Property prices likely to fall in few months: HDFC chief
Mumbai: Property prices in India are set to drop in the next three to six months with the fall in the disbursement rate of home loan rates said Deepak S. Parekh, chairman, HDFC. He said property prices have already dropped by 20 per cent in places Noida and in the next three to six months, prices will fall by 10-20 per cent in other areas also.

According to Parekh, investors who borrow from banks and financial institutions and buy property to sell later have moved out. He said such investors have realised that by the time the houses are constructed, the prices would have fallen.

He said HDFC would review housing loan rates if the cost of funds increase in the next one or two months. He said that interest rates on vehicular loans such as cars, trucks and scooters had inched up from 6 per cent to 11 per cent in past six months but in the case of home loans the rise has been only from 7.5 per cent to 9.5 per cent.
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VAT committee wants clarification from government on petro tax
New Delhi: The empowered committee of state finance ministers on VAT has asked the central government to provide information on how the basic price of both petrol and diesel has been determined over the last 3 years in relation to the movement of international crude prices globally before taking any decision on cutting state taxes on petrol.

The committee also wants details of whether the finance ministry was contemplating any reduction in excise duty of petroleum products.
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No price control on new drugs
New Delhi: The draft National Pharmaceuticals Policy for 2006 has proposed exemptions from all kinds of price controls for new drugs developed through indigenous research, for five years.

The same exemptions are proposed for vaccines, biological drugs, drugs used exclusively in hospitals and drugs costing less than Re 1 per capsule.

Medical devices like stents, catheters and pace-makers will also have a differential system of pricing for supply to the government's retail outlets and hospitals.

In a bid to promote drug discovery and development in the country, the policy wants the pharmaceutical research and development fund to be scrapped and converted into an annual grant of Rs150 crore. This amount would then be increased over the next five years.

Maximum allowable post-manufacturing expenses (MAPE) of 200 per cent would be given to research and development (R&D) intensive companies fulfilling standards like a minimum of Rs 50 crore or 5 per cent of the turnover, 200 scientists and a patent filings abroad. For all other drugs, this markup would be 150 per cent, up from 100 per cent in the present scenario.

A three-member appellate tribunal would be constituted for addressing grievances against the orders of the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) - the pharma watchdog which monitors drug prices and sets ceilings.

As part of the other new initiatives proposed, a settlement commission would be set up to recover money from pharmaceutical companies on a large number of cases of alleged overcharging.

Of this recovered amount, a drug price monitoring and awareness fund would be created for strengthening the NPPA and creating public awareness.

At present, 74 bulk drugs and all their formulations are under the price control of the NPPA on the basis of its cost studies.
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J&K generates largest number of jobs
New Delhi: According to the provisional results of the Economic Census 2005, the states of Jammu & Kashmir, Sikkim, Kerala, Haryana and Tripura have recorded the quickest growth in jobs between 1998 and 2005.

Jammu & Kashmir has registered the fastest growth in employment in the country which grew by 6.82 per cent between 1998 and 2005, while all over India it grew by just 2.49 per cent.

The sharp growth in employment in Jammu & Kashmir could be partially explained by the significant growth in enterprises during the 1998-2005 period.

The number of enterprises in J&K during the period grew by 5.99 per cent to 3.23 lakh. Growth in enterprises across the country was 4.80 per cent during the same period. This may be to the labour intensive nature of enterprises coming up in the northern most state of India.

In Tamil Nadu, though the number of enterprises in the 1998-2005 period grew by 8.49 per cent to 4.44 million, employment grew by just 4.62 per cent to 9.8 million.
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