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Ratan Tata discusses state power scenario with Deshmukh
Mumbai: Tata Group chairman, Ratan Tata, has met the Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh to explain Tata Power Company's (TPC) move to develop a 1,000 MW thermal project at Vele in Raigad district, and the repowering of the 500 MW unit at Trombay. Tata assured the chief minister that TPC would submit a detailed strategy in this regard to the government in the near future.

Tata also took the opportunity to suggest that the surplus capacity of captive power producers should be connected to the grid. This apart, the state should go in for single phasing, segregation of industrial feeders from other feeders and conversion of low tension to high voltage distribution system.
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Infosys Consulting to ramp up staff strength
Mumbai: Infosys Technologies Ltd plans to ramp up the staff strength at its wholly owned US-based subsidiary, Infosys Consulting, to 500 from the existing 100 by March 2007.

"The consulting initiative is doing very well. Over the last one year the five-member team has been able to create a larger team of 100 and this could go up to 500 by March 2007," Nandan Nilekani, CEO, President and Managing Director, Infosys, said.

Infosys maintains that the outlook for the first quarter of 2005-2006 would be flat. "But the year is expected to end with a 28-30 per cent growth in dollar terms," Nilekani said.

Nilekani also said that Infosys was able to maintain its prices and improve them in the case of new clients.
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RIL to supply gas for Dadri project
Mumbai: Anil Ambani, managing director and chairman of Reliance Energy Ltd (REL), has said that the company's Dadri power project will get gas from Reliance Industries.

Ambani was speaking at the annual general meeting of Reliance Energy.

REL, which has lined up power projects of up to 20,000 MW, has said its 3,740 MW Dadri project will be commissioned by 2008-09.
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IVRCL bags Rs.263 crore order
Hyderabad: IVRCL Infrastructures & Projects Ltd has announced that it has been awarded a project worth Rs263 crore for the construction, operation and maintenance, including strengthening and widening of the existing two-lane road for four-lane dual carriageway from 407.10 km to 456.10 km of NH-1 (Jalandhar-Amritsar section) in Punjab on build-operate-transfer (BOT) basis.

In a communiqué to stock exchanges on Wednesday, the company said the concession period was 20 years, including the construction period of two-and-a-half years.
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Tata Motors sets merger ratio with Tata Finance
Mumbai: Tata Motors's shareholders and creditors have approved the plan to merge Tata Finance Ltd with itself fixing the swap ratio at 8:100.

According to the merger scheme, Tata Finance shareholders will be allotted eight shares of Tata Motors in exchange of every 100 shares of the auto finance company, Tata Motors informed the Bombay Stock Exchange today.

The exchange ratio was based on a valuation undertaken by B S Metha & Co, which was further substantiated by a fairness report obtained from JM Morgan Stanley Pvt Ltd, it added.
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NCCL bags orders for Rs.200 crore
Hyderabad: Nagarjuna Construction Company Ltd (NCCL) has announced that it has secured three new orders, aggregating Rs200 crore, from various clients.

The company has informed the stock exchanges that the orders are from the Gujarat Water Resources Development Corporation for the construction of pipeline worth Rs149.19 crore, from the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Ltd for construction of Metro Bhavan at New Delhi (Rs41.9 crore) and from the Ministry of Defence for the construction of research laboratory at Hyderabad (Rs8.65-crore).
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Tata Tele to invest another Rs.375 crore in Tamil Nadu
Chennai: Tata Teleservices is planning to invest Rs375 crore in 2005-06 to expand its telecom services in Tamil Nadu, which would take its cumulative investment in the state to Rs1,475 crore.

The company intends to concentrate in the coming year on its mobile services, which is currently far behind its fixed wireless service in terms of subscriber demand. Company officials said that the aim during the year was to increase the subscriber base to about a million.

At present, about 3 lakh of its subscribers (75 per cent of the total) have chosen its fixed wireless plan. In the current year, Tata Tele plans to extend its coverage in TN to 300 towns.
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Williamson Tea: Khaitans make open offer for balance stake
Kolkata: After acquiring 70 per cent stake in Williamson Tea Assam Ltd at Rs170 per share from the London-based Magors on Monday, the Khaitans have made an open offer for a further acquisition of 20 per cent stake in that company.

The offer price has been fixed at Rs145 per share and ICICI Securities, which had advised the Khaitans on their recent acquisition, would manage it. The offer would be open from August 1-22, this year.

Apart from McLeod India Ltd, the Khaitans would be acquiring the 20 per cent stake through other investment arms of their group.
These are Williamson Magor & Co, United Machine Co Ltd, Ichamati Investments Ltd and Nithya Holdings & Properties Pvt Ltd.

In the open offer, the Khaitans hope to acquire 28.35 lakh equity shares of Williamson Tea Assam from the minority shareholders.
The payout on this account would be approximately at Rs41.10 crore.
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Hyundai lowers Santro prices
New Delhi: Hyundai Santro's three lower end models have been given an overhauling with the company saying these cars will have upgraded interiors. The prices of the cars have also been slashed by between Rs15,000 and Rs19,000.

The reduction comes by pruning the dealer margins, says Hyundai, since it wants to hit back at Maruti's aggressive pricing in smaller towns and the rural market.

The move comes soon after the successful launch of the Maruti Swift.
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Rs.150 crore expansion plans for Tata Coffee
Bangalore: Tata Coffee Limited plans to invest Rs150 crore on expansion, including setting up a coffee soluble plant either in Uganda or Vietnam, in the current financial year.

TCL is also exploring other possibilities for expansion, company officials said, but declined to elaborate. They have indicated that they expect the company's future growth to come from value addition and not from plantations.
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ONGC chief commissions Mumbai-Uran trunk pipeline
Mumbai: The 504-km long Mumbai High-Uran trunk pipeline was commissioned by Subir Raha, Chairman and Managing Director of the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), on Wednesday. He operated a valve at the control room of the MNW platform at Mumbai High, about 80 km off the coast of Mumbai, to mark the commissioning of the pipeline.

The sub-sea pipeline will replace the existing pipeline that transports oil and gas from Mumbai offshore to the onshore process complex at Uran for further processing and supply.

The pipeline originates at the MNW platform at a water depth of 72 m and touches the shore at the Uran landfall point.
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TCS develops tool in collaboration with Jaczone
Pune: Tata Consultancy Services has unveiled the MAP-WayPointer, which it has developed in collaboration with Jaczone, a Swedish based company.

Dr Ivar Jacobson, Founder-Chairman, and Chief Technology Officer, Ivar Jacobson International said that the MAP - WayPointer would enable automated use of Mapagile, the TCS requirement for application development.

Dr Ivar described the new product as active software, which would be sitting on top of the existing software and would guide the user at the micro level. It provides an on-line review of processes as well as automatic generation of important artifacts.
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Readership survey: Print medium reach rises to 200 mn
Mumbai: According to the National Readership Survey 2005, the reach of the print medium (dailies and magazines combined) has increased from 179 million to 200 million people in the last three years, Though the reach has fallen in urban India - from 48 per cent to 46 per cent - it has been made up for by rural area, where the reach of dailies and magazines increased from 17 per cent to 19 per cent on a larger population base.

The number of readers in rural India now almost equals that in urban India, with rising literacy rates, according to the survey released here on Wednesday.

According to the survey, the reach of magazines has declined from 86 million in 2002 to 69 million in 2005. Magazines have lost 19 per cent of their reach since 2002. The reader base for dailies, in fact, has increased from 155 million in 2002 to 176 million this year - a rise of nearly 14 per cent.

The time spent on reading has also gone up significantly - from 30 minutes to 39 minutes a day over the last three years. The increase is sharp both in urban India (from 32 to 42 minutes) and in rural India (from 27 to 35 minutes).

The most widely read daily is Dainik Jagran. Its nearest competitor Dainik Bhaskar has also grown. This is due to the fact that literacy levels have been going up in UP, Bihar and Jharkhand (the strong Dainik Jagran markets), the survey says.

Satellite TV too has grown exponentially in reach from 134 million viewers a week in 2002 to 190 million. Homes with access to C&S have jumped from 40 million in 2002 to 61 million. This growth figure of 53 per cent is far higher than the growth of the TV market.

C&S subscription has now penetrated 56 per cent of all homes with TV. Television now reaches 108 million Indian homes - a growth of 32 per cent since 2002.

Meanwhile, the reach of radio has stagnated with 23 per cent of the population listening to any station in a week. However, it has improved its performance in urban India, primarily due to FM. In rural India, the reach of radio has dropped from 25 per cent to 23 per cent in the past three years.

The number of Internet users above the age of 12 has increased to 11 million. About 34 per cent users now surf from their homes and 32 per cent from a cyber-cafe. Only 16 per cent of Internet users access it from their work place.

Mobile phones have also emerged as a new medium. About 13.9 per cent access value-added features such as downloads and this figure is higher at 24.7 per cent in the metros.
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Phone subscriber base up 2.3 mn
New Delhi: The number of telephone subscribers increased by 2.3 million in May to touch 102.5 million.

While 1.7 million new mobile subscribers came on board , 0.61 million new users chose the fixed line telephone, taking the total subscriber bases to 55.3 million and 47.1 million respectively.

Reliance Infocomm added the maximum number of subscribers in May with 4.75 lakh new users during the month, which includes both mobile and fixed line. Reliance had reported a decline in subscriber numbers in April.

Bharti with net addition of 4.43 lakh ranks second, followed by Tata Teleservices (2.6 lakh) and Hutch (2.3 lakh). Subscriber base in category A, B and C circles grew by 2.61per cent, 2.91per cent and 4.43 per cent respectively over the previous month while the Metro subscribers grew by 1.97 per cent.

Metros constitute 26.37 per cent of the total market. Circles A, B and C constitute 36.29 per cent, 31.03 per cent and 6.32 per cent of the total market respectively.
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Bharti launches new Blackberry model
New Delhi: Bharti Cellular Ltd and Research In Motion Ltd have announced the launch of BlackBerry 7100g business phone, targeted at mobile professionals and small businesses.

BlackBerry 7100g is a full-featured quad-band mobile phone that includes Bluetooth support and speakerphone with push-based wireless e-mail, SMS, Web browser and personal organiser, Bharti said in a statement.

The handheld has been priced at Rs 19,000 as an introductory offer.

Bharti Tele-Ventures had tied up with Research In Motion in October 2004 to bring BlackBerry products to India. . Bharti had earlier launched three Blackberry models - 7730, 7230 and 6230.
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Corporate performance: Tata Motors, Toyota
Tata Motors: Moderate sales growth in May
Mumbai: Tata Motors has said that its sales in May grew by a moderate 2.7 percent over the same period in the previous year. The company said it sold 30,589 vehicles last month, including exports.

Tata Motors sold 15,387 commercial vehicles like buses and trucks in May 2005, of which 13,333 were in the domestic market and 2,054 were sold overseas, said a company statement.

The company said the moderate growth in the sale of commercial vehicles in domestic and overseas markets were the result of a shortage of "certain critical items" last month. Tata Motors said it was working closely with suppliers to improve the situation.

In the cars segment, the company sold 14,005 units in the domestic market in May. Its exports for May rose to 3,251 units as against 1,651 in May 2004, representing a whopping growth of 97 percent.

Toyota: Innova sales cross 10,000 mark
Bangalore: Toyota Innova has posted sales of 10,096 units since its launch three months ago. It expects to sell over 6,000 units during this month.

According to company officials, they expect Innova to sell over 6,000 units this month. The top-end model, according to them was selling extremely well.

A press statement from Toyota-Kirloskar Motor said the company had sold 4,136 cars in May.

In the executive segment, Corolla sold 851 units, registering a 12 per cent increase over the corresponding period last year. Corolla's cumulative sales for April 2004-March 2005 stands at 9,942 units.
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