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Law on contract farming in Haryana on anvil Delay in basmati zone irks exporters
PNB adopts US norms, net rises |
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CII submits plan on labour law reforms
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Law on contract farming in Haryana on anvil Chandigarh, November 24 Devendra Singh said the Agriculture and Cooperation Departments had undertaken a joint exercise to make special provisions in the existing Agricultural Produce Marketing Act to protect the interests of the farmers and the companies, which were parties to contract farming, so that in the case of a dispute either party could have a speedy redressal of its grievance. Without special legal provisions, he said contract farming is covered under the Contract Law, under which a farmer would find it virtually impossible to get justice against a large company. He said a large number of companies had offered to join hands with farmers in the state for contract farming. It was felt the cultivation of medicinal plants had ample potential under contract farming because the global trade of medicinal plants was to the tune of multi-billion rupees. As compared to China, which controlled about 30 per cent of the medicinal plant trade, India's share in the market was meagre. Devendra Singh said in order to make available its quality products, like fertilisers, pesticides, certified seeds, cattle feed, poultry feed, basmati, non-basmati rice and refined edible oil at the doorstep of consumers, Hafed had decided to appoint its franchises in villages. He said the concern for quality had led to a record growth in Hafed's turnover to Rs 3,658 crore . He said Hafed would appoint its franchises in about 4,300 villages, which were not covered by mini banks for selling quality fertilisers and insecticides. This would also check the sale of spurious products to the farmers.
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Delay in basmati zone irks exporters Chandigarh, November 24 Haryana is the largest exporter of basmati among all states, with exports touching Rs 1000 crore. But the state government is reportedly delaying the announcement on the plea that an agricultural export zone will result in a financial loss of Rs 20 to Rs 30 crore annually to the state revenue without any ‘direct’ benefit to the economy. The basmati rice exporters claimed that had the state government declared the export zone, the state would have received a substantial investment by domestic and international investors in basmati processing mills and upgradation of existing units, besides an increase in extension services for farmers. With the increase, the basmati exporters and farmers would also get a better price for their yield in comparison to the normal rice. Further, they said, under a policy of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry policy agricultural export zones, the farmers, the exporters and other allied units would get substantial benefits in the form of subsidy for training institutes, technology upgradation, marketing of export products, besides easy finance and other facilities. Punjab, Uttaranchal and Utter Pradesh have already declared rice export zones to get these economic benefits. Sushil Jain, president, Haryana Rice Exporters Association, said a delegation of the association and the Agricultural Processing and Export Development Authority (APEDA) had met the Chief Minister in this connection last month. The Chief Minister, he said, had assured the delegation that he would consider the matter sympathetically, but no action had been taken in this regard. About 40 per cent of the area under rice plantation in the state was covered by basmati, mostly in Karnal, Kurukshetra and Kaithal districts, besides the Jind-Sonepat belt. With the declaration of the export zone, the exports would significantly increase, resulting in more jobs in the processing sector, better realisation of price for the farmers, and a subsequent rise in the state revenue through taxes on products purchased with earned foreign exchange. Insiders in the government claimed that the issue of the export zone was scheduled to be placed in the agenda of the Cabinet meeting held last week, but due to the absence of Agricultural Minister Jaswinder Singh Sandhu and the Director, Agricultural, the matter could not be discussed. Other officials reportedly failed to impress upon the Chief Minister that despite a loss in the state revenue because of exemption of 2 per cent market fee and 2 per cent rural development cess to the exporters, the state would get large benefits in the long run. B.D. Dhalia, Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister, said the matter was under consideration, but it was up to exporters to convince the Chief Minister how the state government and farmers would benefit from the export zone. Jain admitted that due to a bumper crop of basmati this year, the prices had fallen from between Rs 1700 and Rs 1800 per quintal to Rs 1200 and Rs 1300 per quintal. However, due to the higher yield, the farmers had benefited in a big way. Vijay Setia, a former vice-president of the All-India Rice Exporters Association, also called upon the state government to declare the basmati export zone immediately otherwise the exporters would lose international market to their counterparts in other neighbouring states.  |
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PNB adopts US norms, net rises
New Delhi, November 24 Restating its financial results as per US GAAP, PNB said its net profit was higher by 21.31 per cent when compared to Indian accounting standards, while networth improved by 45 per cent to Rs 5,896 crore during 2002-03. The equity improved despite the VRS expenses of Rs 226 crore and another Rs 37.33 crore provided for goodwill. “The bank’s restatement of its financial performance as per US GAAP is seen as an important move forward towards greater transparency and additional disclosures,” PNB said in a release. —
PTI |
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ISD, STD calls on Airtel to be dearer
New Delhi, November 24 The STD calls will also become costlier, Mr Mittal told newspersons after addressing a seminar on Indo-ASEAN at the World Economic Forum organised by the CII here. “The new ADC is forcing us to increase long distance call tariffs,” he said. While he refused to divulge the specific increase in the tariffs, Mr Mittal said the ISD rates will go up substantially. Imposition of a Rs 4.25 ADC on calls from cellular phones on international long distance and the payment of Rs 7 to international long distance carrier makes the current rates quite unviable, the Bharti group Chairman said. He said it would invest up to Rs 700 crore for setting up network and infrastructure in six new circles where it recently applied for unified access services licence. Meanwhile, Airtel has become the first GSM operator to cross the 5 million customer mark. Within just 100 days Airtel has added over 1 million customers’. This represents one of the
fastest growth rates in customer base in the world. — UNI, TNS |
| India’s resources not fully exploited, New Delhi, November 24 “Locked-up public sector assets need to be put to better use. There is also a need for better management of foreign exchange reserves, better utilisation of funds with banks, increased application of technology, regulatory strengths need to be exploited and human resources need improved application”, Mr Chidambaram said, speaking at a session of the India Economic Summit organised by the CII and the World Economic Forum (WEF) here. Raising several questions pertaining to the fundamentals of the economy, Mr Chidambaram asked why India was not becoming competitive despite having an edge of qualitative element vis-a-vis other nations. “But why is India unable to become more competitive over a wheeler perspective”, he asked. Chief Economist and Director, Global Competitiveness Programme, World Economic Forum, Mr Augusto Lopez-Carlos said it was necessary to understand why some countries grew on a sustained basis while others went into prolonged period of stagnation. As regards India, there has been universal recognition for the achievement in 1990s while there are many challenges that remain. The macro-economic situation in terms of large deficits is exacting an economic cost in terms of forgone growth. The problematic factors are inadequate infrastructure, bureaucracy labour issues and corruption. If reforms are sustained then by 2032 India’s GDP will be greater than that of Japan and by 2050 it will be next only to China and USA”, he said. |
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CII submits plan on labour law reforms Chandigarh, November 24 Expressing concern over the lagging industrialisation in Punjab, the Labour Laws Reforms Panel of the Punjab State Council of the CII has submitted a set of recommendations to the state government to make labour laws more responsive to the economic scenario, a CII release here said. The panel had recently presented its detailed recommendations for state policy with regard to labour laws to Punjab Labour Minister Jagjit Singh. —
UNI |
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Indian Hotels to raise $75 m ICICI Pru income UTI MF dividend JB Chemicals Aaj Tak awarded JCBL-BOP Loan rate cut IMAC keyboard New branch PNB function |
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Chandigarh, November 24
