The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

	Telemarketers to register with TRAI from today New Delhi, January 14 The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has said it will start online registration of telemarketers from tomorrow. New telemarketers have to pay registration fee of Rs 1,000 and customers education fee of Rs 9,000, while existing telemarketers just have to pay the customer education fee of Rs 9,000. No part payment is permitted for registration, TRAI said in a statement. The registration would be valid for a period of three years unless revoked earlier. Other provisions shall come into force from February 1, 2011. Last year, TRAI had came out with guidelines to stop unsolicited telemarketing calls and SMSes. TRAI, in guidelines, had said that a hefty penalty of up to Rs 2.50 lakh will be imposed for violation of the telemarketing guidelines, which could be followed by blocking repeat offenders' connections. A different set of numbers starting with ‘70’ will be issued to telemarketers to help unregistered subscribers identify commercial calls and decide whether to accept or reject such calls. Unlike the previous guidelines, which only provided for a ‘Do Not Call’ Registry, the new regulations issued today give customers different options to avoid unsolicited calls. The subscriber can now choose to be listed under the ‘fully blocked’ category - which is akin to the 'Do Not Call' Registry - or the "partially blocked" category, in that case he/she will only receive SMSes in the categories chosen by him/her. TRAI has identified seven categories for telemarketing calls, including banking and financial products, real estate, education, health, consumer goods and automobiles, communication and entertainment, tourism and leisure. — PTI
	World Bank offers Rs 6,800 cr loan Funds to be used for building 24,000 km of roads New Delhi, January 14 The World Bank will offer a loan of $1.5 billion (about `6,800 crore) to India for building 24,000-km of all-weather roads in the rural areas of seven economically poor and hilly states like Uttar Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh. This is the largest rural road project the World Bank has ever approved. The agreement to supplement the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojna (PMGSY) was signed in the presence of World Bank Group President Robert B Zoellick and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee here today. The funding will be used to build more than 24,000 km of roads in Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Meghalaya, Punjab, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh and any other state, which may join the programme at a later date over the next five years. “Delivering much needed infrastructure will help India in its drive to ensure all people have opportunity,” Zoellick said. He said the bank’s efforts are to bring the best development practices from around the globe to India and to share India’s experience and expertise with others. The construction and maintenance of these roads will create an estimated 300 million person-days of employment for the rural people. More than 20,000 engineers as well as many contractors and skilled and unskilled workforce will be trained in modern rural road engineering practices and business procedures. Under the overall PMGSY programme, about 375,000 km of new roads are being constructed and another 372,000 km are improved at an estimated cost of about $40 billion. The World Bank and India also signed a $255 million agreement for phase one of the National Cyclone Risk Mitigation Project (I), to be implemented by the National Disaster Management Authority. More than one million people living in the coastal areas of Orissa and Andhra Pradesh would benefit from the programme. — PTI
	Sensex plunges below 19,000 Mumbai, January 14 The BSE benchmark Sensex nosedived by 322 points to close below the 19,000-mark today as fears of an imminent rate hike by the RBI gained credence following a jump in December inflation, prompting investors to abandon interest-rate sensitive banking, realty and auto stocks. Extending its losses for a second session, the 30-share index of the Bombay Stock Exchange plummeted by 322.38 points, or 1.68 per cent, to settle at 18,860.44 today — a level last seen on September 9, 2010. In a highly choppy trade, the barometer oscillated widely during intra-day trade, touching a high of 19,447.82 in the early part of the session before sinking to a low of 18,811.96 points. The Sensex has lost nearly 674 points, or 3.44 per cent, during the past two trading sessions. During the January 10-14 trading week, the Sensex has fallen by 831.66 points, or 4.22 per cent, vis-a-vis the previous week's closing level. In a similar fashion, the National Stock Exchange's wide-based Nifty index closed at 5,654.55 today, down 97.35 points, or 1.69 per cent, vis-a-vis the previous close. Marketmen said investors were spooked by a rise in December inflation to 8.4 per cent, besides a slowdown in FII inflows and a weak opening on European bourses. — PTI
	Maruti to roll out Kizashi in Feb Tribune News Service New Delhi, January 14 Looking to capture more share in the luxury segment car market, country’s largest car manufacturer Maruti Suzuki India Ltd (MSIL) will be launching its sedan Kizashi early in February. The company has chosen February 2 for the launch of the luxury car which would be imported fully from parent Suzuki's facility in Japan. It will be positioned to give competition to the likes of Honda Accord and Toyota Camry at the upper end, besides MSIL also plans to launch a lower level model to compete with Honda Civic, Volkswagen Jetta and Toyota Corolla. It plans to price the car between Rs 12 lakh and Rs 20 lakh. MSIL is looking at exploiting the A4 and A5 segment, which is expected to grow in the coming years, especially with the economy growing. As per industry estimates, the size of the A4 and A5 segment is over 55,000 units per year, but is expected to grow big in the next five to seven years. MSIL will consider the option of assembling the Kizashi in India in future if the demand is justified but declined to give a time frame. Kizashi is powered by a 2.4 litre petrol engine and will be available in both manual and automatic transmission options.
	HDFC Q3 net up 33pc at Rs 891 cr Mumbai, January 14 Mortgage major HDFC today posted 33 per cent rise in third quarter profit at Rs 891 crore, boosted by higher retail sales and one-time income from sale of its investment in IL&FS. Buoyed by the healthy numbers, the company said that it expected to close the fiscal with around 25 per cent spike in loan book. Total income rose 20.2 per cent to `3,321 crore in the period under review against `2,762.2 crore in the year-ago quarter. Significantly, the company's non-performing asset (NPA) levels came down to 0.85 per cent during the period under review from 0.94 per cent in the same period last fiscal. HDFC also set aside an additional provision of `272 crore during October-December period to meet the recently introduced higher provisioning norms set by the home finance regulator National Housing Board (NHB) for dual rate home loans, company Vice-Chairman and CEO Keki M Mistry said. NHB increased the provisioning coverage ratio of teaser loans to 2 per cent from 0.4 per cent. HDFC earned a one-time income of `167.22 crore from the sale of its investment in IL&FS. In the reporting quarter, the lender had offloaded 2 per cent of its stake in educational arm of IL&FS. In the same quarter last year, its other income, primarily from treasury operations stood at a lower ` 51.3 crore. HDFC reported a 20.6 per cent increase in its loan book at ` 1,09,051 crore at the end of December compared to `90,110 crore in the same period last fiscal. — PTI
	Govt sets up panel on coal mining Tribune News Service New Delhi, January 14 Looking to sort out the differences between the Coal Ministry and the Environment Ministry, the Union Cabinet has decided to constitute a group of ministers (GoM) to go into the issue of ‘no-go’ mining areas. The decision was aimed at finding a pragmatic and balanced approach towards the issue of environmental clearances to mining areas, while ensuring that the ecology was not hurt, sources said. The GoM is likely to be headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and would include senior ministers--Home Minister P Chidambaram, Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh, Mines Minister B K Handique and Plan Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia. The Coal Ministry has been pressing for lifting the ban, but the Environment Ministry has refused to relent. Consequently, the matter reached the Prime Minister's Office which is keen on finding a solution, sources said. The Environment Ministry had last year defined 'no-go' areas for mining as those that have over 30 per cent gross forest cover or over 10 per cent weighted forest cover. According to guidelines, mining is allowed only in the ‘go’ areas. The ‘no-go’ classification has brought 206 coal blocks involving a production potential of 660 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) under its ambit. The Coal Ministry had strongly opposed the ‘no-go’ classification, stating that by not permitting coal mining in 206 blocks, potential power generation to the order of 1,30,000 MW would be affected.
	Industry hails new defence policy Tribune News Service New Delhi, January 14 India’s first-ever Defence Production Policy has come for praise and suggestions from leading industry and corporate chambers. Defence Minister AK Antony released the policy here this evening. Industry body FICCI said it hoped that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) will take this initiative forward by providing a level-playing field to the private sector. It opined that the MoD should ensure that means to protect old ways to maximise procurement through imports are not followed. The need of the hour is to adequately represent private sector interests and capabilities in the defence procurement process. It suggested that ministry officials responsible for formulating policies should not be represented on the boards of defence sector PSUs while adding that “PSUs should be corporatised.” Gurpal Singh, DDG, CII, said “We appreciate the initiative as it acknowledges that private sector would have to play a larger role in production. We anticipate that an implementation road map with benchmarks would be announced sooner.” PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry said it welcomed the announcement “It would be instrumental in harnessing the combined skills of public and private sector. This could herald an era of unprecedented defence industrial growth in India,” said Salil Bhandari, President, PHD Chamber. Small and medium enterprises offer the advantage of innovative capabilities in niche manufacturing, greater flexibility, lower overhead costs and the ability to learn and absorb new technologies, said Bhandari.
	SBI launches ‘Bank on Bike’ scheme Hyderabad, January 14 The country’s largest bank, State Bank of India (SBI), today announced the launch of 'Bank on Bike' scheme to reach the un-banked villages and to implement its rural financial inclusion target in a much faster way. Billed as the first such initiative in the country, the scheme involves “banking correspondents” reaching out to rural customers and meet their banking needs through kiosks in villages. The banking correspondents would include kirana shop owners, medical shop owners, retired teachers and government employees, and in some places SBI would appoint independent individuals. The kiosk and the timing for the banking would be fixed. The assigned correspondents would cover three villages in a day, spending two hours in each village. The facility was launched at Cheriyal village in Medak district (Andhra Pradesh). "Every village has a potential of 200-300 accounts. We have already opened 10 accounts through this kiosk. We plan to cover 400 villages by March 2011," said Shiva Kumar, Deputy Managing Director, SBI, AP circle. — TNS