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Truckers’ strike from April 5
Maruti to roll out small car by year-end
S Tel asked to stop services
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Oil PSUs to get Rs 12,000 cr
4 new directors on AI Board
SEZ units can now export rice, pulses
RBI defers base rate system by 3 months
Honda to invest Rs 1,100 crore in 2nd unit
Essar close to buy Trinity Coal
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Fuel Price Hike
New Delhi, March 5 "We have submitted four major demands to the government and will wait till the midnight of April 5, 2010. And if the demands are not met by this time, we will pull out all our trucks from the road," All India Motor Transport Congress (AIMTC) president G R Shanmugappa said. He said AIMTC has demanded a rollback of the hike in fuel prices, especially that of diesel, which rose by over Rs 2.5 a litre consequent to a duty hike on fuels. "The hike is abnormal, unbearable and intolerable, which will further deteriorate the already dwindling condition of truckers," he said. The AIMTC is also demanding the implementation of the agreement on national permit that will require truckers to pay only a one-time fee of Rs 15,000 for a year, against the current norm of paying each state a fee of Rs 5,000, as promised by the government during the last year's strike. The Centre had signed an agreement with the AIMTC on February 23, 2009, for implementing the new national permit scheme before January 1, 2010, but despite of the minister's assurance, the government has not notified it. The AIMTC claimed that if its demands were not met, over 75 lakh truckers will be taken off the road and the strike would also have the support from other segments such as tempos and other small goods carrying vehicle owners. The AIMTC also asked the government to notify and implement the same before March 31, 2010. "Besides this, we are also demanding reduction in toll rates across the country and the government should also remove anti-dumping duty imposed on the import of tyres," Shanmugappa said. — PTI
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Maruti to roll out small car by year-end
Chandigarh, March 5 The company is also going in for expansion of its production capacity at its plant in Manesar, besides coming up with a research and development centre at Rohtak. It has earmarked Rs 3,000 crore for this expansion. The company proposes to add 2,50,000 units to its capacity at Manesar by adding another production line by 2012. The R&D centre will be commissioned completely by 2014-15, and will ensure that India becomes the global research hub for Maruti. Talking to TNS here today, RC Bhargava, chairman, Maruti Suzuki India, said in keeping with the company’s policy, they will be launching one new car each year. Though he refused to give any details about the new car to be launched this year, sources informed TNS that the company was all set to launch Cervo by the end of this year. “The small car market is expanding and we are looking at a bigger chunk of the pie in this segment. The launch of Kizashi, luxury sedan, however, has been put off for the time being,” the chairman said. In town to present the North West Qualtech awards by Gian Jyoti School of TQM and Entrepreneurship, Bhargava said Maruti was looking at a robust growth of over 22 per cent this year. “We have crossed the production of one million units during this fiscal. We are in the process of increasing the production of Swift and Dzire by almost 70 per cent, so that the backlog and long waiting list for these models can be cleared,” he said. He said this year they had done well in exports and were now looking at developing new markets. |
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S Tel asked to stop services
New Delhi, March 5 The company has licences for Himachal Pradesh, Orissa, Bihar, Jharkhand, Jammu and Kashmir and Assam circles but is operational only in the three circles. The company has a user base of over eight lakh. Sources in the Department of Telecom said the company has been asked to stop services in all these three states. Batelco, which has 42.7 per cent stake in S Tel, has entered into a partnership with Bahrain-based Islamic investment bank Global Banking Corporation (GBC), which in turn will acquire 11 per cent stake in S Tel for $50 million. GBC buying 11 per cent in S Tel will indirectly raise Batelco's stake in S Stel by 6.3 per cent to 49 per cent. When contacted, the company confirmed of having received an order asking to stop "voice and SMS services" till further clarification. —
PTI |
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Oil PSUs to get Rs 12,000 cr
New Delhi, March 5 The IOC would get Rs 7,100.18 crore, BPCL Rs 2,370.77 crore and HPCL Rs 2,529.05 crore, Minister of State for Finance Namo Narain Meena said in a written reply to Lok Sabha here. The Rs 12,000-crore compensation would be given as cash from the Budget, a departure from the practise of issuing bonds to make up for fuel losses. The compensation is, however, less than Rs 20,989 crore sought by the retailers to make up for the losses they incurred on selling domestic LPG and kerosene below cost during April-December period. The IOC had sought Rs 12,419 crore, BPCL Rs 4,147 crore and HPCL Rs 4,423 crore, he said, but did not say if the Finance Ministry was inclined to release more money. State-run fuel retailers are projected to lose Rs 47,400 crore on selling petrol, diesel, domestic LPG and kerosene below cost. Of these, the losses on petrol and diesel are made up by upstream firms like Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) while, Rs 31,574 crore revenue loss on cooking fuel is to be made good by the government. The compensation indicated till now leaves a gap of Rs 19,574 crore. Retailers currently sell petrol at a loss of Rs 4.97 a litre, diesel at Rs 3.27 per litre, kerosene at Rs 16.91 per litre and LPG at a loss of Rs 267.39 per cylinder. —
PTI |
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4 new directors on AI Board
New Delhi, March 5 The other two to be on the Board are Ficci secretary general Amit Mitra and industrialist Harsh Neotia. Air India is facing a whopping loss of over Rs 7,000 crore. The appointments of the new directors, who will be in part-time capacity, were announced after the Civil Aviation Ministry made it clear that it was looking at having skilled professionals on the national carrier’s Board with the hope this would help turn the airline around with some new ideas. The appointments of the four directors on the Board of National Aviation Company of India Limited (NACIL), which runs the national carrier Air India, will be for a period of three years or till further orders whichever occurs earlier, a statement from the Civil Aviation Ministry said. Last month, the government decided that the national carrier would get equity infusion of Rs 800 crore in two instalments to tide over its cash flow problem and to finance fleet acquisition plans. The induction of fresh equity was approved by a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, presided over by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh only after it adopted a turnaround plan. —
PTI |
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SEZ units can now export rice, pulses
New Delhi, March 5 “It has been decided that SEZ units should be permitted to export prohibited items provided they import raw-material for the same...,” the Commerce Ministry has said. However, the SEZ units would have to take a prior permission from the inter-ministerial Board of Approval (BoA), headed by Commerce Secretary Rahul Khullar for re-exports. It is also stipulated that these units cannot under any circumstances source items locally for export purpose. The government has prohibited exports of agriculture commodities like non-basmati rice and pulses, as prices of these essential items were skyrocketing in domestic markets. —
PTI |
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RBI defers base rate system by 3 months
Mumbai, March 5 Earlier, banks were expected to implement the base rate system from April 1. RBI has come out with a proposal on replacing the current benchmark prime lending rate (BPLR) with base rate system, below which no banks would be allowed to give commercial loans. The current BPLR has been much abused, since banks provide many loans to high rated corporates below this rate. As such there is no transparency in the lending rates, prompting RBI to ask banks to implement the new base rate system. —
PTI |
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Honda to invest Rs 1,100 crore in 2nd unit
Jaipur, March 5 While HMSI officials were not available to confirm the development, the Rajasthan government official said the company would set up the plant near Bhiwadi with an initial capacity of six lakh units per annum in the first phase at an investment of Rs 500 crore over a five-year period. — PTI |
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Essar close to buy Trinity Coal
New Delhi, March 5 "The deal is in the final stages of negotiations and could be concluded shortly, may be in the coming weeks," a person in the know of the development said. When contacted, an Essar Group spokesperson declined to comment on the development. Sources said the company was in the advanced stage of negotiations with the US-based investment firm Denham Capital Management, which controls Trinity Coal. The development could not be independently confirmed with Denham Capital. Trinity Coal has an estimated reserves of about 200 million tonnes, including both metallurgical and thermal. —
PTI |
Re at 2-month high Emaar MGF public offer Zicom plan Oilmeals’ exports dip Oil above $80 Gold weakens
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Maruti Suzuki will be launching a new small car, Cervo, this year. Priced at below Rs 2 lakh, the car is targeted at giving competition to Tata’s Nano. The company will also be launching a diesel variant of SX4 by middle of this year. The car maker has now given up further development of LPG vehicles and is now concentrating of CNG variants.
