New Delhi, October 22
Indian airline operators on Wednesday got a major relief after they were awarded time till March 2009 to clear their dues to oil companies in equated monthly instalments (EMI).

The decision was taken at a high-level meeting called by petroleum minister Murli Deora and civil aviation minister Praful Patel with airline bosses to work out ways to help them come out of financial mess they are currently in without hurting interests of oil firms.

Major airlines have defaulted on payments at the end of their 60-day credit period on jet fuel purchase. The dues that airlines owe to oil companies are estimated at Rs 2,500-2,800 crore.

Officials of civil aviation and oil ministry, oil PSUs and representatives of airlines industry, including Kingfisher Airlines chairman Vijay Mallya, Jet Airways executive director S.K. Dutta and Air India chairman Raghu Menon, were among those who attended the meeting. Representatives from state-run oil firms Indian Oil Corp, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum and finance ministry officials were also present.

Later, Patel said it was decided that oil companies would extend the credit period on jet fuel purchase to 90 days from 60 days now (applicable till March 2009) and also allow airlines to clear dues in EMIs by March 2009.

In view of the support extended to the airline industry by the government and oil PSUs, the airlines were asked to refrain from any retrenchment of staff. National carrier Air India also clarified that it was not laying off any employee, with the NACIL chief assuring that the company had no plan of retrenchment of any of their employees. 

London, October 22
Global economic growth is projected to decline to 3.7 per cent this year, much below nearly 5 per cent recorded in 2007, as the world's largest economy US is expected to slip into a recession.

Further, Europe is expected to see economic downturn in the coming quarters and Asian economies may also feel the pinch, Swiss banking major UBS said.

Moreover, the global economic growth is expected to fall further and touch 2.4 per cent in 2009.

"The downward revision in the economic forecast has been caused due to the distinct escalation of the global financial and credit market crisis since September," UBS said in a statement.

The US economic output is expected to contract for at least four quarters from the middle of this year.

"Recession can no longer be avoided after the sustained losses on the equity and real estate markets and the credit crunch that is becoming increasingly entrenched," UBS said in a statement.

In Asia, according to UBS, exports in smaller and open economies have decreased noticeably, however, larger economies like India are likely to maintain a better stance.

"The Japanese economy is expected to stagnate at best in the coming year. Large countries such as China, India or Indonesia should fare better, as they have a smaller export ratio than the smaller Asian economies," UBS economists stated. — PTI

New Delhi, October 22
That the government’s finances are in a bad shape is an old story. What is new is the fact that the government has admitted that it will miss targets of fiscal discipline that it has set for itself. There are host of reasons for the bloated deficit, most of them being non- productive expenditure and subsidy burden. However, global crisis is the new blame that the government has decided to pin for its bad fiscal management.

Fiscal deficit represents excess of government's total expenditure over total income, excluding market borrowing, while revenue deficit is the difference between the current expenditure and current receipts.

“Thanks to global financial crisis, which is exerting pressures on all economies, it is likely that we may overshoot budget targets for fiscal and revenue deficits,” said finance minister P. Chidambaram at a USAID function.

According to the budget estimates, the centre was to bring down the fiscal deficit below 3 per cent and revenue deficit to 1-1.1 per cent this year.

“If we are not able to achieve the targets by March 2009, I am sure we can achieve them by the next year-end. I often console myself by saying that we waited 60-odd years to achieve some fiscal discipline, it does not matter to wait for one more year,” the finance minister said.

He, however, said the government would do its best to remain as close to the targets as possible.

The Budget for 2008-09 aimed to cut fiscal deficit to 2.5 per cent of the GDP and revenue deficit to 1 per cent of the GDP.

The Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act binds the government to cut fiscal deficit to 3 per cent of GDP by 2008-09 or 0.3 per cent every year.

As per the target set, revenue deficit is targeted to be reduced to nil in five years by 2008-09 or 0.5 per cent every year. 

Chandigarh, October 22
The poor cash-deposit ratio (CD ratio) in rural and semi-urban areas of Punjab has become a major cause of concern. As against the statutory requirement of 60 per cent, the CD ratio of commercial banks in rural and semi-urban areas is 50.79 per cent and 46.72 per cent, respectively.

Expressing concern at the low credit offtake in Punjab, especially in the rural and semi-urban areas, the RBI has now asked the State Level Bankers Committee (SLBC) to monitor the CD ratio area wise. The move follows the report tabled in the SLBC meeting held here yesterday, where it was declared that the CD ratio in four districts of Kapurthala, Nawanshahr, Jalandhar and Hoshiarpur is less than 40 per cent. The lowest CD ratio is 25 per cent in Nawanshahr, followed by Hoshiarpur (29.67 per cent), Kapurthala (30.61 per cent) and Jalandhar (39.55 per cent).

The SLBC has now been asked to find out the ratio of NRI deposits in these districts and then correlate these with the CD ratio in the above-mentioned districts. The data available with The Tribune shows that the CD ratio in rural areas has gone down from 54.62 per cent in June last year to 50.79 per cent in June 2008. However, the ratio in semi-urban areas has shown a mariginal increase — from 42.75 per cent in June 2007 to 46.72 per cent in June this year.

Official sources in the SLBC informed TNS that a special sub- committee of district-level consultative committee has been formulated in the four districts where the CD ratio is less than 40 per cent. This sub-committee has drawn up an action plan to increase the ratio on a self-set graduated basis. The manager of the lead bank is the convener of the committee, which also has representation from Nabard, RBI and district planning office.

The committee has now suggested that the banks implement area/ block-specific credit schemes; strengthen investment under agriculture and allied activities like dairying, poultry, bee-keeping and fishery; and to analyse and monitor CD ratio of each branch and initiate suitable measures to improve the same. 

New York, October 22
Yahoo has announced plans to lay off at least 10 per cent of its workforce, some 1,400 employees, as the weak economy cut deeply into third-quarter profits at the struggling Web company.

Yahoo said net profit for the third-quarter of the year was $54 million, or four cents per share, down from $151 million and 11 cents per share during the same period of 2007.

It said revenues were $1.78 billion in the third-quarter, an increase of only one per cent over the $1.76 billion in the same period last year.

Yahoo has been losing ground on the Internet to companies such as Google, MySpace and Facebook and the economic slowdown has hurt the firm particularly hard as advertisers cut back on spending.

"An increasingly challenging economic climate and softening advertising demand contributed to revenues this quarter coming in at the low end of our outlook range," said Yahoo CFO Blake Jorgensen.— AFP

Bangalore, October 22
Country's third largest IT services company Wipro today posted a 19 per cent rise in consolidated profit for the second quarter but projected a cautious outlook in near-term in the wake of global economic turbulence.

For the quarter under review, the company has beaten the guidance for IT services revenue at $1,110 million.

The company has posted a 18.76 per cent increase in consolidated net profit at Rs 978.2 crore for the second quarter of this fiscal, against Rs 823.7 crore in the same period last fiscal.

Total income of the company rose to Rs 6,664.70 crore in the quarter ended September 30, from Rs 4,883.60 crore in the year-ago period.

Chandigarh, October 22
The Punjab Food and Civil Supplies Department has moved its case to export Pusa 1121 paddy variety, besides requesting separately to be allowed to supply foodgrains for the Public Distribution System (PDS) to various states by bypassing the Food Corporation of India (FCI).

The proposal, which was submitted to agriculture minister Sharad Pawar by state food and civil supplies minister Adesh Partap Singh Kairon, is expected to go before the Empowered Committee of Ministers shortly.

According to Kairon, as much as six to seven lakh tonne of Pusa 1121 is likely to be exported from Punjab this year. He said the Union government was expected to earn revenue of Rs 650 crore on account of export duties from this.

The minister said the request had been made because they felt Punjab should also be involved in profit sharing from export of Pusa 1121, for whose sale it was providing the necessary infrastructure. He further said the Union government had allowed the West Bengal Food Department, along with four public sector undertakings, including MMTC and Nabard, to export rice. “If West Bengal can be given permission to export rice why not us?” he asked.

Punjab has also demanded the right to impose two per cent administrative charge on foodgrains procured by it. This request has been made to cover its costs on food management to further streamline the procurement system.

The Food and Supplies Department has also requested that it be allowed to bypass the FCI and supply foodgrains under the PDS to interested states. “Why keep middlemen when we can sell the food grains directly because we have developed storage, handling and marketing facilities”, Kairon said.

The government has offered it can even supply foodgrain in 20 kg packing also to facilitate easy distribution under the PDS. It has also sought the approval for private sale, saying the FCI seemed to have abrogated all responsibility as far as procurement was concerned in Punjab with the agency still not procuring even two per cent of its allotted quota of 10 per cent of the entire produce set to be procured in the state.

Chandigarh, October 22
Tata Indicom will soon launch its operations in two new telecom circles — Jammu and Kashmir and North-East. While the company’s J & K operations will be launched this month, operations in North-East will be launched in November.

This was disclosed by the COO of Tata Teleservices, T P S Walia, here today.

He also said the company has launched a combination of five offers for its pre-paid customers for the forthcoming Diwali season.

BRIEFLY

NTPC to raise up to Rs 4,500 cr
New Delhi: State-run NTPC on Wednesday said it plans to raise up to Rs 4,500 crore from domestic as well as international markets for meeting its expansion plans in the current financial year. This was disclosed by NTPC chairman and managing director R. S. Sharma here.— PTI

Oil falls below $70
Perth: Oil fell nearly $3 to hit a one-week low below $70 a barrel on Wednesday, extending a 4 per cent slide in the previous session, on mounting worries that output cuts by OPEC will not be enough to offset slackening energy demand in leading consumers. US crude for December delivery fell $2.80, or 3.8 per cent, to a week low of $69.42 by 0429 GMT. London Brent crude fell $2.52 to $67.20. — Reuters

HDFC Bank in Bahrain
New Delhi: HDFC Bank on Wednesday said it has opened up its first overseas full-fledged commercial branch in Bahrain. The Bank has been granted a full commercial branch (FCB) licence by the Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB) and the FCB will offer cash management and trade finance solutions for corporate clients and wealth management services for non-resident Indians. — UNI

ItzCash, Thomas Cook in pact
Mumbai: ItzCash from the Essel group stable on Wednesday said it has tied-up with Thomas Cook to facilitate online travel bookings. This association between the two entities is expected to drive a completely new set of customers to the Thomas Cook online booking facility. — PTI

Max New York Life in HP
Kullu: Max New York Life Insurance launched its operations in Himachal Pradesh on Wednesday by setting up its "area office" here. Ashish Jaitly, regional manager, said the company wanted people to "view insurance as a financial protection and not just a tax-saving tool". — OC

Pulock Chatterji
New Delhi: Pulock Chatterji, secretary in PMO, has been appointed as the new executive director of World Bank for a term of three years beginning February 1, 2009. — PTI