New Pharma policy announced
New Delhi: The government announced the pharmaceutical policy for 2002 which lays down a two-tier criterion for regulation of prices and spells out measures for boosting indigenous research and development.

As per the policy, a bulk drug will come under price control if its total moving annual turnover is more than Rs 25 crore and market share of manufacturer is 50 per cent or more.

According to the second condition, a drug will come under control, if the total MAT value is less than Rs 25 crore but more than Rs 10 crore and market share of any of the formulator is 90 per cent or more.

ORG-MARG data on sales turnover of drugs of March 2001 will form the basis of determining the span of price control as suggested by drug price control review committee set up in 1999.
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India underutilising bandwidth
Mumbai: The availability of Internet bandwidth in India has shot up in recent years, but its usage is far below supply as Internet penetration has not kept pace, according to the National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom).

India had 1.2 gigabytes per second of international bandwidth in October 2001, but its use by Internet Service Providers was much lower, according to Nasscom's strategic review of the information technology sector for 2002.

Nasscom says most ISPs are not profitable and many are undercapitalised and therefore are loath to spend on improving infrastructure and prone to cutting corners by loading more subscribers onto limited facilities.

Indian Internet users spend about Rs 30 an hour of connectivity, out of which Rs 24 goes to the telecom service provider and only six to the ISP, Nasscom says.

The actual cost per subscriber to the ISP is Rs 14-16, which means that in the race for market share, most ISPs end up subsidising the user.

Of the 470 licensed ISPs in 2001, only 130 are operational and only one -- Videsh Sanchar Nigam, which is also the country's overseas telephony monopoly -- is reportedly profitable in the financial hub of Mumbai, Nasscom said.
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Govt receives 150 bids for 9 ITDC hotels
New Delhi: The government has received as many as 150 bids for nine hotels of Indian Tourism Development Corporation with each of the aspirant paying Rs 40,000 for participation in the privatisation process.

The government would start due deligence exercise for the hotels including those in Jaipur, Bhubaneshwar and Kovalam next week.

Amongst the hotels on the block are the ones at Calicut, Jaipur, Khajuraho, Patna and Ahmedabad.
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Easy exit rules set for ISPs
New Delhi: The government unveiled an easy exit route for Internet service providers that haven't started operations despite holding a government licence to do so.

The government said in a statement that firms could surrender their licences without starting services by paying a small fee.

The surrender charges would be equivalent to five percent of the performance bank guarantee amount.

India had some 470 licensed Internet access providers in 2001, but only 130 of them are operational.
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ISRO plans health satellite
Chennai: Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has plans to develop a health satellite.

ISRO launched the Apollo-Sriharikota tele-medicine project that establishes telemedicine connectivity between Apollo Hospitals, Chennai, and SHAR Centre Hospital of ISRO at Sriharikota using INSAT satellite.

This was a prototype experiment and once fine-tuned with inputs from users, it could be replicated in other places. In the course of the project, ISRO will be identifying the key requirements for telemedicine on a national scale.

Under a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between ISRO and Apollo Hospitals Telemedicine Enterprise Ltd, ISRO will provide necessary satellite communication infrastructure, including transponder capacity.