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Saturday,
September 28, 2002,
Chandigarh, India  
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Rise in
kerosene, LPG prices in a month INS to
oppose FDI in print media Credit-linked
scheme for farm markets on the anvil
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Reliance
Insurance targets 100 pc growth VAT to
simplify ‘tax system’
Naik
denies shifting of ONGC HQ
Samsung
enters audio business LSE
elections today Natural
cosmetic products unveiled
Markets
resilient despite rating cut
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Rise in kerosene, LPG prices in a month
New Delhi, September 27 "The Finance Ministry is working out a flat rate of subsidy for cooking gas and kerosene. Consumers will see fluctuations in the domestic fuel prices depending on the international prices," Petroleum Secretary B.K. Chaturvedi told newspersons here. The impact of the subsidy revision will be more on cooking gas as the government will not like to upset the consumers of kerosene, which is subsidised only for people below the poverty line. The periodicity of the price revision is yet to be finalised. While oil companies are seeking monthly revision of the LPG or cooking gas prices, the Petroleum Ministry is keen on a bi-monthly revision as it believes that with six months of the current fiscal over, a quarterly revision will not bring down the increasing subsidy bill of the government. At present oil-marketing companies revise the prices of petrol on a fortnightly basis in accordance with the international crude prices. In the case of cooking gas, Petroleum Ministry officials said the oil companies were keen to follow the international practice of monthly price revisions. Under a 3 to 5-year phase-out plan, the subsidy on both domestic fuels is to be gradually phased out. At the beginning of the current fiscal in April, the subsidy on LPG was to have been 15 per cent and on kerosene 33 per cent. With the Petroleum Ministry having closed the oil pool account —used till March to cross-subsidise domestic fuels by maintaining a higher price for transport fuels— the Finance Ministry took over the burden of subsidy on domestic fuels. A budgetary provision of Rs.44 billion was made this year for domestic fuel subsidy. With the international crude prices rising in the last six months, the subsidy burden has increased, as there has been no revision in the price of domestic fuels in the last six months.
IANS
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INS to oppose FDI in print media
Bangalore, September 27 “There is no gainsaying the fact that the stand of the INS on any issue, is the stand adopted by the majority of its member publications, should a consensus elude any given situation,” INS President Pratap G. Pawar said addressing its 63rd Annual General Meeting. He recalled that notwithstanding opposition from political parties, the Parliamentary Committee headed by Somnath Chatterjee and a “majority” of newspapers, government went ahead and announced the decision to allow limited FDI “subject to certain restrictions which could be easily circumvented”. Pawar, who hands over reins of his office to Abhay Chhajlani at the end of the meeting, also asked the government to act on the recommendation of the Second National Commission on Labour that there was no need for any wage board, statutory or otherwise, for fixing wage rates for workers in any industry. “While we empathise with the employees’ demand for fair wages, it has to be based on the industry’s capacity to pay — decided bilaterally between employers and employees,” he said adding that it has been the INS stand that there was no rationale in singling out the newspapers industry.
PTI
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Credit-linked scheme for farm markets on the anvil
“The Finance Ministry has been requested to consider tax benefits to such projects under the Income Tax Act as they can be regarded as infrastructure projects”, he said at a meeting of State ministers on Agricultural Marketing Reforms. Central assistance under the proposed scheme would be linked to states undertaking appropriate reforms in this sector as marketing of farm produce is important for farmers, Singh said. The Minister said another central sector scheme on setting up of an “Agricultural Marketing Information Network” is being contemplated during the Tenth Five-Year Plan to provide internet connectivity to all major agricultural markets in the country. The network would provide information to farmers on price, grades and standards, packaging and labelling, storage and warehousing and other useful facts. Referring to the recently implemented credit linked schemes for construction of cold storage and rural godowns, he said under the cold storage scheme, an investment of Rs 775 crore has so far been generated creating an additional capacity of 26.24 lakh tonnes. Similarly, under the rural godown scheme, proposals for investment of Rs 410 crore are in the pipeline to create 28.34 lakh tonnes capacity, he said.
PTI
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Reliance Insurance targets 100 pc growth
New Delhi, September 27 “We are targeting 100 per cent growth in premium income this fiscal. Last fiscal, our premium income was about Rs 82 crore,” Reliance General Insurance President Vijay Pawar told PTI here. The insurance arm of Reliance Industries was the only private insurer which achieved the difficult task of breaking even in the first year of operation. “The company posted a net profit of Rs 6.77 crore during 2001-02,” Pawar said while declining to give any figures for this fiscal. Reliance General Insurance was the only private company which went solo in its foray into yet another green-field area with an authorised capital of Rs 200 crore. Pawar said the company was comfortable with the initial paid-up capital of Rs 102 crore and additional fund infusion from promoters would be required only after 1-2 years. According to the capital adequacy norms
stipulated by Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA), companies have to maintain a solvency ratio of 150 per cent. This means promoters have to infuse additional capital as business grows.
PTI
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VAT to simplify ‘tax system’ Chandigarh, September 27 Mr Suresh Kumar, Excise & Taxation Commissioner, Punjab, said with the VAT regime, the entire system of taxation would undergo total transformation. He said the objective is to simplify the tax system on the global lines and to make it easy for the tax payees from complicated tax system. Mr R. S. Sachdeva, Co-Chairman of the Punjab Committee of the chamber, said the introduction of VAT should also ensure that all other taxes like octroi, entry tax, CST, etc. should be done away with; otherwise the very purpose of the new system would stand defeated. Mr Beant Singh, Resident Director, PHDCCI, said while introducing the new Legislation the state government should take care that the existing benefits given to the industry were not done away with.
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Naik denies shifting of ONGC HQ Dehra Dun, September 27 Mr
Naik, who was addressing a press conference here today, said talks were in progress with the association of Scientific and Technical Officer
(ASTO) of the ONGC and that a settlement would soon be reached between the two sides. The association’s has demanded an additional Rs 310 crore — 5 per cent of the ONGC’s Rs 6,200 crore profit — as “productivity allowance” for its 22,000 officers, which means equally dividing 310 crore among the 22,000-strong officer workforce. He said that plans were afoot by his ministry to prune the size of the ONGC officer workforce by 5,600 officers. Mr Naik said that recommendations by McKinsey and Company, ONGC restructuring consultants, on differentiating “performers” from “non-performers” are being followed through a soft-window approach of voluntary retirement scheme, which has now been brought in line with BPCL and IOC. The Petroleum Minister scotched all rumours regarding shifting ONGC headquarters from Dehra Dun and stated that it was in the interest of the nascent state of Uttaranchal that the headquarters of country’s upstream petroleum exploration and exploitation agency remained here. The Minister also announced setting up a museum at the
ONGC, depicting the rapid strides made by the country in the oil and natural gas sector. Earlier in the day, attending the Diamond Jubilee celebrations of CSIR at Indian Institute of Petroleum
(IIP) here, Mr Naik urged the community of petroleum research scientists to explore fresh user-friendly avenues such as detecting automobile fuel-adulteration by simple-marker system.
Earnings to jump 1000
cr
New Delhi: The state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) is likely to see at least Rs 1000 crore jump in its earnings this fiscal with a 9 per cent increase in crude production in the first quarter, Petroleum Minister Ram Naik has said. “The increase in oil production was achieved mainly on account of Mumbai High development Projects and on an
annualised basis the crude production soared by one MMT compared to 2001-02,” Naik informed the Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee yesterday. Speaking at the presentation of dividend cheque by
ONGC, Naik said gas production had also increased by 4 per cent and would increase the profit of the corporation by Rs 400 crore, an official release said
here. ONGC Chairman and Managing Director Subir Raha presented a cheque for Rs 1679.07 crore to the Prime Minister as dividend for 2001-02.
PTI
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Samsung enters audio business
Mumbai, September 27 “The company expects a total turnover of Rs 1,520 crore in 2002 of which 2 per cent will come from audio business”, SIEL Vice-President, Sales, R Zutshi, told newspersons here after announcing its festival offering valid between October 1 and November 15. The aim was to make SIEL a Rs 5,000 crore entity by 2004, he said. SIEL’s audio ranges include the portable, mini, micro and home theatre categories. These products will be launched in nine cities - Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Pune, Chandigarh, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad. Referring to the festival offer, Zutshi said SIEL would spend Rs 20 crore on the promotional drive (gifts worth Rs 15 crore) and it expects to generate sales worth Rs 380 crore from consumer electronics and home appliances products. “On the basis of our entry into audio business and the consumer promotion, we expect to do business of Rs 606 crore in September-December”, he said, adding that, in the first eight months ended August, the turnover has been Rs 960 crore of which Rs 576 crore came from consumer electronics and balance Rs 384 crore from home appliances.
PTI
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LSE elections today Ludhiana, September 27 The annual general meeting of the LSE will be held tomorrow to elect the board of directors of the two segments. Election campaign has been going on for almost a fortnight now and there is a direct fight between the two groups. One group is led by Mr R.C. Singal, the founder director of the LSE, and the second group is lead by Mr Jaspal Singh, a former president of the LSE. As many as seven directors will be elected — two for the LSE and five for the LSE Securities Ltd. The Singal group has fielded Mr Manoj Sarna and Mr R.C. Singla for the LSE and Mr Harish Chhabra, Mr Jaswinder Singh Kapoor, Mr Manoj Sarna and Mr Sham Sundar Khanna for the LSE Securities Ltd. The Jaspal Singh group has fielded Mr B.K. Bansal, Mr Jaspal Singh, Mr Rajnish Garg, Mr Rajiv Kalra and Mr Naveen Bhatia for the LSE and LSE Securities Ltd.
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Natural cosmetic products unveiled New Delhi, September 27 The new collection includes skin care products, most of which are manufactured using a flower named “immortelle” (Helichrysum Italicum) which is particularly suitable for the skin and provides optimal tolerance, said Mr Andre Hoffman, Managing Director (Far East), L’occitane, addressing a press conference here today. The new range can be used by all age groups and being natural, it has no side effects. The prices in India are 15 per cent lower than the US market making our brand a premium brand that is also affordable. Mr Vishal Chawla of Ravissant said there are six L’occitane stores in the Capital and non-conventional marketing strategies have been devised for the Indian market. The company plans to enter nine new cities, including Chandigarh, Pune and Bangalore, and will also open an exclusive L’occitane boutique shortly.
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New Delhi, September 27