Videocon considers setting up fab facility
Hyderabad: Videocon Industries is considering setting up a semiconductor manufacturing facility with an investment of over Rs1,000 crore in India though it has not yet decided on the location for the unit. It is however likely that Videocon, which has entered into a technology sharing agreement with a global leader may set up the unit in West Bengal as it has found the sops offered by the state government the most attractive so far. The State offered, among others, free land and sales tax benefits.
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GAIL, ONGC tie up for marketing
New Delhi: Gail (India) has reached an understanding with ONGC for sourcing and marketing the latter's gas from Krishna-Godavari and Mahanadi basins. A joint venture between ONGC and GAIL could be in the offing for purchase of gas from new sources to be developed by ONGC in the two assets. The two companies have reached a broad understanding on marketing, and the quantum of gas and pricing would be worked out subsequently, depending on the development plans of ONGC. The two will sign a formal agreement later.

Currently, KG basin is a major source of gas and ONGC and Reliance Industries have made big gas discoveries there.

The recent exploratory efforts by ONGC have led to the discovery of gas in the ultra-deep waters of KG offshore, though the quantum of gas is yet to be ascertained and production would depend on commercial exploitation of the discoveries, and their subsequent development plans.

With the proposed tie-up, GAIL would not only have access to new source of gas, but will also be able to better utilise its existing network of pipelines as well as expand its infrastructure.
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DP World to invest $2 billion in India
Mumbai: DP World, the international terminal operator, plans to invest $2 billion in Indian operations. DP World operates five container terminals in India.

DP World senior vice president and managing director Ganesh Raj told the press that the Chennai container terminal is being maintained by DP World and the terminal has begun growing at the rate of 22-23 pc per annum after Dubai World took over the management of the terminal.

Besides Chennai, the company handles container terminals at Kochi, Mundhra, JNPT and Vishakapatnam. The terminals at Kochi and Vishakapatnam are DP World's while Mundhra, JNPT and Chennai's container terminal came under the company after its acquisition of P&O last year.
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Bharti Airtel scales up investment plans to $8 billion by 2010
New Delhi: Bharti Airtel plans to invest $8 billion in the Indian market by 2010 to have a 25 per cent market share.

"India will have a subscriber base of 400-500 million by 2010 and Bharti will strive to retain up to 125 million or 25 per cent of the market," group chairman Sunil Mittal told the media.

Mittal said Bharti would continue to be the numero uno player in India.

The company has so far invested a total of about eight billion dollars (about Rs36,000 crore) for various services, including mobile, basic, national and international long distance, undersea cable and broadband services.

Mittal said Bharti has a subscriber base of about 34-35 million, and based on annualised figure of last quarter, revenues would be touching four billion dollar (Rs18,000 crore) this year and could double by 2010.
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Mobile operators to be allowed remote access
New Delhi: The Department of Telecom and security agencies have resolved their differences over the remote access issue and a final announcement of the guidelines for raising FDI limit in telecom to 74 per cent is in sight.

DoT has prepared a cabinet note, awaiting Communications Minister Dayanidhi Maran's approval. The note would be sent to the Cabinet before April 2, the deadline for compliance of FDI guidelines by the mobile operators.

In December last year, the Union Cabinet had extended the deadline for telecom operators to comply with the norms for an increased foreign direct investment limit of 74 per cent.

Norms relating to allowing remote access, appointment of foreigners in top positions and taking away veto powers from Indian shareholders with 10 per cent equity in telecom joint ventures are some of the key revisions in the original guidelines that is expected to be notified after the current deadline of April 2 expires, the sources said.

Under remote access, data or calls made on telephone networks in the country could be remotely managed from a site elsewhere. While the original FDI norm under Press Note 5, issued in November 2005, had banned remote access, DoT had proposed to allow it with some restrictions. But security agencies had expressed reservations on the issue.
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Sant Chatwal to invest Rs4,500 crore in 7-star hotel chain
New Delhi: Indian-American businessman, Sant Singh Chatwal, will invest Rs4,500 crore by 2009 for setting up a chain of hotels, including a 7-star hotel, in India.

All hotels would be state-of-the-art with different food restaurants, discotheques and conference rooms.

Chatwal president and CEO of Hampshire Hotels and Resorts told the media that the group would create convention centres with a capacity for 2,000-3,000 people in every hotel.

He said the company is at present making the master plan for phase-I, which includes high-end 7-star hotels in major cities like Delhi/Noida, Mumbai and Bangalore and dream hotels in Kochi, Hyderabad and Chennai.

Chatwal said he has already acquired land in Bangalore, Noida, Kochi and Hyderabad while negotiations are on in Mumbai and Chennai.

HHR owns hotels in the US, UK and Thailand with over 2,500 rooms in Manhattan. Along with this, the 1.5 billion dollar group has set up Bombay Palace locations around the world including Montreal, Toronto, New York, Washington, Houston, Budapest and Kuala Lumpur.

The foundation stone for the first hotel would be laid in May this year in Kochi followed by other sites.
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Dabur India plans retail foray with 400 outlets
New Delhi: Dabur India is planning to foray into organised retail with a chain of 300-400 retail outlets, based on the health and beauty platform, across the country over the next few years.

Based on the model followed by foreign health and beauty retailers like Boots and Walgreens, the Dabur India retail outlets, would sell pharmaceutical and OTC products as well as other products such as health food, confectionery, personal and baby care products and general merchandise. While Dabur is not tying up with a foreign partner, it is hiring a few foreign expats with wide experience in the retail business to guide the new venture.

Retail will be the Dabur group's third major venture after FMCG and pharmaceuticals, and could over the medium-term become as big as the FMCG business. It is expected that the company would roll out the first few stores by the end of the calendar year. The stores would be located inside malls and would be set up in the metros and tier-I cities.

Dabur is said to have set aside an investment of Rs200 crore for its retail foray. The retail plans are expected to be taken up at Dabur's board meeting this week. When contacted, Dabur India group director P D Narang declined to comment.

The company currently operates standalone outlets across the country offering complete Ayurvedic solutions, called the Dabur Ayurvedic Centres.

The company plans to set up 1,000 HealthWorld stores in 400 cities in the next five years at an outlay of Rs800 crore. These stores are meant as one-stop shops for a consumer's health needs with a 24/7 pharmacy which stocks FMCG products and health foods, ayurvedic and homeopathic medicines and also houses a diagnostic centre.
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Nortel to make India Asian hub for network-managed business
Mumbai: Canada-based telecom equipment maker Nortel wants to make India its Asian hub for network-managed services. The company has enhanced the capability of its Network Operations Centre (NOC) in New Delhi to make it the Asian NOC for supporting customers in the continent.

To cash in on the increase in IP (Internet protocol) telephony traffic, specially by BPOs and ITeS providers, Nortel is also looking at rolling out proactive voice quality management, which ensures better quality of IP telephony deployments.

The NOC was initially set up to host contact centre services for subscribers of Bharti's Airtel GSM mobile, broadband and fixed-line services. The company says it has now enhanced the skills, tools and services and integrated the NOC as the centre to support all Asian customers.

The company said the Indian NOC is central to its growth plans for the services business.

Managed network services relieve customers of network concerns by ensuring the right hardware, software and configurations for maximising interaction of networks and components from vendors, integrators and services.
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New company to be formed with Air India, Indian merger
New Delhi: The government is likely to form a 'new company' within a week of the merger of Air-India and Indian. The new company, into which the two carriers shall be merged, will be registered under the under the Companies Act of 1956. Out of the two legal route envisaged by the civil aviation ministry for the merger, the government has chosen the option of forming a new company under Sections 391 and 394 of the Companies Act.

Under this route, the ministry of company affairs will pass an order on an application filed by the board of directors of the two carriers, government sources said. Additionally, the government would require the two carriers to obtain approval of creditors — "majority" in number and representing at least 75 pc of credit in terms of value.

The other legal option that the civil aviation ministry had examined involves the central government passing an order, under Section 396 of the Companies Act, to merge the two companies in public interest. The second option requires the government to give "all" creditors of both carriers the 'right to object' to the merger. It also demanded the government to settle all their dues before executing the merger.

The Union Cabinet has given its nod for the merger on March 1 after the proposal was cleared last month by an empowered group of ministers (eGOM) headed by Pranab Mukherjee.

While the new company will be registered within the next week, the civil aviation ministry may require about 4 months to complete major legal and procedural formalities. However, the total integration process of two carriers may take about 2-3 years, sources said.
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TCS awarded contract to develop IT infrastructure for insurance pool
Mumbai: Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has received the contract to develop the IT infrastructure for creation of a third-party insurance pool. The pool was initially to start in January '07 but, was delayed because of technical and tax issues. It is now scheduled to kick off in April.

The pool is a mechanism to consolidate all the premium mobilised and claims incurred by the industry, and distribute the underwriting outcome among various companies in the ratio of their gross premium. Since the pool pertained to the loss-making third-party insurance of commercial insurance, it was certain that the pool would end up with an underwriting loss, which would be shared among industry participants. The pool was a relief to public sector companies since their share of commercial vehicle businesses was disproportionately high compared to their own business. Because the private companies avoided stand-alone third party insurance of commercial vehicles. The pool was a mechanism where they could pass on some of the losses of the business they were forced to pick up to the private players.

The delay in the pool would mean that PSU insurers would continue to bear most of the third-party insurance burden for one more quarter.
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MTNL to compete for setting up landline services in Saudi
Dubai: Ten consortia comprising international firms including Mahanagar Telephone NIigam (MTNL) are competing for Saudi Arabia's second landline phone license, which will break the monopoly of Saudi Telecom Company Dubai.

The Communication and Information Technology Commission (CITC) has received applications from 10 consortia in response to the request forms issued on October 24, 2006 a CITC statement said.

Saudi Telecom has about four million fixed line customers in the country with a population of nearly 27 million.

The 10 consortia include Al-Shola (MTNL India), Khaled Ahmed Al-Juffali Co (WorldCall Telecom of Pakistan), Makkah Telecom (China Telecom), and Bayanat (Korea Telecom).

Others in the fray are Optical Communications Company (Verizon), Saudi Telecom Holding (Qtel-Atco), Al-Mutakamilah (Hong Kong's PCCW), Electronet (Autelia of Italy), Etihad Etisalat (Mobily) and Atheeb Telecom (Batelco of Bahrain).
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Deloitte-Mastek JV ends
Mumbai: Mastek, a Mumbai-based IT services firm, has ended its joint venture with Deloitte Consulting, citing stagnant revenues and falling profits.

The 500 professionals employed in Mumbai will remain with the existing entity, which will function as a wholly-owned unit of Deloitte & Touche, USA.

Mastek will use the proceeds from exiting the venture — which it expects to complete by the end of this financial year - to acquire a US-based company providing application development in the insurance or the government segment.
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Government to bail out sugar companies with Rs750 crore package
Bangalore: The Centre will soon announce a Rs750-crore bail-out package for the beleaguered sugar industry by the end of this month.

Government sources said about Rs350 crore would be provided to create a buffer stock of 1.15 million tonne of sugar and another Rs400 crore as export subsidy when there are few takers overseas.

Indian white plantation sugar has 100 Icumsa (International Commission for Uniform Methods of Sugar Analysis), while international trading takes place for refined sugar having 45 Icumsa.

For Indian sugar with high Icumsa, there are few export destinations and the global market is likely to remain tough over the next 18 months, and a subsidy was called for, the sources said.
The package is expected to be similar to the one provided in 2002-03 when the government had provided reimbursement of expenses on internal transport, ocean freight at Rs350/mt and marketing and handling expenditure at Rs500/mt.

The fresh bailout package is also crucial since domestic realisation is at a lowest Rs1,250-1,350 a quintal ex-mill, while the average cost of production is Rs200 a quintal more than that.
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