New Delhi, December 4
In a late night decision yesterday, the Union Cabinet approved a Rs 10,000-crore project to build an alternate optic fibre cable (OFC) network for defence services which would also pave way for the auction of third generation (3G) spectrum to be held early next year.

The Cabinet approval came after the Department of Telecom (DoT) and the Ministry of Defence (MoD) struck an agreement last week whereby the armed forces will release 25 Mhz of radio frequency.

In return, the DoT had given a seven-point action plan, including getting the approval of the Cabinet for setting up an optical fibre cable for the Defence at a cost of Rs 10,000 crore. The DoT had also agreed to build this cable network in three years, six months ahead of the earlier plan.

The armed forces, which currently occupy a bulk of the 3G airwaves, will now move their communication requirements to the new network that will be built by BSNL.

The new deal will allow the government to auction 3G spectrum for at least four operators in each circle. There had been doubts over the successful completion of the 3G auction for the second year running due to opposition from the armed forces.

Incidentally, DoT has also agreed to the MoD demand that all those allotted the 3G spectrum would start offering services only from June onwards.

The approval from the government came after the deal between the two warring ministries was worked out by adviser to the Prime Minister Sam Pitroda. The agreement between the two for spectrum vacation is likely to be 
signed by December 7.

BSNL will put out the tender for the Rs 10,000 crore project on its website on December 7 and expressions of interest will have to be made by January 15.

According to reports, Chinese equipment majors such as Huawei and ZTE will not be allowed to participate in this project due to security concerns.

Successful equipment vendors will have to manufacture all core components in India, failing which, they have to enter into collaborations with state-owned such as Indian Telephone Industries (ITI) and BEL to fulfil this obligation.

New Delhi, December 4
Within hours of the Union Cabinet giving clearance to the proposal of the Department of Telecom (DoT) for a separate optic fibre network for the armed forces, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh further cleared the air of uncertainty over the auction of 3G licences, saying that air waves for starting the third generation telephony service would be sold shortly at market-determined prices.

"I am happy that auction of spectrum for 3G and broadband wireless services will be conducted shortly. In a reform initiative, the government has decided that this spectrum will be allocated at market-determined prices rather than administered one," he said at a telecom conference here.

Auction of 3G spectrum has been plagued by differences between Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the DoT over vacation of spectrum for civilian use.

He also predicted that India, which already has nearly 488 million mobile users and adds about 15-16 million users a month, could witness robust growth in the sector given the fact that the economic downturn is showing signs of moderation.

The Prime Minister said the government intends to start the mobile number portability service early next year.

"This would give more choice to customers who would be able to change their operator while retaining their cellular phone number. It would also encourage telecom companies to improve the quality of their service," he said.

Talking of connectivity in the rural areas of the country the Prime Minister said the government had decided to implement a massive programme of broadband for all. He said under this programme all 2.5 lakh gram panchayats in the country will be provided high-speed broadband connectivity by 2012.

New Delhi, December 4
World Bank president Robert Zoellick today said India is likely to return to high growth of 8 to 9 per cent in a year or two, helped by strong fiscal and monetary actions to counter the global financial crisis.

The country's 11th five-year Plan ending in 2012 envisaged achieving an average nine per cent growth rate. GDP growth slipped to 6.7 per cent in 2008-09, after three years of over nine per cent growth, as a result of the global crisis.

Zoellick, winding up his four-day visit here, said return to that level appears possible over the next one to two years.

"India has emerged from the economic crisis with a clear vision of what it will take to accelerate back to earlier growth rates and beyond," he said.

The strong fiscal and monetary policies of India had helped counteract a decline in exports and withstand some of the external shocks brought on by the multiple food, fuel and financial crises, he said.

Impressed with the country's macro-financial management and anti-poverty programmes, Zoellick said India is important for global recovery.

India's strong crisis management and the sustained global demand from the $1.2 trillion economy is playing an important role in helping the world recover from the global economic crisis. "We all look to India as a rising global economic power," Zoellick said.

During his visit, he called on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, met Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, other ministers, bureaucrats and private sector players to understand the priorities of India and how best the World Bank could deploy its resources efficiently. — PTI

Chandigarh, December 4
In case a bank is too far from your residence, you can now avail banking services at the neighbourhood kirana shop, chemist or a PCO. The RBI has allowed banks to appoint individual kirana, medical and PCO operators, petrol pump owners, agents of small savings schemes, retired teachers and authorised functionaries of self-help groups as business correspondents (BC).

This means that thousands of people, especially in remote and rural areas of the country, who do not have access to banking services, can now go to these neighbourhood shops and avail basic services that ensure that they are financially linked. These people will have to be appointed by the various banks after a due diligence of these prospective business correspondents has been done. Once appointed, these business correspondents will be provided with a hand-held device to record all financial transactions, which will have to be accounted for in the banks’ books within two days.

This decision follows the recommendations of a working group of RBI, which has suggested ways to enlarge the category of persons that can act as business correspondents, keeping in view the regulatory and supervisory framework and consumer protection issues. With an estimated 45.9 million (almost 51 per cent of total farmer households) farmer households not having access to credit from institutional or non-institutional sources, the business correspondent model is expected to help in greater financial inclusion.

The working group has also said that to ensure viability of the BC model, banks can collect reasonable service charges from the customer, under a Board-approved policy. The recommendation says that considering the profile of the clientele, to whom banking services are being delivered through the BC model, banks should ensure that there are no complaints from the customer about the charges being non-transparent or unreasonable, as any unfair service charges/fee collected from customer is reasonable and any unfair practice adopted by banks will be viewed seriously by the RBI.

New Delhi, December 4
Union Steel Minister Virbhadra Singh wants to make his home state Himachal Pradesh a ‘steel hub’. Per capital consumption of steel in Himachal Pradesh at 15 kg is much lower than the national average of 48 kg.

On his instructions, a high-level team from the Union Steel Ministry on Monday visited Shimla and met senior state government officials to find ways to increase production and consumption of steel in the region. The main aim was to encourage secondary steel processing units, in both public and private sector.

The team was headed by Union Steel Secretary, Atul Chaturvedi. The team members included Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) chairman SK Rungta, and senior officials of the Steel ministry and many steel and iron ore public sector undertakings.

"Through sustained efforts our target is to make Himachal a ‘steel hub,’ which could meet enhanced needs of steel not just in Himachal, but also in neighbouring states of Jammu and Kashmir, Uttrakhand, Punjab and Haryana," Chaturvedi told The Tribune.

According to him, the steel ministry and other central PSUs would encourage local entrepreneurs by providing free consultancy, raw materials and also help in marketing products.

Describing talks with the state government as "positive and encouraging," Chaturvedi said the ministry along with the PSUs like SAIL, National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC), Ispat Nigam and MECON would encourage local businessmen to make more steel items.

The Ispat Nigam has decided to appoint dealers in seven districts of Shimla, Una, Mandi, Sirmour, Kullu, Hamirpur and Solan.

Virbhadra Singh, who has been Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh five times, had recently asked Secretary, Ministry of Steel, to take a high-level team to Shimla to explore the possibilities for setting up secondary steel processing units in the state.

The ministry sources said the BBN Industrial Area in Solan district and Kala Amb and Paonta Industrial Area in Sirmour district have basic infrastructure required for setting up of any new project in the state and possibilities for the same can also be explored in Una district, which has the advantage of broad gauge rail connection from Delhi that will make shifting of raw material and finished goods easier.

The Steel Ministry is soon going to establish with the state government’s help a blue print of the possibilities for setting up the secondary steel processing units in the state. “Entrepreneurs, who are interested to set up their industry in other field can also be encouraged so that Himachal Pradesh can become an industrial hub,” said Chaturvedi.

In northern India, Himachal Pradesh is the only state which has surplus of electricity with sufficient resources for water and complete road infrastructure for the linkage from the state to other parts of India. “Setting up of secondary steel processing units in Himachal Pradesh will give a fillip to industrial activity in the state and provide more employment to the youth,” said Chaturvedi.

Lucknow, December 4
The ambitious 3,740 MW gas-based Dadri Power project of Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group today suffered a major setback when the Allahabad High Court quashed a 2004 notification regarding acquiring of land for the project.

The previous Mulayam Singh Yadav Government had issued the notification for the acquisition of 2,100.588 acres of land for setting up the Rs 11,000-crore power project on February 11, 2004.

A division bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan and Sudhir Agarwal today pronounced the judgment in an open court quashing the notification issued, while partly allowing the writ petition of Pooran Singh and others in this connection.

The project, which was claimed to be the world's largest gas-based project, was expected to turn Uttar Pradesh into the power capital of the country. But it had run into trouble from the word go.

Farmers in Dadri and its surrounding villages had been up in arms against the acquisition of land at much below the market rate. Led by former Prime Minister V P Singh, they had refused to agree to hand over their land and had approached the High Court against what they had termed as the arbitrary attempt by the then SP government to help the corporate group.

On July 7, 2006, taking cognizance of a Reliance Energy Generation Limited petition the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court had even directed the then Samajwadi Party government to make security arrangements at the project site in view of protest by farmers

The petition had put forward the argument that the project had been delayed owing to dispute with the farmers and landowners. It said the landowners had formed the Maharana Sangram Singh Kisan Kalyan Samiti to protest the land acquisition for the project and claimed that compensation at Rs 151 per square yard had already been paid to them.

Parallel to the land acquisition problem was the feud between the Ambani brothers, resulting in hurdles in the supply of natural gas for running the Dadri project.

On June 16, 2004 Reliance Energy had signed a State Support Agreement with the state government for sale of electricity from its 3740 MW gas-based power plant coming up in Dadri with an investment of Rs. 11,000 crore.

“Uttar Pradesh will get a minimum of 1,500 MW (40 per cent) of the power from the project and the supply could be increased as per the demand,” the then Reliance Energy Chairman and Managing Director Anil Ambani had promised

New Delhi, December 4
HDFC Ltd's chairman and CEO Deepak Parekh will step down next month after serving the housing lender for 31 years, a period that saw the lender become the numero uno in housing segment.

KK Mistry, currently vice-chairman and managing director, will take over as vice-chairman and CEO when Parekh steps down on January 1, 2010.

The reshuffle will see Parekh continuing as non-executive chairman of HDFC, the holding company of its group ventures, incuding HDFC Bank. — PTI

BRIEFLY

FDI flow up 56 pc in October
New Delhi: The flow of foreign direct investments into the country saw a major increase in October, registering a 56 per cent jump to touch $2.3 billion in October against the same period last year, an official said. In October 2008, the FDI stood at $1.5 billion. — PTI

Forex reserves up
Mumbai: India's foreign exchange reserves rose by $1.379 billion for the week ended November 27, to $286.723 billion compared to $285.344 billion in the previous week. The foreign currency assets, during the week, stood at $262.449 billion, up $571 million, compared to $261.878 billion in the week ago, RBI said in its weekly report on Friday. — PTI

EADS research centre
New Delhi: The defence and aerospace major, EADS, a 43.3 billion euro company, on Friday opened its research and development centre in India. Called EADS Innovation Works, the centre will be housed near Bangalore, a statement issued by the company said. — TNS

RIL in pact with Ecopetrol
Mumbai: Reliance Industries on Friday said its exploration arm has entered into an agreement with Columbian state-controlled oil company Ecopetrol SA for two deep water blocks. In a filing with the Bombay Stock Exchange, RIL said Reliance Exploration and Production DMCC (REP) has singed an agreement with Ecopetrol under which the Columbian firm would take a 20 per cent stake in the two deepwater blocks, Borojo North Block 42 and the Borojo South Block 43. — PTI