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Lending rates to
slide after January 1 Reliance mobile
in HP by Dec-end BSNL net profit
drops Afghanistan eyes
1,000 cr import from Punjab
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More dry ports
likely in North Nicholas Piramal
inks pact with US firm SEBI may bring
changes in three regulations Graphic: Public
expenditure on education
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Lending rates to slide after January 1
New Delhi, December 9 Senior bankers like PNB chief S.S. Kohli and Corporation Bank Chairman K. Cherian Varghese, agreed with the RBI’s view and said the lending rates might come down by 0.25 per cent in the coming months also on account of the excess liquidity in the banking system. “Benchmarking is definitely necessary because we don’t want banks to give Sub-PLR rates to borrowers in some sectors and neglect other sectors,” Udeshi said on the sidelines of a conference on banking organised by the International Chamber of Commerce here. “As much as 50-60 per cent of sectors are not getting finance at Sub-PLR. That is definitely not what the RBI wants,” she said. When asked whether the average lending rates of banks would come down after the introduction of benchmark PLR, Udeshi said “yes, it will come down.” The new benchmark PLR would be pegged by each bank on the basis of various parameters like cost of funds, operational cost, NPA and profit margin. “Benchmark PLR will be introduced from January 1, and it will ensure that most of the lending of banks will be at that rate,” she added. The RBI Deputy Governor said benchmark PLR would ensure that there was transparency and borrowers would be able to know the basis on which the interest rate is charged to them. Udeshi said the benchmark PLR would not be applicable to loans taken by individuals, including housing and retail loans, as envisaged by the Indian Bank Association. “They (IBA) has excluded certain category of loans. Any lending to individuals will be excluded from the benchmark PLR,” she said. It would be up to bankers to decide on the rates on retail loans, she said, adding that “it can be below the benchmark PLR.” The banks would be forced to peg market related rates for retail loans as it would be difficult for them to compete and survive otherwise, she said. PNB Chairman said “I feel interest rates will be stable. It may go down by 0.25 per cent in certain sectors.” Top corporate borrowers were already borrowing at less than PLR and tapping the debt market to raise funds. So credit growth had not been much but the average yield on investment of banks had come down, he said. Corporation Bank Chairman said “the lending rates should stabilise with a possible tilt downwards by about 0.25 per cent. There will be no drastic reduction in rates.” On retail segment, he said “we don’t expect rate cuts in the consumer loan
segment.” — PTI
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Reliance mobile in HP by Dec-end Chandigarh, December 9 He said initially the services would be launched in Shimla and Solan, and later on extended to other towns of the state. He said: "Efforts will be made to increase the tele-density in the state to the level of
Punjab. There is a vast scope for expansion of mobile services in the state provided the telecom operators are able to cater to the needs of customers at an affordable
price. "Till now Airtel and BSNL were offering their mobile services in the state. Regarding the performance of the Chandigarh circle, the senior official said, the Reliance Infocomm had added 50,000 new customers in November alone, touching the customer base to 3.80 lakh. It included about 70,000 customers in Chandigarh and about 1lakh customers in Haryana. The company had not began its operations in the Jammu and Kashmir state so far. He admitted that initially the company had faced problem to deal with the heavy rush of customers and congestion on its network but under Monsoon scheme, Reliance had added over 2 lakh customers to its network. But by shifting the printing of telephone bills to Chandigarh and improving its services, the company was making efforts to address the problem of late delivery of bills and other complaints. Regarding the allegation that a large number of customers were being harassed by the company since a section of customers had given fake addresses to get handsets, he said, "These customers can register FIRs in such cases, and the company will provide every support." Asked about the outstanding amount of billing and number of defaulter, he declined to make any comment. The official claimed that the new services were being added to the network. There was a plan to show coming movies Munabhai M.B.B.S. and LOC on the Reliance network soon to all customers. The company was offering free Internet services till March, 2004, he added. The total capacity of the Chandigarh circle, was about 10 lakh connections, and efforts were made to extend the CDMA mobile services in more towns in the region. At present, the company had 50 web stores and 22 web worlds in the region where customers could deposit their bills and register their complaints, besides getting other services. |
BSNL net profit drops
New Delhi, December 9 The steep fall, despite a 5 per cent increase in the revenue, was due to a higher outgo of Rs 2,800 crore on salaries and wages, licence fee and spectrum charges and fuel expenses, BSNL CMD Prithpal Singh told reporters, while announcing the financial results of the company. The net profit is, however, expected to increase to Rs 3,000 crore in the current financial year, he said. The financial results were approved by the annual general meeting today. The company had a gross revenue of 25,892 crore, showing a 5 per cent increase. It had a total investment of Rs 12,108 crore for expansion of the telecom network.
— UNI
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| Afghanistan eyes 1,000 cr import from Punjab Amritsar, December 9 Talking to The Tribune here today on arrival of its twe-day tour of Punjab, the leader of the delegation felt that since Afghanistan was a land-locked country which required an extra benefit from India to reopen trade ties as both countries had been allies for the last many centuries. The 11- member delegation from Afghanistan sponsored by the CII interacted with representatives of tea traders, dry fruits and karyana traders here. The leader said more than Rs 1,000 crore worth of goods could be purchased from Punjab and they hoped to work out modalities for exploring more items. Mr Raziq said Afghanistan required all kind of products ranging from construction material to household items, including tea, medicines, grocery, spices, milk products, fibers yarns motorcycles machinery parts, utensils, etc. The country had been under the rebuild process after having remained under the shadow of wars for the last two decades, which had totally ravaged the country. Mr Raziq said although India could offer items at the highly competitive rates, but the land route was not open for Indian goods to pass through Pakistan had resulted in high freight charges which made the Indian items like tea spice, etc uneconomical. At present the imports from India are via the sea routes and the goods reached Afghanistan from Iranian port of Bandrabad. He urged the Indian business community to request its government to workout an arrangement for transit facilities to Pakistan as had been granted by later to allow Afghan dry fruits to reach India by road. However, the Centre had given customs duty concessions to Afghan exporters which had almost doubled the dry fruit rates from Rs 200 crore to Rs 350 crore this year. This was a healthy trend to help the beleaguered country. Later, the delegation visited Golden Temple. |
More dry ports likely in North New Delhi, December 9 Speaking at a meeting organised by the PHDCCI, Dr Thakur said the measure would help the SSIs to reduce cost of transportation and improve speed. The government was also considering to have dedicated rail corridors for faster movement of goods from land-locked areas to the ports, he added. The government was initiating new measures to facilitate credit disbursement by banks to small scale enterprises by involving the regional level officials in the whole process and to make them accountable for the total credit given to the small units. The government was also in the process of setting up a nodal agency for marketing of products developed by the small-scale sector in the international market, Dr Thakur said. |
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Nicholas Piramal inks pact with US firm
New Delhi, December 9 “We will supply form fill and seal solution products to AMO for 60 countries which is expected to bring in revenue to the tune of $25 million per annum,” Ajay Piramal, Chairman, Nicholas Piramal, told reporters here. He said, the agreement would have to be renewed after five years and added that the supply of products as per the agreement would begin in early 2005. The company had invested about Rs 40 crore in its Pithampur facility to upgrade it to meet the requirements for AMO. The company was also talking to some other multinational companies for similar tie-ups and would be announcing one more such agreement before the end of this financial year, he said. After focussing on the domestic market for a long time, Nicholas had now decided to look at the export market for growth and would look at partnering with companies across for the complete lifecycle of the product, he said. Upbeat about exports, Piramal said the company was expecting about Rs 100 crore as export sales this fiscal which was expected to double in 2005. AMO is an Allergen offshoot which was spun off as a separate company in 2002. Nicholas already has a tie-up with Allergen for manufacture and distribution of its products in India and South East Asia. On the company’s agreement with Roche, Piramal said Nicholas was still working with the company in the area of diagnostics which included products like glucometers and was distributing some of their biotech products. In biotechnology, he said the company would follow the strategy of developing products inhouse as well acquiring it while working in
partnerships. — PTI |
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SEBI may bring changes in three regulations
Kolkata, December 9 Bajpai also indicated bringing in relaxation for reduction in cost of compliance of norms by small companies. “We are the one who is ready to look at any suggestions. We will look at changes in any of the regulations so long it is going to benefit the market,” Bajpai said here, addressing members of the Indian Chamber of Commerce, Kolkata. It was in the interest of everybody, including intermediaries, companies, investors and the nation as a whole that securities market functioned efficiently and SEBI would do everything possible to bring in that efficiency and would not bother to change regulations. Bajpai said he had an open mind and was willing to look at changes in regulations. The only thing was there should be a balance and it should benefit both investors and companies.
— PTI |
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