New Delhi, July 1
Oil minister and PSU oil companies have scant regard for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s call on curbing austerity. At the 19th World Petroleum Congress, being held in Madrid, Spain, a delegation of 77 executives have gone from the oil PSUs to represent India, in addition to seven ministry officials. On the one hand, the oil companies are cribbing over rising crude prices and burden sharing with the consumers, on the other, when it comes to spending public funds, there is no looking back.

A list from oil PSUs — ONGC, Indian Oil Corporation, Hindustan Petroleum, BPCL, EIL is as follows: Besides the chairman and their executive assistants, the delegation includes director, human resources, director, research and development, corporate communication heads of each of the PSUs to name a few, and other directors in various capacities.

Indian PSUs will be showing their activities, products and services to the oil and gas community. Sadly for India, there are not many things to show as most of the technology for refineries, pipelines and others is imported from countries like the US.

While ONGC team led by its CMD, R.S. Sharma consists of a 23-member delegation, it is closely followed by the market leader in retail and refinery, Indian Oil Corporation, which has dispatched a 14-member team under the leadership of its chairman, Sarthak Behuria for the event.

Hindustan Petroleum Corporation is being represented by 13 delegates and Bharat Petroleum Corporation by nine members.

Interestingly, the private sector’s presence at the event is bare minimum, with Cairn India having sent a lone representative. Shell India, BG India, and Essar Oil have also sent small delegations.

With the international crude oil prices touching a whopping $143 per barrel, the oil marketing companies, just a few days back, have again started pressurising the government to effect another fuel hike.

The Prime Minister had written to his colleagues asking them to observe austerity within the government and the finance ministry directed various ministries to slash non-Plan expenditure by 10 per cent and to even stop holding conferences at five-star hotels to save an estimated Rs 6,000 crore this fiscal year with special focus on curbing overseas visits.

New Delhi, July 1
India's export growth slipped to 12.9 per cent in May this year from 18 per cent a year ago, as a slowdown in key markets and domestic curbs to control inflation took their toll on outward trade.

On the other hand, runaway crude oil prices pushed the country's oil import bill by 50.8 per cent, weighing heavily on trade deficit that grew to $10.76 billion in May.

Re loses 31 paise Mumbai: After breaching the crucial 43-level yesterday, the Indian rupee lost another 31 paise today to close at 15-month low of 43.33/34 against the greenback on dollar selling by exporters at local currency's weak level. The rupee has lost 65 paise, or 1.52 per cent, in just three days as global crude oil prices hit new record highs and inflation soared to double digits forcing the Reserve Bank to constrain money supply. The rupee's previous weak level before this was on March 30, 2007, when it was quoted at 43.45/46 per dollar. At the Interbank Foreign Exchange (forex) marker, the domestic currency fluctuated in a wide range of 43.55 and 43.04. It had closed at 43.02/03 a dollar on Monday. — PTI

A handsome growth of 31.50 per cent in the beginning of fiscal 2008-09 could not be sustained in May, when exports grew to $13.78 billion against $14.40 billion in April, according to official data released today.

Imports went up by 27.1 per cent to $24.54 billion of which crude oil accounted for almost one-third at $8.46 billion in May this fiscal. India's imports in May 2007-08 were worth $19.31 billion with crude oil accounting for $5.61 billion.

The export growth has also taken a hit from slowdown in the US and European markets, which account for about 40 per cent of India's exports.

A near 10 per cent increase in exporters' margins due to rupee depreciation since April this year helped the situation, but the constraints of domestic bans and restrictions on export of wheat, non-basmati rice, steel and cement also took a toll on the export performance.

"The US and European markets are on the verge of recession. They would have impacted our export growth.

Besides, domestic procurement (by exporters) is hard hit by inflation," Federation of Indian Export Organisations president Ganesh K Gupta said.

He said in the backdrop of exports showing lukewarm performance in May, the government should not rush into withdrawing the benefits extended last year when the rupee appreciated. — PTI

Ludhiana, July 1
Exporters of engineering goods here have stopped booking orders from their clients, thanks to steep rise and heavy speculation in steel prices. The price of ingot, which was Rs 33,300 per metric tonne in the beginning of June has touched Rs 42,300 now.

Markets here were rife with speculations and news of a major hike by steel producers did the rounds today, causing high uncertainty among manufacturers.

"We are unable to bear the brunt of such steep rise, i.e. over 30 per cent, within a month. We have now stopped taking any orders and are not even giving any price quotes," said S.C. Ralhan, regional chairman, Engineering Export Promotion Council.

According to market observers, supply shortage has caused a price imbalance. Billets are short in supply by roughly 5,000 tonnes in the state. Seizing the opportunity, secondary steel manufacturers in Ludhiana and Mandi Gobindgarh have been increasing prices.

Steel major, Steel Authority of India (SAIL), which caters to most of the demand in the state, is sending lesser quantities in spite of demand, said those in engineering industry. Industrialists alleged that main producers were focussing on exports, which was leading to shortage in domestic markets.

"Even after paying a 15 per cent export duty, producers are able to get an attractive rate of Rs 43,000 per metric tonne in international markets. They are more keen on exports rather than on domestic markets."

The situation has given rise to speculations and today, the news of a likely Rs 6,000 per metric tonne hike by large producers were doing the rounds, causing panic among industrialists.

Exports of engineering goods, including cycle parts and hand tools, recorded a 3 per cent decline in this region in 2007-08 as compared to previous year.

New Delhi, July 1
As the fiscal deficit in first two months touched about 55 per cent of the budget estimates for the year, finance minister P Chidambaram said the government would contain the deficit below its budget estimates of 2.5 per cent of GDP for the year.

"At the end of the year, we will do better than the budget estimates," finance minister P Chidambaram said when asked about sharp rise in fiscal deficit in April-May as per the figures released by the comptroller general of accounts on Monday.

The fiscal deficit for two months touched Rs 73,201 crore, 54.9 per cent of estimated fiscal deficit of Rs 1,33,287 crore for the fiscal, mainly on account of rising oil import bill. Meanwhile, revenue deficit stood at Rs 67,731 crore, against the budget estimates of Rs 55,184 crore for the year.

According to budget estimates, fiscal deficit is expected to come down to 2.5 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in the current fiscal year from 2.8 per cent in the previous year.

Earlier, at the Diamond Jubliee function of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, Chidambaram said tax-to GDP ratio was expected to touch 13 per cent in 2008-09, compared to 9.2 per cent in 2003-04 and 12.8 per cent last fiscal.

Appreciating the contribution of national accounting body in tax reforms, he said those who violate tax laws would be prosecuted.

He also said the government was committed to implement the Goods and Service Tax with effect from April 1, 2010. 

New Delhi, July 1
Tata Motors is working on new variants of its Rs 1-lakh car Nano to overcome challenges posed by high fuel prices, which could negatively impact vehicle sales, company chairman Ratan Tata has said.

Noting that the company's Nano plant in Singur was expected to come into operation in the last quarter of 2008, Tata, in a letter to shareholders in the annual report for 2007-08, said manufacturing facilities would be expanded to meet domestic and global demand in the future.

"New variants of the Nano are also currently under development to meet the new environmental and fuel price challenges, as also the market requirement of several international markets," he said.

While terming the year ahead as "a year of major challenges," Tata said that "higher fuel prices will negatively impact both commercial vehicles and passenger car sales." The chief of one of the country's biggest corporate houses said there would "an enormous and unprecedented increase in material costs in steel, tyres, and the like, and there will be the impact of tighter money supply with higher interest rates." — PTI 

Chandigarh, July 1
Financial exclusion of majority of farmers, a good credit culture for the financially-included farmers and larger land holdings in Punjab is responsible for Punjab getting a miniscule share of 1.42 per cent of the Rs 71,686-crore Agriculture Debt Waiver and Debt Relief scheme. This is almost half the share of what farmers in Haryana have got from the debt waiver scheme.

As the two states have completely rolled out the scheme through its scheduled commercial banks, regional rural banks and the cooperative banks, a total amount of Rs 1,020.19 crore has been waived off and settled for loanee farmers in Punjab, while the benefit extended to farmers in Haryana is worth Rs 2,149.82 crore (three per cent of the total scheme).

Top sources in the State Level Bankers Committee (SLBC) of the two states informed TNS that the total amount waived off for 1.83 lakh farmers in Punjab is Rs 6,49.19 crore. As many as 1,59,904 farmers in the state have been found to be eligible for benefit under the one-time settlement scheme (Rs 371 crore to be settled), wherein 25 per cent of the total loan amount has been waived off for them.

Similarly, in Haryana, the total amount waived off for 48,831 farmers is Rs 1,509.72 crore, while 3,00,554 farmers will be eligible for the Debt Relief Scheme and get relief worth Rs 642.10 crore.

Bankers in the region said the main reason why farmers in Punjab did not get any benefit from the loan waiver scheme is that the number of farmers availing loans from institutional sources is small. Farmers still prefer to take loans from the non-institutional sources like commission agents. “An astounding 34.60 per cent of farmers in the state remain financially excluded and 37 per cent of these financially excluded farmers are small and marginal farmers, who have availed loans from the private moneylenders and commission agents,” said a top official in Punjab National Bank.

Agrees Sucha Singh Gill, professor of Economics at Punjabi University, Patiala, “Farmers in Punjab also have a better credit culture and they repay their loans, so that a fresh loan can be availed before the next crop is sown. In fact, the agriculture loan recovery in Punjab is amongst the highest (92 per cent)”. 

New Delhi, July 1
More number of people in India are online now than earlier with the size of cyber audiences rising to over 28 million users in 2008, a growth of 27 per cent over the previous year.

Not just India, Internet audiences in Asia-Pacific at home and at work, among users of 15 years and above, grew by 14 per cent to 319 million visitors in April 2008, outpacing growth of all other other worldwide regions, comScore, Inc, an Internet marketing research firm said 
in a report.

"The strongest growth occurred in India which surged by 27 per cent to more than 28 million Internet users. This was followed by China with a 14 per cent growth to more than 102 million," the report titled 'The State of Global Internet with a Focus on Asia' said.

Taiwan, Malaysia and New Zealand registered a growth of 12 per cent each. Meanwhile, developed nations such as Japan and Singapore showed modest gains of 3 per cent and 4 per cent, respectively, it said.

Other findings stated that although Google and Yahoo! combined to capture majority of the search share in the Asia-Pacific region, five of the top 10 search properties are regional engines, including China's Baidu.com and Korea's Naver.com.

Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook.com is the leading social networking site in the world, but in the Asia-Pacific region Friendster.com is preferred.

Internet users in Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Australia spent most time online. — PTI 

Shimla, July 1
Having achieved the distinction of launching the country’s maiden global online newspaper two months ago, Asia’s largest blog network, Instablogs Networks, today scored another first by introducing video news capsule providing a new platform to citizen journalists.

The Shimla-based company, which has been using innovative methods to evolve its unique interactive and collaborative news model, has taken its monthly readership to 25 lakh since the launch of the global newspaper. With a team of 30 regional editors, over 25,000 contributors and 200 citizen journalists spread across the globe, it provides a rich and varied content through its news portal.

Formally launching the video-cast of the global news report here today, company chief executive Ankit Maheshwari said there was a world of difference in the coverage compared to the normal electronic news channels and the print media, as focus was on bringing forward viewpoint of the local people of the area where an event had taken place. The goal was to show the news and events to the world at large through the eyes of the people affected by them.

The video show by citizen journalists was the first by any online media site across the world. His company had beaten the competitors in the field. Instablogs had emerged as one of the world’s largest citizen journalism site and the only Asian online media in direct competition with leading sites, he added.

The company had been keeping pace with the technological advancements in the Internet-enabled gadgets and making available news and video cast in various formats compatible with mobile phone and even iPhone, which is yet to be launched in the country. 

BRIEFLY

BHEL bags Rs 2,080-cr order
New Delhi: State-run engineering giant Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd on Tuesday said it has bagged Rs 2,080-crore turnkey contract to develop 400 MW thermal power project in Syria. The order has been placed by Public Establishment of Electricity for Generation and Transmission, Ministry of Electricity, Syria, a company statement said. — PTI

Gold breaches Rs 13,000
New Delhi: Gold surged to regain the crucial Rs 13,000 level on the bullion market here on Tuesday on sustained buying by stockists and jewellers, triggered by strong global markets. Standard gold and ornaments remained in keen demand and gained Rs 45 each to Rs 13,025 and Rs 12,875 per 10 grams respectively. — PTI

Reliance Money service
New Delhi: Reliance Money on Tuesday launched its wealth management services for the nation's millionaires and expects 15 per cent of its revenue from the new business in next three years. Reliance offerings will include equity-linked portfolio management, tax planning, art advisory, real estate. — UNI

BSNL recharge coupon
Chandigarh: BSNL Punjab telecom circle has revised the talk time and validity of recharge coupon of Rs 5,000 for its pre-paid cellular customers. The existing recharge coupon of face value Rs 5,000 will now have talk time of Rs 8,000 and two-year validity in place of existing talk time of Rs 6,700 and 2-year validity. — TNS

CII office-bearer
Chandigarh: Charu Mathur has taken over as the new regional director of Confederation of Indian Industry (northern region). She was earlier responsible for drawing up the media strategy, and for communication and articulation of issues related to industry, to the media for CII. — TNS

PTL records 77% growth
Chandigarh: Punjab Tractors Ltd (PTL) recorded sales of 3,443 units in the month of June. Domestic sale of tractors in June stood at 3,385, recording a growth of 73 per cent over the corresponding period last year. During this fiscal, PTL’s cumulative sales grew by 77 per cent in the domestic market while total sales, including exports, grew by 74 per cent in June this year. — TNS

Century Plywood plan
Chandigarh: Century Plywood proposes to open the largest plywood factory at Hoshiarpur and Guwahati during this financial year. This was stated by Sajjan Bhajanka, managing director of Century Plyboards, while declaring the financial results of the company whose turnover has shown an increase of 42 per cent to Rs 633.48 —TNS