Govt. orders inquiry into Centaur deal
Mumbai: In a statement made in the Parliament, Finance Minister P Chidambaram has said that the sale of the Centaur Juhu and Centaur Airport in Mumbai will be looked into.

However, the details regarding the nature and scope of inquiry are yet to be decided.

Last week the Comptroller and Auditor General of India's report had said that there were irregularities in the sale of the two hotels, which had been sold during the NDA government.

The Left parties have been asking for a CBI enquiry into the whole issue.
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Aiyar rules out fuel price hike in the near future
New Delhi: Union Petroleum minister, Mani Shankar Aiyar has ruled out an immediate hike in the prices of petroleum products saying, ''Such a big political and economic decision cannot be taken by my Ministry. It has to be approved by the entire cabinet.''

The minister said he had already sought a date for a cabinet meeting on this issue and was still awaiting a reply from the cabinet secretariat on the proposed date of the meeting. He said he had almost completed dialogue with the UPA partners on this issue and prepared a detail report for the consideration of the Union Cabinet.
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India's FY05 oil import bill up 40 per cent
New Delhi: Oil and Petroleum Ministry officials have indicated that India's FY05 crude oil imports stand at 95.86 million tonnes, up 6% year on year. Meanwhile, the FY05 total oil import bill was at Rs1.17 trillion, up 40% from last year.

Product imports for FY05 were at 8.87 million tonnes, up 11% from last year. Total oil imports were at 104.73 million tonnes, up 6.4% year on year.

The country's oil product exports in the year were at 17.62 million tonnes, up 20.5 year on year.
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Chandigarh to set up SEZs for IT, BPO
Chandigarh: The Union Territory administration of Chandigarh has decided to set up a number of Special Economic Zones, SEZs by way of boosting IT exports, BPO services, electronic/computer hardware, biotechnology and nano-technology.

The policy aims at promoting exports from Chandigarh in various fields, including information technology, information services, business processing outsourcing, BPO, services, software services, electronic hardware/computer hardware, biotechnology/nanotechnology, services sectors like financial services and tourism.

The SEZ scheme is being implemented in various parts of the country by state governments with the concurrence of the government of India, to promote export promotion zones where economic growth and development would take place at a rapid rate and employment generation in large numbers would occur.
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Inflation dips to 5.67 per cent
New Delhi: After rising for four consecutive weeks, inflation fell marginally by 0.24 per cent to 5.67 per cent in the week ended April 30 mainly due to cheaper food and some of the manufactured products such as edible oils.

The widely tracked point-to-point Wholesale Price Index (WPI) inflation fell from the previous week's level of 5.91 per cent and it was 4.60 per cent in the year ago period.

The WPI rose by 0.1 per cent to 192.1 points due to surge in the index of heavy-weighted manufactured products even as fuel prices remained unchanged. The index was 181.8 points in the year ago period.

The Government revised upwards inflation to 5.46 per cent during the week ended March 5, as compared to provisional estimate of 5.30 per cent. The WPI stood corrected at 189.2 points during the first week of March against provisional level of 188.9 points.
The index of Primary Articles' group was down by 0.1 per cent to 188.5 points mainly due to cheaper food articles even as non-food items became costlier. The index was 185.8 points in the year-ago period.

Food Articles' group index fell by 0.2 per cent to 190.3 points due to lower prices for eggs (five per cent) and wheat and fruits (one per cent each), while prices of fish-marine and urad rose by two per cent each and barley by one per cent.

The index of non-food articles' group was up by 0.2 per cent to 179.4 points due to costlier raw rubber (four per cent), sunflower and groundnut seed (two per cent each) and safflower and raw silk (one per cent each).

The index of manufactured products' group rose by 0.2 per cent to 170.8 points due to costlier food products, chemicals, non-metallic minerals, basic metals and transport equipment. The index was 162 points in the year-ago period.
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Foreign tourist arrivals cross 3 mn
Bangalore: Foreign tourist arrivals in India crossed 3 million last year with South India emerging as the preferred destination with 65 per cent of the 3.26 million foreign tourists who came to India in 2004 visiting South India.

With it's rich cultural hertiage sites like the Vijaynagar ruins of Hampi, the Niligiri ranges, the backwaters and beaches of Kerala, South India has become a favoured destination for foreign tourists.

Both Europe and South India have rich cultural traditions and this two-way tourist traffic is natural.
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'VAT not inflationary so far'
New Delhi: The Government has said that it has not observed any inflationary pressure due to introduction of VAT by majority of States but added a word of caution that the new tax could lead to price rise if manufacturers do not pass benefits of input tax credit to the next stage.

A key Finance Ministry official speaking at the sidelines of a seminar also cleared the confusion relating to maximum retail prices, stating that MRP is inclusive of VAT except in pharma. However, if manufacturers do not pass benefits of input tax credit to the distribution stage, VAT could increase prices, he cautioned.

Just before implementation of VAT on April 1, the inflation rate stood at 5.05 per cent in the week ended March 26, and rose to 5.26 per cent in seven days ended April 2, 5.48 per cent for April 9, 5.64 per cent for April 16 and 5.91 per cent for April 23.
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Car sales up 13.6 per cent in April
New Delhi: Domestic car sales rose 13.6 per cent to 63,930 units in April from 56,255 in the year-ago month, the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) said today.

However, sales of commercial vehicles, or trucks and buses combined, fell 14.7 per cent to 16,879 units in the past month, down from 19,783 in April 2004.

Motorcycle sales in April jumped 26 per cent to 4,38,273 units from 3,48,139 in the corresponding period last year, SIAM added.

Automobile sales grew by 15.9 per cent in the year ended March 31, 2005 to 78,96,475 vehicles, including sales of passenger cars, two-wheelers and commercial vehicles, against 6,810,537 vehicles sold in 2003-04. Passenger car sales in March were up 18.5 per cent at 89,493 units as against 75,476 units a year ago.
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