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GDP clocks 7.4 pc in Q1
Gail plans expansion of petrochemical unit
Bank Account
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Agri-clinic concept fails to pick up
IOC commissions pipeline
Rules eased for issue of fresh equity to foreign investors
Ash unveils logo of SaharaOne today
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GDP clocks 7.4 pc in Q1
New Delhi, September 30 Significantly, the agriculture sector registered a decent 3.4 per cent growth rate, although analysts cautioned that the second quarter growth indices of the farm sector could register a dip in the backdrop of poor monsoons. Quarterly GDP at factor cost at constant (1993-94) prices for the first quarter is estimated at Rs 3,52,117 crore, as against Rs 3,27,482 crore in the same period in the previous fiscal year. The sectors which registered significant growth during this period are mining and quarrying at 6.1 per cent, manufacturing at 8 per cent, electricity, gas and water supply at 6.3 per cent, trade, hotels, transport and communication at 11 per cent, financing, insurance, real estate and business services at 7 per cent and community, social and personal services at 9.3 per cent. Agriculture, forestry and fishing recorded a growth rate of 3.4 per cent. The growth rate of construction, however, fell to 3.6 per cent as compared to the 5.9 per cent growth during the first quarter the previous fiscal year. According to the latest estimates available on the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), the index of mining, manufacturing and electricity, registered growth rates of 5.7 per cent, 8.1 per cent and 5.9 per cent, respectively, during the first quarter of 2004-05, as compared to the growth rates of 5.6 per cent, 6 per cent and 4.2 per cent in these sectors during the same period in 2003-04. The key indicators of construction sector, namely, cement and finished steel, both registered growth rates of 2.7 per cent during this period as against the growth rates of 5.2 per cent and 8.2 per cent, respectively during the same period last year. Among the services sectors, the key indicators of railways, namely the net tonne kilometres and passenger kilometres have shown growth rates of 9.3 per cent and 3.1 per cent, respectively, during the first quarter of 2004-05. In the transport and communication sectors, the production of commercial vehicles, cargo handled by civil aviation, passengers handled by civil aviation and total stock of telephone connections (including WLL and cellular) registered growth rates of 59.5 per cent, 7.5 per cent, 17.0 per cent, 25.2 per cent and 37.4 per cent, respectively.
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Gail plans expansion of petrochemical unit
New Delhi, September 30 Talking to the mediapersons after the 22nd Annual General Meeting of the company, Mr J.K. Jain, Director (Finance), Gail, said: “We would invest Rs 650 crore in the next 30 months for expansion of our petrochemical plant to reduce average cost of production.” Gail is also exploring business opportunities in the petrochemical business in Kerala and Eastern India. Gail is looking at Kerala for investment in projects like R-LNG marketing and distribution through pipelines from the proposed LNG terminal at Kochi, compressed natural gas (CNG) and piped natural gas (PNG) network and a petrochemical plant project in Kasargod district. The Kasargod plant could be useful in meeting the growing demand for polymers in the southern region. The company plans to expand its petrochemical plant in two phases. In the first phase, it has de-bottlenecked its pertochemical plant to raise polyethylene production capacity from 1,60,000 tonnes per annum (TPA) to 2,10,0000 TPA. In the second stage of expansion, the ethylene capacity will be increased from 3,00,000 TPA to 4,40,000 TPA by increasing the number of cracker furnaces from four to five and the HDPE capacity from 1,00,000 TPA to 2,00,000 TPA. Gail (India) Ltd is exploring business opportunities in the Central Asian Republics, Turkey and some African countries. The company has taken equity stake in Fayum Gas and Shell CNG in Egypt and also received the first dividend for 2003-04 from Fayum Gas. It has recently bought 15 per cent stake in NatGas in Egypt. At present, the company is targeting Myanmar, Bangladesh, Iran, Egypt and the Philippines as possible destinations for investment. Gail’s telecommunication arm GailTel plans to invest Rs 300 crore to expand the network from 8,000 km to 18,000 km as a part of the proposed NCG project and create an IP-MPLS network connecting to 10 cities in the country.
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HDFC targets Tier II cities
Chandigarh, September 30 Talking about expansion plans, he said the bank currently has a network of 362 branches and 975 ATMs across 176 cities. It plans to add 125 branches in this fiscal. “We have realised Tier II and Tier III towns have immense potential and new branches would be opened in Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir to strengthen our presence in this region, “ he added. While four of the new branches would be opened in Punjab at Jagraon, Barnala and Muktsar, second branches would also be opened in Amritsar, Jammu, Shimla and Srinagar. “Even though we are late entrants in the credit cards business, but we already have issued over seven lakh credit cards and about 2.2 million debit cards,” Mr Swaroop said. Bank of India
The Bank of India (BoI) today decided to merge with itself its subsidiary BoI Mutual Fund in view of the focus on core banking activities. “The bank has now decided to wind up BoI Mutual Fund by amalgamating with itself,” BOI said in a communiqué to the Bombay Stock Exchange. The bank sponsored the mutual fund in 1990 and had six schemes under its fold. Of the six schemes, two were transferred to Taurus Mutual Fund.
Bank of Rajasthan
It its bid to make the bank a ‘financial supermarket’, private-sector Bank of Rajasthan (BoR) is contemplating extending life insurance, mutual funds, depository and foreign exchange services at all its major offices and make all offices online. As part of its banking strategy, a Rs 100-crore second-tier capital is also being introduced. The bank currently has presence in 15 states and two Union Territories and recently the Reserve Bank of India have given it permission to open new offices in Haryana, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Orrisa, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Assam, Chhatisgarh, Punjab and Delhi.
IndusInd Bank
The short-term fixed-deposit programme of IndusInd Bank, one of the private sector banks in India, has been assigned the highest rating, P1 + by Crisil, India's premier credit rating agency. Crisil had also assigned the PI + rating to the short-term debt programme of the bank earlier. Mr Bhaskar Ghose, MD & CEO, IndusInd Bank said: “This is a welcome endorsement of our strengths in the post-merger situation.” — TNS, Agencies
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Agri-clinic concept fails to pick up
Ludhiana, September 30 Attributing the poor performance on the front to a lukewarm response from young agriculture graduates in the state, the banks say these graduates are preferring routine jobs to set up their own venture making it difficult for them to attain their targets. “Though a large number of students graduate in this stream every year, it was only 60 students throughout the state who expressed interest in receiving training from Nabard. Of those who expressed interest very few actually turned up,” discloses Mr Jasbir Singh Bir, Special Secretary, Finance, Punjab, who is also the Director, Institutional Finance and Banking. The only agri-clinic financed by banks this year is in Amritsar district, which has also been identified for intensive financing of such clinics and business centres. The concept of agri-clinics was mooted with a view to generate self-employment and to provide expert advise to farmers on cropping practices, market trends, prices of various crops, information on latest technologies etc. Banks are providing easy loans for the purpose to farm graduates. To generate awareness among agri-experts (graduates), banks are now approaching universities. For agri-clinics, students of this field need to know that setting up an agri-clinic could be as lucrative a business as any other. In fact, it is a new concept and has high chances of showing good performance, he said. Such clinics, where farmers are provided expert advice, could provide services related to various fields like forestry, horticulture, pesticides, etc. As many as 14 projects have been identified. Mr Bir also met SLBC convener, Punjab, and joint director, agriculture, to review the progress of the banks in the state regarding lending to agriculture sector.
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IOC commissions pipeline
New Delhi, September 30 The Rs 76-crore Panipat-Rewari Pipeline is a component of IndianOil’s Panipat refinery expansion linked pipeline project of Rs 734 crore. Under the Panipat refinery expansion linked pipeline projects, IndianOil is also laying 73 km-long 28 inch diameter crude oil pipeline from Mundra to Kandla in Gujarat and extension of the existing Koyali-Viramgam-Sidhpur Petroleum Product Pipeline also in Gujarat by 18-inch diameter and a 506 km long pipeline up to Sanganer in Rajasthan.
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Rules eased for issue of fresh equity to foreign investors
New Delhi, September 30 “In order to make the environment in India more attractive for foreign investors, the government has decided to simplify the procedures,” an official statement said. The procedures have been placed under the General Permission route (i.e. RBI route) instead of the existing government approval route (i.e. FIPB route) for speedy and streamlined approvals, the statement said. Effectively, the new rules would mean that the RBI would vet the proposals. “Transfer of shares from resident to non-resident (including transfer of subscribers’ share to non-residents) other than in the financial services sector provided the investment is covered under automatic route, does not attract the provisions of Sebi’s (Substantial Acquisition of Shares and Takeovers) Regulations, 1997, falls within the sectoral cap and also complies with prescribed pricing guidelines”, the statement said.
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Ash unveils logo of SaharaOne today
Chandigarh, September 30 Aishwarya is also in the news for the movies ‘Chaos’ with Meryl Streep and ‘Singularity’ with Brendon Fraser and Vivek Oberoi. The actress’ current Bollywood ventures include PNC’s ‘Shabd’ opposite Sanjay Dutt, Rituparno Ghosh’s ‘Raincoat’ opposite Ajay Devgan among others.
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