New Delhi, September 8
The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has criticised the Petroleum Ministry and Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) for violation in the production sharing contracts (PSC) for natural gas. It has also recommended revamp of these contracts to protect the government’s revenue interests.

The CAG report, tabled in Parliament today, on PSC related to natural gas in the Krishna Godavari (KG) basin said that RIL which had the KG DWN block was allowed to enter the second and third exploration phases without relinquishing 25 per cent each of the total contract area in violation of the PSC.

CAG has also asked the Petroleum Ministry to review 10 contracts.

The audit review also stated that by and large the Petroleum Ministry and Director General of Hydrocarbons did not pay adequate attention to protecting the government’s financial interests. Murli Deora was the Petroleum Minister during this period. He resigned, recently on personal grounds.

The CAG report did not have much impact on the RIL scrip which rose by 2.6 per cent in today’s market. In its response to the CAG report, RIl said said that in KG D6, RIL has set a global benchmark for effective, efficient project completion.

“We had already provided to Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Directorate General of Hydrocarbons comments along with the views of international experts on such parts of the draft report that had been communicated to us,” RIL said in a statement.

“We hope our responses and the views of industry experts have been duly considered in finalising the Report. We remain committed to complying with the PSC procedures,” it said. 

New Delhi, September 8
The CAG has slammed the government for costing national carrier Air India its favoured position in the Indian skies through complete “lack of foresight” and faulty aircraft acquisition that resulted in “undue long-term financial burden on the carrier”.

The decision to acquire 111 planes by two erstwhile state carriers — Air India and Indian Airlines — through debt was “a recipe for disaster” that should have raised alarm in the government, CAG said

“The financial case for the merger was not adequately validated prior to the merger,” the auditor said.

However, it is the speed at which the ministry, headed by Praful Patel at that time, rushed to implement its “faulty acquisition plans” that prompted the auditor into remarking that the buys appeared to be “supply-driven” rather than market driven.

The entire acquisition of aircraft (for both AI and Indian Airlines) was to be funded through debt except for a relatively small equity infusion of Rs 325 crore for IA. 

New Delhi, September 8
As part of its aim to sell one lakh vehicles in India by 2013, French car maker Renault today launched its premium sports utility vehicle ‘Koleos’ for Rs 22.99 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi).

India is the second market after China where the new ‘Koleos’ has been introduced. It will be followed by Europe this month at the Frankfurt Motor Show.

"India is a key strategic market. We will launch ‘Koleos’ in 40 countries and India is one of the firsts among these. The first country was China where the SUV was launched yesterday and now it is India," Renault India Vice-President (Marketing, Sales and Network) Len Curran said. The SUV is the company's second vehicle in the Indian market after the premium sedan 'Fluence', which was launched in May this year. It has so far sold 700 units of 'Fluence'.

The 'Koleos' is powered by a 2.0 litre diesel engine and is available in four wheeled drive option with six speed automatic transmission.

Commenting on the market, Renault India Managing Director Marc Nassif said: "India is our top three priorities along with Brazil and Russia. We have set a target to sell a total of one lakh units in 2013." The next model in the pipeline is a new hatchback that will be launched during the Auto Expo in January 2012. It will be specifically designed for the Indian market by its design centre in Mumbai.

The fourth car for the Indian market will be the SUV ‘Duster’, which will come in the second half of 2012.

The company had announced the launch of five vehicles in India by the end of 2012. All the cars will be assembled at Renault's Indian facility in Chennai.— PTI

New Delhi, September 8
The Planning Commission wants India to set up a sovereign wealth fund with an initial corpus of $10 billion, mainly to invest in energy and mining assets abroad.

“Sovereign Wealth Fund is something that the Finance Ministry is looking at. We have suggested to start with $10 billion,” Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia told reporters here on the sidelines of a FICCI event.

Sovereign Wealth Fund is a government-owned corpus where money is pooled in from state resources to invest in overseas assets.

India has been mulling to set up its own fund in order to acquire strategic overseas assets in mining and energy segments to meet its future needs.

Countries like China and Singapore have already set up their sovereign wealth funds. Even China has acquired significant asset in foreign land through investment from its $400 billion fund in the recent past.

Referring to GDP growth in the current fiscal, Ahluwalia said that growth in the second half of the year would be crucial to attain 8 per cent economic expansion in the current financial year.— PTI

London, September 8
In the latest twist to the phone-hacking case, Indian IT major HCL Technologies has said that it was asked to delete thousands of emails of Rupert Murdoch’s News International (NI) on four more occasions than had been previously disclosed.

Responding to the latest disclosure by HCL, Keith Vaz, chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, said: “The request for deletion of folders and emails by News International is concerning.”

“The Committee will continue to investigate the issue of phone hacking and the removal of any information that could possibly point to the prevalence of phone hacking by those working in the organisation,” the Indian-origin lawmaker said.

In a letter to Vaz, the legal company acting on behalf of HCL outlined four separate occasions when News International requested deletion of folders and emails between December 2009 and June 2011.

These include emails from an inbox of a user who has not accessed his email account for eight years and the removal of a personal folder.

In its earlier communication to the committee probing the phone-hacking issue, HCL said on August 1 insisted that it did not store News International’s emails and thus could not be responsible for their deletions, but went on to cite nine instances of email deletions between April 2010 and July 2011.

The latest revelations come after the company conducted further searches.

The letter to Vaz said: “You will recollect from my earlier letter my concern that the very short time frame given by you to HCL for its initial response did not permit a more comprehensive search.” — PTI

New Delhi, September 8
The gross tax collection rose by 25 per cent to Rs 2.92 lakh crore during the April-August period of the current financial year.

The gross direct tax collection rose to Rs 1,54,360 crore during the first five months of the current fiscal, up by 25.89 pr cent from Rs 1,22,618 crore in the corresponding period a year ago, an official statement said.

Direct taxes comprises mainly corporate tax and income tax. The net direct tax collections, however, dropped 3.37 per cent to Rs 96,738 crore during the first five months due to higher refunds. The net direct tax collection was Rs 1,00,113 crore in the same period last fiscal.

Tax refunds rose a robust 156.04 per cent to Rs 57,622 crore during this period, pulling down net direct tax collections.— PTI

New Delhi, September 8
Exports of iron ore declined by about 22 per cent to 25.2 million tonnes in April-July due to the ban on its shipments from Karnataka, industry body FIMI today said.

Releasing the provisional data of exports, the Federation of Indian Mineral Industries (FIMI) said the country had exported 32.3 million tonnes of iron ore during April-July last year.

Exports in July fell by about 23 per cent to 3.6 million tonne, the second highest decline in a month this fiscal after 29 per cent decrease in April.

Exports in April stood at 8.1 MT as compared to 11.4 MT in the year-ago period.

Shipments dipped from almost all major ports in the southern region due to subdued supply from Karnataka, which accounts for about one-fourth of total iron ore export from the country.— PTI

BRIEFLY

Direct Amritsar-London flight
Chandigarh: British Midland International (BMI) will be starting a direct flight from Amritsar to London next month and will operate three times a week. The flight will make its maiden journey from London to Amritsar on October 13, and will leave back for London on October 14. The economy class return fare for this flight will start at Rs 38,091, including taxes, said Vikas Mathur, BMI’s sales manager for India.— TNS

IDFC Cap, Deutsche Bank keen on RINL issue
New Delhi: Five merchant bankers, including IDFC Capital and Deutsche Bank, have evinced interest in managing Rashtriya Ispat Nigam's initial share sale programme, in which the government intends to dilute 10 per cent of its stake.— PTI

Tommy Hilfiger buys licence for Indian mkt
New Delhi: Tommy Hilfiger Group (THG) on Thursday said it has bought out Murjani Group's licence for Tommy Hilfiger trademarks in India besides acquiring a 50 per cent interest in Arvind Murjani Brands (AMB) for an undisclosed amount. AMB has been the apparel sub-licensee of the Tommy Hilfiger brand in India. “ The move establishes the Tommy Hilfiger Group's direct interest in India and builds upon a pre-existing partnership with Arvind Ltd,” Tommy Hilfiger said.— PTI

Airtel announces contest for football lovers
Chandigarh: Airtel on Thursday announced the launch of its new ‘Football Day Alerts’ and ‘Hall of Fame’ packs for its mobile customers. Airtel prepaid and postpaid mobile customers subscribing to packs like the Football Match Day Alerts Pack’ (SMS ‘SUB GOAL’ to 54321 or dial USSD: *321*471# for Rs 3 per match day) ‘Football Hall of Fame Pack’ (SMS ‘SUB HOF’ to 54321 or dial USSD: *321*471# for Re 1 per day) will get a chance to win prizes and receive questions on the sport everyday.— TNS