IT raids on Oswal groups
NEW DELHI, Feb 11 — The Income Tax Department today raided and surveyed the residential and business premises of the Punjab-based Abhay Oswal and Jawahar Oswal groups in several parts of the country, including Chandigarh and Delhi.

Inside Outside show opens
CHANDIGARH, Feb 11— A four-day “Inside Outside mega show” highlighting interior design, furniture, furnishing and building products began at the Parade Ground, Sector 17, here this afternoon.

Banks to exchange mutilated notes
CHANDIGARH, Feb 11 — The RBI has authorised all branches of public sector banks as also certain private sector banks maintaining currency chests to accept and exchange all soiled/mutilated notes which are payable under the Reserve Bank of India (Note Refund) Rules.

Hero Honda's 156 cc bike
NEW DELHI, Feb 11 — Breaking a decade long product barrier, Hero Honda Motors Ltd today made its first foray into the heavy bike category by unveiling its latest 156 cc CBZ today.

IT raids on Oswal groups
Tribune News Service

NEW DELHI, Feb 11 — The Income Tax Department today raided and surveyed the residential and business premises of the Punjab-based Abhay Oswal and Jawahar Oswal groups in several parts of the country, including Chandigarh and Delhi.

The raid and survey operations were carried out at Mr Abhay Oswal’s farm house in the capital, his residence in South Delhi’s Friends Colony, his offices in the commercial complexes of Connaught Place in Central Delhi and Rajendra Place in West Delhi. Mr Jawahar Oswal’s premises in Barakhamba Road in Connaught Place were also searched.

Mr Abhay Oswal is in the field of petrochemicals, chemicals and fertilisers while Mr Jawahar Oswal runs a woollen garments unit in Ludhiana.

Income Tax sources said here today that raids were also conducted apart from Delhi, in the Mumbai, Chandigarh, Ludhiana, Shahjehanpur and Jalandhar premises of the two industrialists.

The sources said that it was suspected that the two firms had siphoned off funds and evaded paying taxes to the department.

The search operations, which began this morning, were continuing till late in the evening and the sources said that they were hopeful of recovering incriminating documents. The IT department also plans to search the bank accounts and lockers of the two groups.

LUDHIANA: The Income tax authorities today raided the Nahar group of companies owned by Mr Jawahar Oswal as also the Oswal Fertilisers and Chemicals and allied industries owned by his younger brother, Mr Abhay Oswal.

The raids were carried out by the Director-General of Income Tax (Investigation) Delhi on the basis of a specific complaint filed with it.

The raids began around 8 a.m. when the teams of Income Tax officials descended on the offices and residential premises of Mr Jawahar Oswal, his sons — Mr Kamal Oswal and Mr Daman Oswal as also one of their business associates, Mr Sushil Jain, in Ludhiana.

Some of the industrial units owned by him in Ludhiana, Phagwara, Barnala, Bombay, Bhopal, Shahjahanpur and a few other places were also raided.

Banks to exchange mutilated notes
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Feb 11 — The RBI has authorised all branches of public sector banks as also certain private sector banks maintaining currency chests to accept and exchange all soiled/mutilated notes which are payable under the Reserve Bank of India (Note Refund) Rules.

The exchange value on the notes payable under the rules will be paid by the bank branches on the same day. However, notes which are not payable will be retained by the branch concerned, according the Mr K. Vijayaraghavan, Regional Director of the RBI.

This facility is available not only to the customers of banks but also to the general public.

Meanwhile, the RBI has established a coin dispenser in its Banking Hall an Chandigarh for enabling the public to obtain coins from the machine. Any needy person can insert a Rs 10 “Gandhi design” note and obtain 10 one rupee coins in exchange. It is a user-friendly machine without any complications.

The public can avail of this facility between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. on weekly working days and between 10 a.m. and 12 noon on Saturdays, according to an RBI announcement.

Urea at old rate
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Feb 11 —Markfed has decided to pass on the benefit of nearly Rs 2 crore to the farmers by selling the available stocks of urea at “old” rate Rs 183 per 50 kg bag. This was stated by the Managing Director, Mr Gurinderjit Singh Sandhu here today. The Centre had increased rate of urea to Rs 200 from Rs 183 per bag of 50 kg. Markfed has a stock of 60,000 tonnes.

Inside Outside show opens
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Feb 11— A four-day “Inside Outside mega show” highlighting interior design, furniture, furnishing and building products began at the Parade Ground, Sector 17, here this afternoon.

The show, inaugurated by Mr Krishan Kumar Addiwal, Mayor, of Chandigarh, is the culmination of three exhibitions - “Intex”, “Buildmat” and “Furniture & Furnishing Special” and is being organised by Business India Exhibitions.

According to Mr Anup Sachdeva, the local coordinator, about 200 companies are participating in the show having 350 stalls spread over 80,000 sq. ft area. With entry being free of cost, visitors thronged the stalls, particularly those displaying designer fountains, lamps shades, flowers and furnishings.

The show, which will later be held in Bangalore and Cochin, is of special interest to architects, contractors, builders, interior designers and house builders in general.

Hero Honda launches156 cc bike
Tribune News Service

NEW DELHI, Feb 11 — Breaking a decade long product barrier, Hero Honda Motors Ltd today made its first foray into the heavy bike category by unveiling its latest 156 cc CBZ today.

The 156 cc CBZ (Z read as Zee) is the latest addition to the Hero Honda stable which has till date rolled out only 100 cc mobikes.

The earlier models, CD-100 (the original fill it-shut it - forget it model), the CD 100 SS, the Sleek and the Splendour are all 100 cc motorcycles.

The price for the new CBZ is fixed at Rs 54,800 (drum version) and Rs 59,000 (disc version) and sales are scheduled to begin from the April 13, throughout the country. Booking orders from consumers would be accepted from March.

by Pushpa Girimaji
Setting standards of service — on paper

TWO years ago the Union Government decided to set standards for all services provided by Central Government departments and public sector undertakings. Accordingly it advised them all to prepare a “charter” of citizens’ rights vis-a-vis the service. Clarified the government at that time: Initially we do not intend to set very high standards. They will be workable standards, the intention being to raise them gradually.

But forget high standards, even basic minimum standards are not explicitly defined in most of the charters and there are now about 40 of them, including those drawn up by the insurance companies, railways, banks, hospitals, Ministry of Petroleum and Central Public Works Department. I will deal with specific charters in subsequent columns, but today, I will make some general observations about them.

If one were to go through these charters. What comes out loud and clear is the lack of will on the part of the government departments to commit themselves to any improvement in service. As a result, what one sees in these charters are statements of good intentions, amounting to nothing. But even then, many of them are so afraid of a user holding them to these promises that they clarify that they are not legally enforceable.

Take the charter drawn up by Dr Ram Manohar Lohia hospital in New Delhi, for example. It shies away from any specific promise on its service. How long will the hospital take to respond to an emergency? Besides a bald statement that emergency cases are attended to “promptly”, there is no other commitment on the time taken to attend to such cases. Apart from giving information like “doctors wear white aprons and nurses are in uniform”, the only area where the charter attempts to formulate a standard is with reference to redress of grievances.

That’s not all. Till today, the users of these services, for whose benefit the charters have been drawn up, are not even aware that such charters exist, because they are not made available to them. While a railway charter should be available to passengers at every railway station, a charter drawn up by a bank should be accessible to every depositor.

As per the guidelines issued by the Department of Administrative Reforms, the charter should incorporate standards of performance, assured quality of service, access to information, simplified and convenient procedures for receipt and acknowledgement of complaints, besides time bound redress of grievances.

But the CCC, however, is not prepared to give up. With the help of the Department Public Administration, it has been evaluating the implementation of the charter programme. And on the basis of consumer surveys conducted in different parts of the country, it is critically reviewing the charters and suggesting improvements.

For a start, it should set up in every government department, independent cells that would regularly call for suggestions from users, set decent performance standards on the basis of user response, publicise the charter widely and evaluate the performance of the service provider against these standards. Absence of such efforts would render the charter scheme meaningless.

Bullion (Delhi)
Standard gold (10 gm) 4380
Ornaments 4230
Sovereign 3775
Silver (.999) 8150
Silver (.716) 8035
Coins buying 10,700
Selling 10,900

Forex rates
US $ 42.46/47
Sterling £ 68.91/93
Euro 48.05/07
Yen (per 100) 37.29/31

Tata logo
NEW DELHI, Feb 11 (PTI) — The Tatas today unveiled a new corporate mark and logo as part of the group’s strategy to coin a common corporate identity and brand. The mark and logo with a new corporate colour, blue, would initially be used by eight group companies which had signed the brand equity and business promotion agreement in December 1998.

Unit plan
CHANDIGARH, Feb 11 (TNS) — UTI is relaunching its children segment scheme for the girl child, Rajlakshmi Unit Plan (II) from February 8, 1999. This is an exclusive plan for the benefit of a girl child, not exceeding 5 years of age. The minimum amount of Rs 1,500 invested in the name of a girl child upto and including one year of age would become Rs 15,000 after a lock-in-period of 20 years.

R.S. Hugar
CHANDIGARH, Feb 11(TNS) — Mr R.S. Hugar, Chairman and Managing Director of the Corporation Bank has been conferred the 1999 award for excellence as top professional by the Institute of Marketing and Management, New Delhi.

Krishi Card
NAWANSHAHR, Feb 11(FOC) — The local branch of Punjab National Bank today launched its Krishi Card scheme here. The Deputy Commissioner, Dr Roshan Sunkaria was the chief guest and Mr R.K. Sharma, Deputy Chief Manager, PNB, presided over the function.

Canara Bank
CHANDIGARH, Feb 11 (TNS) — Sri T.R. Sridharan, Chairman and Managing Director, Canara Bank, handed over a cheque of Rs 50 lakh to the Prime Minister for the National Relief Fund. The bank has evolved guidelines for extending relief in the form of fresh loans, relaxation in securities, concession in interest for affected people etc.