B U S I N E S S

Quark to develop Mohali as
global base
Chandigarh, September 7
Quark has decided to develop Mohali as its global manufacturing base. The company, which employs more than 1,400 persons worldwide, has already shifted 80 per cent of its manufacturing activity to Mohali, says Mr Kamar Aulakh, newly appointed President of the company.

Silk board okays 6.76cr plan for HP
Shimla, September 7
The Central Silk Board has approved a Rs 6.76 crore plan for the development of sericulture in Himachal Pradesh.

TAX & YOU

Disability pension
Q: It is stated that disability pension i.e. disability element and service element is exempted from Income Tax vide M.O.F. Department of Revenue, CBDT communication. I am in need of a copy of this letter.

• LIC premium
• Standard deduction

Book profit in volatile scrips
The market is galloping during the fortnight. Last fortnight the Sensex closed at 4,369 points, which is a new high in the present phase of the bull market. When on any day there is a decline in the market it is more than made up on the next day.

Taiwan firm to set up plant in Himachal
New Delhi, September 7
Taiwanese travel bag and accessories company Eminent has announced its plans to set up a manufacturing base in Himachal Pradesh and start production from mid next year even as it entered into a 50:50 joint venture with Ricossa Marketing to further boost its marketing in the country.

• MG Rover ties up with Tata
• AirTel’s intelligent network in HP
• FM radio in microwave

Quark to develop Mohali as global base
Manoj Kumar
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 7
Quark has decided to develop Mohali as its global manufacturing base. The company, which employs more than 1,400 persons worldwide, has already shifted 80 per cent of its manufacturing activity to Mohali, says Mr Kamar Aulakh, newly appointed President of the company.

In an interview, he said, “We have decided to use our Mohali centre to develop and design all new software that will be supplied across the world. From 350 persons in January, 2002, we are now 1,000 with a fair share of talent and skills from all parts of the country. The plan is to provide employment to nearly 10,000 persons in the next few years in various ventures.”

Hailing from Aulakh village in Gurdaspur district in Punjab, he is a product of Punjab Engineering College (PEC) here. Remembering his school days in Shimla, he says with a sense of pride, “I went to Bishop Cotton School, which helped me develop strong foundation. After doing graduation in mechanical engineering from PEC in 1974, I went to the USA where I did Masters in Industrial Engineering at the University of Illinois and MBA from Indiana University.”

Before joining Quark about eight years ago, he had worked with some telecom and energy companies. Based in Switzerland, he visits India and Denver regularly. Excerpts from the interview:

Ques: How do you see your appointment as the President of Quark, considering that you are back in your city?

Ans: I am pleased to be the President of Quark, which has its largest research and development centre in Mohali, besides one in Denver, USA. When I graduated from PEC, I had never imagined that I will be back here in this capacity. I feel that the city is offering new opportunities to professionals.

Ques: It is said you influenced the decision of centering Quark Media House in Mohali as opposed to other IT cities in the South or even Delhi? What are the factors that went in favour of the city?

Ans: During 1996-97, the Singapore Government invited IT companies to invest there, but we found the shortage of skilled manpower there and observed that most of the engineers would come from India or China. So, along with the Chairman, Mr Fred Ibrahimi, a team from the company visited Bangalore, Noida, Gurgaon, Delhi and Hyderabad. Since I knew the city, I convinced him to visit Chandigarh as well. To my surprise, he was bowled over by the planned location and cosmopolitan lifestyle of the city and decided to opt for this location.

He located the centre in the North so that we can set ourselves apart from other companies and provide world-class opportunities to the North Indians who have been otherwise looking to travel abroad. It has worked well and within a short span we have successfully put it on the international map of information technology. It has helped attract other players to the city.

Ques: What kind of work is Quark doing in India? How has the Indian experience been?

Ans: I think ours is the only multi-national company (MNC) doing original software designing and development work in India in the IT sector. Most of the other companies are just doing offshore work for MNCs, or involved in support activities for foreign clients. I can proudly say that during the past five years, we have designed and developed software of Xpress, currently being used in 22 languages like Japanese, Chinese and Korean. India has offered us an excellent opportunity to work closely with domestic customers to obtain a better understanding of their business processes, publishing workflows, issues and trends. We are currently looking at several other Indian languages, including Urdu and Punjabi.

Ques: Is it hard to find top-class professionals in this part of the country?

Ans: Historically yes. But over the years, a number of good engineering colleges have come up in the region. We are also conducting campus recruitments and offering training to eligible candidates. Further, recruitment is made at the national level. We have found that professionals love to work in a conducive environment and the city beautiful.

Ques: What exactly do you envisage in Quark’s proposed IT park? Is the figure of generating one lakh IT jobs for Punjabis realistic? If so how?

Ans: The project details have still to be worked out. At present, I can just say that it will be a multi-locational mega project worth hundreds of crores. We plan to expand not only this centre, but also build up commercial and residential centres, besides world-class infrastructure that will be offered to other companies as well to set up hi-tech IT, bio-medicine and other non-polluting industries. I can assure that it will create a number of new job opportunities for professionals in the area.

Ques: Isn’t Quark stressing too much on Xpress? Is there anything else in the Quark’s stable that is comparable?

Ans: Oh yes! Most of the people are aware of QuarkXpress software, but we have also developed Quark Publishing Solution (QPS). It has proved a great success with the workgroups since it was shipped a decade ago. There are Indian publishing houses that are also using this software for streamlining their workflow. Further, we have recently launched Quark 6 version with additional features. The publishing software is now expanded into various East Asian languages like Japanese, Korean and Chinese. Further, we are working on entrepreneur and e-commerce software to be launched shortly.

Ques: Most book publishers in India are still using Page Maker. Do you have plans to train publishing professionals in Quark?

Ans: I agree that a large number of small book publishers are still using Page Maker, but they constitute a fraction of the total market. Otherwise, we are the undisputed market leader in professional pre-print software that is used by more than three million publishers all over the world.

I admit that our work group and enterprise-level solutions did not meet similar success but it is because we did not target the Indian market for these products. Now we are implementing a comprehensive marketing strategy, including special pricing for SAARC countries. With the increase in publishing work flow from western countries to India, we are hopeful that our industry solutions will get an additional boost.

Ques: What is the annual turnover and how is the company doing financially in the market?

Ans: I am not in a position to disclose the turnover figures. However, I can say that ours is an MNC with business interests throughout the Europe, the USA and East Asian markets.

In India, we are contributing about Rs 13-14 crore as tax to the local and state government apart from offering job opportunities to more than 1,000 professionals.

Silk board okays 6.76cr plan for HP
Tribune News Service

Shimla, September 7
The Central Silk Board has approved a Rs 6.76 crore plan for the development of sericulture in Himachal Pradesh.

The plan is part of catalytic development programme for improvement, generation of employment and overall development of sericulture industry in the state during the 10th plan. The state government will contribute Rs 85 lakh as its share to implement the scheme.

The farmers will be encouraged to take up sericulture as a vocation for sustainable livelihood for technology adoption, productivity improvement and development of other related activities. Under the project, 600 hectares will be brought under mulberry plantation and 4,700 families encouraged to rear silkworms. In all, 21 chawki silkworm-rearing centres will be set up to sustain the sericulture industry.

Efforts will be made to support oak-tassar sericulture and set up silk reeling and marketing facilities with the assistance of the board.

Sericulture is being promoted as a subsidiary occupation to augment the income of farmers from agriculture and, so far, some 7,000 sericulture families, spread over 1250 villages, produce 150 metric tonnes of silk cocoons.

At present, Bilaspur is the biggest producer of silk cocoons in the state with a share of 33.5 per cent, followed by Mandi at 33 per cent, Kangra 14.1 per cent and Hamirpur 10.8 per cent. 

TAX & YOU

by R.N. Lakhotia

Disability pension

Q: It is stated that disability pension i.e. disability element and service element is exempted from Income Tax vide M.O.F. Department of Revenue, CBDT communication. I am in need of a copy of this letter. Kindly provide me the copy.

— Amrik Singh, Doad, Phagwara

Ans: You may procure the copy of the CBDT communication by writing a letter to the Chairman, Central Board of Direct Taxes, North Block, New Delhi-1.

LIC premium

Q: I and my wife are both Punjab Government employees. My wife gives four LIC premiums every year. But she has the sufficient rebate with the GPF & Rs 5000 tax exemption for women facility. Now my question is whether I can get tax benefit on LIC premiums of my wife for 2003-2004.

— Gobind Rai, Ferozepore

Ans: If you make payment of the Life Insurance premium on the policy of your wife. You will be eligible to claim the tax rebate on your income-tax assessment. If, however, no premium is paid by you, then no rebate is permissible to you.

Standard deduction

Q: I am working as senior stenographer in the PSEB, Patiala. 1. My sister-in-law was appointed in the PSEB as LDC on compassionate grounds. She is drawing salary as well as family pension from it. While submitting income tax return to the PSEB, she has shown standard deduction in her gross salary as well as standard deduction at 33.5% in her family pension. But the drawing & disbursing authority of the PSEB has counted her salary and family pension as total income. On the total income (Salary+family pension) the drawing & disbursing authority of the PSEB has deducted the standard deduction. Kindly clarify this method of deduction of standard deduction of the drawing & disbursing authority of the PSEB is correct or not? LIC will issue me survival benefits i.e. amounting to Rs 18000/- against my money back LIC policy during April 2004. Kindly advise me can I show Rs 18000/- as income in my gross salary or not?

Now the Central Govt. during Budget session of 2003 has announced exemption on amount of Rs 12000/- on total income of an employee towards the expenses on study of per child. Kindly advise me that this exemption of Rs 12000/- is applicable on school going children or college going children. In this exemption, can I show school/college fees or books expenditure & other allied expenses like private tuition, related to study.

— Ramesh Kumar, Patiala

Ans: The standard deduction on salary income as well as family pension income has to be separately calculated. The family pension income is not to be shown under the head salary income but has to be shown as income from other sources. The amount received from LIC is exempt from income-tax u/s 10 (10D). In respect of expenses on education of the children the maximum amount on which you can get tax rebate is at the rate of Rs 12,000/- per annum per child.

The deduction is in respect of tuition fee excluding any payment towards any development fee or donation. This benefit will be available for school as well as college going children within India. However, the expenditure on books and other allied expenditure like private tuition, etc. will not be eligible for tax benefit. It may be noted that the benefit under Income-tax on account of children’s education expenses is available to the tax payer in terms of Section 88 of the Income-tax Act, 1961, whereby tax rebate is permissible on such expenditure.

MARKET UPDATE

by J.C. Anand

Book profit in volatile scrips

The Indian pharma companies, however, are not very happy about some aspects of the agreement for the generic duplicates of the patented drugs will require a different size and colour from that of the original patent drugs. This has been done to prevent misuse of the concession granted to these companies, so that these drugs are not misused and exported to countries other than the poor African countries. These drugs will not be saleable even in India and other countries which have manufactured these generic duplicates which are meant only for poor African countries.

ROUND-UP

Taiwan firm to set up plant in Himachal

New Delhi, September 7
Taiwanese travel bag and accessories company Eminent has announced its plans to set up a manufacturing base in Himachal Pradesh and start production from mid next year even as it entered into a 50:50 joint venture with Ricossa Marketing to further boost its marketing in the country.

“With changing trends in the travel luggage market and in view of the huge potential offered by the Indian market we decided to set up a manufacturing plant in Himachal Pradesh. The plant is likely to start production in another six months time and this would also be used as the outsourcing hub,” Vice President (Marketing) of Eminent Worldwide Roger Cheng said.

Eminent, which would soon release its public issue, chose Himachal Pradesh for its plant due to the tax sops offered by the state, Cheng said, adding that “investments may be of around $ 1 million which would soon be finalised with Ricossa”. — PTI

MG Rover ties up with Tata

LONDON: British car major MG Rover has entered to yet another tie-up with the Tatas to import pick-up trucks and Tata Safari vehicles for sale in Britain.

It will offer CityRover — a version of Tata Indica — for sale from November this year. MG Rover hopes to sell 2,000 Tata pick-up trucks and Tata Safari models a year.

Phoenix Venture Holdings, MG Rover's parent company, has created Phoenix Distribution to handle the new venture, which is seen as another lucrative string to the group's bow.

A new network of 50 dealers has been set up around the country, made up of MG Rover dealers and some existing Tata dealers. — IANS

AirTel’s intelligent network in HP

CHANDIGARH: AirTel has launched the high-tech intelligent network which will provide benefits like national roaming, automatic balance on screen, pre-activated STD/ISD, calling facility till the last rupee, voice mail and missed call manager.

For Punjab customers, Airtel has offered a plane ticket to Europe and a car, apart from many other prizes, through “Dial 646 for Europe” contest wherein any customer who dials 646 to get the latest news, ring tones, will automatically be entered into a lucky draw.

In the “AirTel Ek Sawaal” contest, a customer of Punjab will need to dial 650 and answer a simple question. If his answer is correct, he will be given a special number and entered into a lucky draw in which the first prize is a car. — TNS

FM radio in microwave

KOLKATA: Videocon International said today that it was planning forays into the microwave oven segment with a series of launches over the next few days apart from introducing seven new variants of CTV, washing machines and refrigerators to jack up sales and enlarge market share.

The microwaves will have built-in FM radio to attract housewives, who spend maximum time in their kitchen. The product was already test marketed in Mumbai and will be formally launched in Kolkata in the next 2-3 days. — PTI

BRIEFLY

Inflation dips
New Delhi, September 7
A whopping 10 per cent fall in the price of vegetables coupled with cheaper other food articles, edible oils and non-food items pushed down inflation to an all time low of 3.7 per cent this fiscal. — PTI

Intex in Jammu
New Delhi, September 7
Intex Technologies is entering PC business and plans to invest about Rs 10 crore in a greenfield integrated manufacturing facility in Jammu in the first phase. — PTI

FII net buyers
Mumbai, September 7
FIIs registered net purchases of Rs 1,231.4 crore in equities even as mutual funds behaved in contrast to net sales of Rs 136.35 crore during the trading week ended September 5. — PTI

LIC premium
Shimla, September 7
The Himachal Pradesh division of the LIC has topped in first premium income in the country during 2002-03, Mr K.S. Rana, Senior Divisional Manager, said. — TNS

Citizens Bank
Jammu, September 7
Citizens Cooperative Bank has been issued a licence to enter the insurance business by signing an MoU with the New India Assurance Company. — TNS

Maruti outlets
Yamunanagar, September 7
Maruti’s market share has increased in Haryana to 69 per cent. Mr Ravi G. Bhatia, GM, Maruti Udyog said here today. Two showrooms of Maruti Udyog will be opened in Kurukshetra and Kaithal soon. — OC

HMT AC tractor
Chandigarh, September 7
HMT Ltd has launched an air-conditioned tractor — HMT 6522 Chandi. Developed by HMT’s R&D centre the new tractor is powered by a fuel-efficient engine (65 HP). — TNS