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Friday,
June 6, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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Coal India
CMD suspended SEBI
watching banks’ shares Pay
channels should share cost of Coke new
marketing chief |
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Dabur’s
fruit beverages next year Music
firms lose 60 per cent market to piracy
New
Kinetic Boss to cost Rs 29,999
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Coal India CMD suspended
New Delhi, June 5 Mr Sharma’s suspension follows a department enquiry which disclosed that he allegedly abused his official position in a matter pertaining to the opening of a tender for a job. The decision to suspend the top official of the Kolkata-based Public Sector Unit was reportedly taken after Union Coal Minister Karia Munda briefed Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee about the alleged misappropriation by Sharma in the purchase of coal, the sources said. Sources said Sharma had allegedly favoured a heavy engineering corporation even though the bid of the different party was not even opened. The subsequent enquiry revealed that the other corporation’s bid was lower. Mr Sharma had also been alleged to have disposed of coal at a much higher rate (Rs 60 per tonne) than the fixed rate (Rs 20 per tonne). After going through a departmental file, the government decided to suspend Sharma last night and the order was served on him this morning at his Kolkata office, the sources said. The main allegation against Sharma was that he had abused his official position and favoured a certain party while opening a tender for a job. The sources claimed Sharma had not even opened the tender submitted by another PSU Heavy Engineering Corporation for the job. During departmental inquiry, it was found that HEC had made the lowest bid for the job. The inquiry alleged that the surplus money thus generated had been pocketed by some persons including Sharma, the sources claimed. A CBI inquiry against Sharma was not ruled out. Sharma was not immediately available for comment. Notably, the promotion of Sharma, a mining engineer, was challenged in a court when another person filed a writ petition. However, it was dismissed.
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New CMD
Kolkata: Laxmi Chand, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Coal, has been asked to take charge of public-sector Coal India Ltd following the suspension of Chairman-cum-Managing Director N.K. Sharma on corruption charges.
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SEBI watching banks’ shares
New Delhi, June 5 “I warn that those who try to interfere with the efficacy of the market will be punished severely,” the SEBI Chairman told reporters on the sidelines of a function here. He was replying to queries whether insider trading was responsible for the over 10 per cent fall in the share value of public sector banks. Mr Bajpai also clarified that no probe was already on. “We are only watching.” There was also no question of any violation of the corporate code of governance as the public sector banks were not registered under the Companies Act. He parried a question whether the government, as a principal share holder in public sector banks, was responsible for the volatility, stating that such a clarification should be sought from the Finance Minister or the Finance Secretary. Meanwhile, the Federation of Indian Stock Exchanges (FISE) today proposed a slew of measures, including weekly settlement, suspension of book building, hike in the capital base of companies and public holding, for making the sparcely traded stocks more attractive. In its report submitted to SEBI chief, FISE President Vijay Bhushan stressed on the “market making” process to boost trading volumes of stocks whose trading was thin or negligible. FISE set up a committee headed by M.R. Mayya, Chairman of the Inter-connected Stock Exchange (ISE), to suggest ways to generate liquidity in sparsely traded shares so that it could be forwarded to SEBI for further action. Mayya recommended that illiquid shares should be closely monitored and in cases of suspected manipulation, proper investigation should be carried out and penal action be taken against erring companies. Financial incentives like exemption of transaction levy on deals relating to market-making and equal sharing of income earned by stock exchanges and market makers on transaction levy, he said. Bhushan also pitched for consolidation of order books through creation of a nation-wide electronic order book titled “Indonext”.
PTI
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Pay channels should share cost of set-top box Chandigarh, June 4 Cable operators, pay channels and viewers are worried that the decision, if implemented, will prove a death knell for electronic media at least in the short term. Despite the government's decision to cut down excise duty on set top boxes (STB), they say about 67 lakh viewers in four metros will have to make an investment worth over Rs 4,000 crore to watch selected channels. Cable operators in the region are also worried that once the CAS was implemented in metros, the government may implement it in other towns in the next phase. However, no one is going to benefit from the new system. The critics point out that instead of forcing the viewers to make an investment of Rs 2,000 to Rs 4,000 for analog-based STB and up to Rs 4,000 to Rs 8,000 for digital STB, the government should find a way out to share the costs with the cable operators, multi-system operators and pay channels. With the introduction of CAS, cable viewers will be though charged only for the selected channels due to their monopoly, the cable operators will still have control over the selection of channels and broadcasting of free channels. Mr S.P. Goyal, a college lecturer, said:‘‘At present the cable operators are charging Rs 175 to Rs 250 per connection monthly from viewers. Now the government is asking the viewers to invest Rs 2,000 to Rs 8,000 for STB and even then pay up to Rs 400 per month to watch limited channels. It should ask the pay channels to share cost of STBs with the customers.’’ Mr Jagdeep Singh, a member of the Punjab Cable Operators Union, has admitted that a large number of operators are not disclosing the actual number of cable connections, but with CAS, the viewers will have to pay up to Rs 100 in addition if the STB were to be financed by the banks. A leader of the Cable Operators Association from Ludhiana disclosed that a delegation of the state BJP leaders would soon meet the Centre to press upon them to defer the decision and form a task force to study the whole issue before implementation.
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Coke new marketing chief
New York, June 5 Palumbo, who joins Coke from Eastman Kodak Co, replaces Stephen Jones who stepped down in March as Coca-Cola began reshaping its marketing structure under new President and Chief Operating Officer Steven Heyer. Atlanta-based Coke said Palumbo will oversee all aspects of the company’s marketing and brand building and will report to Heyer who took over his new position last December and who himself has a background in media and advertising.
Reuters
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Dabur’s fruit beverages next year
New Delhi, June 5 The company, which makes the Real brand of fruit juices and Hommade cooking pastes among other food products, says the launch of fruit-based beverages is part of its plan to expand product portfolio in the near future. "We see good potential for fruit-based beverages in India. The product will be basically targeted at teenagers," said Amit Burman, CEO of Dabur Foods Ltd. "Currently, we are conducting a market survey and the launch of the product should happen sometime next year. We may launch fruit-based beverages as an extension of the Real brand of fruit juices," Burman told a press conference here. The Real brand, which has become the company's flagship, currently claims over 55 percent share of the approximately Rs.800 million Indian fruit juices market. Burman said the company's fruit-based beverage brand would compete with cola or aerated soft drinks. "Our fruit-based, healthier beverage brand would compete with almost all existing soft drink brands in the market." Dabur Foods achieved a 30 percent sales growth, at Rs.700 million, in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2003. "We also broke even in the last fiscal year and posted a small operational profit. "We expect to achieve 30 per cent growth in sales in the current fiscal year also," Burman said.
IANS
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Music firms lose 60 per cent market to piracy Solan, June 5 Senior Director of T-Series music company, Mr Ved Chanana, has pegged the loss incurred by music companies at 60 per cent of the total market and assessed loss to the film industry at 70 per cent. Mr Chanana, who also heads the anti-piracy division at Noida, said the company had a regionwise team to check the menace of piracy which besides conducting raids also seek police assistance in nabbing the culprits. He lamented that the programmes broadcast on FM radio where complete songs were run had also led to a sizeable fall in cassette purchase from the market. The Assistant General Manager of T-Series at Baddi, Mr Surinder Kohli, said the availability of MP3s which cost as less as Rs 1,500 had made the task of cassette piracy easier. With a computer, fitted with a CD writer, one could easily manage to load songs from an original
cassette in a compressed form which could be produced in any number of cassettes. According to Mr Ghuman, Vice-President of Lucky Star music company, release of movies on Wednesday in Dubai and in other foreign countries had added to pirated cassette trade. He also expressed concern over the low turn up of people in cinema halls. Mr Vishal Anand, owner of a local cinema hall, said the presence of pirated cassettes in the market had given the viewer the choice of first viewing the movie at home and venturing for the cinema hall only when the movie was appealing. He said severe steps were required to curb piracy.
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Fiat starts sales, service drive
New Delhi, June 5 |
bb
PSB campaign Corpn Bank Spice ‘Quicky’ |
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