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Jet testing foreign skies at own risk: Patel
HP plastic bag ban chokes manufacturers
India may wrap up textile competition from China: Vaghela
RIL may pump $500 m to produce gas in AP
Finance panel gets 5-month extension |
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IT round-up
Tourist protection force sought
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Jet testing foreign skies at own risk: Patel New Delhi, June 15 Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel said Jet Airways could be testing waters before the aviation policy allowed private carriers to operate on the international routes. He said the aviation ministry was discussing proposals of the Naresh Chandra Committee that was set up by the previous government. Mr Patel said the new open skies policy would need approval of the Cabinet after consultations with different ministries and government departments. It was likely to be cleared by this year-end. The policy was aimed at allowing private airlines to fly to all overseas destinations, besides lifting all capacity constraints on foreign airlines. The minister’s reaction came as Jet has drawn up an ambitious blueprint to become an international carrier flying to major destinations in five continents. As part of its plan, Jet had already written to find out whether landing slots would be available in cities around the world, including London, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok. It stated in its letters that it expected to start operations from the coming winter. In the first year of operation, Jet planned to fly over 112 flights a week from India to various international destinations. In the second year, it would increase the frequency to 224 flights a week, in the third year it hoped to fly over 238 flights a week.
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Private airlines hike fare by 10 pc
Domestic airlines is set to become expensive with the two private airlines having already announced a 10 per cent hike and Indian Airlines also in the mode to raise the ticket costs Jet Airways and Air Sahara have announced a fare hike of 10 per cent across the board from June 21 while Indian Airlines (IA) is expected to follow the suit. Even low-cost, no-frills carrier Air Deccan said today it would increase fares by Rs 100 to 125 on trunk routes. The fare increase has been undertaken to compensate for a 38 per cent rise in the price of aviation turbine fuel (ATF) over the past year. “We are concerned about the increase in ATF prices. All players in the sector are impacted by this,” said Naresh Goyal. Added CEO of Air Sahara U K Bose: “ATF prices account for nearly 30 per cent of our operating costs compared to 10 or 15 per cent for airlines worldwide. The government must cut excise, sales tax and marketing margins of oil companies for the benefit of passengers.”
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HP plastic bag ban chokes manufacturers Solan, June 15 Though the state government had made such announcements earlier also but it is for the first time that prohibitory orders have been passed by the Secretary, Science and Technology. As many as seven units, which are engaged in the manufacture of such bags, are registered in the Solan district. While two units, Parwanoo Packages and Sharma and Company, closed down some time ago, a Parwanoo-based unit, RRB Enterprises Private Limited, having an estimated investment of Rs 2.12 lakh, had diversified to manufacturing tubes and films. Four other units — J.S.Plastics, Sital Polypack, Ramji Industries Corporation Limited and Ankita Polymers — employing 20 persons with an estimated investment of nearly Rs 20 lakh to manufacture polybags are now facing threat to their very existence. Officials in the Industries department when contacted said no direction had as yet been received for such units. A section of manufacturers when contacted also echoed similar sentiments and rued that the prohibitory orders were ‘sudden.’ While it is adversely affecting their market in the state, the entire production too would suffer if the manufacturing process is banned. The option of manufacturing the polythene bags for sale to other states could be thought in case there is no ban on their production they maintained though it is not a viable option to look for new markers across other states. Officials in the Industries department opined the units, which manufacture other products in addition to polythene bags, could switch over to other plastic-based products. A prior approval would, however, be required in such cases.
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India may wrap up textile competition from China: Vaghela New Delhi, June 15 Speaking at a meeting with industry representatives organised by Ficci, he said, “we are at present studying the concerns of the industry, and will announce corrective measures soon in this regard.” Expressing confidence that the textile sector could beat the competition from China in two years, he said certain bottlenecks like power and labour problems would be addressed accordingly. “We will make efforts to double textile exports, currently estimated at Rs 55,000 crore annually, by January to March, 2006. We are hopeful of crossing this target,” Mr Vaghela said, adding that he would submit the industry’s demands before the Finance Minister and the Prime Minister. At present, textiles was a major foreign exchange earner that contributed about 27 per cent of the country’s total exports. Garments constituted half of this. Domestic sales stand at around Rs 92,000 crore annually. Mr S.B. Mahapatra, Secretary, said textiles had huge potential to create employment opportunities for the youth. He said the $32 billion textile industry had potential to cross $65-billion mark in the next six to seven years. Referring to the role of apparel parks, he said, “the government has already sanctioned 11 such parks and more in the pipeline. The industry should come forward to develop large textile complexes and avoid seeking protection for the
inefficient units.”
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RIL may pump $500 m to produce gas in AP
New Delhi, June 15 The company plans to invest $500 million in the first phase to produce 500 million cubic feet per day (14 million standard cubic meters per day) of gas from August, 2006, sources said. Almost the entire output of the first phase will be consumed by the National Thermal Power Corp’s Kawas and Gandhar power projects in Gujarat, for which the company plans to lay a pipeline from Kakinada to
Uran. RIL, which owns 90 per cent stake in the Krishna-Godavari basin field D6 that is estimated to hold 14.5 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves, had last month bagged the NTPC tender for supply of gas to Kawas and Gandhar projects by quoting a delivered price of $2.97 per million BTU. Canadian Niko Resources has the remaining 10 per cent stake in the field. Output could be jacked up to 60 million standard cubic meters per day if RIL wins the NTPC’s tender for supply of gas to its power plants in
Kerala. — PTI
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Finance panel gets 5-month extension
New Delhi, June 15 This was decided at the meeting of the Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The Commission, headed by C. Rangarajan, was scheduled to submit its report by July 31 but could not complete it due to the General Elections, an official spokesperson told reporters after the meeting. “The commission can visit only 16 states by the end of February this year. The visits to the remaining 12 states had to be postponed due to the elections,” she said. The extension of the term would enable the commission to visit the remaining states, firm up the base year figures for 2004-05 which would form the basis for projections on the sharing of funds between the Centre and states. — PTI
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Make-up artist points finger at Ayurveda racket Amritsar, June 15 Cory was here in the city today to demonstrate cosmetics launched by UK-based ‘Dome cosmetics’ in India along with UK’s celebrity hairdresser Paul Bally for a seminar on “Hair fashion and skin makeovers.” Talking to The Tribune, Cory, whose real name is Karamjit Walia, contends Ayurveda belongs to India and is being grossly misused abroad by unscrupulous elements and companies. Cory alleges a well-oiled racket churns out ‘Ayurvedic’ products using substandard colours, perfumes and raw material. “Their needs to be a special regulation by the Food and Drug Control Board to check such producers who loot in the name of “Naturelle products.” Given a chance for an alternative career, Cory, who left the ancestral business of liquor distillers and wool import to become a make-up artist, says he would love to be a multilingual writer, chef and ecologist. He speaks 13 languages and is greatly drawn towards the cause of animal protection.
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IT round-up
San Francisco, June 15 Beginning today, all of Yahoo’s free e-mail accounts will be upgraded to 100 MB (megabytes), a move spurred by Google’s plans to offer 1,000 MB of free storage through its Gmail service, which has remained in a test phase since early April. Yahoo! has been offering 4 MB of free e-mail storage, although some persons with accounts opened several years ago have 6 MB of free storage. Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo! disclosed that it would be increasing its free storage to 100 MB during an analyst meeting held last month, but hadn’t provided a specific time for the upgrade until now.
Keane Inc
Nasdaq listed IT company Keane Inc will triple its headcount in India to 5,000 next year to expand operations and will chalk out plans for the fourth development centre in the country. “We will be a 5,000 strong company by the end of 2005 from the current 1600 and out of that 3000 would be in IT services while the remaining 2000 in the BPO services, Parminder S. Miglani, MD, Keane India told newspersons.
— Agencies
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Tourist protection force sought Manali, June 15 A special delegation of the hoteliers association led by Mr Gautam Nath Thakur, president of the hotel association, submitted a memorandum to Mr Virbhadra Singh, Chief Minister, at Prini, 4 km from here today before the Chief Minister call on former Prime Minister. In the memorandum, the hoteliers association had apprised Mr Virbhadra Singh of the problems created by touts in Manali. The touts misguided the visitors by furnishing wrong information and cheat them. The association had urged the Chief Minister to direct the DC and SP to keep a vigil on the problem being faced by the tourists.
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Sterlite net up Weather cover Global cards Govt borrowing Bid for airports Education fairs Rs 5 note |
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Indian textiles is all set to take on China in the next two years. The Centre will provide all support to the textile industry to face the challenges after the end of quota regime in early 2005, said Mr Shankarsinh
Vaghela, Minister for Textiles, here today.
