New Delhi, February 24
As was expected, the auction for the 3G (third generation) services have been shifted to the next fiscal. The government today announced the schedule for the 3G spectrum with the auction to be held on April 9 and the applications for the same would be invited from the prospective bidders from Thursday.

A government notification here said the notice inviting applications would start from Thursday and the last date for submitting the applications would be March 19. The government hopes to garner a minimum of Rs 25,000 crore from the auction, which has been running into some trouble or the other for the past year and a half.

The notification said the pre-qualification of bidders would take place on March 30 and mock auctions would be held on the 5th and the 6th of April. The auction date for 3G spectrum is April 9, 2010, it said.

Over the past year and a half the 3G auctions have been deferred twice even after the date of announcements of the auction.

The major telecom players, including the Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, RCom and Tatas have expressed relief at the announcement of the dates, but said they would wait for the NIA for more clarity.

The auction has been delayed over differences between government departments over pricing wireless radio spectrum and on the availability of spectrum to be auctioned.

However, the issues were later resolved, Telecom Minister A Raja had said. Though the quantum of the spectrum available for auction is still not clear, sources indicated that three slots may be put on the block in most circles while a few areas may have enough air waves to accommodate four players.

The move comes after the Law Ministry gave its approval to the NIA last week, paving the way for the government to go ahead with the auction.

Incidentally, even the 4G spectrum would be ready for auction in the coming months and some of the new telecom operators have expressed their desire to wait for it rather than spend money on 3G services.

Chandigarh, February 24
Two days before the Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee will present his Budget proposals for the coming fiscal, Meenakshi V. Hari, a school teacher by profession, is a worried person. Being a lone bread-winner for her family, her biggest fear is another hike in prices of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and petrol. With food inflation over the past two years having already played havoc with her monthly budget, she is now hoping that the Finance Minister will be kind to millions of middle class families like her.

At a time when the food inflation is in double digit and prices of all food items, be it foodgrains, dairy products, pulses, sugar or fruits and vegetables, are sky rocketing, Hari is hoping that drastic steps are undertaken to rein in the prices and no additional burden is put on the common man.

“The prices of sugar and pulses are at an all-time high. Milk and other dairy products have been showing an upward trend for the past eight months. The expenditure on food eats into most of the monthly earnings, leaving me with little money for entertainment for the kids. I hope that we are not burdened unnecessarily with a hike in LPG and petrol prices,” she said.

Expressing concern over the spiralling prices of most commodities, Dr Ranjit Singh Ghumman, an economist in Punjabi University, Patiala, said the main reason for the high food prices was that food production had reached a plateau. “The food security of the country is at stake, so this Budget should have sufficient fund allocation for research and development in agriculture technology so that a breakthrough is achieved. Also, efforts should be made that the thrust of the annual plan as well as the Five-Year plan is in sync with the Budget. Since the 11th Five- year plan focuses on inclusive growth, education and health sectors, too, should be given top priority,” he said.

BK Sood, a senior citizen, said the Budget should pave way for raising the income tax exemption limit for all, especially the senior citizens, from the present Rs 2.40 lakh per annum to Rs 3 lakh per annum. “Interest earned on most senior citizen savings schemes should be made tax-free,” he said. Supporting Sood, Rajiv Kapoor, a retired Haryana government employee, said it was important that the income tax limits be raised as prices of most items had gone up.

New Delhi, February 24
Indian industry today gave a thumbs-up to the no-hike Railway Budget saying it has not put any burden on common man and business, while paving way for more private participation in railway projects.

“The decision not to hike railway freight and passenger fares is an anti-inflationary measure that is welcome,” FICCI President Harsh Pati Singhania said. Singhania said the decision to invite private expertise and resources for deployment in areas like development of new lines, port and mine connectivity and multi-layer parking facilities, would go a long way in modernising the railway system.

Railways Minister Mamata Banerjee has not hiked freight and passenger fairs instead railway freight rates for foodgrains and kerosene were reduced. Expressing similar views on private participation, CII said this would give the right signal to investors in India and abroad to look at Indian Railways in a new light.

Assocham described it as “people and industry friendly” since there is no increase in passenger and freight rates but said the budget lacked clarity on utilisation of Railways’ land for public private partnership initiatives.

PHD Chamber, however, said Banerjee had missed an opportunity to reduce freight rates across the board to further stimulate the economy.

A special task force would be set up for early clearance of projects, she said, adding that Railways would start six water bottling plants in places like Ambala, Farakka, Nasik, Thiruvananthapuram and Amethi to provide clean and cheap drinking water to passengers. — PTI

Washington, February 24
Toyota chief Akio Toyoda has apologised to the US lawmakers for massive recalls of vehicles due to technical snag and said the company might have compromised on safety in its race to become the world's number one automaker.

Toyoda, in a statement to be delivered in front of a congressional committee in Washington today, said, "Quite frankly, I fear the pace at which we have grown may have been too quick." "I regret that this has resulted in the safety issues described in the recalls we face today, and I am deeply sorry for any accidents that Toyota drivers have experienced," he said.

So far, Toyota has recalled more than 8 million vehicles worldwide.

"I would like to point out here that Toyota's priority has traditionally been the following: First, safety; second, quality; and third, volume. These priorities became confused, and we were not able to stop, think, and make improvements as much as were able to before, and our basic stance to listen to customers' voices to make better products has weakened somewhat," he said.

Toyoda would appear before one of three congressional committees looking into how the company and US regulators responded to sudden, unintended acceleration blamed for 30 US deaths, as well as braking and steering.

Acknowledging that in the past few months, its customers have started to feel uncertain about the safety of Toyota’s vehicles, Toyoda said he takes full responsibility for that.

"Today, I would like to explain to the American people, as well as our customers in the US and around the world, how seriously Toyota takes the quality and safety of its vehicles," he said.

"Especially, I would like to extend my condolences to the members of the Saylor family, for the accident in San Diego. I would like to send my prayers again, and I will do everything in my power to ensure that such a tragedy never happens again," Toyoda said. — PTI 

Mumbai, February 24
The RBI has mooted upgrading security features of cheques issued by banks across the country as part of a major effort to speed up processing of the financial instruments.Under the initiative being worked out by the apex bank in coordination with the Indian Bank’s Association and the National Payments Corporation of India, cheques issued by banks would have a number of common standard features. “The quality of paper used in printing of the cheques, usage of invisible ink readable by a scanner and ultra-violet images have been suggested as part of a security-enhancing initiative,” a senior RBI official said.

The apex bank has also specified that the paper and ink used for the cheques be sensitive to acids, alkalis, bleaches and solvents in order to detect fraud. The cheques would also have to carry a watermark with the wordings ‘CTS-INDIA’ visible when the document is held against any light source. The size and shape of the watermark has also been specified by the RBI. In addition, the logos of the banks would also have to be printed in ultra-violet ink so that these can be read by scanners.

The RBI official said the idea was to ensure that the feel of the cheques would be uniform across issuing banks.

According to the RBI, these measures are part of a move to adopt a cheque truncation system (CTS) that eliminates the need to physically transport the cheques to a clearing house.

Soon, the RBI is to introduce a time-table for rollout of the CTS system across the country.

The apex bank has adopted the image-based cheque-clearing solution from NCR Corporation which is presently implemented in the capital.

Rather than send a cheque to the clearing house, only its image would be captured at the bank it is presented and processed in real time.

This would reduce processing time by 50 per cent, according to the RBI. At present, outstation cheques take two to three working days for getting processed.

Bankers have generally welcomed these measures stating that it would save time. However, private banks are worried about the increasing costs. “The cost of printing each cheque leaf would go up. We may reduce the number of free cheque leaves issued to customers or increase charges slightly,” a senior manager of a private bank said.

BRIEFLY

Oil rises above $79
Singapore: Oil prices rose above $79 a barrel on Wednesday in Asia after a report showed US crude inventories unexpectedly fell last week, suggesting demand may be improving. Benchmark crude for April delivery was up 34 cents to $79.20 a barrel at midday Singapore time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. — AP

Essar sells tower biz
New Delhi: Diversified group Essar is selling its telecom tower business, Essar Telecom Infrastructure, to American Tower for about Rs 2,000 crore in an all-cash deal. Transcend Infrastructure, an affiliate of American Tower, on Wednesday said it has entered into a definitive share purchase agreement with three Indian companies of the Essar Group to acquire substantially the entire issued share capital of Essar Telecom Infrastructure in an all-cash deal.— PTI

Gold falls further
New Delhi: Gold fell further by Rs 90 to Rs 16,850 per 10 grams on the bullion market here on Wednesday due to heavy selling pressure induced by weak global cues. Standard gold and ornaments declined by Rs 90 each to Rs 16,850 and Rs 16,700 per ten grams, respectively. They had lost Rs 140 each on Tuesday. — PTI

SJVN IPO put on hold
New Delhi: The initial public offering of state-owned Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam has been put on hold by the government after a lukewarm response to the follow-on offers of NTPC and Rural Electrification Corp. "The IPO is slightly delayed, looking at what happened to REC and NTPC, the market is not conducive and it (IPO) could come in the first half of 2010-11," SJVNL chief HK Sharma said. — PTI

Kribhco dividend
Chandigarh: Krishak Bharati Cooperative Ltd (Kribhco) has declared a dividend at the rate of 20 per cent for 2008-09 amounting to Rs 71.28 crore. A cheque of Rs 39.46 crore was presented to Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilizers, MK Alagiri by Dr Chandra Pal Singh, chairman, Kribhco. — TNS