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Mega power project status and other concessions for Dabhol
New Delhi: The empowered Group of Ministers (eGoM), headed by Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee, has decided to grant mega power project status to the Dabhol project. The government will also grant a host of fiscal concessions, such as duty free import of LNG to the US$2.94bn Dabhol power project in order to restart it by 2006-end.

The capital gains tax on transfer of assets from Dabhol Power Co to the newly formed SPV, Ratnagiri Gas and Power Pvt Ltd. has also been waived off.

RGPPL, promoted by gas firm GAIL and power utility National Thermal Power Corp (NTPC), have been tasked to complete the unfinished portion of the power plant and restart the project by end of 2006.

The waiver of import duty would help bring down the cost of fuel and enable power generation at Rs2.30 per unit, while granting the mega power project status would also enable Dabhol to benefit from tariff concessions on imported capital equipment required to complete the 1,444 MW phase-II and LNG facilities.
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Tata Steel to acquire another plant in S. East Asia
Jamshedpur: After acquiring NatSteel Asia, Tata Steel Limited is looking to take over one more steel plant in South East Asia apart from investing Rs1,00,000 crore to set up three green-field projects in India, besides doubling capacity of the one at Jamshedpur.

"We are going for one more acquisition in South East Asia which will be finalised in another three to four months," company managing director, B Muthuraman, said here today.

Without divulging any further details, he said that the plant they propose to acquire has a capacity of about two million tonne per annum. The company had earlier acquired NatSteel Asia with a similar capacity.
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Set back for Tata Tele as Walky declared a mobile service
New Delhi: In a major blow to Tata Tele- Services, TDSAT on Friday said that the company's fixed wireless service Walky was akin to a mobile service. This order would force the company to pay about Rs300 crore as access deficit charge (ADC) to BSNL.

Officials of BSNL, a telecom PSU, said that as per the prevailing traffic pattern, it expected that the total outstanding ADC from Tata Tele-Services and other service providers would be about Rs450 crore from such services.

Besides the Tatas, there are other operators positioned as fixed wireless service providers, but offering WLL (M), the PSU said.

According to BSNL estimates, MTNL also owes about Rs40 crore for offering its 'Garuda' fixed wireless phones, which are positioned as fixed phones but actually operating as WLL (M) phones.

Disallowing the TTSL's petition, the order said: "Walky should not be regarded as anything else but WLL (M). As per licensing conditions, fixed wireless service has to be provided within the subscriber premises, wherever it is not, it has to be treated a s WLL (M)."

Today's decision of TDSAT strengthens the Department of Telecom's (DoT) order last month that fixed wireless phones installed across the country from 2001 onwards be treated as a limited mobile service.

There are 60 lakh FWP subscribers in the country.
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Maruti diesel cars to roll out by next year end
New Delhi: Maruti Udyog Ltd on Friday said that it was all set to roll out diesel cars by 2006 end.

"The diesel car market has been growing in India in recent years. Suzuki Motor Corp is known for petrol engine technology and does not manufacture diesel engines. It obtained diesel engine technology largely to meet the requirements of Indian customers,"

MUL Chairman S Nakanishi told the company shareholders.
He said that the diesel engine plant would come up by end of 2006, strengthening Maruti's leadership in passenger cars. The company is investing in a new car plant and an engine and transmission plant at Manesar, Haryana.

Maruti, which currently has production facilities to manufacture 6 lakh cars a year, reported a 19.7 per cent growth in sales to Rs11,353.8 crore in 2004-05 while profit jumped 57.5 per cent to Rs853.6 crore.

The firm has also drawn out an ambitious programme for new model launches in the next five years, he said but did not elaborate.
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NASSCOM: Indian IT companies should target predictive analytics
Chennai: The Indian IT and ITES industry, which has created a name for itself in the global market, should now look at offering customers services like 'predictive analytics', NASSCOM President Kiran Karnik said on Friday.

"There is huge opportunity for Indian companies to get into predictive analytics to create new products," he said addressing the two day IT & ITES summit, "connect 2005", organised jointly by the Confederation of Indian Industry and Tamil Nadu government.

He urged the industry to move to the next layer of pyramid, data warehousing as the business information potential was huge. "If you want to create a product, go deep into data warehousing, build business information and do predictive analytics," he said.

For predictive analytics, companies should have people with high-end skills in mathematics, econometric, demography and domain knowledge, he added. The Nasscom chief said the country was uniquely placed to tap the opportunity in 'predictive analytics' as it had phenomenal mathematical skills.

While India had made in-roads into the business information and data warehousing segments in some forms, it had to go beyond knowledge process outsourcing as currently, the scenario was not restricted to outsourcing alone. Combination of intellectual property rights with services being provided outside had to be given thrust, he said.
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ACC to merge Bargarh Cements with itself
Mumbai: Associated Cement Companies Ltd (ACC) on Friday said it would amalgamate Bargarh Cements Ltd with itself.
The shareholders at a meeting have approved the scheme of amalgamation of Bargarh Cement Ltd with the company, with the requisite majority.

The company also informed that Amitabh Ghosh and N A Soonawala have tendered their resignations from the board of directors.

Cyril S Shroff has also submitted his resignation from the board, it added.
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India's first R&D centre for broadband and Wi-Max technology inaugurated
Chennai: India's first ever R&D centre for broadband and Wi-Max Technology, "C-DOT-Alcatel Research Centre" (CARC) was inaugurated here on Friday. Former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and DMK President, M Karunanidhi inaugurated the center in the presence of Union IT and communications minister, Dayanidhi Maran and Alcatel CEO, Serge Tchuruk.

Tchuruk said this was the first specialised R&D Centre for Wi-Max globally and was expected to make profits after five years.
This wireless broadband R&D Centre, with 51 per cent equity from French telecom major Alcatel and 49 per cent from C-DOT, was set up at a cost of Rs212 crore.

As a global research centre, CARC would undertake R and D work on 801-16E Standards of Wi-Max technology.

The CARC would initially work on broadband wireless solutions on Wi-Max (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) technology suitable for rural areas and would help in faster implementation of e-governance, e-education, e-health, e-agriculture an d tele-medicine initiatives in the rural sector.

While Alcatel would deal with the marketing of CPE technology worldwide, in India it would be given on royalty to all telecom companies by C-Dot.

"Not only BSNL and MTNL, all the telecom companies such as Airtel, Aircel and Hutch will benefit by this," he added.
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