Kargil conflict may hit exports: Hegde
NEW DELHI, June 24 — The Kargil conflict may affect the performance of the export sector, Commerce Minister Ramakrishna Hegde said today.

Power tariff increase ruled out
CHANDIGARH, June 2 — Mr S.K. Tuteja, Chairman, Punjab State Electricity Board, today ruled out any power tariff hike in Punjab in the near future and also reiterated the State Government’s commitment to go in for a State Power Tariff Regulatory Commission.

PSB to pay Rs 5 crore dividend
NEW DELHI, June 24 — Punjab and Sind Bank has announced a net profit of Rs 60.44 crore during 1998-99 — a decline from the net profit of Rs 65.09 crore achieved during the previous financial year.

Corporates take up the cause

Petroleum Minister V.K.Ramamurthy on Thursday handed over cheques totalling over Rs 80 crore to the Prime Minister’s National Defence Fund on behalf of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, public sector units and other organisations under his Ministry.

Handing over the cheques to Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee in New Delhi, Ramamurthy said his Ministry would allot 500 outlets for retailing of petroleum products and LPG to the families of defence personnel killed in the Kargil conflict, an official release said here.

ONGC contributed Rs 15 crore and its employees contributed another Rs 80 lakh, while GAIL contributed another Rs 15 crore. GAIL employees also contributed Rs 10 lakh to the Fund.

Indian Oil Corporation contributed Rs 15 lakh along with Rs 96.73 lakh from its employees.

Bharat Petroleum’s contribution to the Fund was Rs 10 crore, besides Rs 30 lakh from its employees. Hindustan Petroleum donated Rs 10 crore and Rs 35 lakh as contribution from its employees.

Both Madras Refineries and Cochin Refineries donated Rs 2 crore each while the former’s employees contributed Rs 4.5 lakh and the latter’s Rs 5 lakh.

GAIL: Gas Authority of India Limited contributed Rs 15 crore to the National Defence Fund on Thursday. Mr C R Prasad, CMD handed over the cheque to the Prime Minister. The GAIL employees are also contributing one day’s salary to the Fund.

Reliance Industries is to contribute Rs 2 crore for the armed forces fighting in Kashmir. Chairman Dhirubhai Ambani told the AGM here today that the company would contribute Rs 1 crore, while its employees would contribute an equal amount by way of a day’s salary.

Punjab Alkalies & Chemicals Limited: The employees of Punjab Alkalies & Chemicals Ltd. (PACL) at Naya Nangal and in Chandigarh have contributed their one day’s salary towards the “Punjab War Heroes Family Welfare Fund” for the welfare of Kargil heroes and their families. A cheque for Rs 1 lakh was presented by Mr Jagpal Singh Sandhu, Managing Director, PACL, to the Hon’able Chief Minister, Punjab, on Thursday. The PACL employees at Naya Nangal have also decided to hold a blood donation camp for the defence personnel.

JCT Electronics: The workers of both the plants of JCT Electronics at Mohali held a rally on Thursday and decided to donate one-day salary to the National Defence Fund and also hold blood donation camp for the needy armed forces.

Haryana Power Generation Corporation Limited: All officers and staff and staff of HPGCL (5250 personnel) stationed at the projects at Faridabad, Panipat, Yamunanagar and the head office at Panchkula have resolved to donate one-day salary towards the Haryana Chief Minister War Heroes Relief Fund. The approximate donation of Rs 11 lakh will be given from the salary of June, 1999. The staff at Panipat also donated blood for this noble cause.

SBI net profit falls 44.78 pc

CALCUTTA, June 24 (UNI) — The net profit of the State Bank of India has recorded a massive 4.78 per cent slump during 1998-99 as it came down to Rs 1027.80 crore from Rs 1861.20 crore the previous year, SBI Chairman G.G. Vaidya announced here today.

Addressing newsmen, he said in other fronts the bank had registered on all round impressive growth. The bank hopes to make up the deficit during the next few months and earn a net profit of about Rs 1600 crore next year (1999-2000).

The bank recommended a dividend of 40 per cent for the year which would require permission from the RBI as it was more than 25 per cent.

Citing the sluggish economy and a number of internal factors, including a provision of Rs 319.19 crore for the Resurgent India Bonds (RIB) and Rs 315.31 crore towards wage hikes of the bank employees as the main factor for the sudden slump in the net profit, margin, the Chairman said since none of these factors were taken into consideration while calculating the gross profit, it went up from Rs 3655 crore in 1997-98 to Rs 3837 crore last year.

UTI Bank

NEW DELHI: UTI Bank has posted a 94 per cent increase in the net profit this fiscal on a deposit base of Rs 3,040 crore and has a capital adequacy ratio of 11.64 per cent. This was announced by Mr Supriya Gupta, CMD of UTI Bank while opening its first branch in Haryana.

RPL eyes 20,000 cr sale

Reliance Petroleum Limited (RPL) has begun phase-wise commissioning of its 27 million tonne grassroots refinery at Jamnagar and expects sale figures to touch about Rs 20,000 crore.

Addressing the annual general meeting of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) in Mumbai on Thursday, its chairman Dhirubhai Ambani said RPL expects to achieve sales to the tune of Rs 20,000 crore in its first full year of operations at the current prices.

RPL has entered into a 10-year agreement with Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) for marketing of the controlled products both during the transition period (up to dismantling of the administered pricing mechanism) and the post-transition period.

Similar agreements are expected to be signed shortly with Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum. IOC will market 50 per cent of the controlled products during the transition period and 52 per cent in the post-APM period.

A RPL-IOC joint venture will market 48 per cent of products in post-transition period, subject to necessary approvals.

Essar Oil

The government has decided to award the production contract for the Ratna and R-series oil field at Bombay High to a consortium of Essar Oil Ltd. and the UK-based Premier Oil PLC, Petroleum Ministry sources said.

Videocon

Videocon International Limited today said it was not considering any strategic alliance with BPL for the revival of Uptron Picture Tubes Limited.

Ramco Industries

Rs 196 crore diversified group Ramco Industries today announced that it is hiving off its software division into a separate company.

In a communication to the Madras Stock Exchange Ramco Industries said the new company will be called Ramco Systems Limited and is being hived off with effect from April 1 this year.

Satyam Computer

The Board of Satyam Computer Services Limited will meet on July 12 to announce the company’s results for the first quarter of the financial year 1999-2000 (Apr-Mar). — Agencies

Punjab to review stamp duty
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, June 24 —Punjab Chief Secretary R.S. Mann today appealed to the bankers to contribute liberally to the special fund established by the Punjab Government for war heroes.

Addressing the 69th State Level Bankers Committee (SLBC) meeting here today, he said the stamp duty issue would be reviewed sympathetically as desired by the bankers. He stressed the need to rejuvenate the agriculture sector and develop infrastructure.

Presiding over the meeting, Mr K.R. Chabria, Executive Director, Punjab National Bank, said the aggregate deposits of the banks in Punjab had increased by Rs 4,964 crore to Rs 32,580 crore, registering a growth of 17.9 per cent. The priority sector advances grew by Rs 1,166 crore to Rs 6,772 crore.

The agriculture advances witnessed an increase of Rs 641 crore to Rs 2,938 crore. Within six months banks have issued 13,386 kisans credit cards amounting to Rs 7,168 lakh.

Stressing that cash recovery is the need of the hour, Mr Chabria said the overall recovery of priority sector advances has gone up from 73 to 75 per cent and of agriculture advances from 80 to 81 per cent.

Mr S.K. Chawla, General Manager, PNB and Convener SLBC, said against a target of 9,000, the banks have sanctioned loans to 10,232 beneficiaries and disbursement has been completed in 8,858 cases. The percentage achievement of disbursement comes to 98.4. He hoped that by the end of June, targets in terms of disbursement would be surpassed for the second year in a row.

The meeting was informed that the banks have missed the target of financing for women, that a large number of cases were pending in Amritsar district, that of the 850 cases sponsored in the agriculture sector only 250 were sanctioned and that the recovery process was poor in the cotton belt due to cotton crop failure and low returns from the tomato crop.

Prominent among those who attended the meeting were Mr K. Vijayaraghavan, Regional Director, RBI, Mr Vijay Kain, Secretary, Institution of Finance and Banking, Mr N.R. Kannan, CGM of NABARD, Mr K.A. Singh, Director, Institutional Finance & Banking, Mr D.S. Guru, Special Secretary, Commerce, and Mr Karnail Singh Dhaliwal, Director, KVIC.

Land productivity declining in North
Tribune News Service, PTI

NEW DELHI, June 24 — Productivity of land in Punjab and Haryana is declining every day and at this rate, land will not be available for agricultural purposes after 20 to 30 years, Agriculture Minister Sompal said while inaugurating a national workshop on agriculture statistics held here today.

Citing a study conducted by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) recently, the minister said excessive use of chemicals, pesticides and fertilisers have resulted in gradual deterioration of the fertile land in these states.

Sompal said heavy use of water for irrigation purposes in these States has also affected the soil fertility.

Commenting on the methods of collecting statistics and presentation of agricultural data in the country, he said sometimes compilation of data present a different picture than the real one.

“There is a need to present correct picture as an isolated way of presenting statistics is often misleading,’’ Sompal said.

He announced that foodgrain production in 1998-99 will cross the 203 million tonnes mark against the earlier estimated figure of about 201 million tonnes.

The Minister said wheat output during the year would be about 73.5 million tonnes and rice production is likely to be about 84.48 million tonnes.

Kargil conflict may hit exports: Hegde
Tribune News Service

NEW DELHI, June 24 — The Kargil conflict may affect the performance of the export sector, Commerce Minister Ramakrishna Hegde said today.

The country’s exporters should take advantage of the incipient recovery in the South-East Asian economies and strive hard to achieve the growth rate of 11 per cent during the current fiscal, he said at an awards function organised by the Engineering Export Promotion Council (EEPC) here.

Criticising the spate of anti-dumping duties imposed by the developed countries, especially the European Union, against Indian goods, Mr Hegde said that this restricted market access to Indian goods.

He said the various procedural delays and bureaucratic bottlenecks that hampered exports should be removed. On the infrastructure side, he said the Prime Minister’s initiative to build and strengthen the roads would help improve the situation.

Stressing the need to eliminate corruption, he said computerisation of offices in the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) and the Customs Department would make the system transparent.

EEPC Chairman P.K.Shah said small exporters were not able to benefit from the Duty Entitlement Passbook Scheme (DEPB) as the threshold limit of Rs 20 crore and in some cases Rs 50 crore was very high.

Commerce Secretary P.P.Prabhu said it was possible to include all items under the DEPB promotion scheme as the credit rates were decided on the basis of input-output norms.

Besides, it would not be difficult to meet the value addition norms if the threshold limit was lowered.

He ruled out a hike in the market development assistance to the EEPC and asked the council to fund its overseas offices from the resources of exporters who benefited from them.

Power tariff increase ruled out
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, June 2 — Mr S.K. Tuteja, Chairman, Punjab State Electricity Board, today ruled out any power tariff hike in Punjab in the near future and also reiterated the State Government’s commitment to go in for a State Power Tariff Regulatory Commission.

Addressing the industry in the CII complex this evening, Mr Tuteja said that Punjab was a power surplus state with PSEB having sold power worth Rs 600 crore to six States, including Tamil Nadu.

He announced a voluntary disclosure scheme for domestic consumers.

Earlier, Mr K.L. Khurana, Chairman, CII Punjab State Council, urged the PSEB to go in for massive computerisation, simplify rules and procedures and build in elements of transparency at the operational level.

PSB to pay Rs 5 crore dividend
Tribune News Service

NEW DELHI, June 24 — Punjab and Sind Bank (PSB) has announced a net profit of Rs 60.44 crore during 1998-99 — a decline from the net profit of Rs 65.09 crore achieved during the previous financial year.

Mr S.S.Kohli, (MD) said the decline is due to the fact that last year’s profit actually included Rs 19.05 crore as write back of excess depreciation on investment provided in the previous years.

Therefore, the net profit has increased from Rs 46.04 crore in 1997-98 to Rs 60.44 crore in 1998-99, registering an increase of 31 per cent, Mr Kohli said.

The bank has declared a dividend of Rs 5 crore for 1998-99.

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