Off-the-shelf Indica from next year
MUMBAI, Aug 3 — Indica, car will be available off-the-shelf from the last quarter of the current fiscal when total backlog bookings will be cleared, Telco Chairman Ratan Tata said today.

Whirlpool out of red, earns Rs 6.60 cr net
CHANDIGARH, Aug 3 —Whirlpool of India Ltd has got out of the red and announced a net profit of Rs 6.60 crore during the first quarter of this fiscal year against a loss of Rs 24.30 crore during the same period last year.

Strike in Amritsar
AMRITSAR, Aug 3 — The Amritsar-based textile printers processing industries today went on indefinite strike.

Moody’s: bad loans turn banks’ outlook negative

NEW DELHI, Aug 3 (PTI) — Global credit rating firm Moody’s has projected a bleak outlook for the Indian banking sector as it continued to be plagued by high level of non-performing loans and incomplete reforms.

Maintaining its “negative credit outlook” on the Indian banking sector, the rating agency said “past directed lending practices have resulted in a high level of non-performing loans, which continue to grow despite recent focus on asset quality.”

“Incomplete reform process has prevented public sector banks from modernising their management practices. Automation is still at a low level, and although improving, credit skills are poor,” Moody’s said in its latest report on “Banking System Outlook”.

The slow legal system and inappropriate legislation prevented banks from recovering bad loans, the report said, adding that infrastructure bottlenecks and poor regulations were holding back economic growth.

“Moody’s expects asset quality to get worse before it improves and believes the situation demands decisive legislative reform before this happens,” the report by Moody’s analyst George Mouskides said.

Moody’s said despite the banking sector reform initiated in 1991, the “social” character of public sector banks has not changed in any fundamental way.

“They are still being used to extend finance to specific sectors of the economy (through lending to priority sector), despite the recognition that market forces are perhaps a more efficient means of allocation of banking assets.”

The rating agency said asset quality problems of banks were likely to persist despite bank managements attaching maximum priority to the issue.

‘Fiscal deficit may rise by 20,000 cr’

MUMBAI, Aug 3 (PTI) — A Rs 20,000 crore increase in fiscal deficit (FD) is expected in 1999-2000, according to ICICI Securities and Finance Company Ltd (I-Sec).

Lower than budgeted tax collections, higher defence expenditure and slippage in public sector undertaking (PSU) disinvestment plan would be the major risks, I-Sec said in its fortnightly debt markets update.

Customs collections have been robustly growing at 12 per cent, much higher than the 4.5 per cent growth in imports due to a 53 per cent growth in petroleum, oil and lubricant imports on the back of higher international oil prices.

Excise collections have registered 29 per cent growth, some part of which may be attributable to the introduction of diesel cess, I-Sec said.

Direct tax collections have increased by 6 per cent with income tax growing at 25 per cent and corporation tax declining by 2.8 per cent.

The decline in corporation tax is mainly due to the large base of last year when the deposit insurance and credit guarantee corporation (DICGC) shelled out a large amount due to settlement of taxes of earlier periods.

PNB records 14.8 pc growth in net profit

Punjab National Bank’s net profits had risen 14.8 per cent in the first quarter of the current fiscal to Rs 121.4 crore from Rs 105.49 crore in the corresponding period in the previous fiscal.

The total income of the bank rose by 16 per cent during the period to stand at Rs 1182.9 crore as against Rs 997.9 crore in the corresponding period. Despite lower interest rates the bank’s interest income grew by 18.5 per cent, it said adding the operating profit was up by 18.6 per cent at Rs 221.1 crore as against Rs 186.5 crore in the first quarter of 1998-99.

NRB Bearings has announced a 45.7 per cent increase in net profit in the first quarter of the current fiscal to Rs 2.39 crore. NRB had recorded a net profit of Rs 1.67 crore in the corresponding period of last year. The Board of Directors has recommended a dividend of 40 per cent for the financial year

Unichem Laboratories Limited (ULL) has recorded a 41 per cent jump in its net profit to Rs 3.96 crore in the first quarter this year from Rs 2.82 crore in the corresponding quarter last year. Sales have gone up by 21.31 per cent to Rs 49.5 crore in the first quarter of the current financial year from Rs 40.84 crore in the same quarter last year. — TNS, Agencies

Whirlpool out of red,earns Rs 6.60 cr net
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Aug 3 —Whirlpool of India Ltd has got out of the red and announced a net profit of Rs 6.60 crore during the first quarter of this fiscal year against a loss of Rs 24.30 crore during the same period last year.

Announcing this here today, Mr Raj Jain, Vice-President of the company, said Whirlpool has registered a sales growth of 40 per cent in refrigerators and become No 1 brand displacing Godrej and pushing Kelvinator to the third position as per the ORG figures. Now it hopes to repeat its success in washing machines.

Mr Jain, who launched the latest models of Whirlpool washing-machine and micro oven at a dealers’ conference here, attributed the significant rise in revenue to improving the brand image (adspend: 5 per cent of the turnover), launch of new products, cost effectiveness and better cash management.

U.S-based home appliances giant Whirlpool Corporation holds an 82 per cent stake in the Indian venture. The company had floated a rights issue last year at a premium of Rs 2 taking the equity to 126.88 crore.

Three new Maruti models

NEW DELHI, Aug 3 (UNI,PTI) — The Board of Directors of Maruti Udyog Limited (MUL) has finalised the launch schedule for its three new models — Baleno, Wagon-R and Alto — with the first model rolling out in November this year.

The board, which met in Hungary yesterday, decided that Baleno, powered by a 1600cc engine, would be the first of the three new models to hit the streets. The car, which is undergoing road-testing here, would be introduced in the Indian market in November, sources close to the company told UNI here today.

The Wagon-R, with a 1000cc heart, would be the second in line to zip down the city streets, by February 2000, and, an upgrade of the existing Zen — ‘Alto’ — would be the final among the new models. The car is scheduled to be launched in April with two engine variants — 800cc and 1000cc.

The company had earned a profit after tax of Rs 522 crore for 1998-99 (provisional), showing a drop of around 20 per cent over Rs 652 crore in the previous year. The profit before tax was down by 19.85 per cent to Rs 783 crore from Rs 977 crore. The total income had also declined to Rs 8,118 crore from Rs 8,474 crore, losing ground by 4.20 per cent.

The bottomlines are also likely to improve and MUL has projected to close the current fiscal with a 20 per cent growth in turnover. The passenger car major has projected its sales in the year to cross the 400,000 mark this year, up 30 per cent from 309,094 units in 1998-99.

Santro sales

The sales of the Hyundai Santro touched 4,949 for July, the highest since the company began deliveries in October last year.

While the company registered a 6.7 per cent increase over June sales of 4,634 units, the comulative sales stood at 35,281 units.

Hyundai Motor India has registered sales of 17,633 units of the Santro in the first four months (April-July 1999) of the current financial year, as against sales of 17,647 units in six months from October 1998-March 1999.

Off-the-shelf Indica from next year

MUMBAI, Aug 3 (PTI) — Indica, car will be available off-the-shelf from the last quarter of the current fiscal when total backlog bookings will be cleared, Telco Chairman Ratan Tata said today.

“The company has targeted to sell about 5,000 cars per month on an average during the year and wipe out the backlog in the last quarter of the year,” Ratan Tata told Telco shareholders at its annual general meeting here.

To a query from a shareholder, he said the company would be in a position to meet its annual target of 60,000 vehicles during the year though it had sold only about 12,000 cars during the first quarter.

The company would start exporting Indica next fiscal, he said.

Indica, launched in December 1998, had not made any contribution to the margins of the company during the past fiscal, he said adding that the company has to sell over 65,000 vehicles to break-even at profit before interest and tax, and about 80,000 to 90,000 cars at profit before tax.

Tata expressed dismay at the State Government’s inability to so far clear the sales tax exemption of about Rs 170 crore announced a few months ago.

Strike in Amritsar
From Our Correspondent

AMRITSAR, Aug 3 — The Amritsar-based textile printers processing industries today went on indefinite strike. The President of the association, Mr Narinder Kumar Jain said the anomalies in the Central Excise laws had forced more than 100 processing units to close down.

Mr Jain urged the Central Government to immediately rescue the industry from the anomalies which include demand to pay duty on the installed capacity instead of working capacity for the period prior to Budget.

Forex
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Jap yen (100) Rs 37.57/59

Office-bearers
Tribune News Service
CHANDIGARH, Aug 3 — The following have been elected office-bearers of the Allahabad Bank Officers Association Chandigarh Zone: President — Mr G.P. Singh; Zonal Secretary — Mr A.S. Mann; Vice-Presidents — Mr H.C. Mehra, Mr G.R. Aggarwal, Mr R.C. Mahajan; and Treasurer — Mr S.P. Kataria.

Opera’s Opus
Tribune News Service
LUDHIANA, Aug 3 — Opera’s Opus, a five-storeyed shopping complex, was opened here yesterday without any VIP show. It offers products ranging from electronic gadgets to spoons-under one roof.

ISO 9002
Tribune News Service
NEW DELHI, Aug 3 — Delhi Test House, a testing and inspection institute of building materials,metals and alloys, minerals,etc, has been awarded the ISO 9002 certification.

Polaris Software
Tribune News Service
NEW DELHI, Aug 3 — Polaris Software Lab Limited is entering the capital market with a public issue of 35,12,500 new equity shares. The offer will remain open for public subscription from August 4 to 10. The offer of equity shares is being made at Rs 210 per share (a premium of Rs 200 per share).