NEW DELHI, Apr 15: Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Dr Raman Singh, a prominent.......more

DPC keen to offer
15 pc equity to NTPC,
says Godbole Panel

MUMBAI, Apr 15: US energy major Enron-promoted Dabhol Power Company (DPC) is keen to offer ....more

Govt to soon finalise
mid-term EXIM policy

NEW DELHI, Apr 15: The Commerce Ministry will finalise the mid-term Export-Import (EXIM).....more

Bush, hiw wife earn
net taxable income of
Rs 3.35 crore in 2000

WASHINGTON, Apr 15: US President George W Bush and his wife Laura earned a net taxable ........more

NEW DELHI, Apr 15: On the first working day after the Supreme Court had ordered Delhi’s polluting public buses off the roads, there were one-and-half times more personal vehicles than on a normal day ..........more

Is it time for you to
buy a new DVD-RAM drive?

WASHINGTON, Apr 15: Recordable DVD is here. Take the concept of CD- RW drives - which let........more

FIIs net buyers in
equities at Rs 53.4 crore

MUMBAI, Apr 15: The Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) were net buyers in equities....more

CAG castigates NDMC
for deficient garbage
removal, inefficiency

NEW DELHI, Apr 15: The Comptroller and Auditor General of India has castigated....more

Chhattisgarh central minister offers to mediate in BALCO

NEW DELHI, Apr 15: Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Dr Raman Singh, a prominent Bharatiya Janata Party leader from Chhattisgarh, said he is willing to act as an intermediary between the centre and the state to help resolve the BALCO crisis.

"We want the situation to normalise at BALCO and are willing to talk to the Chhattisgarh Government provided their tone and tenor changes", Dr Singh told UNI. He defended the BALCO deal, contending that disinvestment procedures followed by the Disinvestment Ministry were transparent and open for a CAG scrutiny.

Dr Singh, who became MP and the Central Minister after defeating political heavyweight Moti Lal Vohra from Rajnandgaon constituency, said he had good rapport with several state ministers and Chief Minister Ajit Jogi but he is dead against the BALCO privatisation.

Expressing hope that Mr Jogi would see reason and help break the impasse at the BALCO Korba Plants, Dr Singh said the controversial issue had damaged the reputation of the newly-born state which otherwise had many advantages for the domestic and foreign investors."We are the only state born with a power surplus. Moreover, the National Thermal Power Corporation is setting up a 300 mw generation station at Seepath".

The Central Minister who is a regular visitor to his state and naxalite-infested constituency, said Chhattisgarh could have had a headstart but for the balco imbroglio fuelled by Mr Jogi. "Chhattisgarh has suffered enormous damage in terms of its image among the industrialists and investors. Many of them have told me as well", Dr Singh who himself is holding the portfolio of the foreign direct investment under his senior colleague Murasoli Maran, said.

Referring to the gap between the FDI approvals and actual inflows, the minister admitted that the investors faced different problems at the state level when they go there to implement the projects. He agreed there is a case for greater involvement of the states in attracting the actual inflows. While the ministry of industrial policy and promotion has already taken certain initiatives in this regard, he has offered his personal help to the Chhattisgarh Government for industrial promotion in the state, Dr Singh said.

"I had called up the Chhattisgarh Industry Minister and suggested them to make professional preparations for attracting domestic and foreign investment. The centre could also help the state in setting up growth centres in the cluster-approach", he said. (UNI)

DPC keen to offer 15 pc equity to NTPC,
says Godbole Panel

MUMBAI, Apr 15: US energy major Enron-promoted Dabhol Power Company (DPC) is keen to offer 15 per cent of its equity to state-owned National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) in order to reduce the parent company’s stake to 50 per cent as per American laws.

"DPC has expressed hope that centre or any of its agencies, preferably NTPC, will purchase DPC power equivalent to at least one block (740 mw), under the counter guarantee, which, in any case, is obliged to make payments for 740 mw", the Godbole committee has said in its review of DPC’s 2,184 mw power project.

The stake was offered as part of its ongoing effort to reduce equity so as to avert consolidating DPC’s accounts with those of enron, as required under the US law, the report said.

According to DPC, such a development would permit the Central Government to pool company’s power with that of NTPC and enable reduction of average tariff and provide power utility with significant capacity addition with no-upfront investment.

The committee said DPC believed that it would also potentially give NTPC access to re-gassified Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) for its gas-based power projects on the western coast of India. (PTI)

Govt to soon finalise mid-term EXIM policy

NEW DELHI, Apr 15: The Commerce Ministry will finalise the mid-term Export-Import (EXIM) policy in the next few months. Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Omar Abdullah said the draft of the new mid-term EXIM policy had already been prepared and sent to the Agriculture Ministry, commercial and industrial associations and other related departments for their consideration.

Talking to UNI, the minister said the policy will be finalised in a few months after consulting all the related parties. Since the new policy will be for about six years, that is why it’s been called a mid-term EXIM policy, he said.

It may be mentioned that this fiscal is the last year of the current five-year EXIM policy(1997-2002). Under this year’s policy, quantitative restrictions on 714 items were removed and new methods were announced to give a boost to the agriculture sector. As it is the last year of the EXIM policy, so from next year we need to have a new policy, he said.

The minister said the Government’s foremost priority is to give a big push to exports and for this it would sought an active participation from the agencies involved in exports. At the same time we will keep an eye on imports also, he added.

The DGFT (Directorate General of Foreign Trade) revamp is already on so as to make it compatible with the changing scenario. And if required, the Government will rope in global agencies and advisory bodies for the purpose, he said. However, he added that certain international agencies are already working here.

He said the Government would give special emphasise on the agricultural export. For this, the current EXIM policy has already announced setting up of agricultural economic zones and the export incentives given on the other items would be extended to the export of agricultural products.

The minister clarified that processing units located near the apple and other fruit orchards will be treated as economic zones and all the infrastructural and civic amenities including electricity etc will be provided to them.

Rulling out the possibility of converting farms and gardens into agriculture economic zones, he said the units engaged in farm-related activities will be involved in these areas so as to strengthen the exports.

On the issue of quality control vis-a-vis Indian agricultural products, the minister said that for this purpose the Commerce Ministry is in constant touch with other ministries.

They have suggested good quality seeds for better yield, and if the product is attractively packaged in the global market then we will definitely gain, he said.

Asked if our domestic oil industry will suffer in the wake of 45 per cent duty levied on the import of soybean oil, he swiftly replied, we have not levied this duty, instead this has been fixed for us.

Asked if the duty has been levied under pressure from the us, he said, this is not the case. The duty was decided on the basis of circumstances prevailing at the time of signing the WTO pact. But the time has changed now.

He said for changing the rate of import duty, all the related countries had to be consulted and their acceptance was required. However, he also accepted the fact the a hike in import duty would adversely affect the domestic industry. (UNI)

Bush, hiw wife earn net taxable income of
Rs 3.35 crore in 2000

WASHINGTON, Apr 15: US President George W Bush and his wife Laura earned a net taxable income of Rs 3.35 crore (744,682 dollars) in 2000 when he was Texas Governor, a White House release has said.

The president remitted a sum of Rs 1.08 crore (240,342 dollars) as federal income tax to the United States treasury.

His earnings include his salary as Governor and investment income from the state and federal blind trusts in which their assets are held. In the US the financial year and tax year coincide with the calender year.

‘Mr President’ and his wife contributed 143,300 dollars to churches and charitable organisations exempt from payment of income tax. Vice President Dick Cheney also made public his total income and the tax he has paid as part of transparency in personal funds of people holding high offices. (UNI)

Piecemeal approach bane of urban public transport

NEW DELHI, Apr 15: On the first working day after the Supreme Court had ordered Delhi’s polluting public buses off the roads, there were one-and-half times more personal vehicles than on a normal day transporting commuters to offices. On the next day, angry mobs had set afire few buses and police had to be called in to control unruly crowds.

Transportation experts, in the Government and outside, say Delhi epitomises the poor condition of public transport in almost all Indian cities, the significance of which has not been understood properly and remains a low priority in the absence of a national policy for the system that is directly linked to economic activity of a city.

While Delhi’s condition got manifested in the absence of any good viable alternative, the situation in other cities is pathetic either because the growth in public transport has not kept pace with the increase in population or because local authorities have been adopting a piecemeal approach as far as development of public transport is concerned, notes Prof A K Sharma, head transport division, school of planning and architecture.

Cities like Kolkata, Chennai and Mumbai, which were once rated as best in urban transport development for integrated rail and road networks, have reached the saturation point with more than half a crore people commuting daily on local electric trains (100 trips in Chennai daily), and thousands of public transport buses (2,800 in chennai and more than 4,000 best buses in Mumbai).

Reports from these cities indicate that commuters are clamouring for more, despite the railways having increased their carrying capacity in Mumbai by 30 per cent and whereas in Chennai the surface-cum-elevated Mass Rapid Transport System (MRTS) is proving to be a white elephant carrying a mere 70,000 passengers per month.

In Kolkata, where buses, minibuses, trains and metro rails co-exist, the commuters woes are felt at peak office hours despite adding to infrastructure.

Delhi’s very own 7,500 public buses used to transport (before April) up to 45 lakh people daily with intermediate public transport like cycle rickshaws, and four-wheeler autos supplementing the services in the absence of an effective intra-city rail network comparable with other megacities.

While Delhi laments the absence of a well integrated network, which according to Rakesh Mehta, the Chairman cum Managing Director of Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) is because of "lack of an effective policy to promote public transport," the condition in about a dozen other big cities like Kanpur, Lucknow, Agra and Aligarh is worse because all that exists there in the name of public transport are rickshaws and diesel run auto-rickshaws plying people from one point to another.

According to Sharma, the lack of an effective public transport system has a great negative effect on the growth of cities because in effect it means that people are traveling by slower modes of transport and spending more time in commuting. "This brings down the economic productivity of the people, who would then migrate to places where economic activity is high.

"With the skilled labour having left for greener pastures, the cities would not have many skilled people to enhance its activities and that would lead to natural death of such urban settlement," explains the academic making a strong case for the cities to develop good public transport systems as a priority.

Not that the local authorities haven’t given it a thought to. Most mega cities have "at least on paper completed with the thinking or planning process of their requirement of a transport system best suited to them," says Sharma.

But their studies have remained on the shelf either because of lack of resources and mainly because of lack of specialisation with the authorities for pursuing the plans, he notes. "The development of public transport has been on a piecemeal approach."

For instance, Delhi’s own MRTs (Mass Rapid Transport) now under construction and expected to reduce travelling time by 50 to 75 per cent, was perceived in 1969 in the first report prepared by the central road research institute. "Today after 30 years, we are now beginning to see part of the first phase set to become operational by next year," says the SPA expert.

Mehta concedes that promotion of public transport in the capital hasn’t been given the priority it deserved. After liberalization there has been no investment in infrastructure of dtc in workshops and depots. "Ten years ago DTC fleet strength was 5,000. Today of the 7,500 buses plying on Delhi’s roads, a mere 1123 are of the corporation, which has hired 2,800 more buses while the State Transport Authority has granted permits to run 3600 private buses in the capital. (PTI)

Is it time for you to buy a new DVD-RAM drive?

WASHINGTON, Apr 15: Recordable DVD is here. Take the concept of CD- RW drives - which let you play and record CD disks - and add lots more storage space, and you have recordable DVD, or DVD-RAM for short.

But is it time for you to buy a new DVD-RAM drive? read on to find the answer to this and more.

A: There’s no doubt that DVD-RAM is a quantum leap forward for removable storage. Eventually, DVD-RAM disks will be able to hold up to 16 gigabytes (GB) of data per disk.

DVD-RAM is poised to be one of the hottest technologies of the latter part of this year. And if your budget will allow, you can get a taste of the things to come by buying one of the DVD-RAM drives currently on the market.

Here’s the good news about DVD-RAM. Today’s drives are second-generation models. This means that manufacturers have had some time to address some of the technical headaches that early adopters of DVD-RAM drives experienced, such as incompatibilities, installation problems, and performance.

Current models can store up to 9.4 gigabytes (GB) of data, assuming you use double-sided DVD-RAM disks. You can also buy disks in capacities of 2.6 gigabytes, 4.7 GB, and 5.4 GB. The DVD-RAM standard allows for capacities to eventually reach 16 GB.

With such capacities, you can much more effectively back up today’s large hard drives - although you may still end up using several disks if you have one of the hard drives that approaches 80 GB.

You can also even record DVD movies using software freely available over the internet, at sites such as the DVD ripping guide, at http://www.Flexion.Org/video/ripping.

Keep in mind, though, that the movie industry does not at all appreciate your copying commercial movies to give to your friends, and the practice is illegal.

But now for the bad news about DVD-RAM. The drives, although they have come down considerably in price since last year, still run at between 450 and 800 dollars at the retail level, and there are few drives from which to choose.

Toshiba, Panasonic, and a company called qps each have a second-generation DVD-RAM drive readily available. Only Toshiba’s model runs on a standard ide interface - the one typically found in today’s computers.

The other drives are SCSI-based, which means that you will need to purchase a scsi controller card separately. Don’t purchase a DVD-RAM drive that does not write to 9.4 GB DVD-RAM disks. If you do, you’ll be purchasing a first-generation drive.

DVD-RAM disks are also still quite expensive. The largest capacity 9.4 GB disks retail for close to 50 dollars each. If you intend to use the drive to back up, say, an 80 GB hard drive, you’ll need to purchase at least eight disks.

If you intend to play around with "ripping" movies - the term used to signify copying movies to your hard drive from a DVD original disk - expect to spend some time delving into the still developing world of DVD decoding software.

Because this technology is new, DVD ripping applications are available only from a lesser-known software makers, and the procedures are not always straight forward.

Certainly, though, if you have money to spend, DVD-RAM is cost-effective as a backup solution, especially if you consider that there are not many reasonable alternatives to backing up a huge hard drive.

Tape is slow - and almost as expensive in the capacities you need.

If you’re not ready to make the financial investment in DVD-RAM now, keep your eye on the market. Drives from significant hardware manufacturers such as hewlett-packard, IBM, and others are sure to be appearing soon, and prices will fall relatively quickly, if history is any indication.

Since there is little performance difference between SCSI and ide CD-RW drives, the type of drive you choose should be determined by the type of connections readily available in your PC.

Every windows PC today comes with two internal ide connectors, each of which can accomodate two devices, for a total of four per system. Ide is the connector used to hook up most hard drives.

Usually, if you have only one hard drive in your system, you can use the second internal ide connector to hook up your CD-RW drive. You should keep your CD-RW drive on an ide connector that is not shared with a hard drive.

But let’s say you have two hard drives in your computer - one on each internal ide port. In such a case, you may wish to add either another ide controller to hook up your CD-RW drive or consider moving to SCSI.

The reason is that the performance of your cd-rw drive - and the performance of your PC - will be significantly impaired if you hook up your CD-RW drive as a "secondary" ide device when you have two primary devices, such as two hard drives, already installed.

It’s quite easy to add an additional ide controller card to your machine - and quite inexpensive. But if you already have a SCSI controller in your computer, for example, consider purchasing a SCSI CD-RW drive.

For a comparison of the performance differences between an ide and a SCSI CD-RW drive, see the SCSI CD-RW drive roundup at http://www.Digit-life.Com/articles/cdrwscsi. (DPA)

FIIs net buyers in equities at Rs 53.4 crore

MUMBAI, Apr 15: The Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) were net buyers in equities at Rs 53.4 crore (usd 11.5 million) and net sellers in debt at Rs 11.9 crore (usd 2.6 mn) respectively during the first three trading days in the week ended April 13.

According to data available with Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), FIIs were net sellers in both equities (Rs 15 crore - usd 3.2 mn) and debt (Rs 26.9 crore - usd 5.8 mn) on April 10, the day BSE Sensitive Index closed at a 23-month low of 3458.39 points.

In the previous week ended April six, FIIs were net buyers in equities and debt at Rs 418.3 crore (usd 89.9 million) and Rs 101 crore (usd 21.7 mn) respectively.

On April nine, the foreign funds bought equities worth Rs 290.1 crore while offloading them to the extent of Rs 225.5 crore, thus turning into net buyers of Rs 64.7 crore (usd 13.9 million).

They also remained net buyers on April 11 at Rs 3.7 crore (usd 0.8 mn), SEBI said.

On the debt front, FIIs were net buyers on April nine and 11 at Rs 10.1 crore (usd 2.2 mn) and Rs 4.9 crore (usd one million) respectively.

The SEBI data on mutual funds for the two days beginning April nine shows that they were net sellers in equities at Rs 36.48 crore and net buyers in debt at Rs 126.76 crore. (PTI)

CAG castigates NDMC for deficient garbage
removal, inefficiency

NEW DELHI, Apr 15: The Comptroller and Auditor General of India has castigated the New Delhi Municipal Council for ‘deficient’ garbage removal operation in the national capital and inefficient utilisation of resources, causing huge loss of about Rs ten crore.

The CAG report has pulled up the NDMC for incurring avoidable expenditure of Rs 2.14 crore on the hiring of trucks for lifting and removing garbage inspite of sufficient fleet size of its own. It said that the garbage generation in the NDMC area ranged from 221 metric tonnes per day to 334 metric tonnes during the past five years while its capacity of garbage removal through trucks owned by it during the period ranged from 240 mt to 432 mt.

One trip per day by these trucks was sufficient to clear the garbage, but despite this NDMC hired private vehicles since 1997-98, who have been paid Rs 2.14 crore till 1999-2000. While the private vehicles occasionally made two trips also, NDMC trucks did not complete even one trip per day and this underutilisation caused huge losses, the report said.

The garbage removal operation was also deficient as presidents and secretaries of 16 resident welfare associations said that NDMC staff were not removing garbage daily as required under the NDMC Act. The daily surface cleaning of all the streets and removal of sweepings therefrom was not done, depriving the residents of a neat and clean environment. The NDMC takes at least two to six days to attend to complaints of residents, it said.

The compost plant set up by NDMC in 1985 was to handle 60000mt of garbage per annum and it was envisaged that 30000 mt compost would be produced per year. But plant utilisation during the last five years varied from 12 to 20 per cent of the installed capacity. The actual generation of manure during the period was only 22238mt.

Due to this inadequate capacity utilisation and inefficient production, the NDMC has lost potential revenue of Rs 7.71 crore, the report said.

Moreover, the NDMC had to pay dumping and levelling charges to MCD in whose sanitary landfills the garbage was dumped at Rs 248 per trip that was revised to Rs 388 in 1999-2000. The 65,728 trips for garbage dumping caused an avoidable expenditure of Rs 1.87 crore as dumping and leveling charges which was caused due to underutilsation of compost plant.

The NDMC also delayed finalising three contracts for cleaning, scavenging and maintenance of toilet blocks by 10 to 16 months and during the period the work continued to be awarded to the existing contractors. Since the works to the new contractors were awarded at much less cost than earlier ones, the NMDC, by finalising the tenders at the earliest, could have avoided extra expenditure of Rs 20.12 lakh, the report revealed.

Besides, the agreements signed with contractors and the letter of award did not specify any monitoring by NDMC nor were payments linked to a maximum level of maintenance of sanitation. The NDMC has no monitoring mechanism to ensure that contractors were actually performing the stipulated job efficiently, it pointed out.

The CAG asked that the NDMC to review its garbage removal and sanitation management in an integrated manner to ensure more effective and efficient utilisation of available resources. (UNI)