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Gold hallmarking scheme a lacklustre affair
Corp Bank plans 100 new branches
Chamber interactions from April 29
Dulhasti power project nears completion |
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India bemoans aid policy at World Bank meet
Pakistan to have Dabur’s Hajmola
SBI to enter project finance business
Hoarding alleged as steel price vaults
CORPORATE NEWS
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Gold hallmarking scheme a lacklustre affair New Delhi, April 26 The consumer organisation and a section of jewellers have been pleading with the ministry to make it mandatory for all jewellers to sell only hallmark gold jewellery — stamped certification about the purity of gold, but they lamented that the ministry has once again postponed the decision to make hallmarking mandatory for gold. A senior official in the ministry claimed that lack of adequate infrastructure in the country was the main cause for the delay in the decision. He said the department had now proposed to set up a network of 70 assaying (testing) and hallmarking centres within a year to cater to nearly 3 lakh jewellers in the country as well as consumers. According to the officials of the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), the nodal agency to implement hallmarking in the country, only 730 jewellers throughout the country had so far taken licences for hallmarking, and only a fraction of total gold jewellery sold in the country was hallmarked. Moreover, they said, the jewellers, who had taken licences for hallmarking, were discouraging the buyers to take hallmark jewellery by demanding higher charges. Interestingly, the Indian government is considering joining the International Convention on Control and Marking of Precious Metals (Vienna Convention, 1972). A delegation led by Mr Navin B. Chawla, Secretary, Consumer Affairs had attended the meeting of the convention last month in this regard. After joining the convention, the Indian hallmarked gold jewellery will be acceptable in all member countries. The BIS officials had said the hallmarking of gold jewellery/ artefacts be made mandatory and would comprise five symbols including BIS mark, gold content, hallmarking centre mark, year of marking and jeweller’s mark. It will result in increase in trading of the metal. The industry experts said with an average import of over 700 tonnes of gold annually, India is among the largest consumers of gold in the world. But due to lack of any certification about the purity of the metal, the country was unable to utilise in the market. It was also one the reasons, they said, the banks had not so far shown much interest in accepting the gold for offering loans. The North India Jewellers Association has also claimed that jewellers in Northern India including in Punjab, Haryana, Himachal and J&K, have to bring their jewellery to Delhi for hallmarking. North India is a major consumer of gold in the country. It maintained the consumption of gold was on a rise in the country, especially in the rural sector, contributing over 65 per cent to the total sales. But due to lack of purity regulations, gullible villagers were often cheated by the jewellers in the villages and neighbouring towns depriving them of their hard-earned life long savings. |
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Corp Bank plans 100 new branches Chandigarh, April 26 The deposit holders of the bank could now pay their LIC premium through the bank’s ATM across the country. The bank had recorded a net profit of Rs 504 crore, an increase of 21.19 per cent over last year. While the deposits of the bank stood at Rs 23,191 crore, net advances were Rs 13, 890 crore. The bank has brought three new products during the
year. Under Corp Mahila Gold it had tied up with Tanishq to help women purchase gold jewellery. Corp Mortgage to provide liquidity against immovable properties to meet personal needs and Corp Personal to provide liquidity to salaried class, including
pensioners, to meet their needs. |
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Chamber interactions from April 29 Chandigarh, April 26 For this, the chamber will hold four interactions at industrial and business clusters to obtain feedback to improve fiscal health, enhance business opportunities at home and abroad, increase competitive strength of the industry to meet challenges and opportunities of the WTO and ensure development in services, infrastructure and agricultural engineering. The chamber’s Resident Director P.K. Verma says the first interaction will be held at Chandigarh on April 29, followed by one each in Ludhiana, Amritsar and Dera Bassi or Lalru. A presentation of the proposed road map will be made to the Chief Minister in June. For each interaction, the focus areas have been identified. If it is information technology, tourism, urbanisation, light engineering and education at Chandigarh, hosiery and hosiery machines and textiles, bicycles and woollen garments will be taken up in Ludhiana. |
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Dulhasti power project nears completion Dalhousie, April 26 Speaking to this correspondent at Banikhet near here today, Mr Yogendra Prasad, Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) of the NHPC, said in the Tenth Plan, the NHPC would generate hydro-power capacity in addition to 4357 MW. The NHPC had already commissioned the 300 MW Chamera stage-II project in the state and four units of 125 MW each of India Sagar Project under joint venture in Madhya Pradesh, much ahead of schedule. Mr Prasad said the corporation had projected Rs 897.38 crore as the gross profit to be earned this year. The corporation was expected to employ a capital of Rs 13,096.22 crore and also to earn a gross margin of Rs 1,242.17 crore. Mr Prasad said now the 390 MW Dulhasti hydro-electric project had reached the final stage while all uncertainties was over. The project will generate 1,928 million units of energy annually. The power generated from this project would be fully absorbed in the Northern Grid. The beneficiary states will be Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh and Jammu and Kashmir. |
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India bemoans aid policy at World Bank meet
Washington, April 26 Addressing the Development Committee of the World Bank here yesterday, Finance Secretary D C Gupta said it was well recognised that more resources need to be directed to countries that have demonstrated the capacity for effective utilisation of aid and where incremental resources have the maximum marginal impact. However, “in reality much of the of aid allocation continues to be driven by strategic considerations rather than objective criteria.’’ He said even when performance was claimed to be the basis of allocation of concessional finance, caps and exceptions distort the process quite substantially. “Any artificial capping of the allocations on a selective basis significantly undermines the global efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals,” he added. While many developing countries had taken bold steps for reforming policies and institutions and improving the investment climate, the flow of Official Development Assistance to these countries had fallen short of expectations.
— UNI |
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Pakistan to have Dabur’s Hajmola Dubai, April 26 “We have already signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Mueller and Phiedr and expect to commence operations within this fiscal,” Chief Executive Officer of Dabur International Arvind Kumar told a group of journalists from India. The Pakistan market was about 12-15 per cent of the Indian market in a very broad sense. “We’ll start with hair oil, Hajmola and progressively move on to shampoos and toothpaste,” he said. Asked about the growth prospects in Pakistan after commencing the joint venture, Mr Kumar said the company expects significant growth, as the joint venture was basically to move in a high tariff market to have a value addition in the destination country. Mr Kumar said the company would rope in renowned Pakistani actors or actresses as brand ambassadors for promoting its brand in that country. “We cannot run our advertisements endorsed by Amitabh Bachchan or Rani Mukherjee as of now, but in future we may use both of them,” he said. Asked whether the company would employ local people to maintain secrecy of its formulations in Pakistan, Kumar said, “It is not that we are going to appoint only local people. We would have some people from our existing locations and some would be appointed locally.” “We would like to protect our proprietary knowledge... There are ways and means to protect these knowledge and we will do everything possible,” he said. The company also plans to set up a manufacturing unit in Nigeria to expand its presence in West African markets. The manufacturing unit in Nigeria would be set up by its 100 per cent Dubai-based subsidiary, Dabur International Limited. The has already appointed Ernst and Young, Nigeria, to suggest on company formation and regulation process, he said, adding “a minimum of $ 80,000 would be spent on company formation, but overall feasibility and other things have not yet been finished.” — PTI  |
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SBI to enter project finance business
Kolkata, April 26 Leading financial institutions were not being able to undertake project financing in a big way owing to various problems faced by them, Mr C. K. Bhattacharya, Managing Director of SBI, said at ‘Banking Conclave’ organised here jointly by FICCI and Indian Chamber of Commerce. SBI would exploit this opportunity and had already fixed a sanction target of Rs 8,000 crore for the current year, which was 25 per cent higher that of the previous year, he said. Besides project financing, the bank was also looking at the infrastructure sector where total outstanding was in excess of Rs 23,000 crore. Areas identified by SBI for project financing are petrochemicals, iron & steel, hotels, paper, healthcare, oil and natural gas. Mr Bhattacharya said the bank had already identified project financing as a separate strategic business unit. Retail finance was also a major focus area for the bank, as well as priority sector lending which, according to Mr Bhattacharya, was becoming very lucrative. He also said SBI was in the process of implementing core banking solution, in addition to networking of 3,800 ATMs across the country. ICICI Bank is in talks with SBI for using the latter’s ATM network on pre-payment basis. — PTI |
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Hoarding alleged as steel price vaults Ludhiana, April 26 Mr Inderjit Singh Pradhan and Mr Avtar Singh, president and general secretary of the Chamber of Industrial and Commercial Undertakings, respectively disclosed that the prices of steel and iron scrap we were coming down globally. Scrap prices have come down by $75 per tonne and was quoted at $270 per tonne. They alleged that the steel manufacturers and traders were indulging in steel hoarding as a result of which the prices were rising. They have sent telegrams to the Prime Minister and the Punjab Chief Minister in this regard. |
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CORPORATE NEWS
Mumbai, April 26 The board, which met today, has recommended a dividend of Rs 16.50 for FY-04 aggregating to Rs 172.13 crore, Hindalco Managing Director D. Bhattacharya told newspersons here today. The net sales in the period also increased to Rs 6,190.9 crore (Rs 4,985.6 crore in FY-03), he said. For the fourth quarter ended March, the net profit of the Aditya Birla group entity jumped to Rs 222.2 crore (Rs 19.6 crore) while the net sales rose to Rs 1,901.6 crore (Rs 1,331.6 crore), he added. Other income in FY-04 also increased to Rs 244.6 crore (Rs 218.3 crore). Orchid
Orchid Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals has announced a dividend of 40 per cent after its net profit increased by 59 per cent at Rs 31.03 crore during the year ending March 31, 2004 against Rs 19.54 crore same period last year However, the company’s net profit for the fourth quarter fell to Rs 7.81 crore from Rs 10.02 crore. The company’s turnover and operating income was Rs 713.41 crore for the year representing a growth of 32 per cent. The gross profit before interest, depreciation and taxes was Rs 150.49 crore against Rs 109.63 crore.
Zydus Cadila
Zydus Cadila Healthcare said today its net profit during 2003-04 increased by 86.68 per cent to Rs 143 crore against Rs 76.6 crore in the previous year. The company’s turnover registered a 14.02 per cent growth at Rs 1,172.3 crore as compared to Rs 1,028.2 crore in 2002-03. In the reported fiscal, the company registered a 12 per cent rise in domestic formulations sales, while exports jumped by 62 per cent, a company release said here. The company’s board has recommended a dividend of 120 per cent.
Nucleus Software
Nucleus Software Exports today posted a 15.70 per cent jump in its consolidated net profit at Rs 9.73 crore for the year 2003-04 against Rs 8.41 crore in the previous fiscal. The company’s consolidated revenue during the year, however, declined by 9.84 per cent to Rs 80.09 crore against Rs 88.83 crore in 2002-03, Mr Vishnu Dusad, Managing Director of Nucleus Software, told reporters here today. The company also announced 1:1 bonus and the board has recommended a 25 per cent dividend for 2003-04. For the quarter ended March 31, 2004, the company’s net profit went up 44.52 per cent at Rs 4.35 crore. — PTI |
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