Chandigarh, December 22
Punjab’s Local Bodies and Industries Minister Manoranjan Kalia has asked for a probe into the sudden rise of onion prices saying, “It will turn out to be a bigger scam then ever imagined”. Demanding action against officials of the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Fedration of India Ltd (NAFED) for failure to see signs of an impending shortage, he said this was an attempt to benefit exporters.

“If something happens once, it is an aberration. But something that repeats itself is part of a design. Repeated rise in sugar, rice or onion prices overlooking the obvious is to benefit someone,” Kalia told The Tribune adding, “The Prime Minister has expressed his concern, but has chosen to overlook the fact that NAFED officials never recommend a ban on export of onion, when unseasonal rain hit onion cultivation.”

Maximum onion export licences were given out in October and November after the government knew rains had hit the onion hub of Lasalgaon in Maharashtra's Nasik district.

“For Prime Minister Manmohan Singh I can only say muni badnaam hui, madam tere liye.” The industries minister said that Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has said that “nothing much can be done for the next three weeks to bring down onion prices. This is a clear indication to hoarders that the government was deliberately looking the other way”.

He said NAFED officials should be recommended pre-emptive measures, but since they did not it was obvious that there was clear design and their failure was “deliberate”.

Demanding a thorough probe into circumstance that led to sudden rise in prices, Kalia said when nearly 70 per cent of onion crop had been destroyed in Lasalgaon, bringing down the yield from 1,000 kgs to a mere 15 kilos per acre, who no preventive measures were taken. It is only last night the government banned exports, forcing a crash in onion prices.

Further Kalia said that the prime minister had offered to appear before the Public Accounts committee (PAC) in the 2G spectrum scam, but this was itself a sham as the PAC could summon a only a govt servant up to a secretary level bureaucrat and not the prime minister. He asked the BJP’s NDA partners to get aggressive for recovery of the Rs 1.7 lakh crore believed to have been siphoned off in the allotment of 2 G spectrum.

New Delhi, December 22
Fidelity International in its India equity outlook for 2011 has said that shocks emanating from the developed world and high domestic inflation could be key concern areas. Higher commodity prices and sticky manufacturing prices would need to be watched, it says.

Fidelity says that strong economic fundamentals, reasonable earnings outlook and lower valuations are likely to provide support to the Indian equity markets despite the high volatility.

Fidelity International’s Indian mutual fund arm manages assets of over Rs 9,000 crore and more than 1 million customer accounts,

Sandeep Kothari, fund manager, Fidelity Equity Fund, said: “As we move into 2011, the fundamentals of the Indian economy remain strong while the capex cycle is yet to pick up substantially”.

He said that the outlook for growth in earnings remains reasonable and the recent market corrections have made valuations a bit more reasonable.

“We remain constructive on the market for 2011, but believe that it will continue to be volatile”.

“There are some positive signs on the economic front in the western world, however, the debt levels remain high.

On the domestic side, while inflation is expected to come down over the next 3-4 months, higher commodity prices or sticky manufacturing prices would be an area to watch out for”, it says.

“Overall, notwithstanding the near-term market volatility, the longer-term picture for India remains positive”, according to the outlook.

On the outlook for fixed income market in India, Shriram Ramanathan, fixed income fund manager, Fidelity Mutual Fund, said that inflation remains above RBI’s comfort zone, albeit significantly lower than the peak double digit levels seen during 2010.

A combination of supply and demand side factors has still kept inflation at an elevated level, and it is likely to remain the primary concern for the central bank in its policy formulation for the coming year.

Fidelity says the full impact of Reserve Bank of India rate tightening on growth would be seen over the course of the coming quarters, it expects to see some more tightening measures by the RBI through 2011 to get inflation within its comfort zone.

It says key uncertainty stems from the global macro environment, where super easy policy adopted particularly by the US Fed has resulted in a rising trend for commodity prices - potentially impacting both India’s inflation and current account deficit. “We believe returns from the fixed income market are likely to be attractive for investors with a medium-term horizon”, Fidelity said.

Gurgaon, December 22
The country’s largest car maker Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) today said it will reorient the production of ‘Swift’ and ‘DZiRE’ in its two facilities at Gurgaon and Manesar to enhance output.

According to the plan, the company will shift the entire assembly of its sedan ‘DZiRE’ to the Gurgaon plant by around July next year. It will also shift the production of hatchback ‘Swift’, which is currently being produced at both the plants, entirely to Manesar sometime in future.

“Our plan is to fully shift DZiRE to Gurgaon and Swift to Manesar to enhance productivity. The shifting of assembly of DZiRE will take place by July next year and that of Swift will take place in future,” Maruti Suzuki India Managing Executive Officer (Production) M M Singh told PTI.

He, however, declined to comment how much volume will be increased post this reorientation exercise.

Currently, the company manufactures about 10,000 units of DZiRE and 12,000 units of Swift every month.

The company's hatchbacks, Swift and Ritz, have a 3-4 month and 1-2 month waiting period, respectively, while customers are willing to wait for 4-5 months to own a DZiRE sedan. MSI takes about 5 months to deliver multi-purpose vehicle Eeco to buyers.

Singh also said the company will launch an upgraded variant of the Swift by the end of next year.

The company is expecting up to 30 per cent sales jump in the domestic market during this financial year.

“We are expecting the domestic sales growth of 28-30 per cent in this fiscal. Last fiscal we sold about 8.7 lakh units,” MSI Managing Executive Officer (marketing and sales ) Mayank Pareek said. — PTI 

New Delhi, December 22
Hinting at a possible increase in the availability of the spectrum, Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal today said growth in the sector is essentially centred on adequate spectrum availability.

“The real problem is that there is scarcity of spectrum and we need to increase the amount of spectrum that can be distributed,” he said, while assuring that government will make all efforts to provide requisite airwaves to meet the industry’s demand.

Sibal had earlier also said that government would make efforts to get more spectrum released from the defence forces which could be put to civilian use.

Talking to reporters here, he again asserted, “This is because it is a vehicle through which people of India will be empowered and therefore we need a very broad area within the spectrum available that can be put to civilian use.”

This assurance from the minister comes just a day after he met top telecom honchos who, among other things had expressed concern over the shortage of spectrum.

Sibal had yesterday met Sunil Mittal of Bharti Airtel, Anil Ambani of RCom and Ratan Tata of TTSL. He is also likely to meet the heads of some of the other telecom operators in the country over the next few days.

He said that he would be meeting all the captains of the industry.

“Lets move forward and the road ahead will be a road of prosperity for the industry... the road ahead will be a level playing field road, a non-discriminatory road the road that will help the economy move forward,” he said.

He added: “I was very happy that the three captains of the telecom sector whom I met were extremely constructive about their approach and they have been assured of a level playing field.”

The idea was to meet the leaders of the telecom sector and find out their concerns.

“It is not in our interest to destroy this sector. It is in our interest to take the industry forward, give them confidence, assure them of a level playing field or a non-discriminatory regime,” he said.

The meeting with the industry has come at a time when the sector is grappling with uncertainties regarding spectrum allocation policies and CBI probe into the decisions taken by telecom ministry between 2001 and 2008.

Washington, December 22
The World Bank on Tuesday approved a $1.5 billion Credit and Loan for India's Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) aimed towards improving rural accessibility of roads.

The new project will concentrate on the states of Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Meghalaya, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, and Uttar Pradesh, the Bank said in a statement.

Over the next five years, the project will aim to provide these states with an average connectivity of around 91 per cent by constructing 24,200 km of all-weather roads to benefit an estimated 6.1 million people.

The project will also develop a system for maintaining these roads in good condition over the long term.

"A good road network can generate many commercial and social benefits for rural economies through increasing access to goods as well as services such as health and education," said the World Bank's Country Director for India, Roberto Zagha.

The credit and loan is from the International Development Association (IDA) - the World Bank's concessionary lending arm, which provides interest-free loans with 35 years to maturity and a 10-year grace period, and from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) which has a 5-year grace period, and a maturity of 18 years.

The program was established in the year 2000 to address the challenge of poor rural accessibility at a time when almost 40 per cent, or 300 million people in the country lacked access to unpaved roads.

And a large part of the existing 2.7 million km of the rural road network were in poor condition, impeding access to markets and increasing transportation costs.

While the PMGSY also called as Prime Minister's Rural Roads Programme has since added 2,74,000 km of new roads, in vast parts of the country, especially in economically weaker and hilly areas, continue to remain inaccessible.

The project also includes USD 60 million in technical assistance to build the capacity of the rural roads agencies, especially in the ongoing management of assets and the sustainable maintenance of roads. — PTI 

New Delhi, December 22
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday said the requirement for investments in the infrastructure sector would be about $600 billion during the current five year plan (2007-2012).

"So far as the infrastructure development funds are concerned, myself and Deputy Chairman Planning Commission have detailed out our requirement would be about $600 billion. It is a substantial amount. There is a shortfall, but we are quite confident that in the remaining one-and-half-year of the 11th plan, we will be able to spend the money," said Mukherjee, at an important conclave on public-private partnership here.

Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, blamed the weather, while talking about the increase in prices of vegetables particularly onions.

"The onion crop is like that and if you get unseasonable rains, one of the crops get damaged then there is a temporary spike in onion prices. I am sure it is going to come down," said Ahluwalia.

The price of onions shot up to Rs 80 per kilogram in New Delhi on Monday. — PTI

Chandigarh, December 22
Orient Ceramics and Industries Ltd (OCIL) is all set to become the biggest ceramic manufacturer in the country, after it completes the acquisition of Bell Ceramics by the first week of January. Post this acquisition, the company is looking to increase its turnover to Rs 500 crore.

The company had entered into a share purchase agreement with Bell Ceramics in September this year, and is acquiring 63 per cent stake in the company from its promoter. OCIL has also purchased over 5 per cent stake from the shareholders of Cell Ceramics. Last year, OCIL had a turnover of Rs 270 crore and Bell Ceramics had a turnover of Rs 165 crore. With a growth rate of 15 per cent, the company is looking at increasing its turnover to Rs 500 crore. This acquisition will not just help OCIL get a strong foothold in the south and western parts of the country, but will also help in increasing the export volumes.

Talking to TNS here today, Madhur Daga, ED, OCIL, said that Bell Ceramics has plants in Vadodara and Bangalore, with their total installed capacity of 146 lakh sq m per annum. “This acquisition is in line with OCIL's inorganic growth strategy. Bell Ceramics offers us the perfect platform to gain market share profitably in the rich tile consuming markets of South and West India, via its plants in these areas and focused distribution network,” he said.

Daga said that since both the Bell plants were operating at 70 per cent of the available capacity, OCIL would now be able to use these spare capacities to manufacture its own product range. “At OCIL, we have already reached our full capacity utilization and were outsourcing some of our production. Now, instead of outsourcing, we will be able to manufacture our products at the spare capacity available at the Bell facilities,” he said.