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Bharti Tele
profit soars A man talks on a mobile phone near a hoarding promoting mobile telephones in New Delhi. Bharti Tele-Ventures said on Tuesday it planned to spend an extra $50 million to meet strong demand. Merrill Lynch
predicts 8 pc GDP growth Next Annual Plan
to be redrafted UTI Bank net
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The Punjab Government will launch Sukhmani e-Web Sewa by month-end to offer citizen services through IT network at all district headquarters. Banks slash food
credit rate for FCI The consortium of banks has decided to reduce the interest rate applicable to food credit to 1.5 per cent below the present applicable rate. Graphics:
Cadila, Ind-Swift profits
jump Ind-Swift Lab Jindal Iron & Steel Blue Star Info Visitors gathered near
Mercedes Benz SL Class Roadster on display at the Auto Expo 2004 in New Delhi on
Tuesday. — PTI
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Bharti Tele profit soars
New Delhi, January 20 Bharti Tele-Ventures said its net profit in the quarter ended December 31, 2003, touched Rs.161 crore, as compared to a loss of Rs.7 crore logged in the same period previous year, according to a company statement. The company's total revenue in the October-December period jumped a robust 50 per cent to Rs.12.69 billion, added the statement. In the October-December quarter of fiscal year 2002-03, its revenue touched Rs.8.47 billion. "Bharti Tele-Ventures' performance during the quarter has once again demonstrated its ability to deliver financial performance on sustainable basis," said Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman and group managing director of Bharti Tele-Ventures. "It has also strengthened its resolve to provide the full benefit of scale and size, translating into superior range of telecom services to all our customers," he added. The company, which offers mobile, fixed-line, domestic long-distance and overseas telephone services, said it had a 25 percent market share in the country's booming cellular services market by the end of December 31, 2003. Bharti added nearly one million customers during the October-December quarter, becoming the first private mobile operator in the country to cross the five-million-subscriber mark, said the company statement. Mobile services constitute the largest portion of Bharti's business, both in terms of total revenues and total customers. The company offers mobile phone services in 15 out of 23 telecom circles in India. As on December 31, 2003, the company has made a gross investment of over Rs.117.50 billion in building a telecom network in India, said the statement. "The company seeks to capitalise on the growth opportunities that it believes are available in the Indian market and consolidate its position to be an integrated telecommunications service provider, with a focus on mobile services," it added.
— IANS
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Merrill Lynch predicts 8 pc GDP growth
Mumbai, January 20 Turnaround in the investment cycle, sustained buoyancy in consumption demand and supportive macro level factors would drive high growth in the GDP. “We have revised estimates for current fiscal to 8 per cent”, DSP ML second vice-president (research) Rajeev Varma told reporters here today. The strong momentum in services and exceptionally good monsoon in the FY-04 would feed into a higher industrial growth in 2004-05 with rise in GDP expected to be 7.3 per cent, he said. The sharp rise in infrastructure investment of $76 billion in the sectors including power accounting for 25 per cent share would be supported by improvement in the regulatory environment.
— PTI
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Cotton prices head north Bathinda, January 20 The prices of Narma variety of cotton have been ranging between Rs 2,760 and Rs 2,825 per quintal. As the demand for cotton from Mumbai and South-based
textile mills and traders increases, the prices may go up further. Information gathered by TNS revealed that for the first time in the past eight years, Narma and Desi variety opened at high rates in the beginning of the season. The Narma variety opened at Rs 2,500 per quintal and the Desi variety at Rs 1900 per quintal. Last year, the opening price of Narma and the desi variety was Rs 2,000 per quintal. During this season, traders also expected a significantly higher production of cotton than, last year. The prices kept fluctuating between Rs 2,400 and 2,500 per quintal through-out the major part of season and started going up in the past 15 days, touching the highest ever of Rs 2,825 today at the fag end of season, which formally comes to an end on March 31, 2004. Traders revealed that the main reason behind this unprecedented hike in the prices of the Narma variety was that some international buyers were purchasing large quantities of processed and raw cotton from Indian markets and exporting these to other cotton-producing countries where the yield had been significantly low this season. Kapilash Chand Garg, a former president of the Northern India Cotton Association (NICA), send apart from presence of international buyers, cotton being produced in Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan had started gaining acceptability in international markets due to a significant improvement in its quality. He added that if the authorities concerned allowed the cultivation of BT cotton, the crop produced in this region could fetch better prices. Information gathered by TNS revealed that so far 21 lakh bales of cotton had arrived in the north India, comprising Punjab, Haryana and Sriganganagar circles of Rajasthan. Total production of cotton in this region was expected to be around more than 25 lakh bales against the production of 18 lakh bales last year.
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Next Annual Plan to be redrafted Chandigarh, January 20 The Plan will now be re-drafted after a committee constituted under Dr S. S. Johl, Vice-Chairman of the board, submits its report by February-end. It has been entrusted to make specific recommendations to boost revenue income. These will be placed before the Council of Ministers. The onus of implementation of these will rest with the council, as recommendations will be ''realistic, practical, implementable and achievable'', assured Dr Johl, said sources. The members of the committee are, administrative secretaries of revenue, transport, finance, local government, excise and taxation and Dr G.S.
Kalkat, a former Vice-Chancellor of the PAU, Ludhiana. The members said the Annual Plan had to be ''realistic''. Since Punjab was getting deeper into a debt trap, if appropriate corrective steps were further delayed to check this piquant situation, the state could head for financial emergency. The Finance Minister informed the meeting that the state had a debt burden of Rs 52,000 crore and every day it required Rs 10 crore to repay interest alone. Broadly, sources said, the committee would focus on tax evasion, rationalisation of tax structure. At present Punjab's collection from sales tax was half of what Haryana collected. The meeting as informed that though, the Annual Plan, 2003-04, pegged at Rs 3,200 crore, was slashed down to Rs 2,822 crore, yet there were constraints in releasing funds. Even when funds were sanctioned and released by the Department of Finance, these invariably got stuck in the treasuries. A mid-term appraisal of the Plan has revealed that the utilisation percentage of the Plan funds was only about 21 per cent. This percentage would come down to a mere 13, if own funds generated and used by the state electricity board, Rs 305 crore, infrastructure development board, Rs 72 crore and rural development fund, Rs 30 crore, were subtracted. Thus, the department informed the board that only Rs 400 crore might be available for the Plan schemes for the next three months, January to March. And that too subject to market borrowings of Rs 200 crore. Therefore, only priority items were proposed to be get constant financial releases, amounting to about Rs 370 crore in the next three months. These priority items included salaries and expenditure on establishment, enhancement of compensation of land, etc. ordered by courts, pensions or social security, Prime Minister's gramodaya yojna, one-time central assistance as advised by the Planning Commission, funds available on the recommendation of the finance commission, national social assistance programme, Nabard, etc.
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UTI Bank net rises 45 pc
Mumbai, January 20 Informing the BSE, the bank said its total income has increased from Rs 485.62 crore in the December quarter of 2002 to Rs 528.10 crore in the quarter ended December 31, 2003. Meanwhile, the Board of Directors of UTI Bank today made the allotment of subordinated debt — unsecured redeemable non-convertible debentures — on private placement basis aggregating to Rs 50 crore as the bank’s tier-II capital.
Leave plan by Syndicate Bank
Syndicate Bank today announced that it would offer an innovative voluntary scheme of special leave for employees for two to four years and also planned to raise tier-II capital of Rs 100 crore with a greenshoe option of Rs 25 crore. The bank’s CMD Michael Bastian told reporters after a Board of Directors meeting that the special leave scheme would be implemented from next month, under which employees who opted for it would be paid 25 per cent of their gross salary. And if they distributed insurance products, they would get incentives as applicable. The voluntary scheme, with the bank having the final say in approval, was targeted at those who could not go on transfer and had domestic and mobility problems, he indicated. Syndicate Bank has posted a net profit of Rs 89 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2003, compared to Rs 100.40-crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2002, a dip of 11.35 per cent.
— Agencies
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e-web service in Punjab soon Chandigarh, January 20 He was speaking at the regional workshop on ‘ “Strategies for development of small and medium enterprises.” The workshop was organised by the National Productivity Council, Department of Industries, Punjab, Haryana and SIDBI. He said after the success of Sukhmani Web service that was launched in Fatehgarh Sahib, Sangrur and Kapurthala districts last year, the state government had decided to extend e-governance services to all districts. Efforts were being made to launch the project on January 26. Mr Kalsi claimed that the state government would invest Rs 3 crore to boost e-governance services. Though Punjab had lagged behind in the IT sector, yet the state was all set to catch up with Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka in offering e-governance services at the grassroot level. He said,” Under the Sukhmani e-Web Sewa, standardised forms of all departments like transport, local bodies, excise and taxation, rural and panchayat development and department of women, child development and social security will be available on the Net at the district level. The DCs will ensure that the citizens are able to get required certificates, licences and information within specified time period.” After setting up infrastructure at the district level, it would be linked with the department heads at Chandigarh, he said, “The state government will issue licences to the educated unemployed youth to set up IT kiosks at block headquarters. They will have to invest about Rs 50,000 each to set up a computer, a printer and the network with the district headquarters. Like STD booths, the state will soon witness IT kiosks across the state, where people will get required forms by paying a nominal price. The public will also be able to download these forms from the website as well.
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Banks slash food credit rate for FCI New Delhi, January 20 The rate of interest presently being charged by the consortium is as high as 10.95 per cent. The consortium has decided to reduce the interest rate as the continued fall in interest rate was not being passed on to the Food Corporation of India. The FCI said though the said reduction of interest rate was not sufficient with reference to the market driven rate, was a saving of about Rs 300 crore on interest alone would be achieved at an estimated average annual borrowing of Rs 20,000 crore from the banking sector. The FCI is taking up the matter with the SBI for further reduction in interest rate.
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PC for Rs 9,990 J&K Bank Oriental non-life Property seized Jumpp-Ingenico Bank of Indore Vaio in India DRS Transport |
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