The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

RNRL alleges Sibal-RIL nexus
Seeks SC intervention

New Delhi, October 6
Anil Ambani group firm RNRL today alleged that upstream oil and gas regulator V K Sibal was acting at the behest of Reliance Industries in exchange for undue favours and sought intervention of the Supreme Court.

Citing news reports and the statements by the Director General of Hydrocarbons, RNRL said: "It appears that V K Sibal... in exchange of undue favours has been doing favours to/accommodating RIL, including by way of approving capital expenditure of over Rs 40,000 crore.

"It is further submitted that... Sibal... made a statement that the estimated cost per mmBtu of the gas produced by RIL at the Krishna-Godavari D6 basin is $1.28 per mmBtu." RNRL, which is fighting RIL over supply of gas, filed a petition before the apex court contending that the Director General of Hydrocarbons as also the Oil Ministry had wrongly approved the increase in capital expenditure.

The Anil Ambani group firm prayed that the apex court should pass orders that it may deem fit. Sibal has separately denied taking favours from RIL and maintained that "DGH does not approve any expenditure. We only approve development plan for a field with a view to look at its economic viability."

RNRL submitted that Sibal, in a letter dated August 5 and published on the DGH website, had "claimed that the Comptroller and Auditor General of India had carried out an audit of the capital expenditure." However, CAG "denied that they had audited the capital expenditure. In fact, it has been reported that CAG did not have access to the documents of RIL relating to capital expenditure," RNRL said in its special leave petition.

RNRL is seeking natural gas from RIL at prices arrived at in a 2005 family agreement and the matter is listed for hearing in Supreme Court on October 20. The government has also filed a petition in the case seeking to secure its rights over gas from RIL's KG-D6 fields. — PTI

CVC asks CBI to probe
The Central Vigilance Commission has asked CBI to 'check' allegations of favours received by oil regulator V K Sibal from Reliance Industries for approving near four-fold hike (to $8.8 billion) in expenditure for gas field, a charge he denies.

CVC Secretary KS Ramasubban on October 1 wrote to CBI director Ashwani Kumar seeking "a discreet field verification" on the allegations of RIL purchasing flats in Mumbai for Sibal's daughter and incurring expenses over purchase of white goods for her.

Sibal, who has been favoured by Oil Ministry for a two-year extension, questioned the move saying as per CVC guidelines no new charges can be entertained against an official six months prior to his or her extension. The allegations, he said, were to "blackmail" CVC into denying him an extension. — PTI

RIL refuses gas to RNRL

New Delhi, October 6
Mukesh Ambani-led RIL today told the Supreme Court that it cannot supply gas to Anil Ambani group firm RNRL in the absence of power plants to consume the fuel and apprehended that the same would be traded to make "enormous profits. "Replying to RNRL's petition seeking Supreme Court to direct RIL to supply gas as already ordered by the Bombay High Court, RIL said the Anil Ambani group firm "does not have a single power plant since the demerger (of the Reliance empire) and the ADAG owns just one gas-based plant." "RNRL does not have existing plants capable of using the gas and it is necessarily seeking to trade in gas over (which it is not entitled to do at all) and make enormous profits based on the below market acquisition price of $2.34 per mmBtu," RIL said in its affidavit.

RNRL is demanding 28 mmscmd of gas from RIL for 17 years at a price of $2.34 per mmBtu, which is 44 per cent lower than the government-approved rate.

Apprehending that the gas could only be used by RNRL to trade, RIL said trading in gas is also barred by the government policy, under which KG-D6 gas can only be sold to priority end users which have existing facilities to consume gas and users identified by the government.

RIL also noted that while the demand for supply was 17 years, the fact was that the life of production from KG-D6 fields was only 12 years. — PTI

Toyota recalls 3.8 m vehicles in USA

New York, October 6
In its largest ‘safety recall’ in the United States, Toyota Motor Corp. has asked 3.8 million vehicle owners of seven popular models to remove the floor mat of their car that could jam the accelerator pedal and cause a crash.

The world’s number one automaker informed the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) that it would write to owners of the vehicles asking them to remove the floor mat while it works on a countermeasure.

The safety recalls concerns the Camry sedan, the top- selling passenger car in the United States, as well as the Pirus hybrid car, Lexus ES350, IS250 and IS350 luxury sedans.

The safety recall may deal a blow to the Japanese auto giant, Kyodo news agency quoted industry sources as saying.

The NHTSA said it had received reports of 100 related incidents, including 17 crashes and five fatalities involving Toyota vehicles.

In an earlier advisory, the NHTSA had urged owners to “make sure the driver-side floor mat is properly secured to the retention hooks on the floorboard”. — PTI

Threatens to stop oil exploration

New Delhi, October 6
Reliance Industries has threatened to stop oil and gas exploration if it is not granted the promised drilling moratorium to cover for the acute shortage of rigs.

“The company today made a presentation to the ministry seeking relief for not being able to meet its commitment for drilling wells on 14 blocks during 2006 and mid-2009 when there was an acute shortage of drilling rigs,” a Petroleum Ministry official said.

Firms like Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) and RIL have not been able to meet their work commitments for the blocks or areas they had won under the New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP) rounds and an Empowered Committee of Secretaries (ECS) has twice - the last being in January this year - cleared grant of a three-year drilling holiday or moratorium.

Despite being cleared by the ECS, the Petroleum Ministry has failed to move the Cabinet on the issue.

“They told us that they diverted their rigs on government’s request for expediting production of natural gas from Krishna Godavari basin D6 fields in national interest and so were unable to meet their entire drilling commitment on other blocks,” he said.

RIL stated that if the promised drilling holiday till December 2010 was not given, it would pull out of the blocks. A company spokesperson declined to comment.

RIL in the presentation said despite spending $2 billion on drilling compared to its commitment of $0.8 billion, 14 deep water blocks suffered a major setback due to unavailability of rigs during 2006 and 2009.

Against the committed spending $91 million on exploration in the 14 blocks, the company spent about $500 million. — PTI

Re stronger by 63 paise

Mumbai, October 6
The Indian rupee today gained 63 paise to close at one-year high of 46.88/89 against the US currency on heavy dollar selling by corporates and exporters, prompted by weakness of the greenback in the overseas markets. Forex dealers said increased capital inflows also boosted the rupee sentiment.

They further said that they expect the Reserve Bank intervention to tap the gain of rupee at above 47-level.

In active trade at the Interbank Foreign Exchange (Forex) market, the domestic currency opened stronger at 47.32/33 a dollar from its previous close of 47.51/52 per dollar and breached the 47-mark to touch a high of 46.89.

It later ended at 46.88/89 a dollar, the level not seen since October 1, 2008 when the rupee closed at 46.62/63 a dollar. — PTI

635 honchos earned crore-plus pay in FY'09

New Delhi, October 6
More than 600 top executives in Indian companies have earned salaries of over Rs 1 crore in the last fiscal, a staggering 250 times of the country's per capita income.

In 2008-09, an Indian received just Rs 40,000 as per capita income, a measure based on the assumption that the country's then total income was equally distributed among all its citizens. Based on latest data compiled by financial data provider Capitaline, as many as 635 top level executives have received crore-plus remuneration.

The analysis of the salaries doled out by listed firms to their senior management in 2008-09, revealed Sun TV Network CMD Kalanithi Maran and his wife Kavery Kalanithi were the highest earners with a remuneration of Rs 37.08 crore each.

Maran is followed by Reliance Communications chairman Anil Ambani with a salary of Rs 30.08 crore in the year ending March 31, 2009.

Meanwhile, Ambani has also earned salary of about Rs 11 crore each in his capacity as chairman of two other ADAG firms, Reliance Infrastructure and Reliance Capital.

Regarding the issue of top executives drawing exorbitant pay packets, global financial research consultancy Celent analyst Anshuman Jaswal said that a lot of their income was performance-based and if the company has not performed well, then it would result in lower incentives.

"However, the government is possibly trying to ensure that the link between lower profits and lower CEO incomes is not lagged and fall in salaries happens with immediate effect," Jaswal added.

Some other top grossers in FY'09 include Madras Cement CMD P R Ramasubrahmaneya Rajha with a salary of Rs 28,71,42,656 crore, while Jindal Steel's Executive Vice Chairman & MD Naveen Jindal earned Rs 28.27 crore.

Moreover, Bharti Airtel's CMD Sunil Bharti Mittal received a remuneration of Rs 22.89 crore and Hero Honda Motor Chairman Brijmohan Lall Munjal got Rs 19.79 crore, while company's MD and CEO Pawan Munjal received Rs 19.68 crore in FY 09. Meanwhile, the annual report of Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani for the financial year 2008-09 which carried the renumeration of top level executive are not yet available on the company's website. — PTI

Bharti Airtel partners Cisco
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, October 6
Country’s largest telecom operator Bharti Airtel and Asia’s leading integrated telecom service provider Cisco today announced the formation of a strategic business alliance to help drive growth of Indian enterprises.

The alliance will combine the strengths of Airtel’s network service provider leadership and Cisco’s Internet Protocol (IP) technologies and expertise to work together to create and sell in a phased manner a set of unique products and services - including managed data services, hosted unified communications, connected branch services and Cisco TelePresence.

The vision of the strategic business alliance is to combine the unique differentiation and capabilities of Bharti Airtel and Cisco.

Both will appoint a dedicated team to develop and manage these services to fulfil the requirements of customers across small, medium and large enterprises.

Commenting on the alliance, Manoj Kohli, CEO and joint managing director, Bharti Airtel, said: “This alliance is another step towards Bharti Airtel’s vision to be the partner of choice for both large and medium enterprises, supporting the Indian B2B growth story. With this unique alliance, we will expand our market coverage in the rapidly growing managed services market and simplify the purchase process for our mutual customers by facilitating joint sales, partner planning and customer engagements. After achieving leadership in the B2C segments, we are pursuing leadership in the B2B segments assiduously.”

Direct tax kitty grows 3.69 pc

New Delhi, October 6
The Centre has collected 3.10 per cent more in direct taxes in September at Rs 64,737 crore compared to the same period last year.

With this, the mop-up from direct taxes for the first half of the fiscal has touched Rs 1,52,625 crore, an increase of 3.69 per cent over the corresponding period a year ago.

The growth in government’s corporate tax kitty for the fist half of this fiscal was more pronounced at 5.55 per cent over last year’s. In the first six months, Rs 1,00,572 was collected in corporate taxes compared to Rs 95,283 crore last year, the Central Board of Direct Taxes said in a statement.

However, Personal Income Tax collection for the first half at Rs 51,897 crore saw only a marginal rise of 0.38 per cent over last fiscal. The figures include STT and residual FBT and Banking Cash Transaction Tax. — PTI