IIM-A to increase fees by 12 per cent
Ahmedabad: The Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) has hiked its fees by 12 per cent for the two-year Post-Graduate Programme in Management. This translates into a hike in fees for the PGP courses from Rs1.58 lakh per annum to Rs1.77 lakh.

NR Narayanamurthy chief of Infosys while announcing the hike said that students from the lower income groups will not be affected by the hike as IIM-A will increase the scholarships for such students, after the institute's board met ahead of the convocation on Sunday evening where M.S. Banga of Hindustan Lever Ltd was the chief guest.

IIM-A had earlier said that the institute spends over Rs3.5 lakh per student but the fees are cross-subsidised through several means that includes placement charges collected from the companies who recruit from the campus.

Mr Murthy also launched the one-year `Post Graduate Programme for Executive's (PGPX) course at IIM-A that has been started from the new academic session and caters to mid-career executives trying to get a management qualification.
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Housing shortage seen in Chennai
Chennai: Chennai is heading for an acute housing shortage and civic infrastructure crunch as companies from the developed world set up increasing number of offices in the city.

Towards the end of 2005, Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu (Elcot) reported that 63 IT parks, over 22.9 million sq.ft., were under construction and 17 had been completed making available three million sq.ft. space. This year more parks are being planned.

Industry officials said going by the industry norm for IT space, one person for every 100 sq.ft., about two lakh people would be employed in these buildings. Even if a third of them decide to buy dwelling units it would mean a demand of 60,000 dwelling units a year. However, only 3,000-4000 dwelling units are coming into the market every year they said.

A survey of residential projects by Trammell Crow Meghraj, international property consultants, reveals that there are about 118 new housing projects in the city and that property prices are shooting up.

The residential rates in Sholinganallur, about 20 km south of Chennai, are Rs2,000 to Rs2,500 per sq.ft. up from Rs800 and Rs1,000 a sq.ft last year. In areas like Alwarpet and Adyar, in the heart of the city, property prices are quoting at about Rs4,000 a sq.ft.
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ISB setting up centres of excellence
Hyderabad: The Indian School of Business will set up three new centres of excellence in the next two years in the areas of leadership and change, technology management and marketing, which will undertake research, develop industry partnerships and design cutting-edge curriculum.

At present ISB has three centres of excellence on its campus in entrepreneurship, analytical finance and global logistics and manufacturing strategy. The center will formally launch the global logistics and manufacturing strategy center in May this year for which it has tied up with the Chennai-based Tractors and Farm Equipment Ltd.

The school has received $1mn from Goldman Sachs for its analytical finance centre.
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AP CM lays foundation stone for bio-diesel plant
Kakinada: The chief minister of Andhra Pradesh Dr Y.S Rajasekhara Reddy recently laid the foundation stone for a Rs14-crore bio-diesel plant of Naturol Bio Energy at Vakalapudi near the city. "Bio-diesel is of great importance to meet the energy requirements of the future and, as it also helps the farmers, all attempts should be made to encourage the setting up of bio-diesel plants," he said.

CH Bhaskar, the managing director of Naturol Boienergy said the integrated plant would start commercial production by December. It would provide employment to 200 persons directly and indirect employment to several others.
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Semiconductor units likely to get more tax sops
New Delhi: The government is planning to link tax benefits to projects that give value addition, have investments and employment. For instance, tax benefits for a wafer-testing or an assembly testing facility will be lower than the benefits for a semi-conductor facility since investment and employment in the latter are higher.

The government is also examining another option of providing tax breaks to pioneering units.

The finance ministry is examining a policy paper prepared by the department of information technology, and will soon take a final view regarding the nature of the tax breaks.

Officials said the policy paper listed tax incentives for infrastructure, exemptions from tax for profits earned, and interest subsidy.
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