New Delhi, April 27
The infrastructure industries posted a healthy annual growth of 7.2 per cent in March, boosting prospects of a robust overall industrial growth in the month. The six key sectors - crude, petroleum refinery products, coal, electricity, cement and finished steel - had grown by 3.3 per cent in March 2009.

These industries which have a combined weight of 26.7 per cent in the overall industrial production index showed a marked improvement in the last month of the past fiscal against 4.7 per cent in February.

For the whole fiscal, the core sectors registered a growth 5.5 per cent in April-March 2009-10 against 3 per cent in the same period last year, an official statement said today.

Finished steel with a 9.2 per cent expansion led the recovery, reversing a negative 1.8 per cent in March last year. Coal, electricity and cement grew by 7.8 per cent each against 5.3 per cent, 6.3 per cent and 10.1 per cent, respectively last fiscal.

Crude oil production went up by 3.5 per cent from a negative 2.3 per cent the same month previous fiscal. But petroleum refinery products showed a dismal performance with 0.4 per cent contraction in March 2010 over a positive 3.3 per cent a year ago.

"This (7.2 per cent growth) means overall industrial growth will stay healthy in March," Crisil principal economist DK Joshi said.

The overall industrial output maintained a high growth rate of over 15 per cent for the third month in a row in February.

"This is a broad-based growth...It is a good performance. I would expect it would have good reflection on the the IIP figures for March," former chairman of Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council Suresh Tendulkar said.

Crude oil production registered a growth of 0.5 per cent during April-March 2009-10 compared to contraction of 1.8 per cent during the same period of 2008-09.

Petroleum refinery production contracted 0.4 per cent compared to 3 per cent, the statement said.

Coal production, which is vital for the power sector, slowed to 7.9 per cent in 2009-10 while the growth was 8 per cent in the year-ago period. Electricity generation and finished (carbon) steel production grew by 6.5 per cent and 4.9 per cent, respectively.

Cement output grew by 10.5 per cent during 2009-10 compared to an increase of 7.2 per cent over the year-ago period. — PTI 

New Delhi, April 27
The government’s expectations from the ongoing auction for acquiring spectrum for third generation (3G) mobile services and the forthcoming broadband auction are rising fast with the Telecom Minister A. Raja today saying that the sale could fetch as much as Rs 55,000 crore.

As the bids for a pan-India 3G mobile spectrum licences rose to Rs 8,382.5 crore on Monday, up 139.5 per cent from the base price after 14 days of bidding, the government’s expectations are not misplaced. The money thus earned could help it bring down the fiscal deficit.

As of now, the Telecom Ministry is expecting revenue from sale of 3G spectrum itself to touch Rs 40,000 crore, beating the government's initial estimate of garnering Rs 35,000 crore from both 3G and broadband spectrum.

After 82 rounds of bidding having been completed till yesterday, the government is already nearing its initial estimates of garnering Rs 35,000 crore. As per the bidding pattern yesterday, the government would get a minimum of Rs 33, 895 crore from the three slots of airwaves on offer and the price state-owned operators BSNL and MTNL, which have already been given 3G frequencies, will pay.

An upbeat Raja said the revenue from 3G spectrum alone would touch Rs 40,000 crore. As of today, revenue (going by the bids) would cross Rs 35,000 crore, Raja said today.

He said both 3G and broadband spectrum put together might bring in Rs 50,000-55,000 crore of revenue, much above the Rs 35,000 crore the government had estimated initially.

However, analysts maintain that the bid price is likely to settle at around Rs 9,000 crore a slot. 3G services will allow users to download and upload data on their mobile at higher speed and stream movies online.

When asked about his views on the comparison being drawn about revenues from sale of 2G spectrum and 3G, the minister shot back: "We can't compare PDS rice with basmati rice."

The comparisons are "complete rubbish, complete non-sense". 2G services were for the common man and 3G is aimed at those requiring value-added services and hence, it was expected to rake in this level of revenue.

Asked about some analysts calling the price bids irrational, he said: "There is no ambiguity. It is only some frustrated forces who are not able to get it are spreading this kind of information."

Chandigarh, April 27
Microsoft India is eyeing big biz from the education sector in India. As IT adoption in educational institutes — schools, colleges and universities — becomes a reality, Microsoft is looking at being the biggest service provider in this sector.

From training teachers in IT to coming out with solutions for ensuring accessibility, affordability and relevance in IT education, Microsoft India has a definite focus in the education sector. Talking to TNS here today, Pankaj Ukey, director (Business Development), said there was a huge business opportunity in this sector. “But most importantly, we are looking at making computer education affordable and accessible to all. Thus we have now launched Windows MultiPoint Server (WMS), which aims to leverage the potential of software platforms to reach a vast number of students,” he said.

This new technology allows several students to simultaneously share one CPU (with multiple screens), thereby increasing access to computing in educational institutions and libraries. “This technology of shared resource computing has been developed in India, after our engineers saw how IT adoption in schools was not taking place as personal computer (PC) to child ratio was high. It was to overcome this problem that we have developed this WMS technology, which allows five students to share one CPU, or 10 students to share one CPU, though each one gets a separate screen,” he said.

“The personal computer penetration in the country is very low. Students in less than 8 per cent of government schools have access to computers. In the developed countries it is as high as 75 per cent. Thus this technology becomes very important for India. Since the launch in the beginning of this month, we have already managed to get 25 customers (all private schools and colleges) for this technology adoption. However, our aim is to target the government schools and colleges, where the PC to student ratio is very high,” said Ukey.

New Delhi, April 27
It has never been so good for the country’s telecom sector as in the past few months, especially March. While the country got another (the third) telecom operator with 100 million plus subscribers, as many as 20 million new users were added in the month.

This is the highest-ever number this year pushing the mobile subscriber base in the country to 584.32 million customers, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said.

The wireless subscriber base increased by 3.6 per cent from its February user base of 564.02 million and the total number of telephone subscribers (wireless and wireline) in India increased to 621.28 million at the end of March from 600.98 million in February.

There was some good news for the wireline segment as the number of users in the sector remained unchanged at 36.96 million. The fixed line subscriptions incidentally, has been witnessing negative to flat growth for quite sometime now.

With operators slashing tariffs further and new telecom players offering innovative schemes, the total telecom subscriber base registered a growth of 3.38 per cent in March.

TRAI said the maximum new additions for operators came from the Circle B and C cities which was an indicator that markets in the metros were saturating.

With this, the overall tele-density in India has touched 52.74, which indicates that every 53 out of every 100 persons in India owns a telephone connection (wireless or wireline). The wireless tele-density stands at 49.60.

Vodafone emerged as the operator adding highest number of subscribers, which was more than even country’s largest operator, Bharti Airtel. It added 3.6 million subscribers in March, taking its total number of users to 100 million.

In comparison, Bharti Airtel added 3 million users to expand its subscriber base to 127.6 million, data showed.

However, Bharti Airtel remained the leader with a 21.84 per cent share of the market at the end of March, followed by Reliance Communications with a 17.53 per cent share and Vodafone with a 17.26 per cent share, TRAI said.

Hyderabad, April 27
It was supposed to be a big-ticket project, promising Rs 3,500-crore investment and 2,000 jobs, besides huge spin-off benefits. However, after two years, the euphoria has given way to despondency.

Despite the fanfare that had marked the announcement, the UK-based industrialist Lord Swraj Paul’s Caparo Group has failed to make any headway in its plans to set up an automotive, engineering and aerospace park and a component manufacturing cluster in Nellore district.

The state has now decided to take back the 2,000 acres allotted to Caparo Group and cancel the agreement signed in January 2008.

“The cancellation of land is in the final stages as they have failed to start the promised project," the Major Industries Minister K Lakshminarayana said.

The government is disappointed with the company failing to move ahead with the project despite allotment of land at a nominal rate of Rs 1 lakh per acre and provision of all facilities and tax exemptions. It was also offered a 14-year tax holiday and other incentives.

The MoU was signed with the engineering major in January 2008 in the presence of former Chief Minister late YS Rajasekhara Reddy. The coastal district of Nellore was chosen for locating the project in view of its close proximity to Chennai which is a major automobile hub.

As per the original plans, the mega projects included manufacturing of luxury buses for Indian market in collaboration with South Korean giant Hyundai Motors.

Mumbai, April 27
Private sector lender Yes Bank today said its net profit rose by 74.79 per cent to Rs 140.03 crore for the fourth quarter ended March 31, over the same period last fiscal.

Total income of the bank rose to Rs 824.74 crore for the fourth quarter ended March 31, compared to Rs 656.07 crore in the same period previous fiscal, Yes Bank said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).

BRIEFLY

NYSE allows Satyam to remain listed
New Delhi: The New York Stock Exchange has given Satyam Computer time till October 15, 2010, to file its annual report and remain listed on the US bourse till then. Satyam had sought more time from the NYSE to file the annual report which it could not file due to the account fudging done by the previous promoter chairman B Ramalingaraju.— PTI

Essar Oil
New Delhi: Ruias-owned Essar Oil on Tuesday said its promoters have infused over $293 million equity in the company by subscribing to Global Depository Receipts (GDRs) issue. Essar Oil allotted 92.84 million equity shares of Rs 10 each at a price of Rs 144 per share in favour of the overseas Depository, the company said. — PTI

RCom in pact with GetJar
Mumbai: Reliance Communications on Tuesday announced a strategic alliance with US-based GetJar, the world's second-largest application store, to avail over 65,000 free mobile applications for its over 100 million subscribers. RCom’s subscribers will gain immediate access to GetJar's massive library of applications via a GetJar apps store through RCom's VAS platform R-World. — PTI

Kingfisher flights
Dubai: Kingfisher Airlines has launched two new international flights connecting the UAE to New Delhi and Mumbai. With the new routes — from Dubai to New Delhi, and Dubai to Mumbai, Kingfisher now operates 21 weekly flights between the UAE and India.— PTI

Yes Bank to raise Rs 1,500 cr
Mumbai: Yes Bank plans to raise Rs 1,500 crore of capital this financial year, a top bank official said. "We are very well capital-endowed as at March 2010 but we do have a headroom to raise around Rs 1,500 crore of hybrid capital in both our Tier-II and Tier-I structure," Yes Bank CEO Rana Kapoor said. — PTI

DSP Black Rock MF
Ahmedabad: DSP Black Rock mutual fund on Tuesday said it plans to mobilise around Rs 2,000 crore from the new fund offer Focus 25 fund, an open-ended equity growth scheme focussing on investment in 25 stocks of top 200 companies by m-cap.— PTI