Airtel has 2.5 million customers in Delhi
New Delhi: Bharti Airtel has attained 2.5 million customers in the capital with a subscriber base of about 28.69 million customers at the end of September, 2006, consisting of 27.06 million mobile customers.

A press release from the company said the growth is a testimony to the company's world-class infrastructure and service deliveries with a strong focus on quality, customer service and innovation. The company plans to continue to focus and build on its network and customer service in Delhi.

Airtel has over 1,900 cell sites and over 300 customised in-building solutions to provide a seamless network experience for its customers in the capital, it said.
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TCL plans production in India
New Delhi: Chinese consumer electronics giant, TCL is planning to set up a manufacturing facility in India in partnership with a local company. This makes it the first Chinese company in this segment to venture into production here.

Tomson D S Li, chairman and CEO of TCL Corporation, said the facility may be set up in partnership with a local Indian partner.

A team from the company is currently doing research and studying potential sites for the facility and we will be taking a decision by the end of the year.

TCL said it is working on an aggressive India strategy to make the country one of its largest overseas markets in the coming years.

TCL's proposed India facility would manufacture colour televisions (both the conventional and flat panel TVs), air-conditioners and DVD players. The facility will have an initial capacity of 5 lakh TVs. The company may even get its component suppliers in China to make investments here once volumes grow. It also plans to scale up investments in its R&D centre in India to offer products customised for the domestic market.
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GSK Pharma may sell fine chemicals business
Mumbai: As part of GSK Pharma's efforts to focus on its pharmaceuticals business, GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals is now looking to exit from its fine chemicals business in India. The company recently sold its animal health business.

GSK Pharma had two peripheral businesses in India, animal health or Agrivet Farm Care (AFC) and fine chemicals or Qualigens Fine Chemicals (QFC). In April, GSK Pharma decided to sell AFC to the France-based Virbac Animal Health India Private Ltd for Rs 207.1 crore.

GSK is not present in animal health in other global markets. AFC represents about eight per cent of its sales. It clocked revenues of Rs119 crore in 2005. It is a similar situation with fine chemicals too. GSK is present in the fine chemicals business only in India and QFC clocked sales of Rs70 crore in 2005.

The chemicals sector is seeing a steady growth and a pharma-industry representative points out that large multinational players in this segment include Dow Chemical, BASF and Bayer .
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Kewal Kiran Clothing acquires land
Mumbai: Kewal Kiran Clothing has acquired land of around 53,000 sq ft and building space of around 40,000 sq ft on Somnath Road in Daman Union Territory (UT) to set up a garments stitching and finishing unit.

The new facility should commence commercial production in two phases - March and September 2007. It will stitch and finish 13 lakh garments per annum; the present capacity is put at seven lakh.
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Honda makes settlement with union
New Delhi: Honda Motors and Scooter India (HMSI) at a ceremony signed a pledge the presence of all workers and senior management. The HMSI Labour Union and the management had signed a long-term settlement for a duration of three years on September 17.

Suresh Gaur, president, Labour Union, HMSI, said, "This pledge is a symbol of renewed dedication and commitment from both the management and the workers.

He said he hoped that the management and the union can work together to create new benchmarks in industrial relations and take the company to new heights. HMSI was witness to one of the worst labour disputes last year after which it entered into an agreement with the workers.

The company was also troubled with another labour dispute last month when some of the contractual workers at the plant went on strike demanding regularisation.
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Auto sales at all time high
New Delhi: Automobile sales are at an all time high. Between April and September, automobile companies hawked over 4.86 million vehicles, including cars, two-wheelers and commercial vehicles, in the domestic market.

The staggering growth rate of 17.12 per cent for the half year is the highest in the last five years. If this trend continues, industry experts said sales could touch 10 million by March 2007, an annual growth rate of 20 per cent.

For the April-September period in 2005-06, sales of domestic vehicles stood at 4.15 million, up 13.39 per cent over the previous year. Sales for the same period in 2004-05 were at 3.66 million vehicles, showing a jump of 14.73 per cent.
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ONGC to develop seven Western oilfields at
Rs6,000 crore
Mumbai: The Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) plans to seven marginal fields on the western off-shore with an investment of Rs 6000 crore.

The off-shore, which has eight marginal fields, of which one, cluster 7, was outsourced to a consortium led by HPCL late last month. This cluster is expected to produce around 18,000 to 20,000 barrels a day at an operating cost of $12 barrels per day.

Originally, the company had planned to outsource production on 18 onshore fields and 34 offshore fields, including the seven clusters.

Marginal fields typically have low oil and gas reserves, which are economically viable only when produced with low capital cost and overheads. Most of these fields were allocated to ONGC before the New Exploration Licensing Policy came into force and are estimated to have a capacity for producing less than 10,000 barrels a day. Also, many of them are located far from the company's major oil producing fields on the western sea board and remote locations in Assam.

In 2002, ONGC major had offered to outsource the development of onshore marginal 18 fields in phases. In 2004, another eight fields were awarded for development to Prize Petroleum, Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation Limited and Assam Petroleum Company.
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IOC to expand capacity of Panipat refinery
Mumbai: Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) is planning to expand the capacity of the Panipat refinery to 15 million tonne (mt) from 12 mt at present with an investment of Rs 5,000 crore. The expansion has been approved by the IOC board and will be completed in three years. The 2 mt naphtha cracker plant is also expected to be complete by the same time.

The total value of the petrochemicals project in Panipat is estimated at Rs 11,900 crore, significantly higher than the previous estimate of Rs 6,300 crore.

The naphtha plant will have a capacity to manufacture 8 lakh tonne per annum (tpa) of ethylene, 5.75 lakh tpa of propylene, 3.5 lakh tpa of linear low-density polyethylene, 3 lakh tpa of high-density polyethylene, 2 x 3,00,000 tonne of polypropylene and 2.5 lakh tonne of monoethylene glycol.
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Dr Reddy's, Glaxo settle patent case
Mumbai: Dr Reddy's Laboratories and GlaxoSmithKline have come to a settlement on the patent dispute over generic copies of the latter's popular anti-migraine pill, Imitrex, for the US market.

With this settlement Dr Reddy's will be able to sell the drug in the US market and may launch the generic drug there in the last quarter of 2008, ahead of the expiry of the paediatric exclusivity on Glaxo's patent number 5037845 on the drug on February 6, 2009, said a company release to the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) today.

Imitrex sales in the US market are currently valued at over $890 million.

The news lifted Dr Reddy's shares by more than 2 per cent to Rs 722 on the BSE. The company's shares closed on Monday at $15.30 on the New York Stock Exchange.
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IndiGO to fly to 30 cities
Bangalore: Budget airline IndiGo, plans to fly to 30 cities across the country with a fleet of 40 A-320s by 2010.

IndiGo took delivery of its third new A-320 aircraft on September 28 and would add the fourth one this week. With this it will be able to fly to three new destinations - Mumbai, Nagpur and Vadodara.
By the end of the calendar year 2006, the airline hopes to carry 4,75,000 passengers with six airplanes, IndiGo president and CEO Bruce Ashby said.

He said the airline would add nine more aircraft in 2007 and by December 2007, IndiGo's fleet would comprise 15 aircrafts.

IndiGo also plans to expand its route network in South India, where it operates twice-daily flights on the Delhi-Bangalore sector, with one non-stop flight and one same-aircraft service with a stopover in Pune.

From September 30, IndiGo began twice-daily services on the Delhi-Hyderabad-Chennai-Delhi route. IndiGo is flying these routes with its third new Airbus A320 aircraft.
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