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Saturday,
October 13, 2001, Chandigarh, India  
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A-I to
shut offices, retrench employees SCL to
provide training in VLSI design War to hit
IT sector: CII Industrial
growth dips to 1.8 pc |
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Khadi
board feels the heat of slowdown Govt to
introduce 5 kg gas cylinders Export
councils to meet on Oct 15 Kinetic
launches ‘GF125’ motor cycle Industrialists’
demand conceded Indian
IT firm gets Stockholm award
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A-I to shut offices, retrench employees
New Delhi, October 12 "Air-India management has, after a detailed study of the staff position at its online and offline stations abroad, decided to shut down 20 and downsize 10 offline stations," a company statement said here. Air-India's overseas offices would be closed in cities such as Barcelona, Budapest, Prague, Stockholm, Warsaw, Belgrade, Lyon, Boston, Montreal, Johannesburg, Manila and Tehran, the statement said. The airline said out of 76 employees at 34 offline stations abroad, 52 are being retrenched with immediate effect. Another 90 employees, both India-based and locally recruited foreign nationals in overseas offices, will be retrenched in two phases, it said. The long-haul airline expects to save Rs.210 million from these cost cutting measures to battle the revenue slowdown after the last month's terrorist attacks on the USA. Air-India's move comes close on the heels of a series of cost cutting measures such as staff retrenchment and cutting flight services announced by global aviation majors. The global airline industry has slipped into deep recession after the air attacks on New York and Washington that saw passengers shying away from air travel. The government plans to sell 40 per cent of the cash strapped airline to a strategic partner — 10 per cent to employees and another 10 per cent to the public and financial institutions — as part of its privatisation programme.
IANS
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SCL to provide training in VLSI design Chandigarh, October 12 Training at ‘Vedant’, the VLSI Design and Technology Centre at SCL will start by the end of next month. This first ever training centre in the region will cater to the ever increasing demand of VLSI engineers globally. Semiconductors, which are referred to as Integrated Circuits, contain numerous pathways which connect thousands or even millions of transistors and other electronic components. These transistors store information on the semiconductors. Almost of today’s chips are built on silicon wafers , silicon being a natural semi-conductor. It is the VLSI design engineer who designs these chips which are later sent for manufacturing. The last decade has witnessed a revolution in the miniaturisation of electronics — mobile phones, computers, aerospace etc. A VLSI design engineer’s efforts make this possible , thus making designing as one of the most sought after professions these days. “Despite the global recession, the demand for this profession is increasing constantly. Infact, under the present economic situations, the demand for cheaper products with better facilities is on the rise, thereby increasing the scope for VLSI design engineers, said the official. The almost Rs 300 crore SCL, Mohali, at present has around 200 engineers including 40 VLSI design engineers. “Atleast 10 VLSI engineers are required by us every year and we plan to absorb a few of those trained in our own institute”. Moreover, there is an ever-growing need for companies to hire VLSI design professionals who develop standard Intellectual Property (IP) cores and customised solutions for customers. While major global semiconductor companies like IBM, Phillips, Analog Devices, Motorola, Wipro etc and many more have established their design houses in India, there are few design training centres. “Manufacturing requires heavy investment and the has only two institutes including SCL which have both designing as well as manufacturing. Now SCL will become the only one of its kind to provide training also”, said the official. Engineers or post graduates in electronics or physics can opt for this six month course. The course will include project work and some knowledge about manufacturing as well. SCL will conduct an entrance test for admissions and the first batch will start by next month. India, he said is preferred for VLSI designing by companies due to lower costs involved. SCL, meanwhile has also taken up for multi chip wafer runs where upto four designs can be fabricated in a single process. This reduces the cost by four times for the companies who go in for fabrication in this manner.
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War to hit IT sector: CII New Delhi, October 12 “There will be effects, especially in the Indian IT and software sector. The years of the three digit growth in the topline of IT companies are over”, Chief Economist of the CII, Dr Omkar Goswami said during a brain-stroming session organised by the CII here. Making a detailed presentation of the state of the US economy prior to the devastating terrorist strikes on September 11, Dr Goswami pointed out that the US economy had already slipped into a downslide with low consumer confidence as early as March 2000. “Not eye-balling dot coms, but serious IT and telecom companies such as AT&T, Cisco and Nortell started having serious problems”, the CII Chief Economist pointed out adding that inventories had started building up by then. Given the fact that such tendencies were likely to prevail in the largest buying economy of world ( the US) and also that of Asia (Japan), Dr Goswami said there are chances that commodity dumping might take place across the territorial frontiers and countries will seek to clear out inventories at shrinking margins. Having said that, however, India accounts for less than 0.5 per cent of world-trade and share of trade to GDP is abysmally low. “Therefore, if we are consistently growing at a rate of less than 5 per cent and not more, then it would be more because of poor implementation of reforms and less due to a volatile international economic environment”, he said. Managing Director of Oxus Investment Pvt Limited, Dr Surjit Bhalla, however, argued that there was a high probability of the V shaped upturn taking place in the US economy and consequently in the Indian economy. Director General of National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER), Dr Suman Beri projected that there was unlikely to be a significant impact on the Indian economy in the post-Sept 11 scenario. Former Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India, Dr Shankar Acharya, observed that “pump priming” was a dangerous tool in the current context and protectionist measures should be avoided if India were to minimise the adverse effects from the current war against terror. Director of ICRIER, Dr Isher Judge Ahluwalia noted that a multi-trade regime with defined rules was in the best interests of the country’s economy.
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Industrial growth dips to 1.8 pc
New Delhi, October 12 According to quick estimates of Index of Industrial Production (IIP) released by Central Statistical Organisation (CSO), the manufacturing sector grew at a mere 2 per cent in August vis-a-vis 5.5 per cent last year. The cumulative growth in the first five months (April-August) of current financial year also remained subdued to 2.2 per cent as against 5.6 per cent in the corresponding period last year. In July this year, IIP had grown at 2.6 per cent. Mining sector registered a marginal growth of 0.1 per cent in August this year as against 4 per cent in the year-ago month. The cumulative growth declined to negative 0.7 per cent from 3.4 per cent in the April-August last fiscal. The electricity sector, however, posted better performance in August registering a growth of 1.9 per cent compared to one per cent on the same month last year while the cumulative growth in April-August period declined to 2.6 per cent this year as against 3.8 per cent in the same period last year.
PTI
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Khadi board
feels the heat of slowdown Shimla, October 12 The financial health of the board has been deteriorating ever since the payscales were revised in 1996 but the situation has become more serious with the government has decided to cut down the grant-in-aid instead of increasing it. Things have come to such a stage that employees are not getting their salaries in time. The medical reimbursement and travelling allowance bills have not been paid for the past two years. The government has also not released the amount on account of rebate given during annual khadi sales since 1988. The arrears on this account come to Rs 2.26 crore. The total expenditure on salaries and establishment has risen to Rs 2.20 crore this year from Rs 1.13 crore in 1995-96. However, the grant-in-aid has come down from Rs 89.52 lakh to Rs 86.92 lakh. The cumulative losses of the board will cross the Rs 7 crore mark by the end of the current financial year. The deficit during this year alone will be Rs 1.35 crore, according to the budget projection. This is despite the fact that the number of employees is declining. As against 272 employees two decades ago the board now has a strength of only 147. The government wants the board to bring down its staff strength to 106 for which it will provide a grant of Rs 86 lakh. The union claimed that Mr P.K.Dhumal had assured Mr Mahesh Sharma, Chairman of the commission that the government would provide the necessary financial support to the board. However, it had not done anything to bail out the board from the tight financial situation. The union has now taken up the matter with Chief Minister and urged him to provide a one-time grant of Rs 6 crore to wipe out the losses and increase. |
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Govt to introduce
5 kg gas cylinders New Delhi, October 12 The small size cylinders are aimed at the urban and rural poor who would find it affordable. It would also be convenient for transportation, especially in the farflung remote areas. Mr Naik said the small cylinders would cost less than Rs 100 and people in the low income group would not have to lock up their money. Moreover, it would be easier to transport these cylinders by cycles and scooter. The minister who spelt out the progress of the oil sector during the last two years, said the government also hoped to set up the first LPG dispensing station for motor vehicles in the capital next month. The environment-friendly fuel would be gradually provided in other major cities including Chandigarh, Jalandhar, Ludhiana and Amritsar. Mr Naik said the government had also drawn ambitious plans to popularise the use of gasohol, a product arrived from blending 5 per cent ethanol with petrol, in the country. Drawing from the experience in Brazil, the government had set up three pilot projects in Miraj and Manmad in Maharashtra and Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh. Ethanol was being obtained from sugarcane molasses and sugarcane juice, he added. |
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Export councils to
meet on Oct 15 New Delhi, October 12 Talking to newspersons on the performance of his Ministry, Mr Rana
admitted that the textile exports have come down by 15 to 20 per cent and the next week meeting would decide the necessary steps for sustaining the export momentum. Dwelling on the recently approved package for the revival of the NTC mills, Mr Rana said out of the 104 mills 44 would be revived at the cost of Rs 2,933 crore. While 60 mills would eventually be closed by giving VRS to
approximately 42 surplus workers at a cost of Rs 1,030 crore, the money generated by selling land and the assets of the closed mills would go towards modernising the rest of the NTC mills, Mr Rana said.
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Kinetic
launches ‘GF125’ motor cycle Chandigarh, October 12 The new motor cycle ‘GF-125’ will cost Rs 49,999 (Ex-showroom Chandigarh), Kinetic Sr Vice-President, Mr Ajay Kapila said at a launch here today. Mr Kapila said a 150cc variant of ‘GF’ motor cycle range will be introduced in April next year. He said the Kinetic has invested Rs 75 crore to manufacture motor cycle. The motor cycle will compete in the premium power segment with models like Hero Honda’s ‘CBZ’, and TVS-Suzuki’s ‘Fiero’. The Kinetic group’s turnover is pegged at Rs 1200 crore during 2000-2001 and has set a target to achieve a turnover of Rs 2000 crore soon.
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Industrialists’ demand conceded Chandigarh, October 12 This was decided by the Chief Minister, Mr Parkash Singh Badal, after a meeting with a deputation of Focal Point Industries’ Association here last evening. He also assured that Form A and C, required for registration of a society issued at present by the Registration of Firms, will, henceforth, be available at the district level. This will provide relief to small and tiny industrial units. |
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Indian IT firm gets Stockholm award New Delhi, October 12 The award, which is sponsored by the city of Stockholm and has been running for three years, gathers some of the world’s most innovative IT projects aimed at the welfare of people. Each project that competes for the award shows in practice how IT is applied in everyday life — whether it concerns social welfare and health care programmes or as an instrument for democracy in communities and regions.
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Spice winners BSNL package Task force Ahuja systems |
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