Ratan Tata: India lost "chance to be factory of the world"
New Delhi: Tata Group chief Ratan Tata has regretted that India is not world class in manufacturing and has lost the "chance to be the factory of the world."

"That opportunity appears to have gone to China, and since then, to some other Asian countries," he has said in a hard-hitting interview to the Businessworld magazine.

Tata blamed the protected environment in the country as being responsible for the production of goods that were not up to consumer's aspirations. Ratan Tata has listed Toyota, Intel, Sony, LG and Samsung as being amongst the companies he admires the most.

Ratan Tata, was sceptical about India emerging among the majors in the manufacturing sector saying, "my sense is that we lost that opportunity." He said "for India to come into that, it has to move very fast. It has to be able to grasp technology and that takes time ...The question is whether the world will stand still while that happens. It will keep moving and India will have to move faster," he said.

Tata, on the other hand, said India had the advantage in areas where inputs had a higher knowledge base and higher engineering skills but "are not necessarily innovative."
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Illegal call routing: Reliance says DoT charges not specific
New Delhi: Reliance Infocomm has asked the government to reconsider the penalty imposed on it on charges of illegal routing of international calls, saying the Telecom Ministry's action was "misconceived and unjustified."

DoT imposed a penalty of Rs150 crore on Reliance for violating the licence conditions by routing incoming international calls as local ones, which led to evasion of Access Deficit Charge (ADC), a levy paid by private operators to BSNL for rural telecom operations.

In its reply to DoT, Reliance said "despite repeated requests, DoT has so far not provided particulars of the alleged violations of the licence conditions with any specificity.

The two telecom PSUs, BSNL and MTNL, have raised a demand of over Rs550 crore towards ADC dues on Reliance, of which the company has paid Rs182.7 crore to BSNL on the instruction of the Supreme Court.
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Tata Motors gets $18 million bus order from Senegal
Mumbai: Tata Motors has bagged an $18 million order to supply 350 buses to Senegal and another order of Rs55 crore to supply 1,070 bus chassis to various state transport corporations in Karnataka.

The order to supply buses to Senegal has been sanctioned by the Union Finance Ministry through EXIM Bank under New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) scheme, a press release issued by the company said.

The first shipment will move out to Senegal in the first week of February.

"This order for 350 buses comes to us as an encouragement at a time when we are looking at boosting our presence in Francophone West Africa. The company has helped in the setting up of a bus assembly unit in Senegal last year," Tata motors head of international business, commercial vehicle business unit PG Shankar said.

The company has another order worth Rs 55 crore for 1070 bus chassis from various State Transport Corporations in Karnataka.

The orders for the Tata Euro II bus chassis have been placed by Bangalore Metropolitan TC (BMTC), Karnataka State Road Transportation Corporation (Central), North West KRTC and North East KRTC.

"Based on our success with this order, we expect our share of business with the Karnataka State Transport Corporations to grow from 37 per cent in 2003-04 to over 60 per cent on a growing based," it said, adding, the complete order is to be executed till March 2005.
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Motorcycle sales up 51.6 per cent in Dec. '04
New Delhi: Figures released by the Society for Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) on Friday show a 51.6 per cent rise in motorcycle sales over December, 2004 and a 20.57 per cent jump in passenger vehicle sales.

Arch-rivals Hero Honda and Bajaj Auto closed 4.59 lakh sales together, crossing the 60,000 units-a-month rubicon to clock 60,156 units in the last month of 2004.

A little over three lakh motorcycles and 50,200 cars were sold in December 2003.

For the first nine months of the 2004-05 fiscal, motorcycle sales grew at 18.95 per cent (36.6 lakh units against 30.82 lakh units in April-December 2003). Passenger cars grew 22.02 per cent since April, with 5.9 lakh units against 4.84 lakh in the same period last year.

Hyundai Motor India, the second-biggest car maker, sold 61 per cent more cars in December (19,929 units) and its domestic sales alone were up 99 per cent in the month, to touch 12,430 units.

Market leader Maruti Udyog saw sales below the market rate, at 18.2 per cent (43,828 units). Domestic sales of the flagship Maruti 800 rose 11.4 per cent, crossing 37,100 units.

Scooters, scooterettes and mopeds sold 41.57 per cent domestically in December 2004. Honda Motorcycles and Scooters India (HMSI) saw sales grow 7.85 per cent to 70,000 units.

Commercial vehicles grew at the overall market rate, with a sales rise of 20 per cent (29,486 units against 24,562 units in December 2003).

In the first nine months of 2004, commercial vehicle sales grew even faster, at 25.51 per cent, clocking 2.23 lakh units against last year's 1.77 lakh units over April-December.
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Esteem marks entry into government car segment
New Delhi: Ambassador's reign as the pre-dominant government car has now come under threat with the Directorate General of Supplies and Disposal (DGS&D) approving Maruti Esteem as an "official staff car" in the non-airconditioned category.

Hindustan Motors' Ambassador had a competitor only in the AC segment, where DGS&D had allowed Esteem AC for officials of the rank of additional secretary and above. Maruti announced it would produce the Esteem Standard variant exclusively for the government at a negotiated ex-factory contract price of Rs3.08 lakh.
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Tata Tea relaunches Tetley
Mumbai: Tata Tea has relaunched the Tetley tea brand by giving it a fresh look, and adding more flavours in an effort to capture a larger slice of the market. The Tatas acquired Tetley in 2000 and introduced the brand in India in February 2002

Tetley has a market share of less than one per cent in value terms. The re-launched Tetley comesalong with the tag line "Tetley--the new expression of tea." Positioned in the premium segment, Tetley has been launched in customised flavoured tea bags --lemon, masala and ginger and Earl Grey.

The fourth variant, Earl Grey is one of the popular flavours worldwide.

The attempt is to improve volumes of the brand and taking Tetley to the mainstream consumer. Tetley, known as the pioneer in introducing tea bags is also available in regular packs. However, tea bags account for a minuscule share of the 700 million kg tea market in India.
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Mohan Meakin to launch airline
New Delhi: Kapil Mohan of Mohan Meakin has announced the launch of a new low-cost domestic airline, Indus Airways. The airline is being launched in association with three other businessmen - Krishna Gopal Beri of Beri & Beri Cold Storage and General Mills, P Lakhanpall, a London-based Indian and Baldev Seth, a garment exporter.

The operations of the new airline will be managed by former senior pilots of a public sector carrier.

Indus Airways, which has received the required government approvals, is expected to commence services in April. The carrier is expected to inter-connect northern Indian cities and later operate on the trunk routes with leased aircraft.

"The company has already got all the necessary clearances and is now awaiting the final nod of the civil aviation ministry. We hope to launch our services from April with five leased 50-seater Embraer RJ-145 aircraft," Mohan said at a press conference here.

He said Indus Airways will be a low-cost but all-frills carrier. Mohan also said the airline will have Chandigarh and Delhi as its main centres of operation, and inter-connect Jammu, Amritsar, Shimla and some other major northern cities.

At a later stage, the airline would start operations to Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai
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