Government removes tariffs on Portland cement
New Delhi: The government has abolished duties on the import of Portland cement and has also indicated its willingness to remove the dual excise duty structure on cement announced in the recent budget.

The government has also abolished with immediate effect the countervailing duty of 16 pc on 65 pc of the import price and 4 pc additional customs duty on the remaining 35 pc of Portland cement, which is widely used in construction. The countervailing duty has been removed to make cement imports cheaper so as to contain domestic prices.

The duty cut is expected to increase cheaper imports, thereby increasing supplies.

The government has also kept an open mind on rolling back the dual excise duty structure, said officials of the Central Board of Excise and Customs.

The domestic industry reportedly is not happy with the latest move.
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World Bank says inflation in India well contained
Tokyo: India's annual inflation of 6.5 per cent is not that high considering the country's strong economic growth, a senior World Bank official said. Isabel Guerrero, the World Bank's country director for India said the Indian economy is forecast to grow 9 per cent this year, the same pace of growth estimated for 2006, making it one of the fastest-growing economies in the world.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has been raising interest rates on concerns that the economy might be overheating, but it is also 'playing by ear' how its policy action could affect future economic growth, she said.

Annual inflation, as measured by wholesale prices, is running at nearly 6.5 per cent, which is well above the RBI's comfort zone of 5.0-5.5 per cent.

But Guerrero, who oversaw Latin American countries at the World Bank before assuming her current post in March, said annual inflation of 6.5 per cent is 'not really high' and inflation staying below 10 per cent is in fact 'very good'.
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PM approves duty-free access to Indian markets
New Delhi: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has announced duty-free access to Indian markets to India's South Asian neighbours without insisting on reciprocity. He also said India was ready to further reduce the list of sensitive items for trade.

Dr Singh said Governments of the region were addressing bilateral political issues. "We should break with the past and join hands to overcome the challenges", Singh said, adding that the time had come for SAARC to work together to realise the vision of prosperity, cooperation, peace and development.

Dr Singh also welcomed Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai and said India was proud that Afghanistan was attending its first SAARC Summit as a full member when the event was being hosted by India.
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Rlys to start call centre operations
New Delhi: the Indian Railways are ready to start India's largest call centre businesses later this month. The complete rollout of the new Integrated Train Inquiry System (ITES) or Rail Sampark will happen in three months.

The railways also plan to overhaul its website with a new design and additional capacity enhancements — with increase in servers from 26 to 46 and bandwidth increase from 8 mb to 72 mb.

This additional capacity will help cope with increasing load of online ticket booking. At present about 40,000 commuters book tickets online every day. Railways expect this to swell to 100,000 per day and the additional resources will help cope with this traffic.
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