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Wednesday,
April 17, 2002, Chandigarh, India
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Wipro sets up unit for bio-IT
Netherlands to explore investment avenues
IOC ready to face competition |
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Reliance slugs it out with L&T, Sun More cement plants to be set up in HP Police to prosecute 72 ‘vanished firms’
ONGC-IOC to make joint bid for IPCL
Govt clears 42 FDI proposals
Philips back
in black GE Capital to lay off 7,000 workers Vanilla Coke launch on May 15 Unichem ties up with UK firm
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Wipro sets up unit for bio-IT Bangalore, April 16 Wipro Chairman Azim Premji has named D.A. Prasanna, former CEO of Wipro GE Medical Systems, as Vice-Chairman of the new division. Vivek Paul, who heads Wipro Technologies, is the only other Vice Chairman in the group. The healthcare practices of Wipro Technologies and Wipro BioMed have apparently grossed revenues of $15 million in the year ending March, 2002. The group is scheduled to announce its annual results on April 19. "We cannot discuss internal plans decided in the Board, but in this silence period I can only say we have aggressive plans in this sector," Premji told reporters here. "We will make fresh investment, recruit if necessary and even acquire companies, if necessary," said Prasanna, who had earlier led the creation of a $450 million global business in healthcare for GE Medical Systems in South and Southeast Asia. The new division will expand on its existing solutions to hospitals and health insurance companies, which were being looked after by a 140-strong group in Wipro Technologies and BioMed, bio-informatics solutions to life science companies to reduce drug discovery cycle time and IT solutions to medical and analytical devices companies. "What we are doing is bringing all the existing resources in this business under a very focused high power group as we see a very profitable market,"Premji said. The company already has a major hospital group, health plan, device companies — all in the USA — and a pharmaceutical company in Europe as customers. Wipro GE Medical Systems, a 49:51 joint venture between Wipro and GE, did business of over Rs.5 billion last year by providing equipment and software to the USA and Indian markets. "There is no contradiction between what Wipro GE Medical Systems does and the healthcare and life sciences division. Wipro GE Medical Systems is complementary to the healthcare and life sciences division," Prasanna said. The company had, in collaboration with the Manipal group, started a five-year course in medical software a few years ago. Its announcement comes as the Bangalore Bio 2002 show, the biggest biotechnology event, is underway in this city.
IANS
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Netherlands to explore investment avenues Ludhiana, April 16 He says, ‘‘The Netherlands government, which is sponsoring more than 50 technical assistance projects in Punjab, to upgrade the technology in the agro-processing, textile and machine tools sector, has plans to boost investment on large scale in the state. The Netherlands embassy has decided to organise a seminar at Ludhiana on ‘‘ Doing Business with the Netherlands ’’ on April 18. The seminar is being held in collaboration with Ludhiana Management Association (LMA). Mr V.K. Goel, general secretary of the LMA, says,‘‘ Though a few Dutch companies have already set up business in India but still there is an ample scope of further collaboration in the field of textile and machine tools besides other sectors. The industry experts here say that from Ludhiana, textile garments, cycle and parts and hand tools are exported to the Netherlands worth more than Rs 100 crore. The officials of Apparel Export Promotion Council disclosed,‘‘ The textile export to the Netherlands have increased over the years. The total textile exports to that block had increased from Rs 1119 crore in 2000-01 to Rs 1143 crore in 2001-02.
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IOC ready to face competition Chandigarh, April 16 The IOC has launched a massive programme to upgrade all its petrol retail outlets in the region consisting of Punjab, Chandigarh, Himachal Pradesh and J and K. There are a total of 614 retail outlets in the region. Of these, as many as 180 outlets have been upgraded so far. In Chandigarh, there are 14 retail outlets of which none has been upgraded so far. “We are trying to go beyond providing mere customer service and satisfaction”, said Mr D.P. Vaed, General Manager, Marketing Division in the Punjab State office of the Indian Oil Corporation in a talk with TNS here today. “What we are aiming at now is customer’s delight...” The IOC authorities are acutely aware that with the arrival of the private players in the petroleum sector, the monopoly enjoyed by the public sector companies for decades is finally over. With oil giants like Reliance entering the field, the public sector oil companies will have to do some aggressive marketing to sell their products and retain their customers by providing best possible services. The Government of India too has been lending a helping hand to them. In order to counter the move by Reliance to take over a large number of retail outlets being run at present by public sector oil companies, the Government of India has banned the take over by Reliance of the existing retail outlets. In order to retain their competitive edge, the public sector companies are offering value for money to customers by providing world class services to them at these retail outlets. Several facilities including autowash, convenience stores, ATM, drug stores, SBI cards etc are being added to the these outlets which are being given a major facelift treatment. Customers from the area would be able to get their daily requirements from these stores. Mr Vaed said each retail outlet was being upgraded at a cost of more than Rs 50 lakh. “We are not being extravagant. This is a reasonable amount and the upgradation is very necessary to retain our competitive edge in the open market in the coming days. |
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Reliance slugs it out with L&T, Sun New Delhi, April 16 “RIL, L&T and Sun have been shortlisted from among the half-a-dozen bidders for the build, own, operate and transfer (BOOT) contract of the 1,760-km long west-to-east pipeline project,” industry sources said. The Central India Pipeline would evacuate petroleum products from refineries in Gujarat to consumption centres in Central and North India. Initial bids were invited for construction of the 1760-km Central India Pipeline on BOOT basis in February, they said adding contractor for the pipeline project is expected to be finalised by May. Interestingly, Reliance has proposed a gas pipeline on its own that takes almost the same route as the 1700-km Central India Pipeline originating from Jamnagar in Gujarat and travelling up north. Petronet India Ltd, the holding company promoted by Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd that is implementing the Central India pipeline project, has targeted its completion by May 2004. The Central India Pipeline project will traverse from Jamnagar to Ratlam via Rajkot and Koyali. From Ratlam one section would branch to Gwalior and the other section would branch to Nagpur to feed the various consumption zones in the Central India, sources said. Petroleum products — petrol, diesel, kerosene and naptha — would be injected in the pipeline at Jamnagar from Reliance’s 27 million tonnes refinery and Essar’s proposed nine million tonnes refinery and at Indian Oil’s Koyali refinery. While Reliance Petroleum Ltd (RPL), IOC and Petronet India would hold 26 per cent stake each in the mega pipeline project, Bharat Petroleum Corporation and Essar Oil would have 11 per cent apiece, sources said. The Central India pipeline network would begin from Jamnagar and reach Koyali. Rajkot is proposed to be an intermediate delivery point en route. From Koyali, the pipeline would extend to Ratlam where it would be bifurcated into two networks. The northern trunk pipeline would go to Kota and terminate at Gwalior.
PTI
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More cement plants to be set up in HP Shimla, April 16 Stating this here today Mr Kishori Lal, Industries Minister, HP, said at present the cement industry was contributing about Rs 150 crore to state exchequer in the form of taxes and duties and this industry was likely to be expanded in a big way in the near future. The total investment in the cement industry would be over Rs 3000 crore over the next eight year and besides socio-economic benefits, it would provide direct and indirect employment and other trading activities in a big way. He said besides speeding up progress of cement plants in the pipeline, applications for granting licence for mining lease of new cement plants based on limestone deposits at Bagha in Solan district, Kothi and Guma in Shimla district were being invited. The state had vast reserves of limestone estimated to be 15,000 million tonnes Bilaspur, Chamba, Shimla,
Sirmaur, Solan and Lahaul and Spiti. The existing installed capacity of cement plants was only about 2.6 per cent of the total installed capacity in the country, which was 119.3 million tonnes as on March 31,2001. For Bagha-Bhalag the Geological Wing of the Industries Department had already completed detailed investigation for prospecting 280 million tonnes of limestone deposit of cement grade. He said preliminary investigation of Guma
(Chopal) limestone deposit had revealed a vast limestone deposit of cement grade for sustaining a large plant. The process of inviting application for grant of mining lease for setting up a large cement plant was underway and some industrial houses had already shown their interest in the project. The investigation of Kothi limestone deposit in Shimla district was also in progress. The Arki limestone deposit of steel grade had already been leased out to National Mineral Development Corporation, which had entered an agreement with Gujarat Ambuja Cement.
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Police to prosecute 72 ‘vanished firms’
Mumbai, April 16 The DCA and SEBI investigated over 200 “vanishing companies” and found offices and directors of 72 companies untraceable, Dhall said at a session on “Regulatory Standards & Compliance” at FICCI’s convention on capital market here. The probe will be launched by the police of respective states where these companies were listed or based. “The 72 companies will be prosecuted under Sections 63 and 68 of the Companies Act for committing fraud on investors,” He said. “These companies raised funds from the public to set up projects. The non-existence of the projects is criminal,” he said. Dhall said more information should be sought about directors of a proposed company at the time of registration to ensure companies do not vanish without trace after raising public money. Dhall said the common man feels that a kind of “crony capitalism” is being practised and pointed out that any Enron-like episode in India will rock the country’s market economy. Play of market forces has to be distinguished from anarchy through rules of ethics and regulation, the official said. The DCA Secretary said Corporate Community feels that there is a lack of transparency and accountability in management of affairs. “There is too close a relationship between corporates and auditors,” he quipped. He said there should be a proper role for independent directors and the role of auditors, chartered accountants and company secretaries should also be properly defined.
UNI
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ONGC-IOC to make joint bid for IPCL
New Delhi, April 16 The combined might of the two national oil companies would be vying with petrochemical giant Reliance Industries for wresting control of IPCL, financial bids for which are likely to be invited soon. IOC and ONGC currently are working on a proposal to form a 50:50 joint venture for bidding for government’s 26 per cent stake in IPCL, informed sources said. “We are working on a proposal to make a joint bid for IPCL. We are deliberating the structure and nature of the partnership,” highly placed ONGC sources said. While IOC Chairman M S Ramachandran confirmed seeking ONGC as partner for bidding for IPCL, ONGC Chairman and Managing Director Subir Raha said “we are discussing a proposal for joint bidding.” They, however, did not elaborate. IOC last week sent a proposal to ONGC for farming-in the country’s highest profit making company as a partner for bidding for IPCL, India’s second largest petrochemcial company, company sources said adding the joint venture may take shape before financial bids are invited by the month end. While IPCL was crucial for IOC for its foray into petrochemical business - an essential offshoot of refinery process, ONGC was interested in IPCL as it is the main feedstock supplier to its plants.
PTI
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Govt clears 42 FDI proposals New Delhi, April 16 One of the biggest investments was that of Astra Pharmaceuticals of Sweden which wanted to invest Rs 82 crore for increasing its equity to 100 per cent in its Indian subsidiary. However, 18 of the 42 proposals cleared did not have any fresh investment. There were only amendments in the existing approvals. These proposals included those of several automobile companies like Honda Motor Company of Japan(Honda Siel cars), Mitsubishi Motors Corporation of Japan(Hindustan Motors Ltd),and Toyota Motor Corporation of Japan(Toyota Kirloskar Motor Ltd). The proposal of Cargill Asia Pacific Ltd, USA, is also cleared for setting up vegetable oil refinery on owned and leased basis. No fresh inflow of investment is involved in this.
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Chandigarh, April 16
