 |
|
Barclays package
for job losers Goa to be first
‘developed state’ SC upholds CBI
probe in Pendse case |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
As President of the Indian Society of Agricultural Economists, Dr S. S. Johl will focus on three major areas of concern, find solutions to problems that beset small farmers, work out specific policies to improve rural economy and tackle depleting water resources. 4 Haryana cities
to have shopping malls Tax collection
rises 16 pc in Haryana Centre for IT
export units for Gurgaon Cell users’
base grows to 70 m
|
|
Barclays package for job losers London, January 6 The package, agreed with finance trade union UNIFI, includes:
Barclays also said it could move another 250 more jobs to Mumbai and Chennai in addition to the 250 that it relocated last year. It is to switch 130 positions from its trade finance operations in London, with the remainder of the site's 280 staff transferring to Birmingham and Manchester. Barclays is also considering moving 120 of the 350 staff from its sales finance operation in Hastings, East Sussex. The union's lead negotiator Keith Brookes said: "UNIFI has recognised Barclays' need to reshape the business and the bank has recognised the union's need to protect the employability and job security of its members." Both sides recognise more jobs will inevitably go overseas where labour is cheaper. UNIFI estimates 40,000 jobs in the banking sector are being shipped abroad, with tens of thousands more to come. Brookes estimates Barclays could eventually shift up to 6,000 jobs overseas. He says: "It's a very unfortunate trend but in the real world that's the way of the market." The union praised the Barclays agreement as a first, saying it was "humane". Approved by Barclays chief executive Matt Barrett, the deal will put pressure on rivals HSBC and Lloyds TSB to follow suit. Barclays, with 59,000 British staff, including 9,500 in call centres, admits it is likely to move more posts abroad this year, but says "big numbers" are not in the pipeline. So far the bank has created 500 back-office posts in India, causing 250 UK posts to disappear. However, redeployment meant there were only 40 redundancies. Staff who are going to lose their jobs will get three months' additional notice on top of the existing agreement to give three months' paid leave when they are formally made redundant. Nigel Fretwell, Barclays employee relations director, said: "If globalisation is an inevitability we cannot and should not ignore the responsibilities that are attached. This agreement gives us a solid framework to sensitively manage that change over the next few years, to keep job losses to a minimum and improve staff employability." Ed Sweeney, UNIFI's general secretary, said: "All across the service sector we are seeing possible and actual job migration to areas where labour is significantly cheaper. Many companies are jumping on the bandwagon; others have made rational strategic decisions. "A positive agreement is the only constructive way forward and will set a measure against which other companies looking to outsource from the finance sector will have to be
tested."— IANS
|
|
Goa to be first ‘developed state’
Chandigarh, January 6 Talking to TNS, Dr N.P. S.Varde, Director and Secretary, Department of Science and Technology, Goa, disclosed that the state would soon become the first developed state. He was in the city to participate in the Indian Science Congress. Instead of offering any financial sops, it is making efforts to attract investors by developing the infrastructure. The 11th Finance Commission has declared Goa as the best place in the country in terms of infrastructure and the National Commission on Population has found it the best state in terms of 12 quality of life indicators. Crisil has also rated it the second fastest growing state in the country. Dr Varde disclosed that the tourism and industrial sectors were playing major role in the economy of the state. For instance, he said, " During 2003, 15.96 lakh tourists, including 2.71 lakh foreign tourists, visited the state, as against its total population of about 13.5 lakh. The state is aiming the attract over 25 lakh tourists by 2005. During the current fiscal year, 13.71 lakh tourists had visited the state by September 30, 2003. " Regarding the achievements in social sector, Goa was the first state to implement Uniform Civil Code and had achieved 100 per cent registration of birth and death records. The poverty ratio had declined to just 4.4 per cent, 1.35 per cent in rural and 7.52 per cent in urban areas. As per the Census, 2001, the literacy rate had also reached 82.30 per cent, 88.88 per cent for males and 75.51 per cent for females. The official claimed that the state had earned foreign exchange worth Rs 939.94 crore from export of iron ore, exports, and over Rs 1,500 crore from tourism last year. It was now aiming over 10 per cent growth in the manufacturing and tourism sectors, the major contributors to the state income. The share of agriculture sector in the state's
GDP has come down to just 4 per cent, as against 35 per cent of secondary and 51 per cent share of tertiary sector. Most of the corporate houses like the Tatas, Kodak, the Zuari group and Reliance had already decided to invest in the state, he added.
|
|
SC upholds CBI probe in Pendse case New Delhi, January 6 The high court, in its order on October 17 last year, had passed strictures against Bhujbal for allegedly interfering in the investigation to benefit the Tata officials. A Bench, comprising Chief Justice V N Khare and Mr Justice H S Kapadia, said investigation by the CBI in financial matter like this would be the appropriate course and there was nothing wrong in the high court order so far as the transferring the case to the agency was concerned. The court, however, accepted the plea of Bhujbal and the Maharashtra Government for deleting the high court’s adverse observations. The strictures were passed by the high court while disposing of a petition by the complainant, who had filed case against the Tata Finance officials, alleging that at least two telephone calls were made from Bhujbal’s office to the investigating officers of state Crime Branch. The Maharashtra Government had moved the Supreme Court to challenge the court order transferring the case to the CBI.
|
|
Frame policies to improve rural economy, says Johl Chandigarh, January 6 Dr Johl is the first President of this prestigious body from North India. Talking to The Tribune, Dr Johl said today future of small farmers was grim, as their incomes and resources were low in. This large segment lacked resources to increase production or shift to some other vocation. Survival of these farmers was as difficult as sustaining agriculture in a highly competitive. High cost of cultivation and low returns was forcing small farmers' families out from villages to cities in search of better income avenues. Dr Johl said this required to train agricultural economists in preparing policy documents based on reliable field data and ground realities. '' For this, we will organise workshops in different parts of the country and re-orient the research concepts. This will help to overcome reform fatigue and find right path for economic emancipation of small farmers, who are the backbone of the Indian agriculture''. The other area of concern was scarcity of water in several parts of India. For this, farmers have to be educated about rational use of water for different crops. Depleting water-table was resulting in desert-like conditions in many states, including Punjab and Haryana, where the green revolution first struck roots. Dr Johl is credited with the report on crop diversification. Were its recommendations accepted by the NDA-government, it would have resuscitated agriculture by breaking wheat-paddy cycle, saved exploitation of ever-depleting sub-soil water and given better incomes to small farmers. Nevertheless, Punjab opted for ''contract'' farming system, the other alternative to diversification. Recently, this system was evaluated by PAU. Its findings were submitted to the Chief Minister. For sustainable contract farming, Dr Johl has suggested that government agencies should get involved directly in procurement but act only as facilitators; contracting agencies must have financial stakes; extension services and seeds should be free and cost should be deducted from the proceeds of the produce purchased by agencies.
|
|
4 Haryana cities to have shopping malls Panchkula, January 6 Sources said here today that the decision to auction the sites had been taken with a view to bringing the "metropolitan culture" to the state. The shopping malls would give a boost to the economic activity in the state as the MNCs and other big corporations would pump in money to set up the malls. The state-of the-art malls would have commercial showrooms, health clubs, call centres and retail shops. While the development of sites would be governed by the HUDA (Erection of Buildings), Regulations,1979, the allottees would be free to design the interiors so as to maximise the land use. And to tackle the parking problem, a three-tier parking is planned for all shopping malls. It is for the first time that HUDA planned to auction sites for malls in Haryana. In fact, Gurgaon is the only place in Haryana where the malls had been set up the private colonisers. While the auction for the two shopping malls at Panchkula in Sector 5 is slated for January 20, the other sites would be put under the hammer later. In fact, two of the malls in Gurgaon are of bigger size--4 acres each — an official highlighted adding that multiplexes would not be allowed at these malls. Regarding the need for such malls at these places, the officials said Panchkula was emerging as a major industrial and residential centre and the people from all walks from higher income group preferred to settle
here. Kurukshetra has been declared a major religious centre by the Central Government and a five star had also been planned there to give boost to tourism. Faridabad and Gurgaon were major industrial centres having large population. In fact, Gurgaon is a major IT giant having shopping malls established by private builders, the source added.
|
|
Tax collection rises 16 pc in Haryana Chandigarh, December 6 A highly placed state government official said the consolidated tax collection up to December went up to Rs 2,927 crore as against Rs 2,526 crore during the corresponding period last year. Importantly, the growth was obtained despite the fact that tax rates were not increased in the state. Taxes on commodities such as soft drinks, tyres and tubes, mobile phones, hand pumps, rectified spirit were actually reduced due to the implementation of the uniform floor rates system. The rates of Local Area Development Tax (LADT) was brought down to 2 per cent on items which were earlier taxed for 4 per cent. There were also other hurdles like closure of mines in the area around Delhi due to a Supreme Court order and consequent disappearance of tax collected from mines and minerals. Wheat, affected by last years drought, also yielded little revenue. The combined loss from mining and wheat had been worked out to be somewhere around Rs 150 crore by the government.
|
|
Centre
for IT export units for Gurgaon
Chandigarh, January 6 An official spokesman said here today that the centre would be set up over six acre and have world class facilities like ready-to-move built-up space, business centre and conference room, high-speed data communication, video and teleconference, e-mail and other state-of-the-art communication services. This complex, he said, would crystalise large investment in computer software industry and result in germination of more and more medium and large software companies. Hartron,
he said, had already set up three modern research and development
facilities in Ambala and Gurgaon. These centres had recently been
awarded the ISO-9001 certification for providing facilities design and
development, test, calibration and certification, production aids and
facilities.
— UNI
|
|
Cell users’ base grows to 70 m New Delhi, January 6 According to TRAI, the teledensity today stands at 7 per 100 — a target achieved 15 months ahead of schedule. The subscriber base for mobile services continued to maintain its growth throughout 2003 and during the year 17.5 million mobile subscribers were added bringing the total subscibers to 28.20 million against 42 million fixed lines.
|
bb
Gold at Rs 6,400 Spice scheme J&K Cement Leyland sales Uco Bank loans Philips price PC sales IBM bags order |
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Mailbag | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | National Capital | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
