Shimla, January 29
The SJVN, a joint venture between the Government of India and Government of Himachal Pradesh, along with five other public sector undertakings (PSUs), has signed an MoU for executing a 4,000-MW ultra mega solar power project at Sambhar in Rajasthan.

Three ministries of the Government of India — Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises and Ministry of Power — have joined hands to launch this project.

Six PSUs under these ministries, including Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL), PowerGrid Corporation of India, Sambhar Salt Ltd, Rajasthan Electronics and Instrumentation Ltd, Solar Energy Corporation of India and SJVN Ltd have signed an MoU to develop and operate this project.

The SJVN is one of the six joint venture partners having 16% equity participation in the proposed ultra- mega project.

The chairman-cum-managing directors (CMDs) of these six PSUs were joint signatories to the agreement signed in New Delhi today. The MoU was signed in the presence of Praful Patel, Union Minister for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises and Dr Farooq Abdullah, Union Minister for New and Renewable Energy. Secretaries of the ministries concerned were also present on the occasion.

The SJVN has already entered into the field of wind energy with the development of 47.6-MW Khirvire wind power project in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra. Twenty-five wind power turbines of 850 KW capacity each have already commenced power generation.

SJVN's 412-MW Rampur hydroelectric project in Himachal Pradesh is also ready to commence generation during the current financial year.

New Delhi, January 29
With the government’s decision to cap the Spectrum Usage Charge (SUC) at 5%, all eight telcos, who had applied for bidding, will take part in the spectrum auction scheduled early next month as none of them has withdrawn its application. Yesterday was the last day for withdrawing the applications.

The DoT officials said none of the eight applicants had sought the withdrawal of application even though the GSM telecom operators had expressed their unhappiness over the SUC rate.

Airtel, Vodafone, Reliance Jio Infocomm, Idea Cellular, Telewings (Uninor), Reliance Communications, Tata Teleservices and Aircel are in the race to bid for about 403 Mhz of airwaves in 1,800 MHz band and 46 MHz spectrum in 900 MHz band.

The EGoM on Telecom, headed by Finance Minister P Chidambaram, had on Monday decided to cap the annual SUC on new airwaves for mobile services at 5% of their adjusted gross revenue earned from telecom services. The present rate is in the range of 3-8%.

It, however, left the average spectrum fee for 4G spectrum or BWA holders unchanged at 1%.

Telecom regulator TRAI had recommended a flat SUC of 3-5% across all players.

Bangalore, January 29
India’s trade with African countries could touch the $100-billion mark after the trade facilitation agreement decided upon in the recent ministerial conference at Bali is implemented.

WTO Director-General Roberto Azevedo said this here yesterday. He was addressing a session on the topic ‘New Trade Era Post Bali’, organised by the CII here in collaboration with the Centre and the Karnataka Government.

He said the future of multilateral trade appeared to be in doubt before Bali. But post-Bali, WTO as an institution has been rejuvenated and a positive outlook with regard to multilateral trade had come to replace the doubts over rules framed by the WTO to govern trade between nations.

While the session was chaired by former CII president Dhruv M Sawhney, the panelists included Union Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma, Malaysian Minister for International Trade and Industry Mustapa Bin Mohamed and Singapore Trade and Industry Minister S Iswaran.

Customs regulations and other rules pertaining to movement of goods across borders are expected to be relaxed for paving the way for the agreement which is supposed to generate global trade worth $1 trillion.

Chandigarh, January 29
Hoshiarpur-based Sonalika Tractors is establishing one of the largest assembly lines in the world for manufacturing tractors. The company is setting up the new assembly line at its Hoshiarpur plant, which will help the company double its manufacturing capacity.

Besides, the company will continue to consolidate its position in the global market by having a focused approach on exports. It has set a target of exporting approximately 50% of tractors manufactured here to countries around the world.

Talking to The Tribune, AS Mittal, vice-chairman, Sonalika Group, said the new assembly line would be commissioned in March 2015. “With the commissioning of the new assembly line, we will increase the tractor production from the present 260 units to 500 units a day. We are re-engineering the whole plant and will expand the production capacity in phases. By March, we will expand our capacity to 300 tractor units per day by improving efficiency,” he said.

Mittal said the company was investing Rs 500 crore for this expansion. “The money will be raised through internal accruals. With this expansion, Sonalika plant would emerge as the world’s largest integrated tractor manufacturing facility under one roof. Our present market share in the domestic market is 10% and after expansion, we hope to get between 15-20% of the market share in domestic and export market. This year, we are expecting our turnover to be around Rs 3,600 crore, a 26% jump over last year,” he said.

At present, Sonalika exports tractors to 60 countries and its export turnover is around Rs 500 crore.

New Delhi, January 29
Hero MotoCorp today unveiled a 150cc diesel concept motorcycle and four other models, including a hybrid scooter, ahead of the forthcoming Auto Expo.

As a large number of launches are planned for the Auto Expo, Hero MotoCorp took the lead and unveiled new models of which only the 150cc diesel model 'RNT' motorcycle is at the development stage but the rest of the four models would be launched in the next financial year.

The company launched a new 250cc sportsbike, 110cc scooter, a 150cc bike and the hybrid scooter.

"The hybrid scooter will have a range of around 340 km on one single charge and a tank full...The scooter's range is better than any electric vehicle," the company said.

BRIEFLY

Vodafone launches M-Pesa facility in Punjab
Chandigarh: Vodafone India on Wednesday announced to roll out mobile money transfer facility 'M-Pesa' in collaboration with ICICI Bank in Punjab as part of its plans to deepen its footprint pan-India. The company plans to tap education hubs, industrial clusters and defence personnel with the launch of its mobile money transfer and payment service. — TNS

Google best company to work for, says Fortune
New York: For the fifth consecutive year, Internet search giant Google has been named as the best company to work for by Fortune Magazine. Google has topped the list of '100 Best American Companies to Work for' followed by software developer SAS and Boston Consulting Group in the second and third positions, respectively. — PTI

Airtel Q3 net profit jumps 115% to Rs 610 crore
New Delhi: Bharti Airtel's net profit rose 115.1% to Rs 610 crore for the quarter ended December 2013. Total revenues rose 13.3% to Rs 21,939 crore for the quarter as compared to Rs 19,362 crore in the same period last fiscal. — TNS

ICICI net up 13% at Rs 2,532 cr
Mumbai: ICICI Bank on Wednesday reported a 13% rise in its profit at Rs 2,532 crore, the slowest pace of increase in four years, helped by growth in interest income and treasury gains. On a consolidated basis, profit rose 9% to Rs 2,872 crore, with both its insurance subsidiaries reporting good sets of numbers. — PTI

GAIL profit jumps 31%
New Delhi: GAIL India Ltd on Wednesday reported a 31% jump in its December quarter net profit after the company was exempted from paying fuel subsidy. Net profit rose to Rs 1,679 crore from Rs 1,285 crore, company’s CMD BC Tripathi said. Sales soared 28% to Rs 15,981 crore from Rs 12,474 crore in third quarter last fiscal. — PTI