New Delhi, October 15
Keen on unlocking value of public sector enterprises, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said the government was encouraging them to raise resources by listing on the stock exchanges.

"The government is encouraging the listing of Public Sector Enterprises (PSEs), as this unlocks the true value of a company, improves its corporate governance standards and also helps it in raising resources for funding future expansion plans," he said at an award function for the PSEs here.

Singh said several PSEs have got their shares listed on the markets in the last two years and many more want to do so.

"This shows they are not shying away from market scrutiny and are ready to face new challenges," he said at a function organised by the Standing Conference of Public Sector Enterprises (SCOPE). Since the UPA came to office for the second term this May, two public sector companies, NHPC and Oil India, have listed on the bourses. More are in the pipeline. As many as 43 PSEs account for 24 per cent of the Bombay Stock Exchange's market cap of Rs 58 lakh crore.

Of the top 10 listed companies on the BSE, five belong to the public sector. "More and more PSEs are entering capital market and are striving to become global players," he said. Lauding the role of these units in the economy, he said India weathered the global slowdown better than most other countries. "This is a reflection of the strengths of Indian economy..." he said. — PTI

Mumbai, October 15
India's top industrialist Mukesh Ambani will take a pay cut as his group's flagship Reliance Industries today announced a cap on executives' package, coinciding with a debate on right-sizing of CEOs' salary.

As a result, RIL CMD Mukesh would draw a salary of Rs 15 crore for 2008-09 fiscal against over Rs 44 crore last year and the company said this reflected "his desire to set a personal example of moderation in executive compensation".

While Corporate Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid advised the industry to shun "vulgar" salaries and Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia agreed that there should be no "indecent" compensation earlier this month, industry associations have maintained that salaries are best decided by company Boards and shareholders.

RIL said the "remuneration committee of the board of RIL at its meeting held recently decided the compensation payable to Mukesh Ambani, CMD of RIL, at Rs 15 crore." From now on, the company has also decided to adopt the capped structure method of deciding executive compensation in RIL, instead of pegging it as a percentage of net profit.

Mukesh's salary is lower than not only many other industrialists in India, but also CEOs of RIL's global peers like ExxonMobil and Shell.

Even Anil Ambani recently announced that he would not take any salary or commission from any of his five listed group companies for 2008-09. — PTI

New Delhi, October 15
The government has set up a committee to examine the special auditor’s report on Reliance Communications (RCoM) where allegations have been made against the country’s third largest telcom operator of inflating wireless revenues by Rs 2,915 crore, besides evading Rs 315 crore in licence fee in 2007-08.

Officials said a four-member committee had been formed and will submit its recommendations within a month. The committee would be headed by Department of Telecommunications (DoT) member finance Vijayalakshmi K Gupta. The government will initiate any action against the telecom operator based on the report submitted by this committee.

The committee will also take a call on whether the special audit should extend to the financials of 08-09. If it decides to extend the audit of the year 08-09, other telcos such as Vodafone Essar, Idea Cellular, Bharti Airtel and Tata Teleservices would also be subject to similar audits. RCom has denied the charges levelled in the auditor’s report. It said an appropriate response will be provided as and when DoT provides a copy of the report to RCoM.

In another development, accounting regulator ICAI said it was examining the issue. The institute has sought financial details from RCoM’s auditors and the DoT to examine if there were any defects in the numbers that have been potrayed.

Meanwhile, shares of RCoM crashed over 6.5 per cent to Rs 231.6 yesterday even as the markets closed at a 17-month high.

Chandigarh, October 15
Doraha-based honey exporter, Kashmir Apiaries is planning to come up with an initial public offering (IPO) next year to raise Rs 100 crore for financing its expansion project.

"We plan to dilute 25 per cent equity by going public for raising a sum of Rs 100 crore. This will mainly be spent on doubling our honey production capacity to cater to growing export market for honey," said Jagjit Singh Kapoor, chairman and managing director, Kashmir Apiaries.

Currently, the company has honey processing capacity of 20,000 metric tonne per annum and intends to raise the total capacity to 40,000 MT post expansion, he said. The company is also targeting at a 60 per cent jump in its honey exports to Rs 350 crore this fiscal. Besides, it plans to invest Rs 300 crore on setting up warehouses in the US, UK and Germany, which are among the major importers of its products, over the next three years.

Ludhiana, October 15
The rules for Goods and Services Tax (GST), expected to be implemented in the country from April 2010, needs to be carefully framed to avoid complications, feels the business community.

The industry demands that before rushing for an early implementation of the GST, proper rules are required to be in place.

The president of Apex Chamber of Commerce and Industry, PD Sharma, told The Tribune that GST regime was a revolutionary step for collecting indirect taxes. The Government of India was trying hard to introduce it from April 1, 2010. The Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers had already prepared a draft for this. The GST will include service tax and other incidental taxes. In principle, all indirect taxes now were supposed to be merged in the GST.

Sharma said major problem with the states was the multiple rates of GST. The states want separate rates for separate products. "They want one general rate, another for sensitive items which are used by the common man and third rate for precious metals like gold and silver. Global experience has shown that multiple rates are a source of problems", he said.

The Government of India, in consultation with the states, decided to reduce Central Sales Tax from 4 per cent to 0 per cent in a phased manner. This was assured before the introduction of VAT. The CST was reduced to 2 per cent and it was to be reduced to 1 per cent from April 1, 2009. The Central government, on the recommendations of the empowered committee of State Finance Ministers, had not reduced the CST from 2 to 1 per cent as declared earlier. "This erodes the credibility of both Central and state government. While enforcing GST it should be firmly ensured that CST should be completely abolished", stressed Sharma.

Sandeep Duggal, an industrialist from Mandi Gobindgarh, representing the Mould Manufacturers' Association, Punjab, feels that the rates of GST as proposed in the draft were too high. General rate for states and central GST had been kept at 9-10 per cent each. This means the sum total of two GSTs, state and central, will be around 20 per cent. "There will be some other taxes as well. This will put a burden on the business community. Worldwide, the average VAT rate is 16.4 per cent. In Asia-Pacific, the VAT rate is 9.88 per cent. Rate of GST has become important in view of the largescale free trade agreements signed with many countries. Many such FTAs are in process. From this angle, it is logical to expect the same level of indirect tax between two the countries entering into FTAs", Duggal added.

Helsinki/New Delhi, October 15
Hit by hefty impairment charges and declining sales, Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia Corp plunged into a loss of 559 million euros in third quarter of this year. In the year-ago period, the company had a net profit of 1.08 billion euros, Nokia said in a statement.

The company's net sales decreased to 9.81 billion euros in third quarter of 2009 from 12.23 billion euros in the same period last fiscal.

Nokia Siemens Networks, a 50:50 joint venture of Nokia Corp and German Siemens AG, had suffered non-cash asset impairment charges of 908 million euros and 29 million euros for restructuring and other one time charges.

The JV firm registered net sales of 2.8 billion euros, down 21 per cent from the same period last year and also witnessed a 14 per cent decline from the second quarter.

"The demand for mobile devices improved in many markets during Q3. With the average selling price of our devices holding firm quarter-on-quarter, our higher device volumes translated into increased net sales in our devices & services business.

"Our volumes and net sales were, however, somewhat constrained by component shortages we encountered across the portfolio. Challenging competitive factors and market conditions in the infrastructure and related services business necessitated non-cash impairment charges at Nokia Siemens Networks," Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said. — PTI

BRIEFLY

Inflation rises to 0.92 pc
New Delhi: Inflation rose to 0.92 per cent as of October 3 from 0.70 per cent a week ago, although prices of staple food items fell, including vegetables by 13.19 per cent, for the second straight week. Prices of food articles, in all, declined by 1.7 per cent, but when seen on year-on-year basis they were up 13.34 per cent. — PTI

Tata Tele’s Photon Plus
Chandigarh: Tata Teleservices has launched Photon Plus, a mobile broadband Internet device wth a speed of 3.1 mbps. TPS Walia, COO, Punjab and Himachal, of the company said this can be accessed using two devices, router and the USB modem. This wireless broadband service is up to 20 times faster than existing mobile wireless technology. — TNS

Polaris to acquire Laser Soft
New Delhi: IT firm Polaris Software Lab on Thursday said it would acquire banking software provider Laser Soft for Rs 52 crore. "As per the terms of the agreement, Rs 35 crore will be paid in cash on closing and the balance amount will be paid out in two years contingent to performance," Polaris said. — PTI

Jindal Saw net up 46 pc
Mumbai: Pipe manufacturer Jindal Saw on Thursday reported a 46.36 per cent growth in net profit at Rs 146.48 crore for the third quarter ended September 2009. Total income, however, declined to Rs 1,372.85 crore during the September quarter, from Rs 1,486.41 crore in the corresponding period last fiscal.— PTI

IOC, Priyagold in pact
Chandigarh: Biscuit maker Priyagold will be selling its products at 3,000 petrol stations of the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) in Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and J&K. The company has signed a memorandum of understanding with IOC in this regard. — TNS