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5 bankers
selected for ONGC, GAIL Economy grows by
8.4 pc Interconnect
charges now from Feb 1
Central Bank
rates on farm, SSI loans cut
Fiscal deficit
rises to Rs 93,656 cr
Glaxo sues Dr
Reddy’s Lab |
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BoP offers
digital sign facility FLASHBACK ’03
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5 bankers selected for ONGC, GAIL
New Delhi, December 31 In what is termed as a “blockbuster deal” by officials associated with the disinvestment process, the government signed on a consortium of DSP Merill Lynch, Uday Kotak and J.M. Morgan Stanley, appointing them as book-runners for the ONGC issue. HSBC along with ICICI Securities were mandated for the Gail offering, top officials of the Disinvestment Ministry said here. While the ONGC mandate went for an all-time low of 0.075 per cent of transaction value, book-runners for Gail deal would get 0.145-0.150 per cent. The all-time aggressive bidding was described as being driven by “demand anticipation” with people expected to snap up these scrips, officials associated with the disinvestment process said. Last week the Cabinet Committee on Disinvestment gave its approval to offloading 10 per cent equity each in the two oil companies in a bid to push the disinvestment process forward following the setback received from the Supreme Court’s halting the sale of HPCL and BPCL. HSBC-ICICI Securities consortium for Gail was selected from a shortlist of six merchant bankers, including Kotak, DSP and Morgan Stanley, while the ONGC book-runners were choosen from five. The appointment of the advisers was finalised in record time after the government decided to cut short the usual procedure for appointment of advisors by inviting only a limited number of players. Only those merchant bankers were invited, who had either been shortlisted or selected in last four privatisation cases. The government is expected to complete the public offering before the end of the current financial year and has kept its options open on going for an ADR issue depending on whether the domestic market was in a position to absorb the issues. To put the disinvestment of the two oil companies on fast track, the government has also constituted a group of ministers comprising Law, Finance, Petroleum and Disinvestment Ministers to take day to day decisions. Till November, the government had raised Rs 1,336 crore from disinvestment against a target of Rs 13,200 crore budgeted for the current fiscal.
— PTI
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Economy grows by 8.4 pc
New Delhi, December 31 Not to be left behind, the services sector led by trade, hotels, transport and communication chipped in significantly with over 7 per cent growth to push up GDP, data for which was released by the government here today. The combined effect of the three important components — agriculture with 4.1 per cent, manufacturing 6.8 per cent and service — led to an overall 7 per cent growth in GDP during April-September, 2003-04, amid predictions of further improvement in the economy. It is for the first time in almost a decade that economy grew by over 8 per cent to break the psychological barrier to give confidence of attaining the 10th Plan target of 8 per cent annualised growth. The high growth comes amid booming stock markets and burgeoning foreign exchange reserves, which have crossed $ 100 billion mark, and high inflow of foreign capital both direct and portfolio investments. Comparatively, the economy had posted 5.2 per cent growth during April-September last year, giving rise to speculation that the 10th Plan target would again prove evasive. The “feel good”
factor was cited as one of the major reasons by Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani while favouring early elections to the Lok Sabha. The GDP was estimated at Rs 3,23,414 crore measured in terms of factor costs at 1993-94 prices, which is more than 8 per cent from Rs 2,98,345 crore during the second quarter of last fiscal. A robust monsoon resulted in a hefty 7.4 per cent growth in the agriculture sector during the second quarter of this fiscal compared to a 3.5 per cent decline in farm output during the year-ago period. Agriculture, which was growing by a meagre 1.7 per cent in the first quarter, pushed up the overall GDP growth during the second quarter of 2003-04. The manufacturing sector also staged a steady 7.3 per cent growth during July-September, 2003, compared to 6.4 per cent in the previous quarter and 6.5 per cent a year ago. Trade, hotels, transport and communication sector staged the highest 11.9 per cent growth during the quarter ending September 30.
— PTI
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Interconnect charges now from Feb 1
New Delhi, December 31 TRAI has also decided that IUC charges (payable among operators) for mobile services, which turn fully mobile, will be the same as specified for cellular mobile service. Although the move is likely, prima facie, to have some impact on the margins of WLL operators, TRAI said today’s announcement should not impact tariffs on account of competition. “Enough margins are there for tariffs not to be affected,” a TRAI official said. “TRAI has decided that identical IUC charges will apply for both CDMA and GSM full mobility services irrespective of point of interconnection from February 1, 2004, because the changeover of level of interconnection may take a longer time than the implementation of number changes,” a TRAI statement said. Accordingly, all fully mobile cellular services using any technology are to be treated at par in connection with numbering scheme, and in terms and conditions of interconnections including charges and level of interconnection, TRAI said.
New Reliance, Airtel numbers
All cellphones, including those of Reliance and Tata Televentures, will have 10 digits from February 1. Nine will be the first digit of all cell numbers, irrespective of GSM or CDMA, while the second digit will help identify the cellular company. The first two digits are likely to be 92 for the users of Airtel, 93 of Reliance and 97 for Tata. “We will announce the new numbering scheme once the Department of Telecommunication (DoT) finalises the next three numbers” of the 10 digit, DoT Secretary Vinodh Vaish said today.
— PTI, UNI
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Central Bank rates on farm, SSI loans cut
New Delhi, December 31 All loans that are linked to BPLR will be reduced by 0.5 per cent from tomorrow, the bank said in a statement here. Agriculture advances up to Rs 50,000 will attract only 8.5 per cent interest, while for loans of Rs 50,000-100,000 it will be 9 per cent and for loans of over Rs 1,00,000, the interest will be charged at BPLR of 11 per cent. The bank also slashed its interest rates for the small scale industries to 8.75 per cent for advances up to Rs 50,000, 9 per cent for Rs 50,000-100,000 and 11 per cent for over Rs 1,00,000. The bank decided to give 0.5 per cent higher interest to senior citizens of over 70 years, resulting in an overall benefit of 1 per cent over the nominal interest rate.
Allahabad Bank
KOLKATA: Allahabad Bank today pegged its benchmark prime lending rate at 11 per cent, which is 0.50 per cent lower than its earlier PLR. The bank also reduced rates for domestic term deposits having a maturity tenure exceeding two years by 25 basis points. The cut in PLR will bring down the bank’s home loan interest rates at levels of 7.25 per cent, 7.75 per cent and 8.25 per cent for floating rates to five years, 5-15 years and above 15 years for both existing and new customers.
— PTI
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Fiscal deficit rises to Rs 93,656 cr
New Delhi, December 31 The deficit till November, which works out to 3.4 per cent of GDP, was marginally higher than Rs 85,978 crore till October. According to figures released by the Controller General of Accounts, expenditure surged to Rs 2,80,051 crore while receipts were at Rs 1,86,395 crore. Tax revenue amounted to Rs 90,010 crore till November, which works out to be 48.9 per cent of the budget estimate of Rs 1,84,169 crore.
External debt at $112.54 billion
India’s external debt mounted to 112.54 billion dollar in the first half of the financial year 2003-04, even as debt-GDP ratio fell to 20.3 per cent from as high as nearly 31 per cent in the corresponding period of the previous year.
— PTI
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New Delhi, December 31 The drugmaker filed an Abbreviated New Drug Application for Sumatriptan Succinate oral tablets, equivalent to 25 mg, 50 mg and 100 mg base, with a Paragraph IV certification on four of the five Orange Book patents listed for the drug. DRL said it notified GlaxoSmithKline, upon which the latter filed a lawsuit against the company in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York alleging patent infringement on the ‘845 patent. Meanwhile, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Plc has sued Dr Reddy’s to stop it from making a generic version of the popular migraine drug Imitrex before Glaxo’s patent expires. GSK’s patent for Imitrex, which has annual sales of approximately $ 773 million in the US market, expires on August 6 in 2008. Besides seeking a court order halting any approval of the application before the patent’s expiration date, Glaxo’s suit also seeks unspecified damages.
— UNI
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BoP offers digital sign facility Chandigarh, December 31 "Digitial signatures will go a long way in strengthening security for e-Commerce on the Internet and consequently boosting business transaction on the Internet," said Mr Tejbir Singh, Executive
Director of Bank of Punjab, after signing the agreement. Under the IT Act, 2000, the digitial signatures could be issued by a licensing certifying authority which uses asymmetric cryptography system for formation of those signatures. Only such signatures would be valid which are issued by the authority.
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FLASHBACK ’03 Chandigarh, December 31 According to the Department of Industry, the efforts of the state government and the conducive environment have attracted over Rs 3,000 crore worth FDI during the past four years, including about Rs 400 crore during the current
year contrary to the claim of the state Chief Minister and his team that the state has attracted FDI projects worth over Rs 10,000 crore. During the past one year, the industrial units spread over around National Capital Region—Gurgaon, Rewari, Sirsa and Faridabad districts— have become major export centres. The total exports from the state are all set to increase from about Rs 10,000 crore in 2002-03 to over Rs 12,000 crore by the end of current financial year. The state has become the producer of the largest number of passenger cars, motorcycles, tractors, sanitary wares and scientific
instruments. Gurgaon has already been recognised as a major hub for the IT and IT-enabled services at the international level. The credit offtake between September, 2002, to September, 2003, has registered an annual growth of about 25 per cent crossing Rs 12,000 crore mark. The tax collections have also registered a growth rate of around 15 per cent this year. According to the Department of Planning, the state economy is likely to register a growth rate of over 8 per cent this financial year as against about 5 per cent growth achieved last year. The power reforms, petro-refinery project at Panipat, cut in Local Area Development Tax from 4 per cent to 2 per cent, market fee from 2 per cent to 1 per cent, simplification of rules for the industrial sector, shifting of a large number of SSI units from Delhi to the state and improvement in infrastructure facilities have given a fillip to the state economy. Interestingly, the state has generated over 2 lakh jobs during the past four years. But due to social conditions and lack of adequate reforms in the education sector, the youth from the state have failed to get these jobs. According to government statistics, the number of the educated unemployed youth has crossed 10-lakh mark. There are virtually no jobs for thousands of graduates and post graduates. The shrinking job opportunities in the organised private and government sector have aggravated the situation. Experts lament that the state government has done little to increase employment opportunities for the state youth. They said it should have invested in the irrigation projects and food processing industry and created more jobs. The state needs to invest to modernise technical institutions to prepare skilled manpower for new units. Good monsoon this year may have given a temporary relief to the rural sector, but farmers lament that fall in water table in the state, especially in Bhiwani, Mahendergarh, Rohtak, Jhajjar and Gurgaon, and inadequate power supply have put constraints on the growth prospects. The PHDCCI, the CII and the Haryana Chamber of Commerce and Industry claim that the state government has not taken adequate steps to improve power supply and to slash the high tariff rates, resulting in bad impact on the state economy.
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