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BSNL eyes major expansion
Vision Document unveiled for agro-processing industry
HPMC bags order from Bhutan
Markfed advocates Bt cotton’s use
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Korean giants launch consumer durables
Maruti slates Swift launch in May
Kodak launches ultra-light frames
Govt to raise credit to small units
Foreign Trade Policy today
Travel agents’ bandh today
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BSNL eyes major expansion
New Delhi, April 7 “We would be expecting a revenue increase of 30 per cent from our investments,” Chairman and Managing Director of BSNL Anil Kumar Sinha told newspersons here, adding that the company was targeting to expand its aggregate subscriber base to 100 million customers during the next three years. “Our customers can look forward to enjoying the facility of Internet access with Wi-Fi & Wi-Max forums across the country during 2005. To begin with, 15 cities have been identified for Wi-Fi forum. For Wi-Max forum, work will be undertaken in five major cities on an experimental basis. We are making best efforts to offer next generation technologies to the customers, which includes EDGE,” Mr Sinha said. The expansion initiative, the first of its kind in recent times, aims at completely eliminating the waiting list by March 2006. Besides, the company will also set up about 25,000 rural community phones. These phones would later be converted into public tele info centres (PTICs). On the broadband services Data one, Mr Sinha said in a period of four months the services were already available in 32 cities with a customer base of more than 33,000 customers. Overall, the company had about 18 lakh Internet customers in various segments of dial-up, leased line and broadband access. As regards the GSM mobile services CellOne, he said it had customer base of 9.4 million. “We are expecting a growth rate of more than 78 per cent in customers in financial year 2004-05”, Mr Sinha said. He said the company was growing at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9 per cent in the past five years, clocking a net profit of over Rs 5,972 crore.
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Vision Document unveiled for agro-processing industry
New Delhi, April 7 Unveiling the Vision Document-2015 here today, Minister of Food Processing Industry Subodh Kant Sahay said the domestic food processing industry would grow from Rs 4.60 lakh crore in 2003-04 to Rs 13.50 lakh crore in 2014-15. He said 100 per cent FDI will be allowed in this sector for the investors in the mega Food Parks and there are 49 food parks in the country. Five mega food parks are expected to come up soon in selected parts of the country. Mr Sahay said this sector is expected to generate the additional employment of approximately 82 lakh including direct employment of 18 lakh and indirect employment of 64 lakh. The targeted national growth can be achieved by enhancing the level of processing perishables from 6 to 20 per cent and stepping up the value addition by 70 per cent, said the analysis carried out in the Vision document. The constraints of growth for this sector on the demand side include low domestic affordability due to lower per capita income in India at $ 640 compared to $ 41,500 in US and $ 1,360 in China, cultural preference for fresh foods and its availability. On the exports side, hindrances include lack of brand image, low product innovation and support and subsidies overseas, which are to the tune of $ 370 billion, and Non-Tariff Barrier (NTB).
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HPMC bags order from Bhutan
Solan: The flavour of Himachali apples is soon going to hit the markets abroad with the Himachal Pradesh Marketing Corporation (HPMC) managing to procure export orders from Bhutan for its tetra packs of various fruit concentrates. The first consignment of 26,000 trays, consisting of 27 packs each, has been dispatched to Bhutan. The country has also placed orders for buying two truckloads of 3,000 trays each for every month from the HPMC. Encouraged by this order, HPMC is now making efforts to procure export orders from some Gulf and European countries as well as the neighbouring Bangladesh. While the apple-based products have a special attraction in the European countries those in Gulf prefer mango-based products. Mr T.R. Chauhan, manager of the HPMC plant at Parwanoo, informed that diversifying from its earlier fruits of apple, litchi and lemon, the corporation has now introduced fruits based products of kiwi and strawberry from this year.
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Markfed advocates Bt cotton’s use
Jodhan (Ludhiana), April 7 Additional Managing Director, Markfed, Mr B.J. Randhawa, while informing farmers about the official launch of the Bt-cotton seed in Bathinda, said the genetically engineered seed would ensure better quality and high yield that would fetch good returns to farmers. Mr Randhawa was here to address a gathering of over 300 farmers on the occasion of Nahar Kisan Divas. The divas was organised by the Nahar Group of Industries with an aim to “bring farmers closer to industry.” While he admitted Bt-cotton had its side effects, he said these should not affect farmers. “Even medicines, which we have been consuming for years, carry some or the other side-effect. But just as such effects do not nullify the major benefit derived from a drug, farmers should not worry about related impacts,” he said, adding, “what is important is a good quality seed. Bt would mean lesser use of insecticides apart from high yield.” When asked about the long-term effects of Bt-cotton (some nations are strongly against using cloth made from Bt cotton), Mr Randhawa said these should not affect farmers. “Before approval of anything, due checks are conducted, which would be done in case of the produce from India as well,” he said while brushing aside the matter. Meanwhile, Kheti Virasat Mission, an NGO promoting organic farming in the region, condemned launch of Bt-cotton and said Punjab is “creating Bt euphoria by pushing the farmers in the state into debt trap.” Mr Umendra Dutt, executive director, Kheti Virasat Mission, said: “They are not taking any precautions or lessons from states like Andhra Pradesh where Bt-cotton failed.” Terming promotion of Bt-cotton as a move towards corporatisation of agriculture, Mr Dutt said there were several evidences that proved severe health implications caused due to the genetically modified seed.
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Keen on forging liaisons with farmers for contractual farming, the Nahar Group of Industries today said it was looking forward to receive good quality cotton from farmers in Punjab. “Of the 7 lakh bales we use every year, only 3 lakh come from Punjab. We are interested in receiving the remaining the 80 per cent supply also from farmers in this state,” said Mr Dinesh Oswal, Managing Director, Nahar Group of Companies. Mr Oswal said the idea to organise Kisan Divas was to tell farmers about the problems faced by industry in using the cotton produced by them during manufacturing. Chief General Manager of the Cotton Corporation of India (CCI), Mr C.S. Teotia, while talking about the benefits of contractual farming said it had proved to be successful in various states and it was time for farmers and industry in Punjab to go in for contractual farming in cotton. Mr Teotia announced if the Nahar Group went in for contractual farming, the CCI would buy the entire produce from farmers for Rs 25 per quintal more than the prevailing market price. “As a purchasing agency, we would buy the entire produce for Rs 25 per quintal more than the prevailing market price,” he said. He also said CCI would sell such cotton to the Nahar Group after ginning without any profit.
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Korean giants launch consumer durables
New Delhi, April 7 This investment is in addition to $ 12 million the company invested in R&D in India last year, taking the total to about $ 25 million. Samsung India Sales Director Ravinder Zutshi said the R&D centre at India was being strengthened as it was now developing software for all of Samsung’s global requirements for colour TVs. Meanwhile, the company has started exploring the possibility of indigenous manufacturing of its DVD and audio products in view of the maturing market. At present, DVD players and all audio products are imported from Korea. However, a final decision is yet to be taken. The company today unveiled its DNIe Vision range of flat CTVs priced between Rs 6,890 and Rs 20,990. Available in 15 models, the range provides superior quality at lower price points. The technology has been adopted from the premium range and has been adapted for lower-end CTVs by the local R&D, Mr Zutshi
said.
LG Electronics LG Electronics India Pvt Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of LG Electronics, South Korea, has set up an extended target of
Rs. 9,000 crore turnover for the current calendar year. “For 2005 calendar year, we have set an extended turnover target of Rs 9,000 crore but we will be happy if we can achieve a turnover of
Rs. 8500 crore during the current year,” company head for marketing Salil Kapoor told reporters here today. Launching nationally three new products (dishwasher, washer dryer and clothes dryer), Mr Kapoor said in last year too the company set an extended turnover target of
Rs. 7,000 crore but could achieve a turnover of Rs. 6,500 crore, which was Rs 200 crore more than the actual target of
Rs. 6300 crore for 2004. He said the company had proposed to invest Rs. 55 crore in another two years for setting up plant and machinery and launching new products in the washing machine segment. The three new products, to be priced between
Rs. 30,990 and Rs.41,290, were launched by Bollywood star Mahima
Choudhury. — UNI
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Maruti slates Swift launch in May
New Delhi, April 7 Sources here disclosed that MUL board, which meets every year with the Suzuki officials, has worked out the modalities for the launch of Swift in India by the third week of May this year. The launch in India would coincide with the launch of Swift the world over. Swift is Suzuki’s most attractive and stylish vehicle to be launched recently in Japan and has quickly gone up the sales charts to become one of the 20 top-selling models there. With barely two months to go for the Swift launch in India, the Maruti team aims to pick up early lessons that may be applied to the Indian market. Incidentally, there is a strong Indian connection with the Swift as for the first time as many as 21 Indian engineers having worked with Suzuki engineers on the design and development of this global model. The Swift is Suzuki’s first world car in the sense that it has been designed with European taste in mind and is being launched simultaneously worldwide. Reports here suggested that both Suzuki and Maruti will position Swift around style, looks and attitude, in addition to the traditional Maruti-Suzuki USPs of fuel efficiency and performance. Although pricing of the Swift will be decided closer to launch, it is likely to be priced at a premium as an upgrade for the Alto-WagonR-Santro customer. The price of Hyundai Getz, which is in the same segment as the Swift, is Rs 4.5 lakh for the base model. This is going to be Maruti Suzuki’s first new model launch after the introduction on the Grand Vitara early last year. Yesterday the board had approved the investment in two plants at Manesar, Haryana, and the new car making plant will be a joint venture, called Maruti Suzuki Automobiles India Ltd, in which Maruti will hold a 70 per cent stake. The plant’s capacity will be 1,00,000 cars per year, which can be scaled up to 2,50,000 cars. It will begin production by 2006. The engine plant will have a capacity of 3,00,000 diesel engines and 20,000 petrol engines. It will also make up to 1,40,000 transmission assemblies.
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Red Hat gets Punjabi feather
Chandigarh, April 7 The Punjabi version includes productivity applications such as office suite with a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation tool, Web browser and an e-mail client enabling users to share digitised text in Punjabi across platforms. Talking to TNS after the launch Mr Sachin Dabir, Head, Enterprise Sales, Red Hat, said that besides Punjabi, the OS has been launched in Hindi, Bengali, Tamil and Marathi, too. “Work on eight other Indian languages would also be completed by the year end,” he said and added that Punjabi was one of the languages to be developed from the Pune centre because Linux user base has grown massively in Punjab. “Regional languages would be beneficial in e-governance and educational projects,” he said and added that this would also help independent software vendors to expand business opportunities across rural banking and community information centres. When asked by this correspondent about the complaint of bugs in the OS, he said: “Bugs are a part of technological development. What is more important is how fast and effectively do we get rid of them.” While acknowledging that their clients have so far been limited to the multi-user segment he said now the main focus would be to move from the server to the desktop segment. “The launch of Punjabi OS is a step in this direction as we now eye desktops and laptops in the region,” he said. “Already we have LIC of India, Indian Air Force and a number of courts as our desktop clients. The response has also been good from Municipal Corporation, Delhi, and Rajya Shiksha Mission of Madhya Pradesh,” he added.
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Kodak launches ultra-light frames
Chandigarh, April 7 Mr Vipul Motani, Director, Delta Lens, the exclusive distributor in the country for Signet Armorlite, said Punjab, particularly places like Chandigarh and Ludhiana, offers a good potential for the Kodak premium lenses and frames. Of the four Kodak eye care centres across the county, two are in the region — at Chandigarh and Jalandhar. “ Professional, executives and students from affluent backgrounds are able to afford frames and lenses over and above Rs 4,000 in this market,” he said. The new range is targeted at the premium customers and the price of frames with lenses would be between Rs 6,500 to over Rs 20,000. The frame, priced at Rs 6,500, is available in three colours — silver grey, titanium grey and metallic brown — in infinite eye shapes. Since the share of plastic lenses has increased, they were new focussing on the plastic ones than the glass ones. They were looking for a 30 per cent growth in business. Though the prices are high as of now yet they are likely to come down. Mr Motani said the company, which had already launched unbreakable polycarbonate progressive lenses in the price range of Rs 7,000 to Rs 8,000, would shortly launch the single-vision lenses priced around Rs 1,500.
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Whirlpool to source ACs from China
New Delhi, April 7 “We have tied up with
Gree, the second largest AC manufacturer in the world, which also supplies to our market in North America and Latin America. We will source these ACs from its plant in China,” Mr Arvind
Uppal, Managing Director of Whirlpool India, told reporters. Among the new launches today, a 180 lt ‘Genius’ refrigerator was unveiled in the direct cool segment at a starting price of Rs 7,500. In the AC category, the six sense Magicool will be priced in the range of Rs 16,500-Rs 33,000 in 1
tonne, & 1.5 tonne and 2 tonne capacities. — PTI
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Govt to raise credit to small units
New Delhi, April 7 The scheme will enable the small and medium enterprises across the country to access credit from the financial institutions, after getting themselves rated from the reputed credit rating agencies like Crisil, Icra, Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) and Onicra. The Indian Bank Association (IBA) has assured the government that all their branches would give preference to the units while offering loans, which are certified by the credit agencies. “There is a misconception that the SSI units are dying. Otherwise facts show that the number of SSI units, persons employed by them and their contribution in exports are rising. It is only the credit to them that is stagnating or declining in some cases,” said Finance Minister P. Chidamabaram while launching the scheme here today.
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Foreign Trade Policy today
New Delhi, April 7 Sources indicated that the government was likely to announce a new duty neutralisation scheme to replace the existing popular duty entitlement passbook scheme (DEPB). The DEPB scheme was originally designed to provide a cushion to offset the incidence of customs duty on imported inputs purchased to manufacture export products. Although, the scheme is popular, it is not in conformity with the norms as mandated by the WTO. Under the DEPB, exporters enjoy duty credits as per specific rates fixed for export products. Sources also indicated that the policy might contain several measures for simplifications of procedures to bring down transaction costs. There is also a likelihood that the government may set in motion a process where the movement would be more towards “duty drawbacks” with focus on accelerating the refund process. Sources indicated that the Foreign Trade Policy would lay adequate emphasis on faster implementation of the electronic data interchange (EDI) system to reduce transaction costs. Transactions costs, particularly for imports, are currently as high as 22 per cent in certain cases.
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Travel agents’ bandh today
Chandigarh, April 7 The bandh call has been given jointly by three major bodies of travel agents and travel agencies. These bodies — the Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI), the Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI) and the IATA Agents Association of India (IAAI) — have also asked their members to continue complete boycott of the country’s flag carrier Air-India. They have also asked their members to suspend the sale of tickets of Lufthansa from April 9. According to Mr Umesh Kapoor and Mr Kamaljit Cheema, who represent the Chandigarh unit of the TAAI and the TAFI, respectively, the response to the call is expected to be overwhelming. All travel agents and travel agencies in Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh are expected to keep their shutters down tomorrow. Though the boycott of Air-India started on April 1, there has been a considerable drop in air travel business ever since travel agents and travel agencies started their protest against a cut in their commission. Last year, Mr Umesh Kapoor said, Lufthansa tried to reduce the commission. When all associations got together and announced a complete boycott of the German national carrier, the airline withdrew the order. “But this time, the foreign airlines have used Air-India to play their game. The management of Air-India, instead of talking to the associations, took the lead in announcing a reduction in the commission. British Airways, Austrian Airlines and Lufthansa followed suit. It is why we decided to boycott both Air-India and its subsidiary, Air-India Express, completely from April 1. We are also not making reservations or bookings for either Air-India or Air-India Express,” said Mr Kamaljit Cheema.
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