New Delhi, July 12
After registering negative growth for two consecutive months, industrial production numbers for May were in positive territory at 2.4 per cent.

The index of industrial production (IIP) numbers for May were higher than consensus estimates of 1.8 per cent and gave rise to hopes that the worst phase of industrial performance may be over.

The April number has been been revised downwards to -0.9 per cent as against -0.1 per cent. However, the number is much lower than the 6.2 per cent growth registered in May last year. The IIP numbers and the inflation data to come in tomorrow will be closely watched by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in its monetary policy meeting on July 31.

Capital goods segment continues to remain weak while the performance of consumer durables sector has improved.

According to Crisil Research, manufacturing and electricity sector grew at 2.5 and 5.9 per cent respectively. However, mining sector contracted for the third consecutive month and registered a negative growth of 0.9 per cent. Core industries output continues to remain weak.

Unless some policy reforms are undertaken quickly to revive growth, given the depressed domestic and global macro environment we expect industrial output growth to remain weak in the near term, Crisil said.

Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma said overall figures show there is some improvement.

Chandrajit Banerjee, Director-General, CII, said there is a need for fast tracking the reforms process which would stem the slide in industrial production by announcing investors’ confidence-boosting measures such as allowing foreign investment in multi-brand retail and increasing FDI limits in civil aviation and defence production.

RV Kanoria, President, FICCI, said the May IIP figure of 2.4 per cent perhaps indicates that the growth had bottomed out by April when there was a negative growth as per the revised figures.

Kanoria said the growth in manufacturing is not broad based as only 12 out of 22 sectors have shown positive growth and major sectors like capital goods, chemicals, apparels continue to register negative growth month after month.

Bangalore, July 12
Infosys today reported a 32.92 per cent jump in net profit to Rs 2,289 crore in Q1, but failed to enthuse the market due to sharp cut in dollar revenue guidance amid a volatile global economic environment.

Its revenue was up 28.47 per cent to Rs 9,616 crore in the first quarter of current fiscal, but in dollar terms the growth was just 4.8 per cent at $1,752 million.

While the company exceeded its revenue forecast in rupee terms, it failed to meet dollar revenue guidance of $1,771-1,789 million for the quarter.

The company's net profit had stood at Rs 1,722 crore in the April-June quarter of 2011-12.

The street did anticipate Infosys to revise its FY'13 revenue outlook downwards, but the sharp reduction to five per cent as against growth estimates of 8-10 per cent sent the scrip tumbling 8.27 per cent to Rs 2,262 at the BSE in late afternoon trade.

The company attributed the revision to cross-currency fluctuation and current business environment. The outlook is much weaker than industry body Nasscom's estimate of 11-14 per cent growth for the sector in FY'13.

"We lost $13 million because of currency and we also took a one time write-off (of $15 million) in accrued revenue as a matter of prudence on a large transformational programme which got cancelled this quarter in Europe. This is a one time event and the client is still with us," Infosys MD and CEO SD Shibulal added.

Ludhiana, July 12
Air passengers will now have to shell out more as travel agents have decided to impose a service tax of Rs 225 from July 16 onwards because the service carriers have reduced their commission from 3 per cent to 1 per cent.

Sukhbir Singh, a travel agent from the city said, "We are left with no other option but to pass on the burden to passengers since our commission has been reduced," he said.

Inderbir Kahlon, a businessman from the city and a frequent flyer, said, "Travel agents should negotiate with the airlines for their commission rather than passing the burden on the passengers.”

Another city resident, Divya Aggarwal, said after the imposition of service tax on eating joints and holidaying having already become expensive, this move of the travel agents would make travelling more expensive.

Low-cost carriers are out of the purview as they do not pay commission to the travel agents and instead give them incentives on the number of tickets sold.

Meanwhile, international airlines like Air France-KLM, British Airways and Lufthansa don’t pay regular commission. Those who give commission include Cathay Pacific Airways, Gulf Air, and Emirates, among others.

Chandigarh, July 12
Low-cost airline SpiceJet is set to fly to many new foreign shores this fiscal. The carrier will start flights to six new destinations - Kabul, Riyadh, Guangzhou, Hong King, Bangkok and Male.

Announcing this here yesterday, Neil Mills, CEO, SpiceJet, said the services to these destinations would start by the end of October. He also said they would launch these services from the non-metro cities. As of date, the company operates international flights to Dubai, Kathmandu and Colombo.

Talking to mediapersons on the sidelines of launch of new flights from Chandigarh to Srinagar and Amritsar to Delhi, Mills said the airline would also start services to Dehradun and Indore from Delhi soon. With the launch of the Chandigarh-Srinagar and Amritsar-Delhi flights, SpiceJet will be operating flights to 37 locations. SpiceJet operates 280 flights everyday and flies 36,000 passengers. 

New Delhi, July 12
The Union Cabinet today deferred a decision on the much-awaited Forward Contract Regulation Act (Amendment) Bill that aims to give more powers to commodity markets regulator Forward Market Commission (FMC).

It, however, cleared the electronics policy which aims to provide a special incentive package to promote large-scale manufacturing in the Electronic System Design and Manufacturing sector and the proposal by the Planning Commission to set up an institutional mechanism for monitoring and enforcement of provisions in PPP projects.

Reports said the Trinamool Congress had written to the Prime Minister at the last minute expressing reservations over the Bill that led to deferring of its consideration.

The Cabinet approved the proposal to provide a special incentive package to promote large-scale manufacturing in the Electronic System Design and Manufacturing (ESDM) sector.

It also approved a proposal by the Planning Commission to set up an institutional mechanism for monitoring and enforcement of provisions in PPP projects. 

New Delhi, July 12
The Cabinet today deferred a decision on selling 10.82 per cent stake in the Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) as Steel Minister Beni Prasad Verma was away on official tour.

The Steel Minister is in Tokyo on an official tour and could not attend the Cabinet meeting. In the absence of Verma and Steel Secretary, who is also in Tokyo, the Cabinet did not take up the proposal moved by the Department of Disinvestment, sources said.

The government has set a target of raising Rs 30,000 crore this fiscal by selling stakes in 15 companies including about 10 per cent in SAIL.

The 10.82 per cent stake sale is likely to fetch about Rs 4,000 crore at current market price. Government owns 85.82 per cent of the company.

A Department of Disinvestment note for the CCEA stated that the Offer for Sale route would be taken for the stake dilution in the company.

It, however, did not indicate a specific time-frame for the disinvestment as the "time of the issue will depend on market conditions". — PTI 

New Delhi, July 12
The recent guidelines issued by the Department of Telecom (DoT) for the auction of the vacated spectrum have come in for criticism from the telecom operators and their umbrella body.

The DoT had last week released the initial set of rules for the upcoming spectrum auction.

Opposing the guidelines, GSM industry body COAI has written to Home Minister P Chidambaram, who is heading the EGoM on telecom, saying the guidelines were discriminatory and erroneous in nature.

On the other hand, Russian conglomerate Sistema JSFC, a majority shareholder in Sistema Shyam TeleServices (SSTL), has written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh accusing the government of initiating steps that benefit existing telecom operators, which may result in the exit of new entrants.

Having already sent a legal notice to the Government of India following the cancellation of 122 licences by the Supreme Court in February last, Sistema in a letter to the PM written on June 29, has said the proposal to waive "all payments for spectrum held by incumbent operators, despite the Telecom Commission having decided to charge for the same" was akin to a bailout for existing players.

Sistema chairman Vladimir Evtushenko has also demanded a lower reserve price for proposed spectrum auction and said the price proposed for the CDMA players was twice the level suggested for those using the GSM technology.

SSTL’s 21 telecom licences were among the 122 cancelled by the Supreme Court and it is expected to bid aggressively to protect its investment, estimated to be of the order of over $3 billion (around Rs 16,500 crore at current exchange rates).

The auction guidelines state that new entrants can bid for 5 MHz of airwaves in the 1,800 MHz band, but adds that they will be allowed to bid for one additional block of 1.25 MHz, enabling them to get a total of 6.25 MHz of airwaves.