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Wednesday,
March 12, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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LPG price
hike under consideration: Naik Markfed to
export potatoes to Lanka International
air fares to go up 15 per cent
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BSNL files
new tariffs with TRAI Cut
customs duty for telecom sector Recorders
staff not paid salary Multi-speciality
hospital at Amritsar soon Morepen
to go for GDR LETTERS
999
gold introduced in market
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LPG price hike under consideration: Naik New Delhi, March 11 “It is for the oil companies to decide on the increase in LPG prices. The issue of price revision of domestic LPG is under consideration of oil marketing companies,” Mr Naik said during Question Hour. In reply to a query, he said the average subsidy per cylinder on domestic LPG during 2000-01 and 2001-02 was Rs 150.55 and Rs 115.63 respectively. In reply to another query, Naik said the government tried to insulate the consumer from very steep increase in LPG prices by reducing excise or customs duties. He said the government had moved to the flat rate of subsidy due to 80 per cent increase in international gas prices from $ 197 per metric tonnes to $ 370 per metric tonnes. From April 1, 2002, subsidy on domestic LPG is being provided at the flat rate of Rs 67.75 per cylinder, he said. Changes in the consumer price of domestic LPG after providing for the flat rate of subsidy are to be made by the oil marketing companies.
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Markfed to export potatoes to Lanka
New Delhi, March 11 "Ceylon and Overseas Traders will buy 6,000 tonnes potatoes from Punjab Markfed for delivery from April onwards this year," the company’s Director N. Ganeshan said. He told PTI the price was being worked out and if quality and supply schedule worked out fine, exports would be accelerated to 1,000 tonnes every month from next year onwards. Ceylon and Overseas Traders will purchase the potatoes at cost, insurance and freight (CIF) value and delivery, intermediate storage and interest rate matters will be handled by Punjab Markfed. Ganeshan said delivery would be at a fixed price which could be $ 140-150 a tonne after factoring in investment costs, interest rates, seasonal fluctuation in prices and storage overheads.
PTI
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International air fares to go up 15 per cent New Delhi, March 11 According to reports KLM, Alitalia, Lufthansa and Swiss Airlines, are set to announce a 5 per cent increase in fares from March 16. Security charges — the fee levied by airports on airlines — have seen an increase from $ 12 per ticket to $ 18. The impact of these factors will push up air fares by around 15 per cent. Major international airlines operating in India have also finalised capacity reductions which will be effective from April 1. As a result, 800-1,000 fewer seats will be available during a week on the flights operating out of India, primarily on west-bound flights. KLM and Delta Airlines are looking to reduce capacity by deploying smaller aircraft. Instead of a 350-seater aircraft, KLM plans to operate a smaller DC-10 and Delta is planning to replace its MDL 11 aircraft with B77s. Alitalia is also withdrawing one of its aircraft which will be the withdrawn from the India route and be deployed in another profitable sector. Besides reducing the number of seats, Alitalia and Singapore Airlines are contemplating a cut in the number of flights to India. Singapore Airlines has decided to discontinue its twice-a-week Singapore-Mumbai-Manchester flight and Alitalia will operate six flights a week out of India instead of seven from April 1.
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BSNL files new tariffs with TRAI
New Delhi, March 11 "We have submitted yesterday the new tariff for basic services with TRAI," BSNL Chairman and Managing Director Prithipal Singh told PTI here. Singh, however, declined to divulge details on the packages that had been filed by the corporation. The corporation had earlier said its alternate packages were aimed at offering "flexibility and value additions" to its subscribers. This would be in addition to the standard package for basic services for which TRAI had announced its new tariff order in January ushering in an increase in basic phone rentals, reduction in call duration and sharp curtailment in number of free calls with April 1, 2003. TRAI had announced a hike in telecom tariffs by increasing the monthly rental to Rs 280 from Rs 250 in the urban areas and reduced the call duration to two minutes from the existing three minutes, while making all incoming calls free on cellular phones. Free calls have also been halved to 30 a month from 60 in the urban areas while in the case of rural areas free calls have come down to 50 from 75. In the rural areas, there would be no change in the monthly rental and would remain at Rs 70 and Rs 120 depending upon the capacity of the telephone exchange. While in the semi-urban areas, with exchange capacity of 30,000 to 99,999 lines, the rental would go up to Rs 200 from existing level of Rs 180.
PTI
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Cut customs duty for telecom sector New Delhi, March 11 President of
ICA, Pankaj Mohindroo said the classification of mobile handsets as an IT product by the Centre and by the majority of state governments and consequently rationalisation of customs duty and sales tax reduction from 12 per cent to 4 per cent by all major states gave a substantially increased revenue to the government as well as the state governments. However, the ICA pointed out that the Budget for 2002-03 did not maintain the impetus given to the mobile handset industry in the last Budget. “If the customs duty had been brought down to 5 per cent and special additional duty of 4 per cent removed, the grey market, which accounts for about 60 per cent at present, would have been stamped out completely. This would have allowed consumers to experience the true and international benefits of convergence in India”, Mr Mohindroo said. The ICA urged the Finance Minister to reduce the basic customs duty from 10 per cent to 5 per cent and also remove SAD of 4 per cent to give a further boost to the telecom sector.
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Recorders staff not paid salary Chandigarh, March 11 It has been already served notices by PNB, the Punjab Finance Corporation (PFC) and the PSIDC, either to clear payments of over Rs 4 crore or be ready to wind up operations. The PSIDC and PFC had reportedly even locked out the company gates last month . Mr Varinder Singh, managing director of the company, admitted, "the company is facing financial difficulties, but we are hopeful that after offering VRS to around 50 per cent of the employees, the company will be out of red. The Punjab Government has assured us to offer funds for the VRS." He said since the company had an assured annual orders worth Rs 4 crore from the Defence forces to supply spare parts for tanks, nuclear bacteria and chemical warfare production systems and electronic control systems, it can be revived with some additional investment and diversification. Mr Rajinder Singh, general secretary, the Punjab Recorders Workers Union, however, lamented that the company had not even paid the salary to employees for the past three months, apart from overtime allowance, medical allowance and bonus for the past three years. Rather some officials have been promoted, despite financial crunch. The Regional Provident Fund Commissioner had recently threatened to take action against the company for not depositing the employer's contribution for the provident fund for over five months. Mr Varinder Singh said the amount had been recently deposited.
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Multi-speciality
hospital at
Amritsar soon Chandigarh, March 11 This was announced here today by Mr Harpal Singh, Chairman, Fortis Healthcare Ltd., in a talk with media persons. He said the facility was fast nearing completion and was expected to be commissioned by the end of May. He said the Amritsar multi-speciality hospital would be the first of a series of similar hospitals being planned by the Fortis Healthcare in the region. The next hospital would be at Bathinda. A Fortis Heart Emergency Centre had been set up in Gurdev Hospital on Ferozepore Road in Ludhiana. It would start functioning from Monday next. About 15 such heart emergency centres would be set up in the region over the next three years. Mr Harpal Singh said all the Fortis multispeciality hospitals and heart emergency centres would be linked electronically with the mother hospital at SAS Nagar where facilities and expertise existed for dealing with all sorts of emergencies.
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Morepen to go for GDR
New Delhi, March 11 The company board which met on March 8, gave its approval to GDR issue which will be listed at Luxembourg Stock Exchange, a Morepen release said here.
Morepen, which has decided to focus on its core business bulk and formulations, will use the proceeds of the issue to fund its operational and working capital requirements and retiring debt.
PTI |
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Exide Ind
Kolkata, March 11 |
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LETTERS Age limit to avail senior citizen’s concession on rail fares, has rightly been lowered to 60 years from the existing 65 years in the Railway Budget for the year 2003-04. Union Finance Minister also has proposed to increase income tax relief for senior citizens to Rs 20,000 but he has missed to reduce age limit to avail this relief. By far, government and PSU employees as a group/class, consistently demonstrate the best tax compliance by choice or by compulsion. Retirement age for Central Government employees is 60 but it is 58 in the case of most PSU and state government employees. Therefore it shall be in the fitness of things if the Union Railway Minister and the Union Finance Minister extended the concession/relief available for senior citizens, also to the employees who retired at 58. Richa Bharadwaj, Naya Nangal II Senior citizens have been let down once again. Raising of tax relief from 15,000 to 20,000 is meaningless for a large majority of them since it will benefit only those few who are in the tax bracket. Similarly the proposed LIC 9 per cent interest scheme may prove
illusory since the senior citizens would have no lumpsum amount to invest as the same is locked up in small savings, now rendered useless. Further curtailment of 1 per cent interest on small savings has given a major jolt to the senior citizens since interest is the main source of their income. If the banks can offer extra interest to them, why can’t the government? The Finance Minister is therefore requested to allow at least 2 per cent additional interest to the senior citizens above the age of 60 years since his already announced proposals for them appear only to be an eye wash. Wg Cdr C.L. Sehgal (retd), Jalandhar
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Galilio India Coach factory Excise duty |
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