New Delhi, December 6
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, in a series of meetings, has reviewed the performance of projects of the transport sector and directed the ministries concerned for fast-tracking major railway, road and port projects whose slow development could become important for India’s economic growth.

After the meetings, decisions were taken to go full throttle with the Mumbai elevated rail corridor, the dedicated freight corridor, and two new ports in Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal.

An official release said that as per the Prime Minister's direction, the State Support Agreement for the Mumbai elevated rail corridor should be signed with the Maharashtra government in the next 15 days and bids for the project will be invited before the Rail Budget in 2013.

On setting up a Rail Tariff Authority, a cabinet note will be brought latest by January 15. Bids for the Madhepura/Marhowra public private project (PPP) loco factories will be called by December 31 and the project will be awarded before the presentation of the Railway Budget.

The inter-ministerial group (IMG) set up under the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) will consider and approve any necessary changes to documents. Timelines for the Marhowra Project will be announced by December 15.

It was also felt that the dedicated freight corridor is moving ahead much better than other large projects because of the dedicated project structure. The ministry will submit revised estimates with details on source of funding for the Dedicated Freight Corridor project by December 15.

The ministry will also provide milestones with timelines for the Sonnagar-Dankuni project and adhere to them.

On road transport and highways, the release said the ministry will try its best to award road projects as per the original targets for 2012-13 fiscal and will certainly cross 8,000 km of awards this year by March 2013. Road projects of at least 3,000-km length will be awarded under OMT (own, manage and transfer) by March 2013.

The secretary, road transport and highways, will send a note to chairman of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council (PMEAC) on the issue of the Reserve Bank of India's treatment of loans to the roads sector as unsecured loans.

As regards berths and additional capacity at ports, the shipping ministry will try to achieve the FY 12-13 target of awarding port projects with a capacity of 245 MMTPA by March 2013.

Issues relating to security clearances and land transfer, if any, will be taken up with the cabinet secretary and ministries concerned and resolved.

A Cabinet note on two projects for new major ports in Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal will be brought within a week. The projects will be awarded by March 2013, the release added.

The Agenda
Elevated Rail Corridor, Mumbai
Madhepura/Marhowra PPP Loco Factories
Setting up a Rail Tariff Authority
Dedicated Freight Corridor project
Targets for awarding projects
Berths and Additional Capacity
New ports in Andhra and Bengal

Kolkata, December 6
Reserve Bank Governor D Subbarao today said there was a steep moderation in growth, which the apex bank would take it into account in its mid-quarter and quarterly policies.

“Growth has moderated certainly. It has come down from 8.5% and 6.5% in the last two years to 5.5% and 5.3% (in the last two quarters),” Subbarao told reporters after the RBI"s central board meeting here.

He said “We in the RBI are always trying to manage the balance between growth and inflation. The fall in growth to 5.3% in the last quarter is a steep moderation.” Subbarao said that at the same time, inflation is still high.

“Inflation has come down from its peak. At 7.5%, inflation is still high. We are expecting that inflation will trend down in the last quarter of the current fiscal,” he said.

“And, as we go into our mid-quarter policy on December 18 and the quarterly policy on January 29, we will take into account the growth-inflation trajectory and calibrate our policy accordingly,” the RBI governor said.

Commenting on his latest statement that the RBI would revisit the inflation figures, Subbarao said in a panel discussion with two former governors, YV Reddy and C Rangarajan, the former had opined that the target of inflation should be raised.

He said C Rangarajan, on the other hand, felt that the RBI should stick to the inflation target. “What I mean by target is not a hard and binding one, but one we aim at 5%,” he said.

Subbarao said he mentioned after listening to both the speakers that the RBI would review the inflation figures.

“Within the RBI we will see if we need to change our strategy, the inflation target for short term. However, there is no commitment that we are actually going to change it,” he clarified.

Replying to a query, he said that the government's policy to provide direct cash transfers would have no impact on inflation. When asked about financing the current account deficit (CAD), Subbarao said “It will not be a problem. We have our internal assessment of CAD but that cannot be made public.” — PTI

Paris, December 6
A politically charged deal between the French government and ArcelorMittal to preserve jobs at an ailing steelworks looked at risk of unravelling on Thursday after the global steel giant ditched a bid to run an EU-funded project there.

ArcelorMittal, 40% owned by the Mittal family, withdrew an application to use the Florange site in northern France for an EU pilot project in less polluting steel that Paris had hoped could keep two idled blast furnaces going.

ArcelorMittal and Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said the move did not mean the idea of using Florange for the ULCOS 'green steel' project was being permanently abandoned, nor that the deal with the French government had been undone.

But unions and local politicians reacted angrily.

ArcelorMittal, which has been under fire for months in France over its plan to permanently shut its Florange furnaces on the grounds they are not economically viable, said it could not currently pursue the ULCOS project for technical reasons.

“(This) is perfectly coherent with what is in the agreement signed with the French government,” it said, adding: “This in no way means the ULCOS project is being abandoned.”

Ayrault, said in a statement that the European Commission had indicated that the project could be pursued in a future tender.

Yet in the best case, a potential start-date would now be delayed by several years, throwing into question the idea that ArcelorMittal would keep spending money to keep its mothballed Florange furnaces in viable working order.—Reuters

New Delhi, December 6
Facing the rising input costs, the country's largest car-maker Maruti Suzuki India Ltd (MSIL) and General Motors have decided to hike price of their car models across the board from January.

MSIL said it would increase the prices of its vehicles across all models by up to Rs 20,000 from January. General Motors said it would raise the price of cars it sells in the country by one per cent to three per cent.

Both car manufacturers said they would be increasing the prices due to increasing pressure on their margins because of high input costs and currency fluctuation.

Officials at MSIL said the price hike has been necessitated due to increasing pressure on the margins.

The company currently sells a variety of models starting from the M800 to imported Kizashi at a price range starting from Rs 2.09 lakh to Rs 17.52 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi).

In the second quarter of this fiscal, MSIL had posted a 5.41 per cent fall in net profit at Rs 227.45 crore, hit by an unprecedented violence at its Manesar plant and low sales and currency fluctuation.

Adverse foreign exchange movement had an overall impact of Rs 350 crore on the company during the July-September period this fiscal, MSIL said.

For November, MSI reported 12.45 per cent increase in its total sales at 1,03,200 units. Its domestic sales grew by 9.67% to 90,882 units compared to 82,870 units in the year-ago month.

New Delhi, December 6
The government today said it has decided to divest its stake in 10 companies, including Oil India, SAIL and Hindustan Aeronautics.

The government has decided to disinvest its stake in some of the public sector undertakings, Minister of State for Finance S S Palanimanickam said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha. “The realisation would depend upon prevailing market conditions and investor interest at the time of actual disinvestment,” he said.

As per the plan, the government will sell 10% stake each Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd, Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd, Oil India and NMDC.

Besides, it plans to offload 12.15% in NALCO, 10.82% in SAIL, 9.5% in NTPC and 9.33% in MMTC. Also, a 5% stake sale in BHEL and another 4.01% in Hindustan Copper is in the pipeline.

During the current financial year, the government disinvested 10% in NBCC and 5.58% of Hindustan Copper Ltd out of its shareholding and realised an amount of Rs 124.97 crore and Rs 807.02 crore respectively.

The Finance Ministry has already said that the government is taking necessary action to achieve the budgetary target of Rs 30,000 crore set for FY2012-13.

Last month, the government sold 5.58% stake in HCL for about Rs 807 crore at an average price of Rs 156.56 apiece, with bulk of the bids coming from LIC and PSU banks.

The government has already initiated the process of disinvestment of 10% of stake in NMDC, 9.3% in MMTC, and 9.5% in NTPC.

Besides, the Cabinet has also approved disinvestment of 12.1% in Nalco.— PTI

Mumbai, December 6
The Bombay stock exchange (BSE) Ltd, the operator of Asia’s oldest stock exchange, has chosen 14 banks for its initial public offering (IPO) planned for the first half of 2013, its chief executive said on Thursday.

The company is seeking an offering that would value it at about $1 billion, Ashishkumar Chauhan said on Thursday.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch, JPMorgan, Barclays Capital, UBS and the arms of Indian banks Kotak Mahindra Bank and ICICI Bank are among the lead managers of the planned IPO, he said.

“The process is on. We are targeting a launch in the first half of next year,” Chauhan said.

Founded in 1875, the BSE has long considered an IPO. India’s capital markets regulator SEBI in April approved listing of local stock exchanges, subject to some conditions.

BSE says it is the world’s No. 1 exchange in terms of listed members, with about 5,000 companies listed on it. But rival National Stock Exchange, founded in 1993, has eclipsed BSE in trade volumes.

Frankfurt-based Deutsche Boerse and the Singapore Exchange own a 5 per cent stake each in the BSE, whose Sensex remains the benchmark stock index alongside the rival NSE’s Nifty.— Reuters