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Thursday,
February 20, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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No selloff in ONGC, IOC, GAIL: Shourie
Shiv Sena’s views
Firms in fix as ‘men in blue’ falter Reliance
to revive life insurance plan
HDFC Standard Life launches children’s plan |
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PTL sale : 10 firms enter final round
Textile earnings to rise in 2005
STD calls on Connect cheaper by 15 pc
Asian Paints gets best small company award
Motorola bags $ 43 m contract
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No selloff in ONGC, IOC, GAIL: Shourie New Delhi, February 19 Winding up a short duration discussion on the issue Disinvestment Minister Arun Shourie said, “The government has decided not to privatise IOC, ONGC and GAIL which will remain as public sector undertakings”. He gave further assurance that about 80 per cent of retail trade of oil will still remain with the government even after privatisation of HPCL and BPCL. Mr Shourie added that all necessary provisions were being incorporated in the shareholders agreement of the two oil PSUs to ensure that national security concerns were fully addressed. Amidst heated exchanges, Leader of the Opposition Dr Manmohan Singh said the government’s decision not to privatise other oil majors only gave credence to its suspicion that disinvestment of BPCL and HPCL would lead to “crony capitalism” as unscrupulous politicians and businesses would browbeat the management. Disputing Dr Singh’s argument, Mr Shourie said the powers that would vest with the government after the privatisation would be specific only to national security as in the case of VSNL. Regarding oil supplies to defence establishments, Mr Shourie said an overwhelming proportion of their supplies was being provided by IOC and the question of defence supplies being affected with the sale of BPCL and HPCL did not arise. He said the Attorney General had made it clear that no Parliamentary approval was required for the sale of these two companies which were taken over by the government in 1974 and 1976 through an Act of Parliament. If Coal India or public sector banks were to be privatised, government would have to come before Parliament for a decision but certainly not for the two oil PSUs in which the previous governments had already divested 33 per cent and 49 per cent, he said. “There is no mystery as sought to be made out” in the AG’s report which was specific to the issue and the AG cannot give anticipatory opinion on the share holders agreement before it is finalised. Now to say that other things should have been asked from AG was not correct, Mr Shourie said to questions from members why government had sought only a limited opinion. To the demand of several members that AG’s report should be tabled in Parliament as his opinion was sought at the behest of members’ demand, Mr Shourie said he would consider and carry out the directions of the Chair. |
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Shiv Sena’s views New Delhi, February 19 The issue was raised in Lok Sabha by M.V.V.S. Murthy of the TDP who wanted to know the details of the norms of disinvestment of the two oil companies as approved by the Cabinet Committee on Disinvestment (CCD) and also whether the reported inter-ministerial differences have been resolved. Expressing dissatisfaction over the reply given by Disinvestment Minister Arun Shorie who said that in the opinion of the Attorney General it was not necessary to acquire Parliamentary approval to implement “in principle” policy decision of disinvestment of HPCL and BPCL, Mr Chandrakant Khaire of the Shiv Sena asked the government to explain the rationale for divesting equity in profit-making undertakings. “My leader Bal Thackeray had made public his disapproval of the move even at the time of the privatisation of Centaur Hotel”, Mr Khaire said adding that even Petroleum Minister Ram Naik was not in favour offloading government equity in HPCL and BPCL. “We are directly opposing this move. Why are you selling profitable companies like HPCL and BPCL. We will not accept it,” he said. |
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Firms in fix as ‘men in blue’ falter New Delhi, February 19 A host of firms ranging from soft drink makers to electronic as well as automobile majors unveiled aggressive marketing campaigns in the past few months with the World Cup as the selling theme. But the performance of the Indian team in the two matches it played against minnows Holland and mighty Australia has stirred disquiet among the consumer goods companies who had spent million of rupees in the advertising blitz. "Certainly, there is a lesson to be learnt from the developments there. We have to ask ourselves is the bandwagon advertising approach of any advantage in an unpredictable scenario," an anguished electronic company official remarked. "At this stage we only pray that the Indian team manages to show some good results in the remaining matches. A victory will bring sponsors like us more cheers than anyone else," the official told IANS. Agrees Suresh Khanna, Secretary General of the Consumer Electronics and Television Manufacturers Association: "The poor performance will definitely impact sales but at this point of time it is difficult to quantify the loss because of this. Brand equity of the players will also go down." The association had earlier projected that colour television sales in the domestic market would post a 50 per cent growth in the January-March quarter over the same period last year. But of course some sales that were expected to pick up towards the final stages of the World Cup may not happen if India's poor showing continues." Pepsi has denied that it is planning to pull out some of its ads featuring top Indian cricketers in view of their pathetic showing and increasing public criticism. "Its absolutely baseless," said Abhiram Seth, Executive Director (exports and external affairs) of Pepsi. All the companies — LG and Pepsi, their rivals Samsung and Coca-Cola and other firms such as HSBC and Philips — scrambled to outdo one another in promotions, ranging from the simple to the outlandish. But after the abject Indian surrender against Australia on the heels of an equally poor show against Holland, the gut feeling of the marketeer is giving way to desperation. "The hype created by the Indian companies using cricket players is part of a very lazy marketing initiative," said Suhel Seth, CEO of New Delhi-based Equus Advertising. "All companies, right from Coke and Pepsi to Samsung and LG, chased this meaningless stream. There was no category exclusivity. The non-performance of the players will certainly boomerang on their sponsors." Seth, a leading advertising professional, said the Indian marketeers should introduce a clause that would penalise the brand ambassador in case of non-performance. A message urging Indians to boycott consumer goods products endorsed by the cricketers found way to most mobile users in India after the dismal play against Australia. A poll taken by the 24-hour Hindi news channel Aaj Tak after India was crushed by Australia found that more than 80 per cent of respondents would stay away from products promoted by the “men in blue.” Analysts are also questioning the logic behind channelling astronomical funds into cricketers' kitty for the World Cup campaign. Most companies have earmarked as much as 40 per cent of the annual advertising spends on the World Cup. LG India is spending close to $30 million on marketing exercise. Its business rival Samsung is spending Rs.500 million on promotions. "Right from the beginning the Indian companies created a hype that's was not based on pragmatic concepts," said N. Bhaskar Rao, Director of the New Delhi-based Centre for Media Studies. "They created a sentiment as if India is there to win and that all other teams are there only to help them do that. This is not what you call sustainable marketing campaign."
IANS |
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Reliance to revive life insurance plan New Delhi, February 19 Reliance, which started its general insurance business two year ago, has already obtained in-principle clearance from Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority for the foray but has decided to start operations after the launch of Reliance Infocomm’s nationwide WLL scheme. “Reliance will now revive its life insurance plan,” IRDA chairman N Rangachary told PTI on the sidelines of a FICCI seminar here today. He said IRDA had granted Reliance an extension of time to file for the licence by March, which the company was likely to abide by. Reliance, ICICI, HDFC, Tata and Bajaj were the only companies which applied for both life and non-life insurance forays. Sahara India has also submitted to IRDA its life insurance business plans for clearance. With Reliance and Sahara, the total number of private companies foraing into life insurance sector goes up to 14. IRDA has granted licence to HDFC Standard Life, ICICI Prudential Life, Max New York Life, Birla Sunlife, Tata AIG Life, Allianz Bajaj Life, SBI Life, ING Vysya Life, Metlife, OM Kotak Life, AMP Sanmar Life and Aviva Life.
PTI |
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HDFC Standard Life launches children’s plan Chandigarh, February 19 He said, the first flexibility is that parents, grandparents, relatives or any other adult could take the plan for the benefit of the child of any age. Secondly, there is a freedom of deciding the maturity date of the policy instead of having some fixed maturity dates of say 18 years or 21 years. It would enable customisation of the plan to meet an individual's specific requirements for educations, marriage and illness. The tax benefits under section 88 and section 10 (10D) are also applicable to this plan as well, he added. |
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PTL sale : 10 firms enter final round Chandigarh, February 19 These companies include Mahindra & Mahindra, Escorts, Sonalika, New Holland, Tafe in league with Agco, SAME, FIIs Warburg Pincus, J. P. Morgan and CDC and a consortium led by NewBridge Llc, a private US equity fund. Eicher Motors is a part of that fund. Sources said a meeting of the sub-committee on disinvestment of the state Cabinet Ministers was held yesterday to finalise the terms and conditions of the disinvestment. Ms Vini Mahajan, Director, Directorate of Disinvestment, Punjab, disclosed that according to the international norms, these shortlisted companies have been asked to sign confidentiality agreement, before sharing the financial documents of PTL so that they could bid for the final round. The bidding process would be completed by March end. The sources disclosed that almost all serious bidders out of 11 companies, which had submitted expression of interest (EOI), had been shortlisted on the recommendations of the global adviser for the disinvestment of
PTL. They will have to sign the agreement before quoting the final price for the share of the PSIDC in PTL. Official sources disclosed that a meeting regarding the pre-qualification bids for Punjab Communication Limited was held today. The process of valuation of the company is under final stages. February 21 is the last date for submitting bids. The share price of the Punjab Tractors is hovering around Rs 145 during the past one
week. Though officials were not ready to put a price for the share of the PSIDC, but a senior official of PTL said,
‘‘considering the fact that PTL has a capacity of manufacturing 60,000 tractors annually. |
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Textile earnings to rise in 2005 New Delhi, February 19 Potential up export earnings of developing countries in textiles, clothing and other labour-intensive products alone are estimated to exceed $ 500 billion, if advanced industrial countries open up their markets. "We must take advantage of these opportunities,", Mr Pant said, inaugurating the Annual General Meeting of the North India Textile Mills’ Association (Nitma) here today. Several initiatives had already been launched in the form of integrated apparel parks, technology upgradation fund scheme, textile infrastructure development scheme and strengthening of cotton textile mission, he said. Despite the domestic textile industry’s strong presence in the global economy in terms of production of fibres or yarn fabrics, India’s share in the world trade is a meager 3.11 per cent as compared to China’s share of 13.75 per cent which has a comparable raw material base. The primary reason for India’s low share in global trade is the predominance of low value items in the export basket and insignificant presence in man-made textiles which predominates the world textile trade. The Indian textile industry has a significant presence in the world textile sector by virtue of its contribution to the world textile capacity and production of textile fibres and yarn. With roughly 20 per cent of the world spindleage of 166 million spindles, India ranks second in the world after China. The employment in the this sector is expected to grow at 1.74 per cent per annum, increasing from 34.42 million persons in the base year to 40.15 million persons by the terminal year of the Tenth Plan. Employment in the textile-allied sector is also expected to increase from 47.53 million persons to 50.75 million persons as it has one of the highest potentials for creating employment opportunities in the country. Earlier in his address, Nitma President Shishir Jaipuria proposed to the government to make the TUF scheme more flexible and attractive so that more entrepreneurs could avail of it, enhancement of interest subsidy to 8 per cent particularly for weaving, knitting, processing and garmenting units and suggested that the viability norms for financing the projects should be relaxed so that more units could avail of this scheme. |
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STD calls on Connect cheaper by 15 pc
Chandigarh, February 19 “Connect aims to provide subscribers with maximum value for money. This discount scheme will allow a subscriber to talk to a destination like Delhi for as low as Rs 2 per minute as the 15 per cent discount is valid over and above the off-peak rates,” said Mr Jayant Keswani, General Manager (Marketing).
TNS |
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Asian Paints gets best small company award
Mumbai, February 19 Small company implies companies with market capitalisation below $ 500 million or equivalent of Rs 2,425 crore, an Asian Paints release here today said. Asian Paints was recently ranked by the Forbes Global Magazine, USA, among the '200 Best under a Billion' companies in the world for 2002.
UNI |
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SRL Ranbaxy BSE gets ISO Tranz Infotech Hitachi Data Mahindra Defence |
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