loss of $ 0.82 million in the corresponding quarter in the previous year. Hindustan Const Hindustan Construction Company Ltd has posted 93.69 per cent rise in net profit at Rs 4.66 crore for the second quarter ended Decmeber 31, 2001 compared to Rs 2.40 crore in the same period last fiscal. Total income for the period under review was up 43.33 per cent at Rs 131.01 crore as against Rs 91.41 crore in the second quarter of the previous fiscal. United Phosphorus United Phosphorus Ltd has posted a net profit of Rs 1.58 crore for the third quarter ended December 31 compared to Rs 57 lakh for same period last fiscal. Nicholas Piramal Nicholas Piramal India Ltd has reported a profit after tax (PAT) of Rs 183.50 million for the quarter ended December 31, 2001 as compared to Rs 134.20 million for the same period a year ago.
Agencies
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AirTel, Essar slash pre-paid card tariff
New Delhi, January 25 AirTel’s cash card (magic) customers would now have to pay Rs 1.98 per minute on incoming calls and Rs 2.70 a minute on outgoing calls on a 30-seconds pulse, an AirTel statement said. Essar, another private player, also announced the matching reduction in the airtime rates for its pre-paid card (speed), an Essar statement said. The airtime charges are still higher than the tariffs announced by MTNL on January 14 that had offered airtime of Rs 2.50 per minute for an outgoing call, while the incoming calls on MTNL’s Trump card would cost Rs 1.80 a minute. Though, AirTel has offered Rs 80 worth free airtime on the new card of Rs 495, however, both private players have not increased the talking time on cards of different denominations. On MTNL’s Trump card of Rs 300, the customer gets talk time worth Rs 205 compared to Rs 185 being offered by private players, while on Rs 500 denomination the talk time is Rs 396 as against Rs 337 by private players in Delhi. New airtime rates by both AirTel and Essar would be applicable with effect from tomorrow, January 26. In addition, Essar has also reduced daytime tariffs by 10 paise on its recently launched — My First Plan which is a post paid plan targeted at the first time users. This means that a 30 second call, both incoming and outgoing, would now cost 79 paise between 8 am to 10 pm, although the night time charges would continue to remain at 25 paise per 30 seconds.
PTI
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Samsung expansion plan for Punjab Chandigarh, January 25 Commenting on the company’s plans at a press conference, Mr Vivek Prakash, General Manager of SEIIT said, “We have always been convinced of the potential for our products in Punjab. We, however, wanted to introduce our topline products, with the right channel partners and distribution strategy in place. Mr Prakash said, currently Punjab and Chandigarh are contributing 10 per cent to the company’s north India turnover. The company has clocked a turnover of Rs 1105 crore in the calendar year 2001. Samsung has five business divisions in India. Display (colour monitor) hard disk driver, optical disk drives, laser printers and mobile phones. To increase its reach all across this region, Samsung is targeting an increase in the number of Active Channel partners to over 100 from the current level of 30. This network will open up Samsung’s IT and Telecom products to this entire region. He said the company will also be setting up six additional service centres all across the Punjab, HP, nearby parts of Haryana and Chandigarh region to provide the best customer service support in the IT Industry in the region. Service centres would be opened in Jalandhar, Amritsar, Patiala, Dharamsala, Panchkula, Ambala in addition to the existing ones in Chandigarh, Shimla and Ludhiana.
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And, now factory production of papad New Delhi, January 25 While the industry is feeling threatened with the entry of Chinese goods in the country, the factory production of the papad, which has traditionally been in the cottage sector, could act as a deathblow to many. Since Punjab is one of the major consumer of papad in the country, soft launch of the cusine accompaniment papad has been made in state by Asli Foods with production unit in Gurgaon. The papad industry in country is worth about Rs 500 crore and only a minscule proportion of that market segment has been captured by the cooperatives. The market is dominated by the unorganised sector, providing a huge opportunity for the industry to capitalise on a traditional cusine accompaniment product segment, for which a ready market available. While the output of the traditional household in the sector is about 100 papad per day, the industrial production in the initial phase would be about 3.5 lakh papad per day. One of the early entrants in the sector is Asli Foods, which has made a soft launch of its product with four flavours in Punjab, plans to have an optimum production level of 10 lakh papad per day within the next three years. “With the setting up of modern production unit, the traditional food accompaniment has leapfrogged from the cottage industry to the cyber age,” said the Chairman and Managing Director, Mr Sandeep Grover. He said the worries about hygiene and quality inconsistencies are finally over for the multitude of papad consumers with Asli Foods setting up its Rs 2 crore unit in Gurgaon. However, the Federation of Association of Small Industries of India, said the industrial production of papad would be a deathblow the cottage sector. The General Secretary of the federation, Mr Y.B. Suri, said “the small scale sector is already reeling under the threat of WTO. With the industrial production of traditional household products, the cottage sector would cease to exist, adding to the social turmoil in the society with large scale unemployment.” Though the sector continues to be under the reserved segment for the small scale sector, the loophole provided by the government has enabled the industry to enter the sector, he said. Mr Suri said “the government allows the entry of industry to set up production units even in those SSI reserved sector, if they provide an export commitment.” The papad manufacturer, Mr Grover, said the company would tap the overseas market, after testing the Indian market in the next three years. |
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India Post, American Express sign MoU New Delhi, January 25 Speaking on the occasion, Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Communications and Information Technology, Mr Pramod Mahajan said that in recent months, India Post had undergone a massive facelift focussing on customer services by utilising IT tools. This had helped the brand management of the India Post portfolio. Lauding the partnership between India Post and American Express, the Minister said it was an alliance which reinforced the mutual strengths of both the organisations. He hoped that the customer would be immensely benefited by this alliance. India Post has already entered into partnership with Western Union, IDBI Bank, Prudential ICICI, SBI Mutual Fund, UTI Bank, HCL and Standard Chartered Bank. Under the alliance with American Express, India Post would sell American Express Travellers Cheques in select Post Offices. American Express would use Speed Post extensively to send its documents, credit cards and other communications to the customers. Department of Post said business opportunities in marketing other Amex products in the area of banking, insurance and credit cards will be considered.
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India and Afghanistan
sign pact
New Delhi, January 25 While two designated airlines of Afghanistan will be allowed to operate to Delhi and Amritsar, two Indian carriers will now have the right to operate to Kabul and Kandahar. The passenger-carrying capacity has been doubled from the pre-Taliban regime agreement of 40,000 to 80,000, allowing the designated airlines to carry 1,600 seats per week in each direction. “It is a historic moment as we are reviving our age-old traditional relations with Afghanistan,” Civil Aviation Minister Shahnawaz Hussain said. His Afghan counterpart Abdullah Rahman profusedly thanked New Delhi for the support and cooperation. The MoU was signed by Civil Aviation officials of the two countries in the presence of the two ministers, a day after the visiting delegation arrived here in an Ariana Afghan Airline plane. Asked when Indian carriers would start operating to Afghanistan, Mr Hussain said “we have shortage of fleet at present. We will take a decision as soon as that is taken care of.” He said both Air India and Indian Airlines would be the designated carriers for India. A security clause, based on the model of the International Civil Aviation Organisation has been incorporated in the MoU.
PTI
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SBP business crosses 20,000 cr
Chandigarh, January 25 Mr Purwar said that I do not want that the SBP be branded as mass banking or class banking institution. What we will be doing is to provide quality and reliable service to bank’s clients. Mr Bharat Bhushan Jindal, President, Steel Chamber of Commerce Mandi Gobindgarh appreciated the services being offered by the bank. Mr
N.S. Deshpande (DGM) and Mr S.K. Ghai (AGM) of the bank also attended the meeting alongwith 75 Industrialists.
TNS
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Ashok Leyland net dips 30.2 pc
Chennai, January 25 The net profit went down to Rs 13.5 crore from Rs 19.3 crore in the same period of the previous fiscal. Gross profit was, however, higher by 7.5 per cent at Rs 45.4 crore against Rs 42.2 crore, a company statement said. Net sales turnover declined by 12.7 per cent at Rs 528.6 crore in the October-December quarter as compared to Rs 605.9 crore in the year-ago period. For the nine months ended December 31, 2001, the Hinduja Group flagship recorded a 54.8 per cent rise in net profit at Rs 22.6 crore over Rs 14.6 crore a year ago. “This quarter, our sales volumes have been affected, in the main, by lower off-take by the State Transport Undertakings. A favourable product mix and continuous gains in operational and cost efficiencies have helped us tide over the fall in sales revenues,” Ashok Leyland Managing Director R. Seshasayee said.
PTI
Saregama India
Saregama India Ltd has posted a net loss of Rs 99.10 million in the quarter ended December 31, 2001 as compared to a net profit of Rs 15.90 million in the same quarter last year. Net sales, inclusive of license fees, for the reporting quarter was lower at Rs 236.40 million as against Rs 426.70 million in the corresponding quarter last fiscal.
UNI
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Cisco network for LIC
New Delhi, January 25 The network is made of 41 metro area network (MAN) which are connected to each other through a wide area network (WAN) and the network connects over 700 of LIC’s offices across India including the metros. LIC is also computerising all its policy records, speeding up transactions for customers while continuing to maintain the high levels of security and reliability.
PTI
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