Friday, August 13, 1999
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B U S I N E S S | Friday, August 13, 1999 |
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Haryana to go in for single window
system NEW DELHI, Aug 12 — The Chief Minister of Haryana, Mr Om Prakash Chautala, today said that the State Government will put in place a single window mechanism to remove procedural bottlenecks. Audit mechanism can prevent scams NEW DELHI, Aug 12 — A compliance audit mechanism needs to be put in place in order to reduce corruption in corporates, the President of the Institute of Company Secretaries of India, Mr Virender Ganda, has said. |
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 NEW YORK : Actress Rene Russo poses with John F. Antioco (right) chairman and CEO of Blockbuster Inc., and New York Stock Exchange Chairman Richard Grasso in front of the exchange, Wednesday morning as part of the festivities surrounding Dallas-based Blockbuster's listing ceremonies. — AP/PTI |
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OBC gives 425 cr for rural roads SBI
online screen for HP exporters Industrial
growth up 5.6% Intel
introduces two processors |
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Haryana to go in for single
window system NEW DELHI, Aug 12 — The Chief Minister of Haryana, Mr Om Prakash Chautala, today said that the State Government will put in place a single window mechanism to remove procedural bottlenecks. Addressing industrialists at a meeting organised by the PHDCCI here today, Mr Chautala said that red tapism in the State would be completely removed to ensure speedy industrial progress. He said that too much interference from the government departments had hampered growth of the industrial sector and his Government was committed to provide a non-interfering regime to the industry. The State Government would also lay emphasis on attracting NRI investment and the objective was to make Haryana a favourable destination for investment, Mr Chautala said. Emphasis would be laid on the industrial towns near Manesar and Dharuhera as further progress could be made in this regard, he added. Power, water and roads are crucial for promoting industry and there would have to be further improvement in these sectors to encourage industry, he said. Mr Chautala indicated that the government may also relook at the existing auction route while granting plots for industrial estates. PHDCCI President Ashok
Khanna said that so far the government has developed
industrial estates through HSIDC and HUDA, but there
needs to be greater involvement of the private sector to
create state-of-the-art industrial parks. |
Audit mechanism can prevent
scams NEW DELHI, Aug 12 — A compliance audit mechanism needs to be put in place in order to reduce corruption in corporates, the President of the Institute of Company Secretaries of India (ICSI), Mr Virender Ganda, has said. “Most scams in this country have happened due to procedural lapses on the part of the corporates”, Mr Ganda told The Tribune. Mr Ganda, who was a member of the Expert Committee of the Department of Company Affairs on Recodification of the Companies Act, said that the Companies Bill 1997 has a provision for mandatory compliance audit by companies. Under the provision, every company will be required to undergo compliance audit by a practising Company Secretary for showing adherence to corporate legislation. Such an audit would at least ensure whether the companies are adhering to corporate legislation like the MRTPC Act, SEBI guidelines etc, he said. Apart from preventing scams, it is essential for better corporate governance. It would ensure transparency in providing information to investors, employees, stakeholders, Mr Ganda, a law graduate from Panjab University, Chandigarh, explained. “A lot more is left to be done to develop the spirit of compliances by corporates in India”, he said adding that the extent of corruption present in corporate governance is “quite substantial for which no individual can be held responsible”. The Companies Act, 1997, also has a provision for the privatisation of offices of the Registrar of Companies. This is another area which needs immediate corrective measures. “The pendency of legal documents with the Registrar of Companies is tremendous”, Mr Ganda said. The Department of Company Affairs (DCA) is taking a lot of corrective steps. “For instance, the DCA has taken steps of instant registration of documents so that the pendency levels do not increase further”, he added. The MRTP Act also needs a thorough “overhaul” as there is overlap between consumer protection and restrictive trade practices.” Moreover, the registerability agreement is totally a farce”, he observed. The Sick Industrial Companies (Special Provision) Act is another legislation which needs to be amended and recodified. “The BIFR does not have any power and it cannot force financial institutions to grant benefits to the parties concerned”, Mr Ganda noted, adding that” it (BIFR) in its present form is primarily an arbitrator and the delays involved in the process are enormous”. On the new competition
law which is expected to come into force by next year, he
said that the law has to be” harmonised in terms of
international parameters”. |
OBC gives 425 cr for rural
roads AMRITSAR, Aug 12 — The Oriental Bank of commerce has provided Rs 425 crore for the construction of village link roads and Rs 100 crore for the development of mandis in Punjab during the current financial year. Giving details of the banks projects in the state. The bank Chairman and Managing Director, Dr Dalbir Singh, talking to media persons here today, said that the bank has adopted more than 10 villages for financing small and cottage projects to the tune of Rs 4 crore. The RBI has appreciated the bank’s role in providing better infrastructure in villages and plans to introduce the scheme in other banks. To provide cheaper and faster finance for the housing sector, the bank has earmarked Rs 100 crore this year. The bank has reduced formalities for housing loans. Commenting on the ratio of non-performing assets he pointed out that the OBC had the lowest 4 per cent NPAs. Earlier, inaugurating the bank’s first on line ATM at its old Jail Road branch, Dr Dalbir Singh said that ATMs would be opened in Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Patiala and Chandigarh this year. The Chairman inaugurated
the bank’s new branch in Basant Avenue and laid the
foundation stone of its regional office in Ranjit Avenue. |
SBI online screen for HP
exporters CHANDIGARH, Aug 12 — The State Bank of India today installed Export Bill Realisation Screen at its Parwanoo branch in Himachal Pradesh. Mr Prabhakar Sharma, Chief General Manager, SBI, Chandigarh Circle, inaugurated the same. Mr Sharma said that this facility, with real time on-line connection to Nostro Accounts, will enable the exporters to procure their payments without any delay on account of transmission of data to banking channels. He said that realisation of the export proceeds can be monitored and effected with minimum down time through this on-line screen facility. Mr Sharma also presided
over an importers and exporters meet organised by the
Parwanoo branch to deliberate on the experiences and
expectations of the Importers and Exporters. |
Industrial growth up 5.6% NEW DELHI, Aug 12 (PTI) — Buoyed by a steady performance of the manufacturing sector, especially consumer durables, Industry recorded a modest 5.6 per cent growth in the first quarter of the current fiscal — up from 4.5 per cent in the corresponding period last year — giving firm hopes of revival. In June 1999, industrial output grew by 5.5 per cent and the General Index stood at 144.6 compared to a growth of 4.8 per cent in the corresponding period in 1998. The manufacturing and electricity sectors grew by 6.5 per cent and 4.1 per cent in June while the mining output dropped by 1.5 per cent, quick estimates of the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) released by the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO) showed. Cumulatively also, the manufacturing and electricity sectors grew by 6.5 per cent and 5.1 per cent in the period April-June 1999 while the growth in the electricity sector declined by 0.6 per cent. As per use-based classification, the growth in June 1999 as compared the to June 1998 is 9.9 per cent in intermediate goods, 4.5 per cent in capital goods and 3.7 per cent in basic goods. The consumer durables and consumer non-durables have recorded a growth of 11.1 per cent and 1.7 per cent respectively with the overall growth in consumer goods being 3.6 per cent. Garment exports up 4 pc India’s garment exports increased by a little over 4 per cent to $ 458 million (Rs 1986 crore) in July this year compared with shipments to the tune of $ 439 million (Rs 1870.5 crore) a year ago. The Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC) data said garment exports in July were up in terms of volume also to 10.96 crore pieces from 10.46 crore pieces in July last year. Garment exports for the
January-July period of the current annual year showed an
impressive 10.09 per cent growth to $ 3.29 billion (Rs
14,080 crore) from $ 2.99 billion (Rs 12,094 crore)
during the same period last year. |
TB drug prices to go up in 15 days NEW DELHI, Aug 12 (PTI) — The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority today increased prices of 12 medicines, including Rifampicin based formulations, used in treatment of tuberculosis (TB). The authority increased the prices in the range between 0.56 per cent and 26.53 per cent, an official release said. It also revised downwards the prices of 16 formulation packs, including Cipla Ltd’s multi-vitamin Neutrolin B Cap and Becelac capsule manufactured by Dr Reddy’s Lab. The decrease in the prices is in the range of 24.33 per cent and 75.27 per cent. The prices have been fixed in accordance with the provisions of the Drugs Price Control Order (DPCO), 1995, and as per the established criteria and guidelines. The authority also increased the prices of Proxyvon Cap and Spasmoproxyvon Cap of Wockhardt by 26.53 per cent and 24.47 per cent respectively. The prices of Rifampicin coated tab used in TB treatment has been hiked marginally by 2.06 per cent from Rs 50.95 to Rs 52 for a strip of 10. A downward revision has also been made in the case of Sporovit Cap manufactured by Arbro Pharma where the prices have been brought down by 36.35 per cent. The revised prices will
become effective within 15 days from the date of
notification in the official gazette. |
Intel introduces two
processors CHANDIGARH, Aug 12 — Intel today organised a seminar here for its dealers to introduce two new processors — the Pentium III 600 MHz and the Celeron 500 MHz. As the Internet spreads its reach, computers are required to navigate large amounts of information. The new Pentium III meets that challenge, explained Mr G.B. Kumar, National Manager - Business Programmes. The new Celeron 500 MHz is Intel’s fastest processor for the PC market. “Intel’s e-commerce experience began as a crusade to bring customers onto our web order management system and streamline the business process. Intel e-commerce site went live in July 1998 and at present Intel earns more e-commerce dollars than any manufacturing company in the world,” he added. Servers and workstations based on the Intel Pentium III Xeon processor provide capabilities both for developing rich content and for running business-critical web-based applications. Current Intel architecture-based technologies offer a platform for delivering web-based training materials, Mr G.B. added. Pentium III, also known as P6, belongs to the sixth generation technology from Intel. Each generation takes two and a half years to three years. Price revision is effected once in a quarter, mostly downwards, he said. Intel, the world’s
largest chip maker, is also a leading manufacturer of
computer, networking and communications products. |
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NEW DELHI, Aug 12 (UNI)
— The US-based Thomas Publishing Company has
announced the launch of its operations in the Indian
market. Set up as a 100 per cent subsidiary, Thomas
International Publishing Co India Pvt Ltd (Tipco -India)
plans to address the Indian business community’s
growing need for comprehensive information on industrial
products and services that can be used effectively to add
value and gain competitive advantage. |
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