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Subsidy cut in Budget worries fertiliser industry
Wipro enters North with soap unit at Baddi
Himurja helps tap HP hydel potential
BoP expands e-banking facilities
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Air Arabia to fly daily to India
NTPC overtakes RIL in m-cap
Fujitsu to sell LCD operations to Sharp
Tax benefit on house loan
Market may go flat due to profit booking
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Subsidy cut in Budget worries fertiliser industry
New Delhi, February 6 In fact, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram has indicated to announce a roadmap in his Budget to restructure all Central subsidies based on the recommendations of the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP) and industry inputs. The institute has submitted a comprehensive report to the Finance Ministry recommending measures to bring down all explicit subsidies in the Budget. “Fertiliser subsidy should be done away within its present form. There is a need for policy measures to reduce subsidy to both the farmers and fertiliser subsidy,” points out the report on “ Central Government Subsidies in India,” that was also presented in Parliament during last session. The Fertiliser Association of India (FAI) has admitted that fertiliser subsidy has increased from Rs 500 crore in 1980-81 to over Rs 12,622 crore during 2004-05. However, it has blamed the high cost of raw material like naptha and power, and government control over the retail prices for the present crisis. It has called upon the government to consider industry’s view before taking any drastic decision in the Budget. With the government’s announcement to double agricultural credit within three years, and good monsoon, the fertiliser industry expected a growth in demand in the coming years from the present level of around 200 million tonnes annually. In fact, in large parts of the country, including Punjab, Haryana and Western UP which are major contributors to the Central foodgrain pool, farmers had to face an acute shortage of urea and DPA fertiliser during last season. President of the FAI Grover says, “To promote investment in the fertiliser industry the Government should encourage use of shifting towards LNG fuel besides entering to long term contracts to import phosphoric acid, the basic raw material for DAP fertiliser.” The phosphoric prices had gone up to over $ 400 per tonne this year against $ 356 per tonne last year, resulting in shortage of DAP in the market. The NIPFP report has also suggested that urea imports could be de-canalised and a flat rate subsidy system may be introduced with two different rates of subsidy for domestic producers and importers in the short run, and a single rate in the medium term. Criticising the high-cost structure of the domestic fertiliser industry, the report has recommended to the government to promote setting up of fertiliser plants in countries where natural gas in available in plenty. It added that fertiliser produced there could be shared between the host country and India as per the agreement reached, it added. Kribhco is already setting up a urea and ammonia plant in Oman (16.52 lakh capacity) that will start production by July this year.
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Wipro enters North with soap unit at Baddi
Baddi, February 6 Inaugurating the first manufacturing plant of the group outside West and South India, the Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister, Mr Virbhadra Singh, promised better power supply and infrastructure to promote industrial growth of the units setting up base here. Wipro is now eyeing the growing market of North India by focussing on those products which have a better demand in this part of the region and has attracted the likes of FMCG major Hindustan Lever Ltd (HLL) in the past, Mr Vineet Agrawal, President, Wipro Consumer Care and Lighting told TNS today. With the first line of the state-of-the-art facility becoming operational today, 30 tonnes of santoor toilet soaps, its flagship brand, will be manufactured and the production figures will go up to 45-50 tonnes once the second line gets started within the next three months. While the industry has shown a marginal growth, Santoor has grown 26 per cent in the first nine months of the year, he added. Talking about the expansion plans, Mr Agrawal said the company would be gradually adding to the production capacity of the plant here, including backward integration to make soap noodles. The production of Glucovita would start in the next three months. At present, Wipro markets Glucovita and Isabgol (Sanjeevani Isabgol), but was looking at other opportunities in this segment, including nutraceuticals, digestives etc, he said. The revised focus of the company would be on those products which have a growing demand in the northern region such as the Safewash liquid detergent, diapers for infants and beauty soaps like Milk and Roses. Winters being more severe in the north than in the south and the west, results for the third quarter have shown better figures of the liquid detergent from this region. It has also extended its Santoor brand to facewash and fairness cream segment and further extensions of the franchise may also be explored by the company. He said nearly 7-8 major third party major suppliers for wrappers, cartons for its product — such as Santoor, Wipro talcum powder, its safewash liquid detergent and other toilet suppliers were in the process of shifting to Himachal Pradesh. The company would be using its six sigma techniques here too to increase its productivity and customer satisfaction. The target group will be consumers in the lower and middle class segment by providing them value-for-money for their products.
Himachalis assured jobs
Wipro chairman Azim Premji is living up to his promise of creating more jobs for the youth and 80 per cent of the employees in the plant here would be natives of the hill state of Himachal Pradesh. “Global excellence is a product of organisational processes, people and the infrastructure support, which is provided by the government,” he said while thanking the state government for addressing to their needs and helping them start production in less than six months.
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Himurja helps tap HP hydel potential
Shimla, February 6 So far, 235 projects with an aggregate capacity of 471.59 MW have been assigned to the private sector through the Memorandums of Understanding (MoU) route. Detailed reports for 148 projects have been received and appraised. So far, techno-economic clearance has been accorded to 79 projects by the state electricity board and Implementation Agreements for 64 projects with aggregate capacity of 186.75 MW have also been signed. The implementation work of 6 projects with an aggregate capacity of 18.5 MW has already started. Besides this, five of the eight projects allotted to the state under the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) were executed by Himurja. They include Kothi (200KW) in Kulu, Lingti (400 KW) in Spiti valley, Juthed (100 MW) in Tissa and Sural (100 MW) and Purthi (100 MKW) in Pangi. Three other projects — Solang (1000 KW) and Raskat (800 KW) in Kulu district and Titang (900 KW) in Kinnaur district have been commissioned though private sector participation. Three other projects, namely Gharola (100 KW), Bara Bhangal (40 KW) and Sach (900 KW) are also being executed by Himurja in remote and tribal areas of the state. Himurja has also been providing portable micro-hydel generator sets and schemes with aggregate capacity of 200 KW and have been commissioned in the remote areas of the state. In all, 12 such sets have been commissioned in the tribal Pangi sub-division and two in Dodra Kawar. Himurja is rehabilitating the 15 KW stand alone demonstration units at Sarahan which was damaged in flashfloods in July 2003. The organisation has successfully reached people and made them aware of the benefits of solar cookers and solar water heating systems. Over the last one year alone, 1075 solar cookers and 255 solar water heating systems were installed in various pockets of the state. It also helps in arranging the solar photovoltaic system, more suitable for tribal and remote areas, is also being encouraged by the Himurja. It has already installed 906 such systems for streetlighting.
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BoP expands e-banking facilities
Chandigarh, February 6 The bank bas started processing of retail loans application forms through the Internet. The application forms for home loans and car loans are available on the bank’s site www.bankofpunjab.com. Potential customers can download the forms from the site or even fill the form online and the bank will provide doorstep service to the customers for completion of other formalities, hence facilitating quick and hassle-free processing of the application and disbursal of loan. The Bank of Punjab is also in the process of adding 15 new branches to its existing network and to recruit around 200 persons in the current calendar year to further expand its business. The bank is now looking at fresh and second-level staff for the same, said its Executive Director, Mr Tejbir Singh.
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Air Arabia to fly daily to India
Sharjah, February 6 Air Arabia said it has been granted rights to fly daily to Mumbai from the middle of next month, making it the latest destination in the airliner’s expanding network now reaching 12 countries and 16 destinations within West Asia, North Africa and the Indian Subcontinent. Several Indian organisations have been urging the Union Civil Aviation Ministry to allow low cost airlines in the Gulf region to operate flights to India as they feel the national carriers levy inordinately high airfare from the Gulf-bound passengers. The keenly awaited flight schedules and fares for India will be announced later this month. ”We are delighted with this addition to our growing network,” Air Arabia’s Chairman, Sheikh Abdullah Bin Mohd Al-Thani, said. ”By connecting India to our existing routes, we can now offer Indian nationals the opportunity to travel at lower fares throughout the Gulf region and Gulf residents to travel to India at the best possible fares, allowing families to meet more frequently and tourists to enjoy even more destinations,” he added. The arrival of Air Arabia may expedite the launch of Air-India’s own low-cost version Air Express set to start operations in April and may well trigger off a price war, airline sources said, adding low cost airlines were good news for Indian tourism.
— PTI
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NTPC overtakes RIL in m-cap
New Delhi, February 6 The ONGC had surpassed Reliance a few years ago and has been dominating the m-cap chart. On the other hand, the NTPC listed its shares on bourses only in November 2004 after its successful IPO and took just about three months to overtake decades-old favourite RIL, which saw erosion in its share value after the bitter battle between the two Ambani brothers. Till the last week, ONGC's m-cap was at Rs 1,17,768 crore, way ahead of NTPC's Rs 75,611 crore and RIL's Rs 74,775
crore. — PTI
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Fujitsu to sell LCD operations to Sharp
Tokyo, February 6 ''It is true that we are in negotiation with Sharp, but nothing concrete has been decided. We'll make an announcement as soon as an agreement is reached,'' a Fujitsu spokesman said. The deal would mark Fujitsu's effective withdrawal from the volatile and highly competitive flat-panel market, since the company already plans to sell a 30.1 per cent stake in its 50-50 plasma-panel joint venture to existing partner Hitachi Ltd in April.
— Reuters
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by J.C. Anand
Market may go flat due to profit booking
During the last fortnight Sensex was up by 512 points though the major part of the gains were made during the last week. The market may, however, go flat during this week partially due to profit booking and partially due to the fact that almost all third quarter results have been announced.
The market did well during the last week due to a number of factors. First, the FIIs were net buyers for Rs 3679 crore in the first three days of the current month. The global markets were also positive. The FIIs are expected to maintain their inflows into the Indian market. Standard & Poor (S&P), a leading international rating agency, has also raised India’s foreign currency-rating from ‘BB’ to ‘BB+’, though this improved rating keeps India below the “investment grade”. The S&P has also stated that India’s prospects are stable and good with GDP growth likely to be around 6.5 - 7 per cent in the medium term. It, however, warns India about high “combined Central and state governments” deficit which amounts to 10 per cent of the GDP. The inflation rate has also come down to 5.37 per cent for the week ending January 22 touching a 34-week low. Another reason for the bullish tone in the market is due to a number of policy decisions made by the Union government. On January 28 the government announced that the non-government provident funds can invest in the stocks. Such PFs would include gratuity funds, superannuation funds and other private funds. The funds have been told to put 5 per cent of their fresh inflow into equity shares. They have also been given option to invest in the equity-linked mutual funds. According to a calculation this would bring around fresh investment worth Rs 1,500 crore in the shares every year. Another policy decision related to Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the telecom sector to the extent of 74 per cent, though it is subject to certain conditions so that the operating companies do not go out of Indian hands. Another important announcement was the approval of the National Electricity Policy (NEP) by the Union government on February 2. This would provide a lot of business to the companies involved in the electricity sector like ABB, Siemens, Alstom, Alstom Power, L&T etc. The market has also responded to encouraging 3rd quarter results. According to various estimates, the net profit of the corporate sector is up by about 33 per cent during this quarter. The textile sector companies, however, have not done well. Nahar Spinning’s nine-month net profit now stands at Rs 2453.56 lakh as against Rs 2702.54 lakh. Other Nahar group companies have also reported lower net profits. Nahar Industrial Enterprises has actually gone into loss and its profit for nine month period is Rs 478.02 lakh as against Rs 2498.80 lakh in the corresponding period last year. Nahar Exports’ nine month net profit is Rs 1569.84 lakh as against Rs 2267.82 lakh. Nahar Sugar has, however, made net profit during the 3rd quarter as well as for the nine-month period. Vardhman Poly’s net profit for the nine month period is Rs 2.27 crore as against Rs 3.83 crore for the corresponding period last year. ABB and Sesa Goa made spectacular gains during the last week IPCL and BOC, which were recommended in this column last fortnight, have also moved up. Both these scrips have sufficient fundamental strength to maintain their upward movement during this calendar year.
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