Delhi HC says hospitals an industry
New Delhi—According to the Delhi High Court a hospital is an industry and should be governed by the Industrial Employment Act.
Justice Vikramjit Sen said while rejecting Indraprastha Medical Corporation’s (Apollo Hospital) recent petition challenging a notification by the city government about applicability of Industrial Employment (Standing Order) Act, 1946, "In my opinion it must be kept foremost in mind that the hospital is avowedly an industry and that if it was to be excluded from being considered as an industrial establishment, the onus of making good the exclusion only rested with the petitioner (management)."
The court has directed Apollo Hospital to file with the certifying authority of Delhi government relevant documents that had been demanded by it through a letter on July 11 to place before it management’s standing order, which governs its relations with the employees.
The hospital management had challenged the notification on the ground that hospitals were not covered under the government’s Industrial Employment (standing Orders) Act.
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Food processing park in Kerala nears completion
New Delhi-- The Kerala Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation has come up with a 60-acre park at Kakkacherry in Malappuram district in Kerala. The park, set up with an investment of Rs 36 crore to provide in-house facilities to processors and bridge the food infrastructure gap in the state, is near completion and land allotment to entrepreneurs has begun.
Sources said that while developed land is being allotted on 90 years lease hold, built-up modules are being offered on monthly lease rent. The thrust areas of the park would be dairy products, curry powder, pickles and coconut and spice products.
Its dedicated power supply, continuous treated water, effluent treatment plant, quality control lab, cold storage, research and design and communication facilities would not only help boost exports, but also the market for processed food in the country itself. 
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Gartner predicts shakeout in the e-commerce marketplace
New Delhi-- Gartner Consulting of the US has forecast a bloodbath in the business-to-business e-marketplace during the next one year, with 90 per cent of the dotcom companies unlikely to survive. From 2002-03, things will, however, start looking up.
Although passing through disillusionment, e-business is not dead. However, the current economic downturn would force user organisation to focus and define their e-business investments better than ever before, it said.
Gartner is planning to do an in-depth multi-client study to examine the e-business market in Asia-Pacific.
The study, which is to begin in July 2001, would examine the demand for software applications, consulting, network resources, installation and other technical and professional services to users in Asia-Pacific.
The results of the study are scheduled for release by October 2001.
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India becoming outsourcing destination for animation studios
Hyderabad-- Major animation studios and producers in the US including Warner Brothers, Mattel, Mirage and Sony are more and more looking to outsource their animation job works from new markets like India and China.
As the volume of work drops due to changing preferences of children in viewing networks, channels or networks are forced to bring down the licence fee. Here, India and China’s advantage of low production costs could be a boon to the domestic animation industry as the cost of making an animation episode in India would be about one-sixth to that of project costs in the US.

Sony for one says it wants to outsource work from India. Senior executives of Warner Brothers, Mirage and other major studios have also been visiting Indian studios in the recent past to gauge the market.
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FMCG sector in bad shape as retail sales drop
Mumbai-- According to a recent survey on retail sales pattern, April was one of the worst months for the FMCG sector over the last one-year.

Analysts say that not only have sales flattened, but a persistent weak trend in economy and subdued consumer sentiments are likely to impact topline of most of the companies.
The latest ORG Marg data, says that retail sales in April 2001 were flat at 0.6 per cent growth year-on-year against a 2.8 per cent growth in March and a 4.7 per cent growth in February.

FMCG companies like Britannia, SmithKline and Nestle have been impacted and the worst hit is HLL as it has been targeting the rural market in order to boost sales. Colgate and Cadbury, on the other hand, have maintained their previous trend.
The poor growth numbers are due to a continuing weak rural economy and poor consumer sentiment. It is expected that a good monsoon may trigger higher growth in sales.
HLL witnessed the highest retail sales decline of 4.7 per cent in April. Soaps and tea contributed the most to the decline. Nestl’s retail sales grew by a mere 0.6 per cent, during April, the lowest in the last 12 months. The company’s price cut strategy seems to be running out and comparisons are becoming tougher. Hence there was a negative growth in coffee (-2 per cent) and chocolates (-3.5 per cent), for the first time in 12 months.
Maggi noodle is growing at a slower rate than before. Growth is down to single digits from the 20s. Colgate has maintained its growth rate on the back of new lower priced product launches and is growing at a 3 to 4 per cent rate. Among others, Cadbury reported the highest growth in retail sales, up 5.4 per cent. Britannia, for the first time in a year, witnessed a marginal decline in biscuit sales, while SmithKline too had to contend with lower sales growth in April.
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Floater Mediclaim policies terminated
Mumbai-- State general insurance companies have terminated the loss-making Mediclaim policies issued under floater basis to large companies.

Insurers say that now companies will have to pay additional premium to make the cover "viable," if they want the policies to continue.

In a floater policy, a family is considered a single unit and the risk coverage in terms of premium paid is calculated based on the primary unit member, which means a family with any number of dependents pays just an additional 10 per cent for every member in or even just a flat 10 per cent additional premium for the entire group of dependent members.

The decision to discontinue policies issued on floater basis was taken at a meeting of the General Insurers’ (public sector) Association of India (Gipsa) last month.

In cases where this was not possible due to market pressure, it was decided that "floater loading for individual members of the family should be arrived at after consultation with an actuary and should be complied with uniformly by all the companies."
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