.

Excelsior Correspondent

JAMMU, July 30: A Customer Meet was held by Jammu and Kashmir Limited at Chenani.....more

K P Singh

ASSOCHAM suggests replacement of old
internal trade laws

NEW DELHI, July 30 : The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) has suggested..more

Indian Bank doubles
losses in 1998-99

CHENNAI, July 30: Indian Bank today announced that their losses had more than ......more

‘Trade unions must give constructive suggestions’

NEW DELHI, July 30: Renowned economist Mrityunjay Atherya said today that trade unions must give constructive suggestions to the Government on trade, industrial and other economic policies and recognise.....more

President K R Narayanan

Govt to increase corpus
of contingency fund

NEW DELHI, July 30: Government will soon....more

HMT Q1 net loss up
44 per cent at Rs 68.9 crore

NEW DELHI, July 30: HMT Limited has.. ..more

VSNL registers 14.7 pc growth in net profit

NEW DELHI, July 30: The public sector ....more

Yashwant Sinha

Sinha for debate on
SSI reservation

NEW DELHI, July 30: Finance Minister...more

JK Bank holds customers meet at Chenani

Excelsior Correspondent

JAMMU, July 30: A Customer Meet was held by Jammu and Kashmir Limited at Chenani yesterday. The meeting was presided over by Mr Ajit Singh, Deputy General Manager, Jammu and was attended by large number of customers, senior citizens and officials of various Government departments.

The meeting was held in the new and spacious premises where the Bank had shifted to provide better facilities to its customers.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr Ajit Singh informed that the Bank was committed to the service to the entire satisfaction of the customers. He asked the customers to avail various loan facilities being extended by the bank and urged the gathering to keep their deposits with J&K Bank as interest rates were more attractive than any other bank.

Discussing about the working of the Bank, the Dy General Manager said that the Bank has already achieved number two position amongst all the Indian banks and was heading towards achieving number one position.

The customers from various areas put forth their suggestions which were accepted. Mr Gopal Sharma, Mr Shanker Singh, Mr Lal Chand and Mr Ganesh Gupta from the customers side congratulated the Bank for having shifted the Bank to a beautiful building. They suggested that the Bank should finance transport sector, dairy units, pump sets and vegetable canning and juice makinhg units as these have greater potential in the area.

Mr Singh informed that the Bank was already financing such units and invited prospective borrowers to come forward to avail these facilities.

ASSOCHAM suggests replacement
of old internal trade laws

NEW DELHI, July 30 : The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) has suggested replacement of the 400-odd laws governing internal trade by two Amnibus Act to facilitate easy access to the entire market by foreign investors and provide quality products at the lowest cost to the consumer.

In a paper presented to the PMO and State Government, ASSOCHAM President K P Singh said, "the first act should relate to ‘contractors’, which can serve as a benchmark for trading community’s links with institutions like banks and with producers from whom traders buy their products. The second act should relate to the ‘consumer’ and protect his interests."

As of now, the share of internal trade in the GDP is 12 per cent, it is growing in the vicinity of 14 per cent and generates high volume of self-employment in the formal and informal sectors.

There is need, therefore, to create a seamless, frictionless and borderless common indian market bringing in benefits of size and free availability to help internal trade contribute 25 per cent of GNP by year 2005 and generate employment opportunities for millions in the process.

The ASSOCHAM chief said at a time when India is trying hard to promote investments, including Foreign Direct Investment, investors contemplating setting up production facilities feel inhibited as they are not sure of having access to the entire Indian market.

Even if the Indian market is potentially big, its fragmented nature and myriad restrictions on the free flow of goods reduced the attractiveness of India as a destination of direct investment. The paper said uniformity in rules, procedures, standards and taxes all over India would serve to locate a particular industry or firm in the region where the real cost of production from the national point of view is the lowest. Otherwise, artificial barriers would dictate the location of industries within India which would not be according to the true comparative advantage within the country. That would be a source of national loss, even if certain regions may prosper at the expense of other regions.

Mr Singh said the cost of holding inventories increases if the producers or the traders cannot quickly move the inputs or the outputs. In that case they would have to hold unnecessarily high levels of inventories to beat the various bottlenecks on the movement of goods across different regions within a country.

Though many developed countries are switching to the concept of ‘just-in-time’ inventories, it is simply not feasible in present day India. This puts Indian producers, at a cost disadvantage relative to producers abroad whose inventory costs are lower. It also impedes the operation of the "level playing field" for Indian players vis-a-vis import of goods from foreign producers abroad.

Blocs of countries, he said, are realising the importance of unrestricted trade. And in India, trade across states and regions remains unduly restricted. There should be equalisation of prices of goods including taxes except to the extent of different transportation costs in all parts of the country. If regional sentiments have to give way to the feeling of being an "Indian", there should not be any discrimination between Indians living in different parts of the country regarding the price and availability of goods and services, Mr Singh said in a statement here. (UNI)

Indian Bank doubles losses in 1998-99

CHENNAI, July 30: Indian Bank today announced that their losses had more than doubled to Rs 778.49 crore during 1998-99 from Rs 301.5 crore a year ago, thus taking their cumulative losses to a whopping Rs 3181.87 crore.

Giving the Bank’s operating results for the last fiscal, Bank chairman and managing director T S Raghavan told reporters here that the Bank had provisioned Rs 615 crore for the year as against Rs 92 crore last year.

He said the Bank had sought a fresh capital infusion from the Central Government to the tune of Rs 1200 crore on top of the Rs 1,850 crore secured from it last year.

While interest and other income rose to Rs 1,823.97 crore in the last fiscal from Rs 1,661.86 crore a year ago, the total expenditure zoomed to Rs 2,602.46 crore from Rs 1,963.36 crore in the previous financial year.

Raghavan said though the net loss had risen, it was due to provisions made by the Bank and added that the Bank had made a recovery of Rs 268 crore from its NPAs (Non-Performing Assets), which enabled it to bring down the ratio of net NPAs to net advances to 21.6 per cent from 26 per cent.

You would appreciate that the net loss is not a loss in the true and strict sense of the term. It is only a mere provisioning that has to be made on Non-Performing Assets (NPAs) as per prudential norms, he said. (PTI)

‘Trade unions must give constructive suggestions’

NEW DELHI, July 30: Renowned economist Mrityunjay Atherya said today that trade unions must give constructive suggestions to the Government on trade, industrial and other economic policies and recognise the net advantage of being a member of the global economy.

Similarly, the unions must suggest ways to trade associations, local and apex chambers for strengthening the industry and competitiveness of India INC, he said.

Mr Atherya was addressing delegates at a two-day national conference on "work and employment relations in the new millennium" organised here by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

At the enterprise level, he said, the unions must understand the competitive forces and the compulsions on managements. "Be a joint trustee. Encourage members to do so."

Mr Atherya said the world of work is undergoing massive transformation with globalisation, borderless movement of goods, technology funds, people and other resources besides explosion in Information Technology (IT). These forces will have profound implications.

"Enterprise managements, workers and unions will have to learn to be effective under globally accepted conditions. Their national governments will not be in a position to fully accede to their demands for special protection."

Mr Athreya said the top-line and staff executives will need to understand the environmental forces and their work implications in depth, to be able to communicate lucidly to members and unions. They must go for a high performance culture.

"In the case of promoters, involve family members only based on competence. Induct, develop, promote and empower professionals. Avoid the dilemmas of CEO Charmonman of KSC in Thailand with 31 step brothers and sisters besides 300 in the extended family."

He said the managements should provide the vision and strategic leadership for ensuring survival, growth and profitability. They must create the resource, organisational, human resource development and systems infrastructure.

At the same time, workers must recognise that India’s competitiveness is still very low. Every member has to do his or her bit to raise national competitiveness with multiplier effects on other sectors.

The workers should also sustain life-long learning and professional self-development. They must create own career path for mutual benefit.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr C P Thakur, president of the Indian Industrial Relations Association (IIRA), said the reforms for economy and enterprises must include benefits for the labour. At the same time, Indian industry must build competitiveness in view of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

CII vice-president Arun Bharat Ram said the Government must provide good infrastructure and introduce transparent policies. "India must grow fast because when southeast asian countries recover from the present economic crisis, they will be starting from a much higher level.

He added that 10 billion dollars of Foreign Direct Investments will be required for the country maintain seven per cent growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Mr Pravin Dave, head of employee relations at Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL), said today’s educated and skilled workforce is more bothered about economic issues rather than political ideologies. The emergence of service sector and consumer-based society are good signs for the economy.

There is a slow integration of Indian economy with the global economy, Mr Dave said. "In future, there is going to be fierce competition for talented labour."

Mr Sunil Abrol, Registrar at the Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DoT), said the changing times will witness workers shifting constantly through various industries. (UNI)