|
|
| Banks’ performance reviewed at high-level meeting Excelsior Correspondent JAMMU, Jan 30: The Sub-Committee of the State Level Bankers Committee( SLBC) held a meeting to review the performance of various.....more NEW DELHI, Jan 30: The meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Disinvestment (CCD), scheduled for today. ...more Chinese economists BEIJING, Jan 30: Chinese economists fear the counntry’s economy is still facing deflationary ...more
Improve international CHENNAI, Jan 30: The country should improve its international..more |
 |
Switch over to organic farming: Experts CHANDIGARH, Jan 30: Tobacco, ginger, garlic and neem extracts are enough to save farmers from taking loans for high-cost pesticides, while vermiculture and cowdung can prevent consumers from taking ‘intoxicant foodgrain produced from chemical fertilizers’.....more FIPB clears 13 FDI proposals worth Rs 219 cr NEW DELHI, Jan 30: A Rs 122 crore project by M/S Bharti Telesonic Ltd for long distance telecom operations and a Rs 86.26 crore proposal by the M/S Astra Pharmaceuticals AB of Sweden were among FDI proposals worth Rs 219 crores cleared by the Foreign Investment Promotion Board today......more GDP growth at 6.4 per NEW DELHI, Jan 30: Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 1999-2000 registered a growth of 6.4 per cent against 6.6 recorded during the previous .....more Partial resumption of NEW DELHI, Jan 30: Four days after a devastating earthquake played havoc with country’s busiest port at Kandla.........more |
 |
|
|
Banks’ performance reviewed at high-level meeting Excelsior Correspondent JAMMU, Jan 30: The Sub-Committee of the State Level Bankers Committee( SLBC) held a meeting to review the performance of various banking institutions in implementing various Government sponsored schemes in Jammu and Kashmir State. The meeting, presided over by Mr Peerzada Lateef Ahmed, Chief General Manager of J&K Bank, was attended by senior officers of the Jammu and Kashmir Bank as also the representatives from Reserve Bank of India, State Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, United Commercial Bank, NABARD. The Directors of Rural Development from Kashmir and Jammu regions, Director of Employment, Director of Handicrafts and other officers participated in the meeting. After welcoming the participants, Mr P Z Lateef Ahmed highlighted the performance of the banks in the Jammu and Kashmir till end of November, 2000, under different schemes. It was disclosed in the meeting that as against total Credit Plan of Rs 488.03 crore, the banks have disbursed an amount of Rs 220.12 crore among 20450 beneficiaries under all sectors of economy in Jammu and Kashmir State. Thus, the banks have achieved the 41 per cent of the target during the first six months of the current financial year.. Giving details of the workdone, Mr P Z Lateef Ahmed stated that banks have granted Rs 39.49 crore under various poverty alleviation programmes in favour of 6727 beneficiaries in the State during the first 8 months of the current financial year. The schemes which were provided finances included: Swaranjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana( SGSY), Prime Minister’s Rozgar Yojana (PMRY), Jammu and Kashmir Self Employment Scheme (JKSES), Swaran Jayanti Shehri Rozgar Yojana ( SJSRY) which mostly benefit the poor and rural population. It was disclosed that under SGSY scheme, the banks have disbursed Rs 5.54 crore among 2230 persons in Jammu and Kashmir during the said period. An amount of Rs 11.24 crore have been advanced as loans under PMYR to 1406 educated unemployed youth for setting up their own ventures for gainful employment. Under the J&K State Self-Employment Scheme, an amount of Rs 8.76 crore have been provided as loan to 838 unemployed youth for starting income generating units in the State. While an amount of Rs 4.41 crore have been disbursed among 975 persons under Swaran Jayanti Shehri Rozgar Yojana (SJSRY) scheme while Rs 79 lakhs have been advanced to 439 persons under Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes category schemes during the period under review, the meeting was informed. The meeting also took stock of various bottlenecks being faced in the smooth implementation of Handicrafts and Handloom sector schemes and on-the-spot decisions were taken for granting loans early to the beneficiaries. It was decided that for sponsorship of candidates under this scheme was extended upto end of February, 2001. Further 21 cases of pump-set were approved for Command Area Development Department, Jammu for finance by the Jammu and Kashmir Bank, State Bank of India, and other banks. The targets for financing cases were finalised in the meeting, it was stated. Mr P Z Lateef Ahmed underscored the need for gearing up the machinery for fully achieving the targets set for each banking institution in the State. He said there should be improvement in the functioning so that the remaining period of the financial year is utilised to achieve results. |
|
|
NEW DELHI, Jan 30: The meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Disinvestment (CCD), scheduled for today, has been postponed to February one. The meeting was called off at the last minute, an official spokesperson said. The spokesperson declined to give any reasons for the cancellation of the CCD meeting, but it is believed to be on account of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s informal meetings with his Cabinet colleagues to review the Gujarat situation. (PTI) |
|
Chinese economists fear deflation BEIJING, Jan 30: Chinese economists fear the counntry’s economy is still facing deflationary pressure despite some experts predicting that consumer prices would rise by a big margin this year, state media reported today. "The evidence is still weak that China has finally pulled out of its fight against deflation, even though the country’s economy has taken a turn for the better," the official Xinhua news agency reported quoting Ye Zhen, spokesman for the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). The Consumer Price Index (CPI), Chinese policy makers’ key inflation gauge, rose only 0.2 per cent year-on-year during the first 11 months of 2000. "We are not 100 per cent convinced that deflation is over, as the CPI did not reach the targeted one per cent year-on-year growth last year," said Chen Huai, an expert with the Chinese Development Research Centre. The fog economic performance was not solid, he said adding that "the overall supply and demand are still not balanced." An earlier report from the NBS said that over 90 per cent of China’s industrial products are oversupplied. Fixed assets investments greatly depend upon Government injections and in particular, treasury bonds, he said. "Government investment could help create demand, but it usually takes time before this happens," he said. If the Government encourages private companies to spend on infrastructure, China could find a new way for its economic development, he said. Consumers could theoretically help pick up the demand by spending, but consumption has become an uncertain contributor in the months ahead, the top statistician said. With the aim of lifting consumer spending, the Chinese Central Bank has announced seven successive interest rate cuts over the past three years, having slashed interest on one-year deposits to 2.25 per cent. Chinese Government took other measures, such as increasing salaries, providing compensation for laid-off workers and increasing pensions, to encourage spending. The Government earlier announced a consumption-boosting, week-long national day holiday and may day holiday. "Chinese Government cannot expect Chinese urban consumers to spend more because they have many more worries such as pensions, medical care and children’s education," he said. The vast rural population has even less money because of the slow growth in income, he noted. In these circumstances, the Government should be more concerned about how to maintain growth, Chen said. (PTI) |
|
Improve international competitiveness: Maran CHENNAI, Jan 30: The country should improve its international competitiveness and pursue an export-oriented economic growth strategy to meet the challenges that would arise from abolition of quantitative restrictions on imports under the WTO agreement, Union Minister for Commerce Murasoli Maran said today. "There is no other alternative than improving international competitiveness of the country and pursuing an export-oriented economic growth strategy in the years ahead", the minister in his opening remarks at an "open house" on the forthcoming EXIM policy. The minister said the new EXIM policy would be a totally different one especially in view of the fact that Quantitative Restrictions (QRs) on imports as per the WTO agreement would have to be removed with effect from April next. He said even as the Centre was committed to protect and help the domestic industries against indiscriminate dumping by countries like China, the ultimate answer to the post QRs scenario was "not protection but ensuring international competitiveness". He said the new EXIM policy had to be formulated with a view to ensuring that the country’s contribution to the global trade should improve from the current levels of below one per cent. Maran said the country’s contribution to the global trade had come down to an abysmally low level of 0.7 per cent last year from 1.04 per cent in the sixties. Observing that only exports could ensure economic growth in the coming years, he said that inefficiency could no longer be promoted with regard to the domestic industries, notwithstanding the fact that the centre would take all possible steps to protect the domestic industry and make them efficient. "Anti-dumping duties would be imposed in genuine cases", he said adding that what was exactly needed was an export consciousness among the people, the state and the domestic industry. He said the Centre was committed to embark upon further rationalisation of procedures and giving more freedom to states to participate in export promotion activity."But export pessimism which is still dominant has to go" he added. The minister hoped that the country’s exports this fiscal would exceed the revised target of 44 billion US dollars adding that it was heartening that the export during April-October this fiscal had crossed the 25 billion US dollar mark. Maran said the Centre was keen on encouraging the setting up of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) by the states, adding that the one such zone by Tamil Nadu near Tuticorin would be commissioned shortly. (PTI) |
|
Switch over to organic farming: Experts CHANDIGARH, Jan 30: Tobacco, ginger, garlic and neem extracts are enough to save farmers from taking loans for high-cost pesticides, while vermiculture and cowdung can prevent consumers from taking ‘intoxicant foodgrain produced from chemical fertilizers’. These were some of the deliberations made by agro-scientists and other farm experts, who demonstrated the making of such organic products in front of the participating farmers, NGOs and other visitors at the three-day National Training Workshop on Organic Farming which concluded here today. The three-day workshop was organised by the Council for Advancement of People’s Action and Rural Technology (CAPART) in association with the Environment Society of India. "We have to look back to traditional farm practices to deal with problems like deterioration of soil fertlity, imbalance of sugar and starch in potatoes, ball-worms in cotton .... And to tackle the agro-economy in a healthy and prosperous manner," said Dr Tarak Kate, a bio-scientist who is working along with young scientists to peep into the indigenous farm practices which are non-chemical in nature. His NGO,‘Dhara Mitra’ (friend of earth), presently working in the Vidharbha region of Maharashtra, has been able to bring several than five thousand acres of agricultural land under organic farming with the help of four hundred small and marginalised farmers. "Knowledge is itself in villages and we have to bring it to the fore as exemplaries for others instead of looking abroad for farm techniques," Dr Kate said. He said that after three years of organic farming, the production reached at par with the chemically treated produce in several commodities both in kharif and rabi crops. The cash crops like cotton, sugarcane, Bengal gram, oranges and bananas, produced through organic farming would always have more nutritious values and free of intoxicants, he said. The Centre for Indian Knowledge Systems Director Dr K Vijaylakshmi deliberated upon the ill-effects of the consumption of the chemically treated foodgrains and taught the farmers at the workshop how to prepare the solutions from the extracts of tobacco, ginger, garlic and neem as a replacement of pesticides. Justifying the organic farming as a replacement for chemical fertilizers and pesticides, Dr Vijaylakshmi quoted alarming figures which stated that even the mother’s milk was now not free from intoxicants due to the consumption of chemically treated foodgrains. According to a study, she said, the samples of mother’s milk collected from Ludhiana contained 262.5 micro gram (mg) of DDT against the stipulated safe quantity of 100 mg of the DDT. Similarly, 485.6 mg of endosulphan was found in the sample against the safe figure of 30 mg, while the presence dicofol was also alarming (245 mg) against the safe quantity of 125 mg. Dr Vijaylakshmi and her team of young researchers at the centre for Indian knowledge systems help farmers cultivate organic rice, cotton, oil seeds and vegetables. One of their important areas of work is to set up rural gene banks for the conservation of traditional seed varieties. According to CAPART’s Regional Convenor Dr Arun Sud, the "greying green revolution" in the country and the fresh challenges coming with the implementation of the WTO agreement has prompted voluntary organisations promote organic farming in a big way. The technologies behind the greying green revolution were not going to work now ,he said. Dr Sud said that despite the green revolution, production cost had been spiralling whereas the rate of increase in production had not shown a similar trend. On the contrary, cultivators were being advised to apply more chemical inputs per unit of land, after every harvest, he said, adding that this resulted in ever increasing impoverishment of families, especially small and marginal farmers. Ecological and social costs of intensive agriculture practices were totally disregarded. The present generation of farmers, who have learnt ‘modern scientific agricultural practices’, were unsure where to look for viable alternatives. Even the voluntary agencies had not developed the requisite knowledge base and skills to serve the demands of sustainable agriculture practices. The influence of those agencies, who have done some research on organic farming, was largely confined to a small area. Dr Sud said some pioneering research and extension programmes have been undertaken by voluntary agencies in the southern states, as well as in Gujarat and Maharashtra. The workshop was organised in order to bring the NGO sector of the northern region up-to-date with the latest advancements in organic farming, techniques and practices. Dr Arun Sud said that in the workshop hands-on training was imparted to about 100 participants in various manure making techniques such as NADEP, vermi-compost, bio-dung, and organic pest control formulations based on extracts of organic materials like garlic, onion, tobacco, neem, turmeric, ginger, custard apple, tulsi and cow’s urine. He said experts from some of the nationally recognised resource institutions in organic farming ,including Centre for Knowledge Systems (Chennai), Institute of Research in Soil Biology and Bio-Technology (Chennai), Dharamitra (Wardha), Vishwa Bharti Kissan Jagriti Shikshan Sansthan (Hisar) imparted training to trainees representing various NGOs of the region. These experts included Dr K Vijayalaksmi, who has worked on biological control of the house hold pest cockroach and is currently working on the spiders of the cotton ecosystem, Dr Sultan Ahmed Ismail, a pioneer in the field of vermi-compost, Mr N D Panderipande, popularly called Nadap Kaka in recognition of his work on cow’s dung and urine, Dr Preeti Joshi from Bastar (MP) and Mr Tarak Kate from Warda. (UNI) |
|
FIPB clears 13 FDI proposals worth Rs 219 cr NEW DELHI, Jan 30: A Rs 122 crore project by M/S Bharti Telesonic Ltd for long distance telecom operations and a Rs 86.26 crore proposal by the M/S Astra Pharmaceuticals AB of Sweden were among FDI proposals worth Rs 219 crores cleared by the Foreign Investment Promotion Board today. The 13 Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) proposals cleared today included manufacture and sale of drugs, information technology and software solutions, Internet Service Providers (ISP) related services, telecom and Non-Banking Financial Services (NBFCs), an official release said here. The Bharati Telesonic, which seeks to provide domestic long distance telecom operations, topped the list with a Rs 122.5 crore FDI proposal involving 49 per cent foreign equity investment, it said. Pharmaceuticals Manufacturers Astra Pharmaceuticals Ltd followed the telecom firm in terms of value with a Rs 86.26 crore proposal for increasing the foreign equity to 51.5 per cent from the present 25.75 per cent, it added. (PTI) |
|
GDP growth at 6.4 per cent in 1999-2000 NEW DELHI, Jan 30: Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 1999-2000 registered a growth of 6.4 per cent against 6.6 recorded during the previous year at constant prices, according to official revised estimates. In 1999-2000, GDP was estimated at Rs 1,151,991 crore compared to Rs 1,083,047 crore in 1998-99, while it was Rs 1,786,459 crore and Rs 1,616,033 crore respectively at current prices, showing an increase of 10.5 per cent. At constant prices the national income in 1999-2000 was estimated at Rs 1,011,224 crore as against Rs 948,982 crore in 1998-99 registering a rise of 6.6 per cent during the year. At current prices, the national income in 1999-2000 was estimated at Rs 1,590,301 crore as compared to Rs 1,434,456 crore in 1998-99, showing an increase of 10.9 per cent, according to estimates released by Central Statistical Organisation. (PTI) |
|
Partial resumption of operations at Kandla Port NEW DELHI, Jan 30: Four days after a devastating earthquake played havoc with country’s busiest port at Kandla in Gujarat, operations have been partially resumed, but berthing problems persisted with normal functioning expected to be resumed by late next week. "Friday’s devastating earthquake which measured 7.9 on the richter scale, has caused havoc on the port. The port of Kandla is severely damaged and the supply was cut," senior Shipping Ministry officials said here. Normal operation could resume only by first week of february and there was likelihood that new vessels to load or discharge could be diverted to neighbouring Jawaharlal Nehru Port near Mumbai and Mumbai Port, they said. The earthquake severely disrupted jetty and warehousing operations at Kandla Port which handles 17 per cent of total cargo handled by 11 major ports in the country, sources said while refuting reports of oil slick from pipelines. "There was some dislocation of pipeline used to offload crude oil from ships, but no leakage of oil from pipeline," they said adding discharge of crude oil from ships anchored in the port had been stopped due to "dislocation" of a pipeline. Operations at three of the eight container berths and two of the five jetties had been resumed but warehousing operations are still affected, they said. Two of the oil jetties had been damaged and needed to be reset before shipping activity could start. (PTI) |
|
