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ONGC imbroglio: Dept. of Public Enterprises upholds Raha's contention
New Delhi: ONGC chairman Subir Raha's contention, that the number of Govt. directors on the ONGC board could not exceed two, has been upheld by the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE), which on Wednesday affirmed that their number could not exceed two.

"We stand by them (ONGC management)", said the minister for heavy industries and public enterprises, Santosh Mohan Dev.

Speaking here on the sidelines of a conference of CEOs of public sector enterprises, the minister said that the present rules permit a maximum of two Government directors on board of a PSU and ONGC already had two Government directors.

Oil and Natural Gas Corp chairman and managing director, Subir Raha had threatened to resign over what he termed as 'intimidation' by the petroleum ministry officials in pushing for appointment of V K Sibal, director general of Directorate General of Hydrocarbons and M S Srinivasan, special secretary, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.

The DPE officials stated that under the present rules the maximum number of Government directors on board of a PSU could be one-sixth of the total strength of the board or two, whichever is lower.

The opinion of the DPE is likely to put an end to the controversy as the Petroleum Minister, Mani Shankar Aiyar, had stated that he would abide by whatever the DPE recommended.
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Govt. mulls exit from Tide Water Oil and Maruti
New Delhi: The government on Wednesday stated that it is open to exiting Maruti Udyog Limited completely and is talking to Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) for selling its stake in Tide Water Oil.

"We are open to the sale of the remaining shares in Maruti and exit the company," the heavy industry minister, Santosh Mohan Dev said here.

Earlier this month, the Government had decided to sell eight per cent of the 18.28 per cent stake it holds in the company to financial institutions through competitive bidding.

After the Cabinet decision on the sale is implemented, the Government will be left holding 10.28 per cent in the company, which will be sold at a later date. The sale of eight per cent shares in the company is expected to net the Government around Rs1, 000 crore.

Dev said that ONGC was looking at taking over Tide Water Oil, a subsidiary of Andrew Yule and Company. Apart from Tide Water Oil, the Government is also planning to sell the electrical equipment business of Andrew Yule.

The sale of 2,28,390 shares that the Government holds in Tide Water Oil will fetch it a little more than Rs400 crore based on the current price of Tide Water Oil on the Bombay Stock Exchange.
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Tata Tele and Telcordia ink first major transformation deal in India
Piscataway, USA: Tata Teleservices, Ltd. has selected Telcordia to support its long-term evolution of prepaid and postpaid convergent solutions. The deal effectively jumpstarts the global telecommunication industry's move toward convergence.

As part of the three-year deal, valued at approximately US$20 million, Tata Teleservices will deploy the Telcordia ISCP system, an advanced service delivery platform that will support the roll-out of new converged prepaid and postpaid services. Telcordia Global Services will provide comprehensive consulting services and will program manage the solution integration into the existing Tata Teleservices network.

Tata Teleservices, which began few years ago as the first company in India to launch CDMA mobile services, continues to be at the forefront of technological roll-outs. With the India wireless market expected to grow five fold in the next four years to about 250mn in 2009, Tata Teleservices remains committed to operating a technologically superior, forward looking network.

Telcordia will partner with Openet Telecom, a leading provider of real-time charging and convergent mediation software solutions, and with Telesoft, a leading provider of Intelligent Peripherals (IP), on the project. Telcordia will also partner with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) to provide Systems Integration services.

Telcordia ISCP has revolutionized the way service providers deliver intelligent network services. Deployed worldwide, the ISCP system is the foundation of the deployment and management of advanced services by managing service creation, validation, interoperability, configuration, web-based service provisioning and management and fault detection and error recovery.

The recently announced addition of the advanced rating capabilities to the ISCP system provides carriers with greater freedom and flexibility in offering advanced services, such as mobile games, creating service packages, pricing offers and promotions, such as two-for-one ring tone downloads, holiday calling offers, or account sharing capabilities, that increase customer satisfaction and drive incremental revenues.

Tata Teleservices is one of India's leading private telecom service provider. The company offers integrated telecom solutions to its customers under the Tata Indicom brand, and uses the latest CDMA 3G1X technology for its wireless network. Tata Teleservices operates in 20 circles across India and has a customer base of over 5 million.

Tata Teleservices' bouquet of telephony services includes Mobile services, Fixed Wireless Phones, Public Booth Telephony, and Wireline services. The company, which heralded convergence technologies in the Indian telecom sector, is today the world leader in the fixed wireless telephony market with a total customer base of over 2.8 million

Telcordia Technologies, Inc. is a leading global provider of telecommunications network software and services for IP, wireline, wireless, and cable.
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Govt. accepts six bids for reconstruction of Delhi and Mumbai airports
New Delhi: Amid high drama, with two high-profile consortia dropping out over the last two days, and another one claiming physical intimidation to prevent submission of their bid, the government finally accepted six technical and financial bids for the modernisation and privatisation of the Delhi and Mumbai airports. The deadline for submitting the bids expired yesterday.

Five consortia - GMR-Fraport, Reliance-ASA (a Mexican airport operator), DS Construction-Munich Airport, Sterlite-Macquire Bank-Airport de Paris, and Essel group (Zee)-TAV (of Turkey) - bid for both Delhi and Mumbai airports. The GVK-South African Airport Operator combine bid only for Mumbai.

Essel's bid almost got rejected as its executives reached just minutes after the 5 pm deadline expired. "We were in time inside the building (the civil aviation ministry's headquarters) and were forcibly stopped by competitors who created a commotion intentionally by calling us unauthorised people," said Ashish Kaul, senior vice-president, corporate brand development, the Essel group.

Rival bidders are contemplating a formal complaint against the acceptance of the Essel bid.

The bids now go for evaluation. Technical aspects of the bids will be evaluated first and then the financial part. The winner is expected to be declared by the end of this calendar year.

The Govt. also ruled out redrafting of the document or extension of the deadline. Govt officials said that the documents had been prepared in consultation with the companies, and they could see no reason why two consortia refused to accept conditions that six others had no problems with.

Under the conditions, if operational and functional requirements relating to handling of passengers and aircraft are not met, the foreign airport operator in a winning consortium will attract penalties to the tune US$80mn.
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TCS to make major Latin American acquisition this year
Brasilia: TCS Brasil, the Brazilian arm of Tata Consultancy Service, expects to make a "substantial acquisition in Latin America this year," according to Gabriel Rozman, president of TCS Iberoamerica. "We are committed to being a large player in the Latin American market and we will start to scan the market for acquisition opportunities," he added.

"We are looking for a substantial acquisition that has hundreds of employees rather than a boutique," said Rozman, although he would not comment on the capital available for a takeover.

Tata, which Rozman described as the only Indian IT company with significant operations in the region, has aggressive growth targets for Latin America. "The company expects to grow 400% between 2005 and 2006 in Latin America," president of TCS Brasil, Sérgio Rodrigues said, without disclosing exact figures. "We are investing approximately US$10mn in the region, with a large amount going to training."

"We are consolidating our high growth operations in Brazil and Uruguay and plan to hire over 1,000 people over the next year," Rozman said. "We will have some 2,000 employees [in Latin America] in a year." TCS is currently recruiting in Chile and Argentina.

Earlier this month, TCS announced the signing of a five-year contract with Amsterdam-based bank ABN Amro to provide application support and enhancement services for its operations in Latin America and Europe, generating 200mn euros (US$246mn) in committed revenues for the company. The Latin America portion of this deal is estimated to generate some US$100mn.
TCS also plans to create a new global development center in the state of São Paulo, in addition to its existing CMMi Level 5 center in capital Brasília. TCS provides IT services and solutions to nearly 100 clients in Mexico, Central and South America, Spain and Portugal.
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India Inc. eyes $US5bn from CER sales in seven years
Mumbai: Companies in India, exempt from emissions cuts imposed on industry in Europe and elsewhere, plan to slash their greenhouse gas output anyway and sell the resulting credits for up to $US5bn over the next seven years.

The credits, or Certified Emission Reductions (CERs), are products of the Kyoto Protocol, which aims to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions from 2008. Four of the 12 companies so far licensed to sell their emissions cuts are Indian, and almost 100 other Indian firms are part-way through the registration process.

Analysts say countries such as India and Brazil — Kyoto Protocol signatories under no obligation to cut because their energy consumption is relatively low — are already leading suppliers of CERs traded on forward contract basis.

Indian companies that have jumped in the fray, from steel and sugar firms to utilities, could generate 500-600 million CERs or nearly a quarter of a global traded total of 2.5 billion units by 2012, officials said. European Union companies are already in the market for CERs. They have to cut carbon dioxide emissions from this year to meet targets under an EU-specific scheme.

Companies can buy credits on the traded EU market, or from registered emissions-cutting projects outside the EU. The EU scheme covers only carbon dioxide emissions. The Kyoto credits will embrace five other greenhouse gases as well.

Oslo-based consultancy Point Carbon said the global market in carbon emissions could grow to US$6bn this year. Industry officials said CERs traded by Indian companies were fetching about US$7 per unit, equivalent to one tonne of carbon dioxide. Mathur said the prices were expected to stabilise at about US$10 a unit.
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Birlasoft to invest US$20mn in expansion plans
New Delhi: Birlasoft Ltd on Wednesday said it would recruit 2,000 technology professionals for three new development centres over the next 12 months, and would invest close to US$20 million towards its expansion plans.

A CK Birla Group company, Birlasoft has 2,600 employees, spread over several overseas locations — three centres in India (two in Noida and one in Chennai), and one in Melbourne, Australia. The Chennai centre also acts as the disaster recovery and business continuity site for the Noida centres.

The company's headquarters is based in New Jersey, US.

"The second phase of expansion, which shall follow the launching of the three new facilities, envisages development of new facilities in Chennai, Bangalore and Noida," it added.
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Skoda launches Combi with two variants
New Delhi: Skoda Auto India, a subsidiary of Skoda Auto, has launched the Octavia Combi in two versions. The RS (rally sport) variant is priced at Rs13,85,340, while the L& K models sport a price tag of Rs14,45,886.

Skoda has targeted the sale of 3,000 Combis by next year. Globally, the Combi sells best in Europe, China and West Asia. In Europe alone, officials said 40 per cent Skoda cars sold are Combis.

The company is aiming at a growth of 30-40 per cent with sales of around 9,000-10,000 cars this year. It has also planned a series of launches for the Indian market, including the Superb Diesel in November. The company is also planning to introduce its top-end DSG technology (which reduces power consumption during gear shifts) equipped car, code-named A5, during the first quarter of next year.

According to officials, the launch of the much-hyped Fabia, which has been delayed by another seven to eight months, is expected to come in the second half of next year.

Skoda Auto India will increase the production capacity at its Aurangabad plant by the middle of 2006. "Currently, we are doubling our capacity from 15,000 to 30,000 units. In addition, we are looking at expanding this further by June next year," said managing director Imran Hassen.

Recently, Skoda had said it would make India an export hub for the South Asian region. "We have already started exporting to Bangladesh in July. Now we are looking at similar opportunities in Sri Lanka and Nepal," Hassen had said.
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