AC fares drop in Railway budget
New Delhi: Railway Minister, Lalu Prasad, is targeting low-cost airlines like Air Deccan and SpiceJet by cutting fares on the AC segment. To prevent these airlines from weaning away upper class passengers, the Rail Budget for 2006-07 has proposed an 18 per cent reduction in AC first class and 10 per cent in AC two-tier fares.

High-end passenger segments currently contribute only nine per cent of the Railways' total passenger earnings of Rs16,800 crore (Budget estimate for 2006-07). The Minister has backed this up with a number of other sops to commuters: making e-tickets and Internet booking services available for all mail and express trains (against only for Rajdhani, Shatabdi, and other special trains) and a fully air-conditioned `Garib Rath' service on four routes (Delhi-Patna, Delhi-Mumbai, Delhi-Chennai and Saharsa-Amritsar) priced 25 per cent below current AC-3 tier fares.
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Dutch firm denies vaccine charges
Pune: Animal healthcare company, Intervet India, wholly-owned subsidiary of the Netherlands-based Intervet, has denied allegations made by Venkateshwara Hatcheries that it was getting in live vaccines into the country which could harm its poultry industry by causing an outbreak of the avian flu.

The company said certain players in the poultry business were manufacturing autogenous vaccines and distributing them to farmers for over a year now and said this could lead to "outbreaks of various kinds'', among poultry.

Lino Camponovo, managing director of the company said that the Union Government had placed orders in November and brought in 1.5 million doses of the H5N2 and H7N1 vaccines in December 2005 as part of its preparedness to deal with the avian flu which was spreading in the region.

Intervet said 30 per cent of its business in India comes from the sale of poultry vaccines which will now be hit because of the setback to the domestic industry. The company's vaccines are also used by the Netherlands Government on birds in zoos.
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Inflation lower due to fall in prices of Agri products
New Delhi: The annual wholesale price index-based inflation rose 4.02 per cent during the week ended February 11, against the previous week's annual rise of 4.08 per cent.

The fall in in the year-on-year inflation rate was largely because of a decline in prices of cottonseed, raw cotton and groundnut seed prices, according to data released here on Friday by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. The WPI ended the latest reported week at 196.6 points, as against 189 points a year ago.

The Primary Articles' group index was up 0.5 per cent to 194.3 points due to increase in prices of food articles while non-food items became cheaper. The fuel, power, light and lubricants' group index was up 0.1 per cent to 311.6 points. The heavy-weighted manufactured products group index rose 0.2 per cent to 171.5 points. Among primary articles' group, the food articles group index was up about one per cent to 196.9 points due to higher prices of milk (three per cent) and arhar, maize, wheat, fruits, barley, ragi, and bajra (one per cent each). But prices declined for gram (two per cent) and eggs and rice (one per cent each).

The index for non-food articles group fell by 0.6 per cent to 174.9 points owing to lower prices of cottonseed and gingelly seed (eight per cent each), raw cotton (three per cent) and groundnut seed (two per cent). However, prices moved up for raw wool (eight per cent), raw rubber (seven per cent), raw jute (three per cent), fodder (two per cent) and copra (one per cent).

Among the Manufactured Products' group, the Food Products' group index rose by 0.5 per cent to 180.6 points due to rise in prices of sugar (two per cent) and coconut oil (one per cent), while rape and mustard oil prices fell by one per cent. A one per cent increase in prices of Indian made foreign liquor pushed up the Beverages, Tobacco and Tobacco Products group index by 0.2 per cent to 231.5 points. The Textiles group index was up by 0.2 per cent at 129.8 points.

Prices declined for tyre cord fabric (eight per cent) and hessian & sacking bags and acrylic yarn (one per cent each). A marginal increase in the prices of maplitho paper pushed up the Paper and Paper Products group index by 0.1 per cent to 178 points.
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OMCs to benefit from freight reduction on petrol, diesel
New Delhi: The State-owned oil marketing companies (OMCs), whose bottomlines have been feeling the pinch from selling petroleum products below cost price, may get a marginal relief in the form of payout savings to Railways.

An Indian Oil Corporation official said, the freight cost, which the OMCs take while fixing retail price of a fuel, is actually a notional cost, which is about half the real cost. So, a cut in the real cost would not help because the companies never charge the real cost of moving the products, he said.

The official said the companies, which transport products through Railways, would be paying less for transportation. The railway transportation costs for petrol and diesel is expected to come down between Rs60 crore and Rs80 crore for Indian Oil. The industry payment is likely to decline to Rs150-160 crore. Indian Oil moves 13 million tonnes (mt) of petrol and diesel through Railways.
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Tatas to take DoT to court on FDI hike
Mumbai: Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) may move the courts against the decision of the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to raise the foreign direct investment (FDI) ceiling in telecom to 74 per cent from 49 per cent. The company in a letter to its shareholders, said that DoT has unilaterally amended certain conditions of the unified access service licences (UASL) issued to the company and other operators.

These amendments have been made applicable even to those licencee companies "which do not have or wish to have FDI exceeding 49 per cent of the total paid-up equity capital".

DoT has asked telecom companies to make amendments in their articles of association, in a bid to accommodate the proposed rise in FDI structure.

Tata group's other telecom companies — Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL) and Tata Teleservices Ltd (TTSL) — may also challenge the DoT order, sources said.

The government had raised the FDI ceiling in telecom to 74 per cent from the present 49 per cent and had asked telecom companies to make amendments in their memorandums of association or articles of association. A transition period of four months was given for this purpose. Tata Teleserviecs had requested the government not to apply the provisions of press note to companies which do not wish to enhance FDI beyond 49 per cent.
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