The government’s reaction came against president George Bush’s recent call to impose restraints on steel imports and proposing an investigation into unfair trade practices if any under the International Trade Commission.

Of the total 2.5 million exports of steel from India the US accounts for about 40 percent and the US government’s imposition of a 35 percent anti-dumping duty in January 2001 has come as a severe blow to the Indian steel industry

It is believed that Bush’s call for investigations into unfair trade practices came in response to the lobbying by integrated steel producers like Bethlehem Steel and US Steel.
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Nasscom mulls recast ahead of recruiting new chief
Mumbai—The national Association of Software Services Companies, NASSCOM, is planning to restructure itself. It is thus toying with two alternative structures. Firstly the software organisation does not see itself as a local lobbying body any longer and secondly it sees a number of challenges ahead in its recast plan.

This rethink follows the death of its most successful president -- Dewang Mehta -- earlier this year.
According to Harish Mehta, one of the co-founders of Nasscom and head of the committee in-charge of locating a successor for Dewang Mehta, "We are evaluating two structures. One is a consultancy kind of structure with managing partners and the other is a more hierarchical corporate structure with executive directors."

According to Mehta, the new structure will be finalised only after the new president of Nasscom has been selected.
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Internet telephony committee against opening of sector
New Delhi—Internet telephony has run into rough weather. This time the committee on Internet telephony has recommended to the Telecom Commission that the opening of this sector should be allowed only after opening up of international voice telephony.
It has also said that Internet Service Providers should not be permitted to offer Internet telephony.
Other suggestions of the committee are that a cost-based tariff be introduced and allowed to stabilise for a minimum period of one year and all types of Internet telephony like PC to PC, PC to phone and phone to phone should remain illegal till opening of internet telephony was permitted.
To introduce Internet telephony, the committee felt, India would have to invest substantially in building up international and national bandwidth.

The committee also recommended cost based tariffing before introducing internet telephony as long distance revenue was used to subsidise local access.

It also demanded regulating internet telephony in terms of quality of service, interconnection and numbering. The regulatory arrangements were to be worked out for interconnection in the case of internet telephony.
The committee had considered an option of a separate category of IP telephony service providers. It was felt that any new category of service providers would lead to technical problems such as interconnections, numbering, routing, charging and tariff plans which would be very difficult to sort out as the new service providers would have to interconnect with all the existing operators including NLDOs and might lead to litigations.
The committee on Internet telephony comprised officers from DoT, Telecom Engineering Centre, BSNL, VSNL and MTNL who reviewed and made recommendations regarding opening up of this sector.
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Domestic leasing and hire purchase firms may be in trouble
Mumbai--The 5 per cent service tax on leasing and hire purchase income, effective July, may end up killing the domestic leasing and hire purchase industry.

According to Mahesh Thakkar, executive director, Association of Leasing and Financial Companies, leasing companies work on a very low margin of 2-3 per cent. The imposition of service tax will reduce it further, making it virtually impossible to run leasing and hire purchase businesses.
ICICI and State Bank of India (SBI), the two aggressive players in this segment, may close their leasing businesses it has become unremunerative.
SBI accounts for about 50 per cent of the industry's business, while the rest is shared by ICICI and a clutch of NBFCs.
The industry's business volume had already slumped drastically from Rs 60,000 crore in 1998-99 to just around Rs 5,000-6,000 crore in 2000-01.
Sources say that this is all because the income-tax department's refuses to give depreciation benefits on financial leasing (a transaction where the lessor is the owner of the asset and gets the rental while the lessee bears the risk), a complex sales tax structure and the introduction of international accounting standards (IAS) 19 by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India with effect from April this year.
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ROI on WLL investments not before 10 years, says study
New Delhi--According to an ongoing study by US-based consultants Frost & Sullivan, companies investing in wireless in local loop, or WLL-based limited mobility services will not have smooth sailing from the financial point of view as recovering investments within a period of ten years seems a remote possibility.
The findings of the study arrived at after analysing a 10-year business model, covers the Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Delhi and Punjab circles.

The study, titled "Feasibility of Fixed Line Service Projects", says that WLL businesses would be profitable only if there are two players in the market with average revenue per unit (ARPU) close to that of GSM-based cellular services.
Says an analyst at Frost &Sullivan, this scenario is quite unlikely as all the lucrative circles are likely to have at least three players. Also, the WLL ARPUs will be significantly low against cellular ARPU as the WLL market, initially, is likely to be dominated by potential low-end wireless subscribers.
The study adds that the possibilities of transfer of subscribers from cellular to WLL are low due to two reasons - attractive GSM tariffs and the likely introduction of value-added services, which is possible due to the upgrading of networks.
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