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ONGC faces delisting
11 more entities under SEBI scanner
Left govt to divest 29 sick PSUs
Govt nod to hike oil prices sought
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India can grow at 7.5 pc,
India gets $3.75 billion FDI
NFL to invest Rs 500 cr in Panipat plant
Export obligation for SSI units lowered
Kerry Packer gets richer
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ONGC faces delisting
SEBI on Wednesday gave an ultimatum
to India Inc for complying with stipulation of appointing independent
Directors on their boards by December 31, saying that there would be
no relaxation or extension of the deadline for complying with Clause
49.
New Delhi, May 18 The Petroleum Ministry last month appointed Mr V.K. Sibal, Director-General of Hydrocarbons, on the ONGC Board in addition to two officials from the ministry and one from the Department of Economic Affairs, taking the total number of government directors on the board to four, informed sources said. Together with seven functional Directors, the number of Executive Directors has gone up to 11 in a 11-member board, a clear violation of the SEBI guideline that prescribes at least 50 per cent of the board being made up of non-executive Directors (independent directors). “The present composition of the ONGC Board does not conform to the requirements of the listing agreement. SEBI does not recognise the government Directors as ‘independent Directors’,” said a SEBI official. While Mr Sibal’s appointment was being seen as a conflict of interest with his regulatory role, the Petroleum Ministry sited “precendence” of former
DG (DGH), Avinash Chandra “being on the ONGC board for 10 years.” Officials, however, said the ministry was setting a “wrong”
precedent as Mr Chandra was never on the ONGC Board but on the board of its subsidiary, ONGC Videsh Ltd. The sources said the nomination of a fourth government Director also violated the policy of having a maximum of two government Directors on a PSU board. The failure to comply with Clause 49 (corporate governance) of SEBI’s listing agreement is punishable with imprisonment of up to 10 years or a fine of up to Rs 25 crore or both. Besides, the stock exchanges can suspend the dealing/trading of securities. The sources said ONGC Chairman and Managing Director Subir Raha had written twice in as many months to Petroleum Secretary S.C. Tripathi for “taking necessary steps to increase the number of independent Directors to have an optimum combination as required under Clause 49 and/or to reduce the number of government-nominated Directors.”
— PTI
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11 more entities under SEBI scanner
New Delhi, May 18 “We are not planning to ban PNs,” SEBI Chairman M. Damodaran said on the sidelines of the CII annual session. He dismissed speculations that there was a “spate of conviction orders in the pipeline” against FIIs for misusing the PN route to bring down the market on May 17 last year. However, he said SEBI was probing 11 more entities for possible involvement in ‘Black Monday’ market crash days after UPA came to power. SEBI had issued show cause notices to 12 entities but it has so far pinned only one entity — UBS Securities Asia — for not complying with its rules of furnishing details of PNs (offshore derivatives with underlying Indian equity) issued to other investors.
Delisting norms
Securities and Exchange Board of India will provide major relief to small companies within the next six months by easing norms for delisting their shares from the bourses. “There will be a simpler exit route... We are working on it. In six months time, we will come up with something,” SEBI Chairman M. Damodaran said when asked whether the regulator was considering easing of delisting norms for small investors. “We are looking for an alternate... Reverse book-building is a difficult and costly affair,” he said on the sidelines of the CII annual session here.
— PTI
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Left govt to divest 29 sick PSUs
Kolkata, May 18 The CPI(M)-led government also decided to invite private investment in the power and transport sectors , utilise foreign investment from Britain ( under the International Fund for Industrial Development) and borrow from ADB, IMF and other international institutions worth over Rs 17000 crore during the next four years. This was announced by Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee at a function in the presence of several industrialists, senior government officials, CII representatives and the top-brasses of various financial organisations today. The British Deputy High Commissioner and other officials were also present. Mr Bhattacharyee, however, said though the government would hand over several state industries to the private sector, no workers would be victimised. He regretted that they had to invite private investment in industries since their all attempts
to revive these had failed. Trade unions, including CITU and AITUC, vehemently opposed the decision to hand over the state industries to the private sector.
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Govt nod to hike oil prices sought
New Delhi, May 18 It is highly unlikely that the government will agree to allow the OMCs to increase the petrol and diesel prices to that extent. However, sources said, the government may allow up to Rs 2 per litre hike in the petrol and diesel prices keeping in view the hike in international crude prices by over 27 per cent as compared to the prices prevailing in November, 2004. The Petroleum Ministry has claimed that to compensate the oil- marketing companies for supplying highly subsidised kerosene and LPG, an increase of Rs 6.86 per litre in kerosene and Rs 82.20 per cylinder on LPG was required. Appreciating the cut in excise duty on both products, the note said, “ the required price increases in the prices of subsidised products have fallen by Rs 2.72 litre for PDS kerosene and Rs 44.05 per cylinder of LPG as a result of changes made in the Budget ,2005, making custom and excise duties ‘nil’ for subsidised products.” It pointed out that under-recovery of the oil companies have reached Rs 42,700 crore so far due to losses on PDS kerosene, LPG, petrol and diesel, including Rs 13720 crore on kerosene and LPG. The ministry has sought the approval of the CCEA to reintroduce a price band of plus/minus 10 per cent, besides a hike in prices. The ministry has favoured a monthly revision of the oil prices, instead of a fortnightly revision before the formation of the UPA government.
India keen on more flights to Pak: Patel India is keen on linking more destinations in Pakistan by its national carriers but is unable to do so because of restrictions on increasing air connectivity despite an improvement in bilateral ties, Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel said here. Mr Patel, who is here in connection with the resumption of the Delhi-Amritsar-Birmingham-Toronto flight, told reporters that there was no wrong-doing in Air-India’s decision to opt for an all-Boeing fleet instead of the one from Airbus
Industry. “We follow established and well-laid down procedures. Air-India takes decisions on what is good for it. It has techno-economic evaluation. It cannot go outside the guidelines,” he said. On increasing flights to Pakistan, he said India was keen that more carriers, including Air-India and private airlines, operated to Pakistani destinations like Karachi and Lahore, but “there are some limitations”. Despite an improvement in relations, there were restrictions still on increasing air connectivity, he said. Air-India, he said, was planning to launch services to Lahore and Karachi, besides Indian Airlines, which was already operating to Lahore. He said if buses could ply, why not planes. PTI Meanwhile Air India is poised to improve its market leadership position on India-Europe-US routes. The airline virtually withdrew from most of Europe, Australia and large parts of Africa five years ago. “There’s a new optimism in A-I,’’ said its chairman and managing director Vasudevan Thulasidas. In Europe, AI currently operates 10 flights to London which are extended to the USA — seven to New York and three to Chicago. There are eight terminator flights — five on the Mumbai-London-sector, two on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad-London sector and one on the Mumbai-Delhi-London route. About the India-US routes, the airline has grown from 10 services (seven to New York and three to Chicago) a week in December, 2002, to 28 services (seven each to New York, Newark, Chicago and Los Angeles) a week from March.
— UNI
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India can grow at 7.5 pc, says Montek
New Delhi, May 18 Dr Ahluwalia was of the opinion that any medium term transition to an 8 per cent plus growth rate would need a major change in the standards of education and health in India. “Countries that have achieved this growth have literacy rates of 85 per cent, while we have 64 per cent. They have 90 per cent children completing primary and secondary school, which is a far cry in India,” he said. He stressed that the corporate sector and civil society should be involved in a large way in the area of health and education to achieve inclusive growth. He emphasised that this gap needed to be filled up and added that the government had set health targets. Montek said that it would be a major achievement if 8 per cent growth could be achieved in the 11th Plan, coupled with double-digit growth in the manufacturing sector. “It will be good if the manufacturing sector can grow at double digits,” he said. He also observed that it would be hard to push agriculture growth from the present 2 per cent to 4 per cent, and manufacturing sector would have to grow at 17 per cent to 18 per cent, as in China to really clock a double-digit inclusive growth. He felt that India should plan for something that was in the realm of reasonable effort. Dr Ahluwalia observed that India was not capable of generating a highly concentrated high growth scenario. He felt that pushing agricultural sector growth alone would not solve the problem of rural distress. “Before 1996, agriculture grew at 3.2per cent and less than 2per cent after that year. This is the failure of a growth strategy,” he remarked.
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India gets $3.75 billion FDI
New Delhi, May 18 Interestingly, the small tax heaven country, Mauritius took the lead in the total FDI in India with a share of 31.23 per cent of the total during the year. USA followed with 20.15 per cent share. Among the sectors that attracted most of the investments were electrical equipments, pharma and consultancy services. Electrical sector contributed over one-fourth of the total FDI during the year while drugs and pharmaceuticals accounted for 10.63 per cent and consultancy 8.03 per cent. The total 2004 FDI amount does not contain re-invested earnings and other components of FDI.
— PTI
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NFL to invest Rs 500 cr in Panipat plant
New Delhi, May 18 “We have earmarked Rs 500 crore for the Panipat plant for shifting the feedstock from fuel oil to natural gas. We are also talking to the IOC to have an equity stake in its pipeline for supplying gas to the plant,” said Mr P.S. Grewal, CMD of the company, here today. Since the company would have to make a one- time investment varying from Rs 300 crore to Rs 700 crore to revamp the plant, the final decision about shifting to gas would be taken after the finalisation of its price. The current price of gas linked with international crude oil was fixed years ago, when the oil prices were prevailing around $ 25 per barrel, which has now crossed $ 50 ber barrel. The gas prices would be revised upwards in 2008,he said. NFL has four urea plants at Bathinda and Nangal in Punjab, Vijaypur in MP and Panipat in Haryana.
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Export obligation for SSI units lowered
Ludhiana, May 18 “An SSI unit would now have to export six times of duty saved as compared to an ordinary unit exporting eight times of duty saved under EPCG scheme. This initiative is taken to give fillip to the export,” said
K.T. Chacko, Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), here today. To boost the exports of agri-based products, the Central government will also provide duty entitlement of five per cent of total value of exports to SSI units under
Vishesh Krishi Upaj Yojna, he added. — PTI
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Kerry Packer gets richer
Sydney, May 18 Packer tops the list of BRWmagazine’s annual ‘rich’ list with a fortune of $ 5.17 billion. The business magazine said in a statement that the cut-off for their 200 richest person was higher than ever before at $ 110 million. Retail, property and investment magnate Frank Lowy was in second place with $ 4.8 billion followed by cardboard king Richard Pratt at $ 4.7 billion and property millionaire Harry Triguboff at $ 2 billion.
— AFP |
bb
SBI loan Indians awarded CII President GM helpline Steel Strips Jet flight Toyota recalls 8.8 lakh SUVs Merger shelved Mahindra MD Hewlett-Packard |
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