 |
|
|
ECB norms tightened to check capital inflow
Rising rupee inhibits export target: Nath
LNG Pricing |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Ethics code by BPOs to control attrition
‘Relax education norms’
PFC transfers Sasan project to Reliance Power
New income tax Act by Dec
PE investments to cross $15 b this year: PwC
DoT issues notices to telcos
Wipro to open 2 BPO centres in China
Indo-Swiss MoU on IPRs
|
|
ECB norms tightened to check capital inflow
New Delhi, August 7 According to a statement issued by the ministry of finance, borrowers raising ECBs more than $20 million shall park the proceeds overseas for use as foreign currency expenditure for permissible end-uses. The changes would not apply to borrowers that have already entered into loan agreements, the statement said. “All other aspects of ECB policy such as $500 million limit per company per year under the automatic route, eligible borrower, recognised lender, average maturity period, all-in-cost-ceiling, pre-payment, refinancing of existing ECB and reporting arrangements remain unchanged.,” it said. “These conditions will not apply to borrowers who have already entered into loan agreement and obtained loan registration numbers from the Reserve Bank. Borrowers, who have taken verifiable and effective steps wherein the loan agreement has been entered into to avail of ECB in the previous dispensation, and not obtained the loan registration number, may apply to the Reserve Bank through their authorised dealer,” it said. The ECB policy is constantly reviewed by the government in consultation with the RBI to keep it in tune with the evolving macro-economic situation, changing market conditions, sectoral requirements, the external sector and the lessons of experience. Significantly, the government’s move comes 25 days after the Economic Advisory Council, headed by former RBI Governor C Rangarajan, submitted a report on the “Economic Outlook for 2007-08 to the Prime Minister, in which it had suggested three instruments, including putting restrictions on ECB to check capital inflows through borrowing route. External commercial borrowings and short-term loans increased sharply in 2006-07, with the total quantum of inflows under the category aggregating $21.1 billion, an increase of 246 per cent over 2005-06. With continued interest by Indian corporate in accessing the overseas loan market, the net loan inflows were projected to increase to $25 billion.
|
|
Rising rupee inhibits export target: Nath
New Delhi, August 7 “The rupee appreciation has impacted exports. The government is concerned with the matter as export is linked to employment,” Nath told newspersons here. Asked whether the Centre is considering any further package for the exporters to tide over the Rupee crisis, the minister merely said, “The Prime Minister is keeping himself apprised of the situation.” Nath said the commerce ministry is in constant touch with the Reserve Bank of India on the issue. The Rupee has appreciated from Rs 45 a dollar in October-November last year to slightly over Rs 40 in July. The hardening of the Indian currency has hurt growth in exports, which has come down to 14 per cent in June from 23 per cent in April. Last month, the Centre had announced a Rs 1400-crore relief package for exporters hit by the rise in the currency to nine-year highs against the dollar. Asked whether the government would revise the export target downward for the fiscal 2007-08, the minister said, “I am still hopeful. But rising Rupee is a deterrent in meeting the target.” “We are more concerned with the manufacturing sector,” Nath said, when asked if he was looking into the woes of the software sector. Meanwhile, according to a PTI report, the commerce ministry has constituted a team to understand the impact of rupee rise at the ground level and some more incentives could be announced for exporters by August-end, said some officials.
|
|
SC extends stay
New Delhi, August 7 A Bench headed by Justice Ashok Bhan while issuing notices on new applications filed by Maharashtra government and public sector firms GAIL, IOC and BPCL ordered status quo till August 9 in view of the cases coming up before the Delhi High Court and Gujarat High Court on August 8 and 9, respectively. The Bench also said the issue of vacating stay on the government directive would be decided on August 14. Essar Steel had earlier challenged government's decision of averaging the long-term LNG price of Petronet LNG Ltd with the high cost short-term fuel purchase for Dabhol power plant in Delhi High Court. Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation had challenged the order, which raised prices of LNG for existing Petronet customers, in Gujarat High Court. According to the PSUs, if price pooling was not allowed, they would not be able to sell RLNG purchased at a price in excess of $9 per million British thermal unit (mBtu) from Petronet. Such "distress sale would be huge and a straight loss to it", GAIL said. The new policy has resulted in price differences in RNLG for existing consumers such as Essar Steel and GSPC and new consumers such as Ratnagiri Gas and Power Pvt Ltd, the owner of the Dabhol power plant. Petronet LNG Ltd, the primary supplier of the fuel, had moved an application for vacation of stay in view of the apex court's direction on July 31 to do so in case any of the high courts passed any interim order on the issue. — PTI
|
|
Ethics code by BPOs to control attrition
Bangalore, August 7 Attrition is emerging as the number one worry among BPO companies attending the Nasscom ITES summit here, which are spending a lot of time on finding ways to control attrition and ensure employee retention beyond the average 18-month tenure of an entry level
personnel. Genpact CEO Pramod Bhasin, who is also the chairman of the Nasscom BPO Forum, said the industry was in the process of coming out with a standard policy on hiring, data security, physical infrastructure, human resources, sexual harassment and whistle blowing to establish a code for the industry. Once a policy is established, the BPO industry feels the issue of hiring can be made more transparent and ensure people are not just jumping jobs,” says Bhasin. This view is also echoed by other industry captains, who feel BPO companies, are losing money by encroaching on each other’s employees. Raman Roy, Quatrro BPO Solutions chairman, says a clearly laid-out documentation on hiring as well as employee friendly policies, which focus even more on security, and safety of personnel will help the industry to fight attrition. When questioned that labour laws already existed to take care of most of the issues, which are set to be codified by the BPO industry, Nasscom president Kiran Karnik said the labour laws were very basic. “We want to set a benchmark for the industry. What we are planning is way ahead of the present standards,” he said. |
|
|
‘Relax education norms’
Bangalore, August 7 BPO captains at the Nasscom India ITES-BPO Strategy Summit, 2007 here, felt there was a need to update curriculum in educational institutions to make the youth passing out of them “employable”. Genpect CEO and president Pramod Bhasin said in today’s scenario youth were being trained for specific tasks after passing out from professional institutions. Bhasin said the present government rules did not allow private industries to start educational institutions. “In such a scenario it becomes imperative to ensure we produce quality human resources,” he said, adding this would allow the country to remain ahead in the BPO sector despite growing competition from other countries. It has been observed that attrition level is the highest at the recruitment level, which is named as “agent”. In some companies attrition at this level is as high as 70 per cent though the average for the industry is around 50 per cent as far as voice-based BPO is concerned. In case of non-voice based BPO the attrition level is around 25 per cent. Explaining the situation, Bhasin says at present companies have to spend around $ 300 in training an agent and that this investment is squandered in many cases due to high-attrition levels. He called for allowing a public-private partnership whereby BPO companies could train interested candidates in their free time in the educational institutes so that they could save on costs and also ensure quality employees.
|
|
|
Nasscom aims at $10-b export by 2010
Bangalore, August 7 According to industry estimates, Indian BPO companies have strengthened their position as a global offshore hub by attracting 46 per cent of the global BPO business. Nasscom president Kiran Karnik said despite problems, including the rupee appreciation vis-à-vis the dollar, the Indian BPO industry would meet the export target of $10 billion by 2010. The industry, however, says the potential is immense as the industry has just scratched the surface. Karnik says the industry is yet to fully penetrate into tier-II and tier-III cities. “The addressable market globally in this sector stands at $150 billion and there is much more that we can do to increase our presence”, he said at the concluding session of the Nasscom-ITeS BPO summit here. He said Nasscom was taking a number of steps to further improve Brand India. He said emerging BPO industry and the story of the five lakh persons working in it needed to be told in the right perspective instead of focusing on stray cases.
Nasscom is set to organise a series of roadshows which will be held in small towns to generate awareness about the industry. The focus in the first phase will be the North-East region. |
|
|
PFC transfers Sasan project to Reliance Power
New Delhi, August 7 "This is the second time that a Letter of Intent is being awarded in Sasan UMPP... I do not want to go into details about the Lanco-Globleq consortium whose bid was disqualified by the Empowered Group of Ministers. I am sure that Anil Ambani will complete the project during the 11th Plan," power minister Sushilkumar Shinde said here. Ambani, who received
transfer documents from PFC, said: "This is a big challenge of creating the biggest UMPP of over 4,000 MW involving an investment of more than Rs 20,000 crore. "As per the current bid schedule we plan to start the project in 69 months and shall review how the execution can be accelerated. This is a complex project involving mining of coal of over 15 million tonnes annually," he said. With the completion of this project in Madhya Pradesh, seven states, including Delhi, Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab and Uttarakhand, would be benefitted. The Sasan project was the first in a series of nine such 4,000 MW power plants proposed to be set up in the country during the 11th and 12th Plans. Another such project at Mundra in Gujarat has already been
transferred to Tata Power Company. However, it has been delayed by nearly seven months as the Lanco-Globeleq consortium, which initially won the bid in December last year, was disqualified for violation of norms. The project was later awarded to Reliance Power, a subsidiary of Reliance Energy Ltd, after it matched Lanco's lowest tariff bid of Rs 1.19 per unit.
— PTI |
|
New Delhi, August 7 Over the weekend, finance minister P Chidambaram has been working on drafting the code, which after being tabled in Parliament, will have to go through a process that will take quite some time before it is passed. The finance minister says that the salaried class pays the maximum taxes and the honest taxpayer need not worry about any harassment. But the long wait for refunds will end once the refund banker system is extended throughout the country. "Yes, I even worked on Saturday and Sunday. Before the end of the calendar year we will introduce it in Parliament," he told PTI in an interview when asked if he was on course on enacting a new Income Tax Code. He said the code would begin from a zero base and would aim at simplification of the provisions of the income tax law. It would completely replace the IT Act of 1961, he said. The history of income tax in modern India dates back to 1860, when the first Income Tax Act was introduced. After Independence, based on Law Commission's report, the present income tax law was enacted in September, 1961. — PTI
|
|
PE investments to cross $15 b this year: PwC
New Delhi, August 7 The surge in PE investments is the result of huge returns of over 25-30 per cent which Indian firms provide to investors. "This by far exceeds any other market in the developed countries," PwC executive director Sanjeev Krishan said. Of the total, 55-60 per cent investments are made by overseas PE firms, he said, and added that "for the year ahead, leading PE firms such as ChrysCapital and Henderson Equity Partners have several deals in the pipeline". Though some concerns have been raised by the PE firms regarding valuations, the sequential growth witnessed by the Indian economy has made them stay interested, the PwC report on 'M&A in the first half of 2007 in India' said. Private equity investments have been rising steadily with over 200 deals worth over $6 billion during the first half of this year, compared to $7.9 billion in the whole of 2006. There has also been a shift in sector focus by private equity funds with industries such as real estate, banking and financial services and media and entertainment witnessing tremendous growth in investment vis-a-vis traditional sectors such as IT, ITeS, pharmaceuticals, healthcare and telecom, the report said. — PTI
|
|
New Delhi, August 7 The licensor has asked Bharti Airtel, Hutch, Reliance Communications and BSNL why they should not be asked to pay Rs 50 crore (per circle) as penalty for violation of the licensing agreement, official sources said. As per DoT guidelines, telecom operators are not allowed to provide services within the range of 500 metres along the international border within the country. “The licensee shall use requisite technology to ensure that the signals become unusable within 500 metres of international boundaries...The measure is for security reasons,” they state. Earlier, the buffer zone was of 10 km width along the international border where no services were permitted. The field units of vigilance telecom monitoring cell of DoT found that signals of these four mobile companies were available in the buffer zone of the border areas, the source said. — PTI
|
|
|
Wipro to open 2 BPO centres in China
Bangalore, August 7 Wipro BPO’s Chinese foray is the second such initiative after Romania, where it has already set up a unit. Wipro BPO also plans to open a centre in the US in the next six to nine months, he said. Aptech centres IT education and training institute Aptech plans to open centres in Afghanistan, Jordan, Syria and Saudi Arabia shortly as part of its overseas expansion plans, Aptech CEO and MD Pramod Khera said here. Aptech is also expanding its Arena animation network in India, where it plans to open another 10 centres by the end of the year, including a Rs-10-crore residential “train the trainer” facility at Karjat near Mumbai.
— PTI
|
|
Indo-Swiss MoU on IPRs
New Delhi, August 7 The MoU was signed here by the union minister of commerce and industry Kamal Nath and Doris Leuthard, federal councillor, department of economic affairs of the Swiss confederation. The MoU envisages setting up of a joint committee to develop a dialogue on issues of IP, including exchange of views, information and experiences at the national level.
— UNI |
Casio-Reliance Retail tie-up Elecon bags Rs 409-cr orders Fiat tie-up DuPont plant Venus Remedies Motorola pact CEAMA chief ICICI Bank cuts deposit rates Bharti gets LoI for DTH |
|||||
|
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Mailbag | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
New Delhi, August 7
Videos
