Ambani plans new city across Mumbai
Mumbai: With the government clearing the setting up of 140 special economic zones (SEZs), three of them proposed by the Reliance group, Mukesh Ambani's dream of setting up a spanking new city across the Gateway of India will become a reality.

The city which has not been named so far will be about half the size of Mumbai and will have broad roads, modern transportation systems, and will be linked to the island of Mumbai by a six-lane, 22-km-long sea bridge. A new international airport is also expected to come up there.

Reliance's project, spanning 32,000 acres (12,000 hectares), and christened Mumbai Integrated SEZ comprises Navi Mumbai SEZ, Ambani's joint venture with CIDCO, and his own yet-to-be-cleared MahaMumbai SEZ.

The development is expected to begin with Dronagiri, near Jawaharlal Nehru Port, and extend to Ulwe and Kalamboli which will be only half an hour away from Mumbai, once the trans-harbour link between Sewri and Nhava is complete.

The MahaMumbai SEZ plans to emulate the succees of the likes of Shenzhen , near Shanghai and Jebel Ali in Dubai to attract foreign companies to set up their office and manufacturing units in it. The government has already announced long tax holidays to make exporting from an SEZ more attractive. Even before the project has got off the ground, CIDCO has received more than 800 applications from prospective companies.
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RCVL to raise $500 million via FCCBs
Mumbai: Anil Ambani's Reliance Communication Ventures (RCVL), is issuing foreign currency convertible bonds to raise $500 million from the international market.

The board has approved the proposal for raising the amount through the issue of FCCBs at a premium to the market price of the company's equity shares, subject to necessary approvals.
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Motorola, Reliance Info head for deal
Mumbai: Motorola India is in talks with Reliance Infocomm to provide set top boxes (STB) for the company's Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) rollout in the country.

Motorola India Chairman Firdose Vandrewala said the company is in discussions with Reliance Infocomm for providing set top boxes for the company's ambitious IPTV project.

The company would also be bidding for the tender worth Rs200 billion floated by state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam to provide 60 million GSM lines, he added.
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Tata Power transfers power system to Tata Projects
Mumbai: Tata Power has transferred its power systems division to Tata Projects for Rs802.10 million ($18 million). The power systems division comprises design, fabrication, supply, construction and commissioning of transmission lines, besides sub-station equipment, cables and power plant equipment.

The transfer does not include the Bangladesh project, the firm said in a statement to the stock exchange.
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GoAir to add 20 Airbus A320 by 2008
Chennai: Budget airline GoAir will purchase 20 Airbus A320 aircraft to add to its current fleet of five aircraft.

Jeh Wadia, managing director, GoAir, said, eight of these aircraft would join the airline by December 2006 and the remaining by 2008. He said the funding for the purchase of aircraft would be from equity, but refused to disclose investments made by the Wadia Group in the airline venture.

He said the airline was also planning to float separate companies in the near future for training engineers and pilots.
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Tata Steel gets go ahead for ferrochrome project in SA
Mumbai: Tata Steel has received environmental clearance after four years for its 1.2 lakh tonne greenfield ferrochrome project at Richards Bay, South Africa. The smelter will now be set up at a new site called Alton North and the environmental clearance is for the new site.

Tata Steel officials said the company is yet to get the official documents related to the environment clearance.

The new site is located within the Richards Bay Municipal area.

Anglo American, a multinational company operating in South Africa is opposed to the project as it feels that it would affect the operations of Mondi Kraft, its paper manufacturing unit in the region. The smelter was earlier proposed to be built adjacent to the packaging unit.
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Dettol to be available in new variants
New Delhi: Reckitt Benckiser is considering launching new variants of its flagship brand Dettol this year, to capture 25 per cent of the Rs1,500-crore health soap market from 18 per cent at present.

Of the Rs1,500 crore health soap market, the Dettol brand contributes about one-third of the turnover said Reckitt Benckiser senior vice-president (India) and regional director (South Asia) Chander M Sethi.

Globally the company has six variants of Dettol soap while only three variants — Sensitive, Deo and Fresh are available in India.

The company recently launched the 'Suraksit Parivar', campaign to create awareness on the practise of hygiene and has set aside a budget of about Rs5 crore for the programme.
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Mittal finds tele-marketers a nuisance
Chandigarh: Tele marketing calls are not only a nuisance for subscribers but also for service providers like Bharti who are complaining that their networks get overloaded due to such calls.

Bharti Enterprises chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal said "We are facing problem of congestion on our mobile network as majority of the tele-marketing calls originate from fixed line phones."

He admitted that congestion of network in calls made from Airtel numbers to BSNL was due to overloading of the points of interconnect and paucity of spectrum. "Once spectrum increases, congestion and call dropping would end," he added.
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Carlyle Group to fund Claris Lifesciences' expansion plans
Mumbai: Washington-based Carlyle Group will fund Ahmedabad-based pharmaceutical company Claris Lifesciences' Rs190 crore expansion plans. The latter has invested $20 million to expand existing capacity and establish new facilities, in R&D and new product development. Of this, Rs90 crore has been invested by Carlyle Group.

Of the remaining Rs100 crore, a significant portion will be funded through internal accruals and the remaining through debt and equities.

The company plans to scale up the product sales to Rs1,000 crore in three years from the sales of Rs350-Rs400 crore after the expansion and setting up of new facilities.
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Jyoti in preferential allotment to Prudential ICICI
Mumbai: Jyoti, engaged in manufacturing and marketing electrical and hydraulic engineering equipment, has allotted seven lakh equity shares on a preferential basis to city-based Prudential ICICI Asset Management Company.

The company will allot equity shares of Rs10 each for cash at a premium of Rs119 per share to Prudential ICICI Asset Management, subject to necessary approvals, the company informed the BSE.
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Teledata Informatics acquires US firm
Mumbai: Teledata Informatics' through its US subsidiary has acquired US-based Alpha Soft Services Corporation. With this acquisition the company hopes to get a wider stronghold in the US.

The US-based company provides high quality IT services in the areas of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), data warehousing, e-business and related technologies.

The financial details of the acquisition were not mentioned.
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Jain Irrigation to supply drip systems to TN
Mumbai: Jain Irrigation Systems (JISL), and two other local irrigation companies, have been empanelled by the TN government to supply drip and sprinkler irrigation systems to the state in 2005-06 and 2006-07.

This empanelment would enable Jain Irrigation to participate in a major way in the proposed centrally sponsored and State sponsored schemes which envisage covering totally over 30,000 hectares in a year's time at a value of approximately Rs120 crore, the company said.

It added that its recent acquisition of Terra Agro Technologies Ltd at Udumalpet, Tamil Nadu augurs well with this empanelment, which is set to propel the company many notches ahead of competition besides marking the State in the Micro Irrigation map of the country. JISL is already involved in the State sponsored micro irrigation scheme in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra.
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ONGC to renew aging facilities in Assam
New Delhi: The Oil & Natural Gas Corporation Ltd (ONGC) plans to invest around Rs2,500 crore ($555 million) to renew its aging facilities in Assam. The company said that this investment was a part of mega renewal package being termed Assam Renewal Project involving a total outlay of around Rs4,000 crore.

The company intends to start work immediately after monsoon, and the total project is scheduled to be completed in three years.

The prime objective of this project is to reverse the trend of declining production from the matured oil fields, where ONGC began to search for oil way in 1957. The renewal package involves a comprehensive replacement, revamping and expansion of equipment and infrastructure in Assam. Installation of advanced process control and communications systems, introduction of latest health, safety and environment systems, are also part of the renewal package.

ONGC's network of surface facilities in Assam include 22 group gathering stations, three central tank farms, eight gas collection plants, two enhanced oil recovery facilities, three captive power plants and nearly 2,500 km of pipelines. This network of facilities is connected to 612 producing wells and 150 water injection wells.

The current production of oil from the Assam oil fields is 1.4 mt per year, which is expected to go up to 3 mt in the next three to four years, the company said.
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Dharani Sugars to expand
Chennai: Dharani Sugars and Chemicals is planning to expand its sugar mill capacities and distillery units and is also considering setting up a new sugar mill, according to its chairman and managing director, Dr Palani G. Periasamy.

The company is expanding its sugar mill in Polur, Thiruvannamalai, to crush 4,000 tonnes sugarcane a day from the present capacity of 2,500 tonne. The company has another unit in Tirunelveli, with a capacity of 2,500 tonnes, where it is doubling its distillery unit to 60 kilolitres a day and has applied for the licence.

Dr Periasamy said Dharani Sugars is also planning to implement its licence to set up a 3,000- tonne sugar mill at Sankarapuram, Villupuram. The expansion of its Polur unit is expected to cost about Rs30 crore which would be funded through a soft loan of Rs18 crore from the Sugar Development Fund, bank loan of Rs9 crore and Rs3 crore from internal accruals. The project would be completed by November 2006 in time to commence crushing for the 2006-07season.

The company expects to conclude the year with a turnover of Rs260-300 crore.
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Intel, Microsoft tie-up to offer affordable PCs
New Delhi: Intel India and Microsoft Corporation India have tied up in an `Affordability Alliance' for offering affordable computing solutions and ensuring easy availability of affordable PCs across the country.

The two companies will work with banking institutions to create new financing options so that consumers can have easy access to PCs. The alliance will focus on tailored solutions for specific segments. For instance, first time PC users will be able to purchase Intel Celeron or Pentium based PCs with Windows XP Starter Edition at easy instalments.

Sstudents and teachers will be able to buy an education PC with specialised content from education service providers. Both the companies are also in discussions with telecom service providers to integrate telecom services and broadband access into these solutions to maximise impact.
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