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Thursday,
December 27, 2001, Chandigarh, India  
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Bharti launches services in Haryana
Record 40 pc growth in FDI inflows
Maruti valuation report by Jan-end
Nasscom to debate strategies for IT |
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Govt to expedite changes in IDBI Act SBP sets 30 cr for technical upgradation India, Pak trade losses put at 500 cr
Honda sales rise, Toyota, Nissan fall
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Bharti launches services in Haryana New Delhi, December 26 “We will start giving connections in the two cities of Gurgaon and Faridabad in the first phase and over next six months all major cities will be covered,” Sunil Mittal, Chairman and Managing Director of the Bharti group said at the launch of the services. The services were inaugurated by Communication and IT Minister Pramod Mahajan who said this would lead to improvement in the quality of services. Bharti has promised to mirror the registration and call charges to that of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL), Mittal said, adding that the company would offer free voice mail facility and a free Internet connection with every Touchtel phone. Bharti has partnered with telecom majors like Siemens, Nortel, Cisco and Duraline for its network, Mittal said adding that of the committed Rs 200 crore investment more than Rs 125 crore have already been spent. Bharti had procured the licence for offering basic telecom services in Haryana on October 8 this year.
PTI
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Sunil Mittal my telecom man of 2001: Mahajan New Delhi, December 26 These were the words of Communication and IT Minister Pramod Mahajan who was all praise for the Chairman and Managing Director of the Bharti group for his “immense contribution and vision” for the growth of the telecom sector in the country. Mahajan, who made the first call today from Bharti’s basic service in Haryana to Chief Minister of Delhi Sheila Dikshit, said in a lighter vein, “this call marks the beginning of a new relation not only between Haryana and Delhi but also between the BJP and the Congress.” The Bharti group has made big strides in the telecom sector by bagging eight licences for cellular services, four for basic services and also started domestic long distance (STD) services in the country.
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STD rates to fall from January 26
New Delhi, December 26 The move comes in the wake of the Communication Ministry clearing the Carrier Access Code (CAC) for various telecom operators after receiving guidelines from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India
(TRAI). “The Ministry has cleared the CAC and now it is upto BSNL and private telecom operators to sort out the interconnection and other issues to implement the reduction in STD tariffs from January 26 as announced by private cellular operators,” communication and IT Minister Pramod Mahajan said here today at the launch of Bharti group’s basic telecom service — TouchTel in Haryana. Mr Mahajan said “As long as there is no malafide objective in the reduction of tariffs by private operators, I do not see any reason for TRAI to object,” when asked whether private operators could reduce the tariffs as tariff fixation was TRAI’s domain. The Minister said Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited
(BSNL) has assured that it will respond to private operators' call to reduce STD tariff from mobile to mobile.
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Record 40 pc growth in FDI inflows New Delhi, December 26 The FDI inflows for January-September 2001 amounted to $ 3.6 billion, up from $ 2.6 billion during the corresponding period last year. In rupee terms, FDI inflows were valued at Rs 16,306.47 crore during January-September 2001, an increase of 46.71 per cent over Rs 11,114.93 crore recorded during 2000. The largest
inflows are from US, followed by Mauritius, Germany, Japan, the UK and the Netherlands. The top five states in India attracting FDI approvals are Maharashtra (with a share of 17.07 per cent of the total FDI approved), Delhi (12.28 per cent), Tamil Nadu (8.35 per cent), Karnataka (7.80 per cent) and Gujarat (6.45 per cent). The year also witnessed some major policy initiatives by the government to further ease the country’s FDI regime. These include permitting FDI upto 100 per cent with prior approval of the government for development of integrated townships, including housing,
commercial premises, hotels, resorts, city and regional-level urban infrastructure facilities in all metros; FDI upto 100 per cent on the automatic route for Mass Rapid Transport Systems in all metro cities, including associated commercial development of real estate; placing on the automatic route FDI upto 100 per cent in drugs and pharmaceuticals (with some exceptions); and opening up of the defence industry sector upto 100 per cent for domestic private sector participation with FDI permitted up to 26 per cent, both subject to licensing. Another important sector being taken up for competitiveness study is the leather industry, which is a major foreign exchange earner for the country. These studies are expected to be finalised shortly and the recommendations will be shared with the industry as a major step towards helping the industry become internationally competitive in the post-QR era. Although the rate of growth of the Indian industry during the year had been low due to the general economic slowdown, there are signs that the growth rate is picking up, with the CMIE estimating that the country’s industrial growth rate in the second half of the current fiscal (October 2001-March 2002) is likely to be 4.6 per cent which is twice the growth rate of 2.3 per cent in the first half of the year. The government made several policy interventions during the year to improve the industrial environment, including reduction in bank rate and CRR by half percentage point by the RBI to further ease liquidity in the system; and announcement of incentives for improvement in roads, power, telecommunications and ports which should increase the aggregate demand. As a result of the various measures, consumer durables, electricity, cement and steel sectors have shown buoyancy in recent months. Growth in non-oil imports during
October 2001 also signals improvement in demand. With the various policy interventions by the government and a better monsoon leading to increase in the rural demand, it is expected that industrial production will improve in the coming months. The government had also during the year allowed on automatic route the FDI upto 100 per cent in all manufacturing activities in Special Economic Zones (SEZs) except for some activities; permitted FDI upto 74 per cent for telecom services such as Internet services providers with gateways, radio paging and end-to-end bandwidth subject to licensing and security requirements and several initiatives relating to the non-banking financial companies (NBFCs). Some of the major FDI policy initiatives taken during the year 2000 including the easing of norms for payment of royalty have contributed to the recent upward trend in FDI inflows. On the industrial front, the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), in a major initiative to improve the competitiveness of the Indian industry, has worked out the modalities for carrying out studies to upgrade competitiveness of the Indian paper, cement and capital goods industries. The Central Pulp and Paper Research Institute, Saharanpur, which has been asked to carry out a study in respect of the paper industry, has approached McKinsey, Accenture and Jakko Poyry for studies on the pulp and paper industry. The National Council for Cement and Building Materials is negotiating for a similar study with PriceWaterhouseCoopers, KPMG, Arthur Anderson and Boston Consultancy. The Central Manufacturing Technology Institute have already finalised with the PriceWaterhouseCoopers to do a study on the global competitiveness of the
Indian electrical and machine tools industry which will focus on the capital goods sector.
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Maruti valuation report by Jan-end New Delhi, December 26 “We have already appointed three valuers for Maruti, the valuation report is expected by January-end,” Heavy Industries Minister Manohar Joshi told reporters here. Three valuers had been appointed by the government last month for Maruti disinvestment — KPMG, Ernst and Young, and S.B Billimoria. Asked if the Maruti disinvestment process would be completed this fiscal, Joshi said, “it may be possible but it depends on the disinvestment department”. On the auto policy, Joshi said, “the auto policy is already in
advanced stage of formulation and we expected the policy to be announced in the next two-three months”. “Some of the provisions of the policy such as those pertaining to import of second hand cars were already dealt with in the Exim policy,” he said while not ruling out announcements of other provisions of the policy in the forthcoming Union Budget. The minister also said that in order to upgrade testing facilities in the auto sector, the department would soon set up two new testing facilities, one in the north and one in the south entailing a cost of Rs 750 crore. Commenting on the auto dispute case in the WTO, Joshi said, “we have not really lost the case but the government has taken a decision not to pursue the case further”.
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Nasscom to debate strategies for IT New Delhi, December 26 “In order to maintain a stable growth of over 30 per cent post 2001-02, the sessions at Nasscom 2002 have been designed to help the industry identify and tap new market sessions on topical areas such as mergers and acquisitions, product development, bio-informatics, disaster recovery, and capacity planning,” a Nasscom release said here. The four-day event which will be inaugurated on February 5, in Mumbai, will address three critical aspects of the IT industry — India in global IT landscape; emerging opportunities in vertical segments and business domain; and challenges and opportunities in the domestic market. Another highlight of the event will be the much-awaited preview of the Nasscom-McKinsey study. “Although the industry has very strong fundamentals, the current economic situation demands the need to restrategise growth strategy. The sessions at “Nasscom 2002” have been designed to help the industry identify and tap new market opportunities both domestic and international,” Kiran Karnik, President of Nasscom, said in a statement here. “Nasscom 2002” will debut special events such as CIO forum, technology summit and a special country perspective forum to explore and identify opportunities in new emerging markets such as Latin America, Europe and the Asia Pacific. The event is expected to bring together 400 companies and close to 1,000 delegates from India and overseas.
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Govt to expedite changes in IDBI Act New Delhi, December 26 “IDBI” is looking at various options and is in touch with the Ministry. We will be taking appropriate actions including changes in IDBI Act. The IDBI Act is being looked at not only from the point of view of changing it into a universal bank but also from other points of view,” Sinha told PTI in an interview here. The government is “expediting” the process, he said, adding legislative changes in the country was more complex now than it was in the past. Mr Sinha also said that setting up of Asset Reconstruction Company for recovering non-performing assets of weak banks, has been finalised. On the need for recapitalisation of weak banks, he said “now it is minimum in view of the creditable improvement of their performance, including that of Indian Bank.” Justifying IDBI’s demand for becoming a universal bank, Sinha said “economic liberalisation has blurred the distinction between a purely term lending institution and a working capital lending bank. So the dividing line between FIs and banks has vanished.” But at the same time, Indian FIs have lot of experience in term lending, Sinha said adding “that should continue. That expertise should not be given up.” “FIs have a feeling that they do not have a recourse to cheaper funds which banks have recourse to. Therefore, there has been mismatch in their lending programmes. Clearly, this need to be corrected,” Sinha said. He favoured the notion that FIs should be allowed to lend for short-term working capital requirements as it was the case with banks.
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SBP sets 30 cr for technical upgradation New Delhi, December 26 Mr A K Purwar, Managing Director of the bank, said that the bank has earmarked an investment of Rs 30 crore for the initiative. The technology upgradation programme is also aimed at enhancing its reach of modern banking products such as telebanking, internet banking, anywhere banking and automated teller machines etc. The bank plans to install 50 ATMs by the end of current financial year and computerisation of over 400 branches. |
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India, Pak trade losses put at 500 cr Amritsar, December 26 Mr Rajesh Setia, said keeping in view the national interest they would like face the hard decision to discontinue Rs 500 crore annual trade with Pakistan. The city exports condiments like cardamom, ginger, spices, soyabean, cycle and sewing machine parts, sugar green tea and fresh vegetables. It imports dry fruits, rock salt, etc. |
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