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Iranian envoy: Change in government not to affect gas policy
New Delhi: The Iranian Deputy Oil Minister, M.H. Nejad Hosseinian, currently in the country to carry forward discussions on the proposed Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline, has said the change of Government in Iran later this year was unlikely to affect the gas policy of that country.

He was also hopeful that all parties would address the security concerns with regard to the project and the project framework would be finalised soon to enable its implementation from 2006.

After meeting the Union Petroleum Minister, Mani Shankar Aiyar, here today, ahead of the first joint working group meeting between the two countries, Hosseinian told presspersons, "The security issue has been discussed right from the beginning of the project. Different groups are working in different ways to address this and we are sure some solution for that would be created in the project structure."

Hosseinian is leading a high-level team for the first joint working group meeting between the two countries, while the Petroleum Secretary, S.C. Tripathi, is leading the Indian team.

Frequent talks have been going on between the two countries at the technical level to clear any legal, commercial, financial and technical issues related with the gas pipeline. The project is seen as being crucial to the interests of both India and Pakistan for meeting their energy security.

While agreeing that gas pricing could be an issue, the Iranian Minister said for any successful transaction, the price had to be viable for both the buyer and the seller. "Both sides should agree on that," he said.

He, however, clarified that gas pricing had not been discussed so far.

The two-day talks will finalise the roadmap and structure of the project to enable its implementation from 2006. The next round of bilateral talks between Iran and Pakistan will follow the talks in New Delhi, possibly by September-end.
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MPs demand greater relief for Maharashtra
New Delhi: Speaking about the plight of the people in Mumbai and other parts of Maharashtra hit by the unprecedented rains, members in the Lok Sabha today demanded immediate relief of Rs10,000 crore to the state from the Centre.

Raising the issue during Zero Hour, former union minister Suresh Prabhu, Shiv Sena, said there was no governance in Mumbai and the commercial capital was without power, water and other basic needs.

He termed efforts by the Disaster Management Group as a "disaster in management" and said Centre's promise of extending relief of Rs500 crore was totally inadequate.

Ramdas Athawale, RPI(A), said the Centre should extend relief to Mumbai and other parts of Maharashtra by treating this natural calamity on the same lines as tsunami.

He suggested each MP should contribute Rs10 lakh towards the relief and the Centre should give Rs10,000 crore as financial assistance.
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Country's exports set to rise 17 per cent to US$80bn
Kolkata: India is set to achieve seventeen per cent growth in its exports despite the massive rain striking the commercial capital of the country.

Participating in 'Award for Export Excellence (eastern region)', of Engineering Export Promotion Council (EEPC), S N Menon, commerce secretary, government of India (GoI), said, "Massive rain would effect export performance of the country for July only, but India would surely achieve the 17 per cent growth target for $80 billion exports in 2004-05."

Meanwhile, to promote growth and attract investment, the commerce ministry has cleared, on principle, 44 applications for setting up special economic zones (SEZ) out of which 25 were from very large Indian companies.

The commerce ministry will also be making a presentation to the 'economic advisory council to the prime minister with a few days to put forward the constraints faced by the export units of the country,

"A presentation would be made to the economic advisory council addressing issues like duty entitlement passbook scheme, value added tax (VAT) refund, issue faced by negative profit making export companies, and on other relevant issue," said Menon.

Referring to the misreporting of export-import data by business houses, Menon said, "The gap between actual and reported figures are in the tune of 30-40 per cent. It becomes extremely difficult for policy making and custom house agents and DGFT officials. The business houses should be trained for the same."
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Lok Sabha: Government working on a new spectrum policy
New Delhi: The Government is working on a new spectrum policy to make spectrum available for wireless services including Wi-fi, Wi-Max, 3G and beyond 3G technologies, the Lok Sabha was informed on Wednesday.

In a written reply to a question, the Minister of State for Communications and IT Shakeel Ahmad said to improve existing wireless technology in the country, it was being upgraded to 3G and the Government was working on a new spectrum policy.

He said the Centre for Development of Telematics and Alcatel have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to form a joint venture to set up global research centre in Chennai for Wi-Max.
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PAC hauls up Govt. on I-T refunds
New Delhi: The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) 2005-06 has asked the Government to spell out the specific steps taken by it to expedite the issuance of income-tax refunds.

In a report on `Refunds Under the Income-Tax Act, 1961' (15th report), the PAC has said that it was "dismayed" to find that the steps taken up by the Finance Ministry in pursuance of the committee's earlier observations and recommendations were too general and lacked specifics.

The committee had, in its earlier report, observed that the heavy outflow of Government revenue in the form of interest on refund to the assessees could have been avoided had the Finance Ministry paid greater attention to preventing computational mistakes and other procedural irregularities.

"The Action Taken Note does not contain any specific order, direction, circular number, etc., regarding the instructions given to field formations on the steps taken by the Government to strengthen the mechanism of checking of computation of refunds. The details of training, if held, have also not been furnished to the committee," said the report.
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Operations at JNPT and Mumbai ports pick up pace
Mumbai: With the rains beginning to subside in Mumbai, operations at the rain-affected Jawaharlal Nehru Port (JNPT) are limping back to normal.

Sources in JNPT said that the outward movement of cargo, which had been disrupted due to heavy flooding last week, is being gradually restored. However, the movement between Inland Container Depot and Container Freight Stations - which was affected due to a disruption in the rail link near Panvel - is yet to regain normalcy.

Container Corporation of India, on its part, has agreed to run more trains after the rail link is reopened to traffic; in the meantime, a larger chunk of the cargo is being moved by road.

Operations at the Mumbai port are also returning to normal, with about 20 vessels docked at the port currently.
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