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Malaysian NRIs eager to invest in power sector
Pan Book on Net from April
Anil meets chief of ICICI Bank
Demand for Indian marble rising
Trends
Textile exports set to grow manifold
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Greaves launches new pump
Over 1 cr Reliance subscribers
Graphic: Weekly stock movement
Market is likely to recover
Office car, chauffeur and tax
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Malaysian NRIs eager to invest in power sector
Mumbai, January 9 The effective working of joint ventures in highways projects in India has created interest among NRIs to invest in two billion Ringgit (about $ 600 million) power sector for small and medium size projects with controlling stake, K.N. Nijar, chairman Cisco group of companies and Member of Parliament (Malaysia), said on the sidelines of Third Pravasi Bharatiya Divas function here. The Malaysia-based investors would be interested in holding controlling stake with 30 per cent equity holding, Nijar said adding, this arrangement was to guarantee sources of funds for the project and raises debt back home. If any Indian party comes up with project proposals and are able to show that they are able to get the work, investors are ready to sign a tentative pact in short time, he said. The investors would also look at captive power projects, he added.
Kochi to be IT town
Kerala has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with leading IT infrastructure developers, Dubai Internet City (DIC), for developing an integrated IT township costing over $ 400 million in Kochi. “DIC shortlisted Chennai, Hyderabad and Kochi for creating this mega IT infrastructure. DIC, who has proven record of developing townships in Middle-East, finally zeroed in Kochi,” a senior government official said here today on the sidelines of Pravasi Bharatiya Divas celebrations. The proposed integrated IT township, a division of state’s IT corridor Infopark, is spread over 1,000 acres and would be a combination of commercial complexes and residential apartments, he said. “The state is likely to pick up an equity stake of the land price in this project. The stake division is yet to be finalised between us”, he said. Top government sources said IBM is in dialogue with state government for exploring the idea to set up a development centre in Kochi. IBS Software is also planning to set up a division in Kerala, he added. “Wipro has already acquired 60 acres land near Infopark and Infosys has completed the construction for its new division spread over 96 acres near
Technopark.
Maryland invites
entrepreneurs
Maryland-India Business Round Table (MIBRT), which launched its India Chapter amidst convergence of Pravasi Bharatiya Divas here, has urged Indian entrepreneurs to explore the possibility of joint partnership in bioscience, IT, education and agriculture with Maryland-based Indian entrepreneurs for further growth and development. The Round Table is a newly-formed group of CEOs of various large corporations in Maryland and India. With the blessing from Maryland Governor Robert Ehrlich Jr, MIBRT Executive Director Elish Pulivarti said, there were about 300 bioscience laboratory units in the state that is the hub of research-based education and high-tech units of USA. He said the potential joint ventures could be in the areas like healthcare, agriculture, real estate, film, entertainment, financial services and tourism, where both USA and India could match each other.
Developer’s project hits wall
Canada-based developers Royal Indian Raj International Corporation’s investment proposal of over $ 12 to 15 billion to develop townships in India has run into rough waters as Karnataka government has turned down the $ 3 billion project proposal in Bangalore. Royal Indian is planning to build integrated townships spreading over 50,000 acres in Bangalore, Mumbai, New Delhi and Kolkata, company president Collins Benjamin told reporters on the sidelines of Pravasi Bharatiya Divas function today. However, Karnataka has rejected this NRI company’s plan to set up township in Bangalore even as Union Minister for Urban Development Ghulam Nabi Azad has assured it to review the proposal after consulting with the state government. “We are planning four web-enabled townships with total capital outlay of $ 12 to 15 billion and are expecting returns of $ 40 to 45 billion in retailing the space,” he said. Referring to this issue, Mr Azad said he would take up the issue with state level authorities on Monday in Bangalore and would look into the cause of delay.
— PTI, UNI
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Pan Book on Net from April
New Delhi, January 9 After putting in place the Tax Information Network (TIN) last year, the Finance Ministry is planning to introduce an electronic ‘Pan Book’, which would furnish details of the tax payments by individual assessees, official sources said. National Securities Depository Ltd (NSDL) has been asked to start the online PAN Book from April to enable assessees to see their tax filing record instantly. When contacted, NSDL chairman C B Bhave confirmed the move and said, “We will start building the e-Pan book, which will be a ledger account for each Pan cardholder.” The new system will enable three crore assessees to check if their payments have been received, besides enabling them to see their past records, he said. After introducing online payment of corporate taxes, the Finance Ministry is also planning to introduce a system of online payment of excise duties.
— PTI
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Anil meets chief of ICICI Bank
Mumbai, January 9 Anil, Vice-Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries who is engaged in a public acrimony with his brother and RIL Chairman Mukesh for nearly two months, went to the ICICI headquarters at Bandra-Kurla complex to meet Kamath, but nothing was said publicly about what transpired at the long meeting. Mukesh, who was away in Sri Lanka, is also expected to meet Kamath in the next few days. The two brothers had separately met the ICICI Bank chief last week also, but the meetings were kept under wrap. The family shares and those held in privately-held investment companies totalling 34 per cent of RIL equity were to be divided among the mother, her two sons and two daughters, according to the reports.
— PTI
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US call centre eyes Chandigarh
New York, January 9 Jack
Frecker, a senior company official, said the company will be looking at Chandigarh, Hyderabad and Kolkata as part of its expansion plans. The company will also tap second-tier cities because “first-tier cities are really getting crowded and competitive”. The Cincinnati-based global leader in integrated billing, employee care and customer care service employs over 60,000 employees in 53 countries. It began its India operations in 2000, much before many companies offering voice customer service began to operate out of there.
— IANS
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Demand for Indian marble rising
Ludhiana, January 9 Talking to The Tribune, Mr Gupta, who is here in connection with an exhibition in which RK Marbles is participating, said technology and standards adopted by India were on a par with international standards. Besides modern methods in bench mining, the equipment used at excavation sites also conforms to world standards. “The coloured marble we are producing is non-porous and comes for a much lower price which is increasing it’s demand,” he said, adding, “in the near future, marble exports are likely to witness a substantial increase.” While it is the West Asian countries where majority demand for Indian marble comes from, the company is eyeing the UK and USA, which, Mr Gupta said, are high potential markets. The group, which recorded an annual turnover of Rs 164 crore last year, is expecting exports to have a sizeable share in it’s turnover for this year which it expects to be around Rs 215 crore. He said the coloured marble that was now being produced by the company is being promoted as an alternative to granite. The company had major expansion plans for this region. Of the total 50 traders across the country the company has 11 in Punjab and plans to increase the total number to 70 within this year.
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Living life from a sachet
Harvinder Khetal Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, January 9 While sachets were initially used as a tool to induce more trials, today they are being introduced as a standard SKU (stock keeping unit). Thus when ITC introduced Mangaldeep in a sachet a year ago, it wasn’t intended at trials. Rather the sachet pack was one of the key pack-size amongst the 20 SKUs to drive sales. Says Mr V.M. Rajasekharan, CEO, ITC Agarbatti, “Unlike conventional marketing wisdom wherein the primary purpose of a sachet is to induce trials and upgrade the consumer to a bigger pack, we were clear that our sachet pack will drive sales on its own.” In another example, Marico Industries has recently launched Parachute Sampoorna wherein again the packet is an important part of the SKU. The coconut oil has hibiscus and almond added to it and comes in 150 ml, 75 ml and two sachets priced at Rs 10 and Rs 5. The sachet is metamorphosing. Gone are the days when it meant “small quantity” or just “one use”. Increasingly, companies are putting in more ‘volume’ in a sachet even if it means crossing the mental price barrier of 50 paise or Re 1. Mr Rajasekharan adds, “Today there are distinctly two consumer categories. One that considers a sachet as a one-time use opportunity and the other, which recognises the ‘convenience’ factor and wants to re-use the sachet pack. Our Mangaldeep agarbattis cater to both these consumer segments.”
Bouquet of products
The following bouquet of products indicates the changing trend: Marico Sampoorna: Rs 10 and Rs 5 Dalda: Rs 13 Sunsilk Shampoo: Rs 5 Mr. Miller Basmati Rice: Rs 5 ITC Agarbatti Mangaldeep: Rs 2 Kissan Tomato Ketchup: Rs 10 Kissan Jam: Rs 2 Gems (Cadburys): Rs 5 Nirvana Cough Syrup: Rs 2
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Textile exports set to grow manifold
New Delhi, January 9 Officially, the industrial chambers, including Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Assocham), Ficci and CII are pressing upon the government to undertake labour reforms and remove other restrictions. For the past many years, India has been a votary for dismantling of the textile quota system, much before the initiation of the Uruguay Round negotiations in 1986. Now, the country is hopeful that textile exports will increase manifold, from under $14 billion now to $ 50 billion by 2010. Benefiting from the government support under Technological Upgradation Fund Scheme (TUFS), a large number of textile firms, including in Ludhiana, Panipat, Noida, Tirupur have installed new and second hand imported machinery worth hundreds of crores over the past few years. Finance Minister P. Chidambaram has also assured the industry that taxes on man-made fibre will be revised in the next Budget, while he had already exempted cotton chain from excise duties. Due to the TUFS, textile companies have also been able to raise debt at globally competitive rates. Big buyers in the US and Europe are now expected to focus only on a handful of large suppliers in low-cost economies like India.
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Greaves launches new pump
Chennai, January 9 Greaves has indigenously developed the Greaves Metro Pump at its unit in Gummidipoondi, Tamil Nadu. It is the only pump of its kind to be manufactured locally and suits the requirements of a typical RMC (Ready Mix Concrete) operator. Mr P. Sachdev, Managing Director and CEO, Greaves Cotton, said, “This is an important in-house product development initiative of Greaves and it is bound to provide a boost to the construction industry”. Greaves Metro Pump is specially designed to be mounted on Ashok Leyland truck for easy manoeuvrability on city roads. It has a provision of air compressor with an air receiver for cleaning of pipeline. It also has a high-pressure water pump and a water tank with storage capacity of 1000 litres which enhances the pipeline cleaning feature of this pump. The ideal stacking design in Greaves Metro Pump utilises the extra space available for carrying pipeline from site to site.
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Over 1 cr Reliance subscribers
New Delhi, January 9 According to the latest subscriber base of major mobile operators released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), the state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited occupies the third place at 88.8 lakh mobile subscribers followed by Hutchison and Idea. Among the five top mobile companies, Reliance operates in CDMA while the other four are offering GSM service.
— PTI
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by J.C. Anand Market is likely to recover
The stock market indices after creating many all-time records suffered a sharp decline on January 5, 2005 when the Sensex crashed by 192 points. This was the largest one-day fall since that of the black Monday on May 17, 2004 and the third largest in the calendar year 2004.
The stock market is wayward and, most of the time, unpredictable with its intra-day volatility. In fact during the calendar year 2004, the Sensex gained 9.8 per cent hike between January 1 and December 24. It almost doubled its level from what it was on December 31, 2002, and the Nifty more than doubled itself during the same period. The steep fall on January 5 has, however, unnerved both the traders and the investors. The decline was also repeated on the next trading day, though to a lesser extent. Last Friday, when the market closed, the Sensex, however, had staged a recovery. There are many analysts who believe that so unpredictable are the movements in the stock market that we have to wait and watch the behaviour of the market before we can conclude that the market-fall on January 5 was only a healthy correction in the bull phase rather than an onset of a bear phase. It appears to me that the market would open and remain buoyant this week and after, though the bull may not run as fast as it did during the last week of December. This week, the quarterly results of the corporate sector will start pouring in. On January 12, Infosys will declare its quarterly results which are expected to be quite good. Even otherwise, the market expects the 3rd quarterly results to be, in general, very good which would keep the market buoyant. The Indian economy is doing well and even the inflation rate has moved down to a six-month low of 6.3 per cent. The market is likely to do well at least during this fortnight. But the Budget proposals and the behaviour of the monsoon rains would determine the behaviour of the market during this calendar year. The Patents (Amendment) Ordinance 2004 was announced during the last week of December 2004 to introduce product patents for all industrial sectors. It will be placed before Parliament during the Budget session and may undergo some changes. As it is, it is unlikely to have much impact on drug prices till 2006. This would call for greater investment in R & D activities of the Indian pharma industry. A related development is the dismantling of quota curbs by the USA and the European countries. This would greatly benefit the textile and fabrics industry of India. According to one analysis, India’s share could rise in the Europe and USA garment markets from 6-9 per cent to 10-13 per cent. Labour cost in the textile industry in India is lower than in China, Mexico, Thailand, South Korea and Germany. Only Indonesia has marginally lower labour cost than India. But it would take some time before the Indian textile industry is able to capitalise upon its gains, only when the removal of quotas is sanctioned by the USA and the European countries as required by the WTO understanding. Welspun India, which is one of the largest Terry towel makers in the world, should be placed on the watch list by the investors for many international companies have already placed large orders on the company. Textile companies like Raymond, Vardhman Group, Arvind Mills, Nahar Group, Grasim and Indian Rayon, are expected to make tremendous gains in the next financial year and later. Pfizer Ltd. has been moving up even when the stock market suffered a sharp decline. This gain cannot be explained in terms of its EPS or P/E ratio. Perhaps, it is possible that the company may be contemplating a buyback offer. The company’s parent, Pfizer International, is the top pharma company in the world. It should be carefully watched and not sold in haste. |
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by S.C. Vasudeva Office car, chauffeur and tax
Q. I am a salaried employee and my employer has offered me a car facility. Please give me advice regarding the taxability of the
above said facility?
— Anuj Gupta A. You have not mentioned whether the facility is being offered to you only for official purposes or you can use it for personal purposes as well. Therefore, the answer is being given on the assumption that you can use the car for both official and personal purposes. Further, you have not mentioned that the expenditure on the maintenance and running of the car will be incurred by you or by your employer. If the expenditure will be met by your employer, the taxable value of the perquisite shall be Rs 1,200 per month in case the cubic capacity of the engine is upto 1.6 litres or Rs 1,600 per month if it is more than 1.6 litres. However, if the expenditure on running and maintenance is met by you, then the taxable value of the perquisite shall be Rs 400 per month in case the cubic capacity of the engine is up to 1.6 litres or Rs 600 per month if it is more than 1.6 litres. If the chauffeur is also provided to you to run the car, the taxable amount as stated aforesaid shall be increased by Rs 600 per month.
Deduction for HRA Q. I am a joint owner, along with my father, of a residential property at Mohali. Both of us have jointly taken a housing loan from HDFC Bank for which we are paying back monthly instalments from the account of my father and are claiming 50:50 deduction on interest repayments and rebate on principal repayments every year. Both of us are government employees and were staying at the same residential premises till last month. Both of us while staying in our own house at Mohali did not claim any deduction for HRA till date. Last month, due to some unforeseen circumstances, I had to leave my abovesaid house and have now shifted in a rented accommodation at Mohali itself. But my father is still living in the same house. Now, I want to ask whether: (a) In my tax returns for next year, can I claim additional deduction on HRA due to payment of rent actually paid for my new rented accommodation along with 50 per cent deduction on interest repayments and rebate on principal repayments, if we (me & my father) keep on paying monthly loan instalments to the bank, but I am not living in that loaned house ? (b) If I am entitled for this additional deduction on payment of rent next year, can I and my wife (also a government. employee) jointly claim deduction on HRA i.e 50 per cent each, due to payment of rent? — Er Baljinder Singh, Mohali A. The answer to your queries is as under: (a) The deduction for HRA and payment of interest in respect of Capital borrowed as well as repayment of principal amount for purchase of a house are independent deductions and, therefore, you can claim the deductions in respect of HRA, the payment of interest and repayment of principal amount. (b) The deduction of HRA is available only to an employee when rent has actually been paid by him. For this purpose, the rent agreement that you have entered into with your landlord would be relevant. If both you and your wife are tenants, then if both of you have made payment of rent, you and your wife will be entitled to the deduction in respect of HRA. However, if the lease is in your name and your wife makes payment of half of the total rental, then in such a situation it will be very difficult for her to claim the deduction in respect of HRA. |
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