New Delhi, December 14
The government today unveiled its vision for the telecom sector up to 2010, listing plans to initially take total telephone connections to 250 million and cellular coverage to 85 per cent of the country's geographical area by next year.

Speaking at the India Telecom Summit here, Union IT and Communications Minister Dayanidhi Maran said the government also plans to increase the number of mobile connections to 500 million by 2010.

He said as much as 85 per cent of the geographical area would be connected through mobile by 2007 and the connectivity would be further enhanced to cover 90 per cent of geographical area by 2010.

As per the Vision 2010, rural connectivity would be enhanced to touch 50 million mark by 2007 and 80 million by 2010.

Mr Maran said the government has decided to mark 2007 as the year of broadband year with a target for broadband connectivity set at nine million. He said the much awaited 3G Policy would be announced in 2007.

India would see an FDI inflow of $2 billion in manufacturing in the next year. IPTV would reach 70 towns by 2007 and 600 towns by 2010.

The vision paper also envisages making mobile handsets available at Rs 1,000 within a year.

Mr Maran said: "Entry of Nokia into manufacturing followed by Flextronics, Motorola and a whole lot of others has laid the platform for positioning India as a global hub for telecom manufacturing."

Since the UPA government took office in May 2004, India has witnessed investment commitments of over $17 billion in IT and telecom.

According to him, growth targets set for 2010 would result in an investment of about $20 billion with more jobs, contribution to GDP and revenue to the government.

President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, who inaugurated the summit, said India was lagging far behind in Asia in digital connectivity index compared to 80 to 60 per cent in South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore. Four of the top 10 broadband economies of the world are in Asia. South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore have the distinction of achieving highest broadband household digital connectivity index of 80 to 60 per cent.

Meanwhile, BSNL will add five million broadband connections by next year with a minimum download speed of 2 megabyte per second (Mbps), Mr Maran said.

BSNL Chairman and Managing Director A.K. Sinha said BSNL would start providing this speed from January 1, 2007.

Mr Sinha said the speed would vary between one and two Mbps depending on the areas, but the service charge would be the same.— Agencies

New Delhi, December 14
Tata Motors and Italian auto giant Fiat will sign a joint venture agreement to manufacture passenger vehicles, engines and transmissions for the Indian and overseas markets.

The two companies, which signed a memorandum of understanding in July to establish an industrial joint venture in India, would announce the road-map for taking forward the partnership.

The announcement comes days after Fiat got approval from the Foreign Investment Promotion Board to invest Rs 2,000 crore in its plant at Ranjangaon in Maharashtra, where the two companies would undertake joint production.

Meanwhile, describing China as a 'fascinating and seductive' market, Tata Motors is looking to launch commercial vehicles and passenger car range, preceded by a manufacturing plant.

"From the sourcing and selling point of view, China is both a fascinating and seductive market... And we have been looking at this market for the past two years," Tata Motors Managing Director Ravi Kant said here. He, however, said entry into China was not an easy task.

"We have to tread cautiously. We have not been able to find a solution for an entry to the market partly due to the entry policy provisions there," he said.

On whether the entry would be through a joint venture, he said: "We are currently looking at many possibilities".

Asked about the type of vehicles the company planned to sell in the market, he said it could be both commercial and passenger vehicles.

Mr Kant admitted that Tata Motors would need a manufacturing presence in China if it had to sell its products there. — PTI 

New Delhi, December 14
A one-member Bench of the Appellate Tribunal for Electricity has asked Tata Power to refund Rs 354 crore and interest that Reliance Energy paid it earlier as standby charges for electricity supply in Maharashtra.

The judgement was delivered by Justice E. Padmanabhan when the matter was referred to him after a Bench comprising Technical Member A.A. Khan and Tribunal Chairman Justice Anil Dev Singh gave different rulings on the issue

Justice Padmanabhan agreed with the view of Technical Member Khan and passed the matter before the first Bench for further orders. — PTI 

New Delhi, December 14
Nearly 62,000 investment proposals are awaiting approval from various states and central governments with an average investment of Rs 25 crore, according to Assocham.

Data on Investment Proposals obtained by the Assocham Research Bureau from various states and central agencies for a paper on `Real issue is not how to generate employment, but how to make investments happen faster’, it has been revealed that these investment proposals can generate over 18.5 million employment opportunities.

The sectors in which 62,000 projects have been submitted by various industrial houses include food processing, textile and clothing, leather goods, automobiles, auto components, minerals, steel, cement, electronic products and components, paper and paper products, chemicals & allied products and polymers and plastics. Roughly, industry has been waiting for their approvals for thepast 15-18 years, says the Assocham paper.

The paper recommends that the investment climate should be improved in India on a priority basis as it takes 89 days to start business, 425 days to enforce a contract, 15 per cent of management time is wasted to deal with officials, losses due to electricity outages amount to about 12 per cent of sales while it takes nearly seven days to clear customs. In the developed world, investment fructification takes two-thirds lesser time in the listed heads.

The paper highlights that FDI surge is not happening in India as required. It recommends that policy liberalisation is not enough. In order to support and sustain 12 per cent manufacturing growth, purchasing power at the bottom of the pyramid needs nurturing.

The paper seeks fiscal concessions, demanding tax exemption for income up to Rs 2 lakh as it will boost domestic demand. It wants reduction in the corporate tax rate of 30 per cent, including surcharges, besides the removal of the gift and wealth tax. While the customs tariff is being reduced all over, the government needs to introduce a single rate of customs duty in order to eliminate an inverted duty structure. 

Chandigarh, December 14
Retail major Subhiksha plans to open 104 retail outlets in Punjab and Haryana before the end of this fiscal. Subhiksha, which operates at four verticals — fruits and vegetables, pharmaceuticals, FMCG and telecom stores — proposes to have all four categories of stores in the region. A sum of Rs 50 crore has been earmarked for the expansion of these stores in the first phase.

Talking to TNS here today, Mr R Subramanian, Managing Director of Subhiksha, said they had over 450 stores across Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Gujarat , Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. “We have made an outlay of Rs 500 crore for our expansion so that we have 1,000 stores and a pan-India presence by the end of 2007. Other than Punjab and Haryana, we will also enter in retail business in Uttar Pradesh (Agra, Meerut and Ghaziabad) Madhya Pradesh (Bhopal, Indore), Kolkata and Kerala next year,” he added.

He said in the first phase retail outlets would be opened in Ludhiana, Jalandhar and Amritsar in Punjab, and in Rohtak, Panipat and Sonepat in Haryana. “We have already opened 22 stores in Gurgaon and Faridabad, as part of NCR expansion plan. At the other above-mentioned places, we propose to open about 30 stores in the next one month,” he said.

He also said the company had big plans for retail in Chandigarh, Panchkula and Mohali. “We propose to open 27 stores in the tri city, which will be operational in a month,” he added. 

New Delhi, December 14
The UPA Government is planning to amend the Civil Aviation rules to make it mandatory for all airports across the country to have the Category II instrument landing system to reduce fog-related problems and announced the government’s plan to upgrade Amritsar airport to CAT -II level.

Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel informed the Lok Sabha that such a step would encourage all airlines to train pilots up to the CAT-II level.

He said the Directorate-General of Civil Aviation proposed to amend the Civil Aviation Requirements (CARs), making it mandatory for all pilots to be trained at least up to the CAT-II level.

"While we want to reduce fog-related inconvenience caused to passengers, we cannot ignore safety at any cost," Mr Patel said, adding that Delhi was the only Indian airport with the highest CAT-III B facilities.

He announced the government's intention to upgrade four to five airports in the northern region, which are generally affected by fog during the winter, to the CAT-II level. These include Amritsar, Lucknow and Jaipur.

Mr Patel said CAT-II or CAT-III training for pilots required them to first fulfil conditions of flying a minimum of 2,000 hours, 500 hours for particular types of high-technology aircraft and a minimum number of take-offs and landings.

Mumbai, December 14
JB Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals Ltd (JBCPL) will invest around Rs 22.5 crore ($5.1 million) for a significant minority stake in South Africa-based Biotech Laboratories.

The investment would entitle JB Chemicals to own a significant minority stake of the issued capital in Biotech with an option to increase its holding further.

"The investment into Biotech is a strategic fit for JBCPL. This investment in Biotech results in considerable synergies for both companies and will allow JBCPL to tap the lucrative high-growth South African and other African markets through the launch of its ethical and OTC range of products, including Doktor Mom," JB Chemicals Chairman & Managing Director J B Mody said. — PTI 

Srinagar, December 14
A large number of businessmen here claim to incur a loss of thousands of rupees every month as their goods, meant for the Ladakh region, remain stranded for months together due to non-availability of cargo space in the once-a-week Indian (Airlines) flight to Leh.

Many of them claimed that the cargo space on Delhi-Srinagar-Leh flight was being filled at the starting point only to accommodate businessmen from the national capital.

Mr Shafqat Ahmed, a local businessman, alleged that the airline was using discriminatory policy against the Kashmiri entrepreneurs and favouring their counterparts from Delhi.

''When we approach the Indian (Airlines) authorities here with cargo, they refuse us saying no space is available. We are told that the cargo had already been booked in Delhi and there is no space available for goods from Kashmir. This is happening for the past several months now,'' he said.

Mr Ahmed said the goods from Kashmir took more than a month to get booked in the Indian (Airlines) cargo and claimed that he incurred a loss of Rs 2 lakh on this account every year.

''As the Srinagar-Leh national highway remains close for six months for all vehicular traffic, we are left at the mercy of Indian."

Mr Daljeet Singh, another businessman, said the airlines does not even carry essential commodities to Leh, as a result there is a skyrocketing of prices of food and other material.

''Essential commodities, including medicines, are not airlifted and the people of the region suffer a lot during the winter months. There is acute shortage of food and other items and some vested elements then resort to hoarding and black-marketing,'' he added.

Mr Singh said a large quantity of goods, mostly food items, get damaged as there were not adequate storage facilities in Srinagar. — UNI

New Delhi, December 14
Parsvnath Developers plans to invest Rs 2,000 crore for constructing 14 hotels across India. "We are in talks with domestic and global operators to manage our hotels", company's Chairman Pradeep Jain said here today. The construction of these hotels would start in three or four months.

All 14 hotels would become operational by 2009-10 fiscal. The company was looking for more hotel projects. Of these hotels one each would come up at Chandigarh, Lucknow, Bhiwadi, Ahmedabad, Delhi, Cochin, Indore, Goa, Hyderabad, Mohali, Hardwar and Shirdi with two at Jodhpur.

About SEZs, Mr Jain said the company had already got approvals for 11 SEZ projects while four were pending. — PTI 

Seoul, December 14
South Korea's top automaker Hyundai Motor said today it was developing a new compact car targeted at South-East Asia and Latin America.

"We are developing a low-end model tailored for South-East Asia and Latin America," Vice-Chairman Kim Dong-Jin said.

Currently, Hyundai Motor produces three compact cars for overseas consumers — Accent, Getz and Atoz (Santro).

It says it will use its plant in India, which produces Santro with an engine capacity of less than 1,000 cc, as an outpost for exports to Europe, Latin America and West Asia.

Hyundai Motor, together with its affiliate Kia Motors, is the world's seventh largest automaker and controls more than 70 per cent of the South Korean car market. — AFP

Mumbai, December 14
Korean kitchenware major Hanacobi Co Ltd will invest $30 million in the Indian market within 10 years. Launching a range of kitchenware products from the flagship brand of his company, Lock & Lock, Hanobi Co Ltd President Chang Ho Kim said here today ''We've plans to set up our own plant somewhere in India within three years to cater to the various requirements of Indian consumers''. Hanacobi was expecting to reach sales of $ 20 million in India by 2010 and hence its plans to pump in $ 30 million within 10 years. — UNI