Tarapur's Unit 3 achieves criticality
Tarapur: On Sunday morning, Unit 3 of the Tarapur Atomic Power Project went into operation, becoming the country's second home-grown 540-mw reactor. It's identical twin — Unit 4 — went into operation last year. The two 540-mw reactors are India's largest so far.

Nuclear officials also said that the twin home-grown reactors are also among the world's least expensive nuclear power plants.

Officials also said that the reactor achieved criticality in a copy book fashion.

Except for Tarapur's Unit 3 and 4, all existing indigenous nuclear reactors deliver about 220 mw. Unit 4 of Tarapur went critical in March 2005, began delivering electricity in June, and went commercial in September.

Nuclear Power Corporation officials said that Units 3 and 4 projects were completed seven months earlier than scheduled and have also resulted in a downward revision of costs. According to officials, NPC has spent Rs6,100 crore on the construction of the twin units, instead of the Rs6,500 crore as originally envisaged.

Unit 3 of Tarapur has also been peer-reviewed by the World Association of Nuclear Operators.

Over the next few weeks, NPC engineers will continue to test the behaviour of the reactor and gradually raise the power and produce heat to drive steam turbines and generate electricity.Unit 4 of Tarapur had taken about three months from its criticality to the point at which it was ready to feed electricity into the grid. NPC officials said that they expect to produce electricity from Unit 3 by July this year.
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Centre announces measures for revival of tea industry
Kolkata: The Centre has announced a number of measures aimed at reviving the Indian tea industry. The measures include the disbursal of the long-awaited Rs4,700-crore special purpose tea fund (SPTF) from November 1, 100 per cent auctioning of tea produced in the country using the electronic platform, reopening of some closed tea gardens, setting up of international tea centres and introduction of a logo for North Bengal teas.

The goodies were announced by Union minister of state for commerce Jairam Ramesh on Sunday afternoon in Kolkata, after a series of meetings that he had with tea producers, buyers, sellers, brokers and the trade unions.

The government will launch full-fledged e-auction of teas from June to achieve better price realisation. "The Tea Board had appointed IBM and Accenture to work out software for e-auctioning of tea. Unfortunately, they had failed to provide the right software for e-auction and the process could not take off," the minister said.

"We have now selected NSE.IT, the IT arm of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) for working out a software package for e-auction of tea. E-auction will be formally launched on June 28," he said.
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CII survey: GDP growth to be at over 8 pc
New Delhi: CII's Business Confidence Index for April-September 2006 was higher by 2.1 points at 69.3 points, compared to the previous survey for the period September 2005-March 2006.

Majority of the 254 respondents from Indian companies to a CII survey expected the GDP growth for fiscal 2006-07 to be more than eight per cent.

According to the survey, an increase in investments during April-September 2006 was planned by 88 per cent of the respondents. Capacity utilisation across the board has witnessed an increase and further, about 75 per cent of the respondents expressed confidence that it would increase a 100 per cent. 25 per cent of the respondents expressed confidence that the capacity utilisation will exceed 100 per cent.

The value of production is also expected to increase during the period, said 81 per cent of the respondents, while 83 per cent expected the first half of 2006-07 to be better in terms of increase in new orders.

Around 53 per cent of the respondents felt that employment would also increase in the second half of this financial year.

On the export front, 70 per cent of the respondents expressed confidence that exports will expand during the period.
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Loss-making public sector units on the decline: CAG
New Delhi: According to the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG), the number of loss-making public sector companies has been coming down gradually and the improved performance by other state-owned companies has enabled the government to bring down the waivers for them.

"The number of loss-making companies has gone down to 101 in '03-04 from 121 in '02-03. The total loss incurred by these companies has also come down to Rs9,688.1 crore in '04-05 from 11,979.2 crore in '02-03," according to a report by Comptroller and Auditor General of India.

The CAG had analysed 278 of the 388 government companies and deemed government companies for the study. The accumulated losses of PSUs, however, increased to Rs85,357.7 crore from Rs81,786 cr in '03-04.

According to CAG, the equity capital of 88 PSUs under 20 ministries and departments has been completely eroded. Their accumulated losses were Rs82,001 crore against an investment of Rs14,469 crore on March 1, '05.

In '04-05, the government waived just Rs234 crore of loans, interest and penal interest as compared to Rs3,718 crore in '03-04. In the last fiscal, the government investment in PSUs increased to Rs4,01,323 crore from Rs3,80,276 crore by the end of '03-04.

The number of profit earning companies have increased to 164 in 2004-05 from 135 in 2002-03. The total profit earned by these companies was Rs76,232.82 crore.

Out of the total profit earned by 164 companies, 83.45 per cent was contributed by only 44 PSUs. Of these, 14 were in oil sector, 12 in power, eight in steel, seven in coal and three in telecom.
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Govt. defends participation in TAP project
New Delhi: With the CPI-M expressing its objections to India joining the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan gas pipeline project, the government has clarified that the TAP was not meant to substitute the Iran-Pakistan-India project, for if the IPI project was to be realized it would be an addition.

The UPA government's decision came amid toughening of stance by Iran with regard to the project, particularly its pricing which it wants to be revised upwardly. The CPI-M has expressed "serious reservations" against the decision to join the TAP project, saying it was not in India's interest and would put the $7.4 billion Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project in the cold storage.

New Delhi wants a foolproof agreement spelling out how uninterrupted supplies would be ensured and what will be the mechanism that takes care of disruption of supplies, like who pays for it. India's concerns with regard to security of the pipeline are because of instability in Iran due to the nuclear dispute and the fact that it will pass through restive Balochistan province of Pakistan.

New Delhi had in mid-February participated for the first time as an "observer" in the 9th meeting of the steering committee of the TAP project and has since decided to join the $3.5 billion project.

The pipeline from Turkmenistan would be easier to implement than the IPI line as it had the backing of the Asian Development Bank.

Unlike IPI, the project does not run the risk of being blacklisted for participation by the USA and European financiers and companies. The proposed natural gas pipeline would stretch from the Turkmenistan/Afghanistan border in southeastern Turkmenistan to Multan, Pakistan (1,271-km), with a 640-km extension to India.
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