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The National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) has announced to launch a public issue of about Rs 400 crore by mid-August, said Mr C.P.Jain, Chairman and Managing Director, NTPC, here today.
Golden investment, paper certificates
International roaming by Reliance
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UTI Mutual Fund IPO this year
Kolkata, April 5 The newly diversified “UTI Mutual Fund” plans to go for an initial public offering (IPO) later this year, UTI-M F Chairman and Managing Director M. Damodaran said here today. Petronet LNG to import gas from Qatar New Delhi, April 5 Petronet LNG Ltd, which earlier this month began commercial supplies of liquefied natural gas to customers, plans to buy an additional 1 million tonnes of LNG per annum from its supplier, RasGas of Qatar to meet the huge demand. Rly tickets via cellphones Chennai, April 5 Buoyed by the tremendous success of booking tickets through Internet, the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) is planning to introduce a facility by which tickets can be booked through mobile phones. BIS raids two firms Chandigarh, April 5 A team of senior officials of Bureau of Indian Standards ( BIS) has conducted raids on Saraswati Agro and Shri Maha Luxmi Agros, Patran in Patiala district. They were found misusing ISI Mark on cattle feed without having a licence under the brand names ''Ganga'', ''Gautam'' and ''Pavittar''.
Scorpio, Eicher sales rev up
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Tribune News Service New Delhi, April 5 Addressing a press conference, he said,” We have planned to approach the primary market to raise funds for our ongoing projects and capital requirements. The lead managers will be appointed by the month-end. They will study the market conditions and may decide the price issue by July-end. But the issue will be launched at premium,” he added. The corporation has also plans to recruit 700 employees during the current fiscal year as against about 400 recruited during the previous year. Referring to the provisional financial results, he said the corporation had recorded the net profit of Rs 4,905 crore in 2003-04 as compared to Rs 3,608 crore during the previous year, registering a growth of about 27 per cent. The provisional gross revenue of the corporation had increased to Rs 25,184 crore in 2003-04 as against Rs 19,850 crore during the previous year. The corporation recorded a generation of 149.17 billion units, showing an increase of 5.9 per cent over the previous year’s generation of 140.9 billion units. Commenting on the performance of the NTPC, Mr Jain said, “ with 19.24 per cent share of the total installed capacity of the nation, the NTPC is contributing 26.7 per cent to the total electricity generation in the country.” The corporation has plans to set up a 500 MW power project near Visakhapatnam as a joint venture with HPCL. It has also acquired 80 acres at Noida to set up a technology centre. He claimed that the NTPC had saved about Rs 26.72 crore through energy conservation plans implemented during the previous fiscal year. The NTPC has also
been awarded Koldam Hydro Project of 800 MW in Himachal Pradesh. It has
also approved Rs 4,755 crore outlay for capital schemes, he said. |
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Golden investment, paper certificates
Chandigarh, April 5 Ms Mirchandani was in town for the launch of the Chandigarh
Gold Festival ’04, which is being held by the Chandigarh Gold Body, in
association with the World Gold Council from April 6 to May 1. Ms
Mirchandani said they are working in close coordination with the Union
government on the proposal for trading in gold through certificates.
“India is the biggest gold market in the world, as 20 per cent of the
gold mined worldwide, valued at Rs 40,000 crore, is consumed in India,
annually. She says 12,000 to 15,000 tons of gold is owned by Indians,
though they are largely buying gold for making jewellery “Now, with the
interest rates on fixed deposits and other post office schemes
plummeting, investing in gold is the best bet, especially when the
profit is assured.” “Considering the fact that the gold prices have
risen by almost 25 per cent since April last year and is giving the
investors a return of 15 per cent, investment in gold has picked up in
the Indian market. The urban investor is no longer buying gold with the
intention that it may be sold off in time of need. They are rather
buying and selling it for quick term gains,” says the vice-president.
From Rs 5,260 per 10 grams in March last year to Rs 6,100 per 10 grams
today, the rise in price is the combined result of 60 per cent cut in
import and global increase in demand, especially after the weakening of
the US dollar. The prices of gold are predicted to cross the Rs 7,000
per 10-gram mark by the year-end. The Indians with a penchant for
dealing in 22-carat gold (nearest to 24-carat purity) stand a better
chance of return. |
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International roaming by Reliance
Mumbai, April 5 The facility will be
initially offered through Reliance WebWorlds - Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata,
Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Jaipur and Pune - with other
major locations being covered over the next few weeks, president of
wireless products and services of Reliance Infocomm S.P. Shukla said in
a release here today. A monthly rental of Rs 99 will be charged for the
service and charges for the calls made or received while roaming will be
as levied by the foreign network selected by the customer as per
standard global roaming norms, he added. A roaming deposit will also be
charged depending upon the creditworthiness of individual customers for
availing this service, he said. It is for the first time that a global
roaming facility has been made available by a CDMA operator on GSM
networks on such a large scale, Shukla claimed. — PTI |
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NRIs remit record $18 b in 2003
New Delhi, April 5 According to the balance of payments figures released by the
Reserve Bank of India (RBI), workers’ remittances to India rose to a
staggering $18.2 billion in the last calendar year, posting a growth of
as much as 30 per cent over 2002. The October-December quarter of 2003
witnessed maximum transfer of money by overseas Indians with the figure
touching $5.2 billion, up from $5 billion logged in the July-September
period, the RBI data showed. In the January-March quarter of 2003, the
total remittances amounted to $3.8 billion and it was followed by $4.2
billion worth of private transfers in the quarter ended June 30,
2003. Remittances, or money sent home by emigrant Indians, are pushing
India to the top slot among all developing countries—accounting for
about five times the country’s foreign direct investments per
year. They are also sharply higher than India’s famed software
earnings. Hardworking youngsters in the Middle East, Britain, Canada and
the US have changed many a lives in India. India has become the largest
recipient of private transfers in the developing world with $14.8
billion in 2002-03. — IANS |
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UTI Mutual Fund IPO this year
Kolkata, April 5 The IPO will change its holding pattern and as much as 60 per
cent participation of the public will be allowed, he said. “We have
already put forwarded a suggestion in this regard to the government and
is awaiting its formal nod to allow us to start the proceedings later
this year,” Mr Damodaran said, announcing the formal tie-up with
Allahabad Bank for the distribution of its wide range of mutual fund
products for its customers. Refusing to elaborate on the IPO issue,
including its probable size, Mr Damodaran said, “The proposal is still
at a very early discussion level and we do not expect that anything will
emerge before August-September and well after the new government takes
over at the Centre.” To a query, he, however, made it clear that since
it is mandatory for the company to opt for a 60 per cent stake for the
public to allow them to have the majority say in it and change the
holding pattern in their favour instead of any other sponsor, the UTI
Mutual Fund Board had decided accordingly. — UNI |
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Petronet LNG to import gas from Qatar
New Delhi, April 5 Petronet LNG Ltd’s offtakers, Gail (India) Ltd, IOC, and BPCL,
have sold out the entire five million tonne per annum of LNG it is
importing from Qatar and have customers lined up for another one million
tonne. “Our plant at Dahej in Gujarat has the capacity to regassify
6.5 million tonnes of LNG and so we have decided to buy additional one
million tonnes from RasGas,” a senior PLL official said here. Petronet
LNG began commercial supplies of regassified LNG to customers along the
trunk HBJ pipeline from April 1. Petronet LNG, which is importing 2.5
million tonnes of LNG during 2004-05, will ramp up to full capacity of
five million tonnes from next fiscal after the delivery of the second
LNG tanker. Gail, IOC, BPCL and ONGC have 12.5 per cent stake each in
Petronet. — PTI |
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Rly tickets via cellphones
Chennai, April 5 To begin with, it will be introduced as a pilot
project in New Delhi by the end of this year, IRCTC Director (Tourism
and Marketing) Rakesh Saxena said today. Talking to newspersons after
the inauguration of a food plaza at the Egmore railway station here, set
up by the IRCTC with private participation, he said based upon its
success, it will be extended to other cities in a phased manner. “We
are planning to launch it as a pilot project in New Delhi by this year.
Work is on towards this direction,’’ he added. Mr Saxena said Internet
booking facility had reached an all-time high in March this year, with a
record 1 lakh tickets delivered in a single month. It meant that more
than 3,000 tickets were delivered per day. “Normally, on an average,
about 70,000 tickets will be delivered per month in 110 cities. But it
touched a whopping 1 lakh in March as the facility well received even
among foreign tourists, who can book from any part of the world and
intimate the delivery address in India,’’ he said. To a question, he
said at present, the tickets booked through Internet are being printed
and delivered only from New Delhi. The IRCTC is in the process of
installing hub stations in Chennai and Mumbai for printing tickets to
cater to the needs of the South and West zones. This will also avoid
delays in delivering the tickets, he added. Mr Saxena said the Yatri
Nivas in New Delhi and Kolkata, hitherto being maintained by the Indian
Railways, will be handed over to the IRCTC this year, along with the two
Heritage Hotels in Puri and Ranchi. The IRCTC is planning to set up
new Yatri Nivas with public-private participation to target the middle
class segment in several places. “We are planning to have one in Madurai
(with 60 rooms) and Bhopal,’’ he said. Mr Saxena said the food plaza,
which was inaugurated by Southern Railway General Manager V Anand today,
was the 20th plaza in the Indian Railways, the fourth in the South Zone
and the second in Chennai. Similar plazas will soon be set up at the
Chennai Beach and Park stations. — UNI
Staff benefit fund to go up
NEW DELHI: The Railways Ministry has
increased per capita allocation to the staff benefit fund by Rs 4 per
annum to Rs 30 from this month. Accordingly, the corpus of the fund
will go up from Rs 3.90 crore to Rs 4.50 crore, an official release
said. The contribution of Rs 30 per capita per annum was based on 15
lakh non-gazetted railway employees. A new head, “Women Empowerment
Activities”, has been introduced within the Staff Benefit Fund with a
per capita per annum allocation of 50 paise by the government. — PTI |
BIS raids two firms
Chandigarh, April 5 The Deputy
Director-General BIS, Mr K.K Sharma, said search stencils, filled and
empty bags of various brands of cattle feed carrying ISI mark' were
seized. According to the BIS Act, use of the ISI mark without a
licence from the BIS is punishable with imprisonment up to one year or
a fine up to Rs 50,000 or both. The raid was conducted with the help
of the local police.
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Stockholm, April 5 Citing next week’s edition of
the Swedish business weekly Veckans Affarer, public service SVT2
television said Kamprad, 77, has a personal fortune of 400 billion
crowns ($53 billion). Gates’ fortune is put at $47 billion, according
to the latest list of the world’s rich in the US Forbes magazine, SVT2
said. Kamprad, known for frugal habits such as flying economy class,
lives in Switzerland and no longer takes part in the daily running of
IKEA, but has kept ownership of the company with more than 180 stores
in over 30 countries in the family. — Reuters |
Mumbai, April 5 The utility vehicles sales, including Scorpio, rose 32.7 per cent at 91,436 vehicles during 2003-04 against 68,858 during the previous fiscal, the company said in a release. The light commercial vehicle (LCV) sales for 2003-04 were slightly higher at 7,003 vehicles against 6,948 vehicles during the previous year. Utility vehicles sales in March, 2004, were 9,029 units as compared to 8,879 in the previous fiscal while the LCV sales stood at 811 vehicles as against 517 units in March, 2003. Scorpio sales were up at 2,259 vehicles during, March, 2004 over 1,792 vehicles in the comparable period of the previous fiscal, the company said. Eicher Eicher Motors said today its sales surged 47.3 per cent
to 2,372 units in March, 2004, as compared to 1,610 units in the same
month last year. The total sales increased by 24.8 per cent at 15,880
units during 2003-04 against 12,717 units during the previous year, a
company statement said. — PTI |
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Chandigarh, April 5
