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BSNL challenges TDSAT order
India pushes market access for its professionals under WTO
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New power policy in Left’s interest, says minister
Telecom snippets
Budget may smoothen petroleum duty structure
EPFO board to meet soon
Get cash through Moneyplant
Pantaloon acquires 49 pc stake in Planet Sports
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BSNL challenges TDSAT order
New Delhi, February 4 A Bench of Mr Justice D M Dharamadhikari and Mr Justice B N Srikrishna issued notice to the Cellular Operators Association (COAI) on the BSNL petition, challenging the TDSAT order on the ground that it could not force the public sector company to grant same concession to rival competitors, which it intended to give to its subscribers. BSNL counsel Maninder Singh said that it would go against the principle of sound competition in the competitive telecom market. The TDSAT had passed the order on November 3 last year after BSNL had challenged the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) directive of January 2001 for extending the concessions to the private operators by the public sector company. The BSNL had given certain concession to its subscribers on calls made by them between 50 km and 200 km distance and Trai in its directive on January 25, 2001, had asked it to provide the same concessions to the private operators, too. In another telecom related matter, another Bench of Mr Justice Arijit Pasayat and Mr Justice S H Kapadia, issued notice to BSNL on a petition by Trai, challenging the rulings of TDSAT in telecom tariff matters on the ground that the latter was encroaching upon its regulatory role. Trai moved the apex court, raising questions over the TDSAT authority in deciding the terms and conditions on inter-connectivity among service providers, saying it was beyond tribunal’s authority. “Is Trai powerless to intervene in a case where a dispute is likely to arise and or having arisen, which have serious implications for telecom industry,” Trai counsel Sanjay Kapoor asked. The dispute between the regulator and TDSAT arose after the tribunal had quashed certain orders of Trai relating to disconnection of interconnection by BSNL vis-à-vis other telecom operators for not paying the interconnectivity charges for using its facilities.
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Reliance Info violated licence, says govt
The government has accused Reliance Infocomm of violating the licence by illegally routing international calls as local ones to avoid payment of levies to the telecom PSUs and alleged that the private operator had misrepresented the facts.
Commenting on the response of Infocomm, headed by Mukesh Ambani, to the notice of Rs 150 crore penalty imposed on it by the Department of Telecom, the government said in its counter affidavit in the appellete telecom tribunal (TDSAT) that the reply by the private operator “established the intentions of the petitioners to continue its deceptions for as long as possible.” The counter-affidavit was filed by the Department of Telecom in response to a petition filed by Reliance Infocomm challenging the penalty of Rs 150 crore imposed on it by the government for alleged illegal rerouting of international calls. Meanwhile, NDTV quoted Communication Minister Dayanidhi Mararn as saying that the government would not be a silent spectator in Reliance Infocomm case and its licence could be revoked in case the private operator did not pay the
penalty (imposed on it by the Department of Telecom). The TV channel, however, said that Maran was of the view that it was for the courts to take the final decision in the case.
— PTI
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Indian FM opens London Stock Exchange
London, February 4 “I believe the road to prosperity is through investment,” said Chidambaram, who opened the Exchange by setting in motion ‘The Source’, LSE’s dynamic sculpture positioned in the main atrium of its new building at Paternoster Square. Chidambaram, who is here to participate in the G-7 meeting of Finance Ministers said: “We are happy 18 Indian companies are listed on this market and I believe more will join in the near future.” Referring to the close economic ties between the two countries, he said in the current fiscal year, there were as many as eight visits from the London Stock Exchange to India. The minister hoped that there would be greater two-way investment between India and Britain. The 18 Indian companies listed on the markets have a total market capitalisation of $ 2.94 billion. In addition there are nine Indian companies with Depository Receipts traded on the Exchange. In 2004, two Indian companies — ACC Ltd and Amtek Motors — successfully raised funds in excess of $ 100 million when they issued Depository Receipts on the exchange. “There is a high level of international investor demand to share in the success of the Indian economy and London has been a conduit through which international capital has contributed to the growth of Indian companies and its wider economy,” Director of Market Services of the Exchange, Martin Graham said. “We are delighted that India is to make its debut at the G-7 today, becoming one of the few outside countries to attend one of its meetings. It is a sign of your growing importance as a world economic power and of the relationship you have built with Britain and other G-7 nations,” he said. Mr Graham said the Exchange has committed itself to India as one of its three key priority
markets. — PTI
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India pushes market access for its professionals under WTO
New Delhi, February 4 “Increase in the size of the firms with proper regulation to deliver quality service alone would not fetch market access in other countries. For this to happen, we believe that visa rules and procedures, grant of work permits, etc. should be facilitated without making them prisoners of labour market tests, economic needs tests and other related impediments of market access,” he said while addressing the 55th Annual Function of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), here today. Mr Nath said India had also been actively engaged in negotiations for Economic Cooperation Agreements with various countries and trading blocs, which would again create market access opportunities for Indian professionals. In each of these agreements, he said necessary steps were being taken to work out Mutual Recognition Agreements (MRAs) with the professional associations of the concerned countries. “Considerable amount of work is now undertaken through back office operations. This has provided employment to a large number of people in the country. It is estimated the Back Office Operations and other Business Process Outsourcing services in India, which amounted to 2 billion dollars in 2002, will rise 11-fold to $ 22 billion by 2008,” he said.
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New power policy in Left’s interest, says minister
New Delhi, February 4 After accepting the Left’s demand to raise interest rate on employees’ provident fund to 9.5 per cent yesterday, the government has dangled another carrot to them through the new electricity policy. It has agreed to continue cross-subsidisation of power to rural sector for the next five years, at least. The Centre would provide capital subsidy to the states for rural electrification, subsidised power to rural households and freedom to them to offer free power to agriculture sector. However, at the same time, the government has opened up the power sector completely for the private players — generation, distribution and transmission. The bulk consumers using up to 1 MW power will be allowed to get power from any source in the market, thus discouraging the state electricity boards to sell power to the industry at a higher rate to cross subsidise other categories of consumers. Left parties have been demanding to review to the Electricity Act 2003 that is emphasising on privatisation of the state electricity boards. They asked the Central government to take the responsibility of “rural electrification as the states do not have adequate funds.” In this regard, Power Minister P.M. Sayeed yesterday said: “The policy has taken care of all concerns expressed by the Leftist parties, including Central assistance for rural electrification and power to weaker section. The policy has been prepared after consulting the state governments, Left parties and other stakeholders.” The government has announced to bring out a separate “rural electrification policy” soon that would lay down the roadmap for providing access to electricity to all rural households within the next five years. Mr Sayeed said the new tariff policy aiming at giving guidelines to the state electricity regulatory commissions to fix power tariff, would be announced by the month-end after getting clearance from the Cabinet. It would ensure that electricity consumers would get power at Rs 2 to Rs 2.20 per unit at the final stage. The Power Minister said the country would require investments worth Rs 9 lakh crore by 2012 to meet the power demand. “We have already made good progress in this regard by signing agreements of financial closure for 5000 MW worth projects by January this year. By March 2005, we are certain to achieve financial closure for 14000 MW at an estimated cost of Rs 50,000 crore.” With the increase in competition and efficiency in the power sector, average investment required has come down from Rs 4 crore per MW to Rs 3 to Rs 3.5 crore.
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Telecom snippets
New Delhi, February 4 This would hasten company’s plans to hit the capital market with a public offering. According to the shareholding pattern, the shareholders of Hutchison Essar Ltd (Delhi), Fascel Ltd (Gujarat), Hutchison Telecom East Ltd (Kolkata), Hutchison Essar South Ltd (Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Chennai, Punjab, UP West, West Bengal) and Aircel Digilink India Ltd (UP East, Rajasthan, Haryana) have transferred all their shares in these companies to Hutchison Max Telecom (HMTL). The process would make HMTL the holding company for all cellular operations of the Hutchison Essar group. The company also announced that it intended to rename HMTL as ‘Hutchison Essar’ at the earliest.
Nokia
Phone handset manufacturer Nokia India said today it has started negotiations with various state governments to finalise the location of its proposed mobile handset manufacturing plant. A decision on the site of the new plant would be taken by March-end, top company officials said. “We are in talks with various state governments for finalising the location of our proposed manufacturing plant. A decision is expected by the end of current quarter,” Sanjeev Sharma, managing director, Nokia India, told reporters on the sidelines of a CII function.
Airtel
Airtel today announced the launch of the mouth-watering recipes of Tarla Dalal on Airtel Live. Tarla Dalal is India’s best-selling cookery author and has written over 55 recipe books. There are recipes for healthy fast foods, mithais, microwave dishes and 10-minute recipes. The download charges are Rs 50 per recipe category.
— TNS, PTI
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Budget may smoothen petroleum duty structure
New Delhi, February 4 Sources said the government is examining the feasibility of replacing the present ad valorem duty structure by a specific duty regime, which would be easy to administer and facilitate better assessment. Under the present system, four kinds of taxes and levies are imposed on the price of petrol and diesel. These are — state specific levies, excise duty, additional excise duty/special additional excise duty and surcharges and cess. This is, in addition, to the basic price at the refinery level, dealers’ commission and marketing and cost margins. If all duties and taxes are completely abolished, petrol will cost Rs 17.46 per litre and diesel Rs 18.07 in Delhi. Sources said levy of duties on petroleum at ad valorem rates induces oil price risk for government revenues: if a revenue target for the future is fixed when oil prices are ruling high, government could miss the target when prices drop and forced to consider ad hoc measures. A specific rate of duty helps in avoiding such situations. According to the sources, under the existing system a large component of ad valorem duties are factored into the prices of petroleum products as taxes are imposed as a proportion of factory prices. Thus, when domestic refinery gate prices are changed in accordance with international crude oil prices, the duty component in the retail prices also change. The sources said while it is important to ensure steady flow of revenues from the petroleum sector, given the price fluctuation in the international crude oil market and resultant periodical revisions in domestic refinery prices make administration of ad valorem levy difficult. Specific duties would facilitate assessment; the need for ascertaining the market cost, inland freight, margin, etc would also be obviated. The government is examining the possibility of restructuring the duty structure of petroleum products taking into consideration the major revenue implications such a move might entail, sources added Taxes from petroleum products are one of the major revenue earners for the government. In the current financial year the government is expecting to generate Rs 1,648 crore from a cess of Rs 1.50 on per litre of petrol, and Rs 6,634.00 crore from a similar cess on diesel (diesel consumption is almost four times that of petrol). Besides, there is a surcharge (or special additional excise duty) of Rs 6 per litre of petrol and the government expects to generate Rs 6,592 crore by way of this in 2004-05. In this fiscal year (2004-05) the government is expecting to generate a total of Rs 14,874 crore from various forms of cess and surcharges on petrol and diesel alone. In addition, there are also the excise and customs duty collections. Presently, the government is customs duty at the rate of 15 per cent for petrol and diesel and excise duty at the rate of 23 and eight per cent respectively. In 2003-04, 2002-03, 2001-02, the government mobilised Rs 7,490.77 crore, Rs 6,819.50 crore and Rs 4,818.32 crore from basic customs duty collections from import of crude oil at the rate of 10 per cent. India ranks high among the countries that impose high taxes and duties on the two fuels. Taxes and duties account for just 26 per cent of the price of petrol and 29 per cent of diesel in the US, sources said.
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EPFO board to meet soon
New Delhi, February 4 The proposal for investing a portion of the funds in equities will be on the agenda of this crucial meeting. Union Labour Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, who met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today, allayed fears about the decision not being implemented in light of the huge impact the fund will have to take. The interest rate hike to 9.5 per cent would involve an outgo of Rs 927 crore. “So far we have no idea of investing workers’ money in stock markets. But the proposal regarding this will be one of the agenda before the CBT which will meet either on February 20 or 21,” Mr Rao said after his meeting with the Prime Minister. Singh. Mr Rao said that implementing the decision was a “collective responsibility”.
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Get cash through Moneyplant
Mohali, February 4 Talking to TNS, the Chairman of the bank, Mr Ananthakrishna, who was in the town today said the bank had started providing anytime banking facility to its customers though the ATM’s — The Moneyplant. Five of these would be set up in Chandigarh, Panchkula, Mohali, Ludhiana and Amritsar. The bank also has a tie-up with the Corporation Bank and the customers can use the ATM’s of the latter free of charge across the country, he said.
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Pantaloon acquires 49 pc stake in Planet Sports
Mumbai, February 4 “Planet Sports would triple its sales in two years time by pooling the resources with Pantaloon. It would also add more branded lifestyle products through the Pantaloon network,” Planet Sports Director Arun Bhardwaj said here today after signing a joint venture agreement with Pantaloon. Planet Sports is the sole franchisee of the UK-based Marks and Spencer and holds exclusive distribution licensing rights for brands like Wilson, Puma, Speedo and Converse. It has six Mark and Spencer and 25 Planet Sports stores in India, Mr Bhardwaj said. Under the pact, Pantaloon would subscribe to 49 per cent stake in Planet sports for a sum of up to Rs 14.20 crore, the company informed the Bombay Stock Exchange today.
— PTI
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