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New India Assurance opens training centre at Jammu Excelsior Correspondent JAMMU, Dec 1: The New India Assurance Company Limited opened its Agents Training Centre here to provide quality training so that knowledge and .........more Govt
considering debt NEW DELHI, Dec 1: The Government is actively considering a proposal to create a debt restructuring fund for the ....more Govt
to nominate GAIL NEW DELHI, Dec 1: The Government is likely to nominate public sector GAIL (India) Ltd as the nodal agency for the....more Hero
Honda sales NEW DELHI, Dec 1: The country’s biggest bike maker Hero Honda Motors today .....more |
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Infosys’ chairperson VIJAYAWADA, Dec 1: Infosys Foundation Chairperson Sudha Murthy has been selected for the prestigious Pinnamaneni and Seeta Devi Foundation ....more OMCs asked to set up a non-PDS kerosene network NEW DELHI, Dec 1: The Petroleum Ministry has asked all the public sector Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) to create a .....more NEW DELHI, Dec 1: The country’s largest carmaker Maruti Udyog Ltd today said sales grew 29 per cent in November to 39,745 vehicles, which includes .......more Computer
service KOLKATA, Dec 1: ‘Single window computer’system was introduced in the Parnasripally branch of State Bank of India in south 24 Parganas district .......more |
New India Assurance opens training centre at Jammu Excelsior Correspondent JAMMU, Dec 1: The New India Assurance Company Limited opened its Agents Training Centre here to provide quality training so that knowledge and skills garnered during training would raise the level of skills and service to the level where expectations of insuring public are fully met. The Chief Guest, Regional Manager, Chandigarh, Dr A P Mittal, declared open the Centre while opening ceremony was done by Mr S K Mehta, DGM Jammu Central Co-operative Bank. Mr Charanjeet Singh, Dy Manager RO Chandigarh spoke briefly and informed that ‘New India’, carrying on tradition of excellence, has opened 47th training centre, at Jammu to impart insurance knowledge and skills. He said it was the dream of Dr Mittal to open a training centre in Jammu and Kashmir State as candidates from here had to go to Chandigarh to get Agents training. Today this dream has come true due to his relentless efforts. While extending his thanks, he said our joint efforts shall be mutually beneficial and find favour with the customers. Earlier Dr R K Duggal, Senior Divisional Manager Jammu, introduced the chief guest to the august gathering. Vote of thanks was presented by Divisional Manager Mrs Suman Gupta of Divisional Office Gandhi Nagar Jammu. |
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Govt considering debt restructuring fund for textile sector NEW DELHI, Dec 1: The Government is actively considering a proposal to create a debt restructuring fund for the textile sector for bringing back the buoyancy in the market, Textile Minister G N Ramachandran said today. "The proposal to set up debt relief fund for textile sector is under active consideration to provide relief to textile units suffering under heavy debt repayment burden," Mr Ramachandran said after inaugurating the three-day long 7th Asian textile conference here. The minister said technology upgradation fund for textile sector has become more investor friendly. "Financial institutions have adopted a very positive approach and the terms and conditions for raising institutional finance have been greatly simplified to suit the industry requirments. As a result, amount of loans disbursed has also increasd substantially," he said. He said a series of incentives announced by the Government in the last three union budgets have started showing results. "Exports have gone up, new investments are tricking in and many are in pipeline." He said the current players were expanding either by adding new capacities in the existing units or setting up greenfield projects. The minister said that the mood was upbeat and there was every reason to be optimistic and hopeful of a glarious future of the industry. Speaking on the occation the member Planning Commission, N K Singh said 2005 will witness the dismantling of quota in 789 items. He said Asia was also rapidly dismantling tariff barriers. "The challenge before Asia is to increase its share in the global trade of textiles. Asia with a large young population, vast pool of skilled manpower and huge market has an opportunity to increase the market share in the post quota regime." The conference is being attended by over 380 experts, academicians and industry representatives from 20 countries including USA, UK, Korea, Hong Kong and Iran. (UNI) |
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Govt to nominate GAIL as nodal agency for setting up gas grid NEW DELHI, Dec 1: The Government is likely to nominate public sector GAIL (India) Ltd as the nodal agency for the proposed national gas GRID in the final policy, turning down the demands from Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) and different agencies to allow private companies’ participation in the project. While a final decision on the issues is yet to be taken, officials in Petroleum Ministry said that in the final policy, likely to be notified next month, GAIL would be nominated as the nodel agency for the the maintenance and distribution of gas. The policy would be framed after considering various factors including country s long-term interest, they said. "World-wide the practice is to have a single nodal agency looking after the national grid," they argued and added that even in India, power grid corporation "is the nodal agency for bulk distribution of power." The Government is likely to incorporate certain safeguards so that the public sector monopoly may not be abused in future. The Government has been receiving complaints about abuse of public sector monopoly from consumers of GAIL, who says that the agreement between them and GAIL is one sided. The need of national gas grid was felt as the gas supply in the country is projected to double in next three years. The supply would increase both from east and west coast and to maintain a supply level, a grid is required, officials said. As per the draft natural gas policy all trunk pipelines covering more than one state or operating at a pressure more than the notified level will be built/managed by the GAIL. The draft policy also proposed to set up a national gas grid consisting of 7,000 Km long pipeline network at a cost of around Rs 18,000 crore over the next 5-6 years. Further, any producer of gas, subject to prior permission of the regulator (and Central Government for the PSUs) will have the right to sell gas within 100 Kms of well-head or land-fall point to consumers directly and lay the pipeline for this purpose. The policy envisages appointment of a regulator under the Petroleum Regulatory Board Bill 2002 for regulating transmission, distribution, supply and storage system for natural gas/LNG and to promote development of the sector. The regulator will ensure access to the gas pipelines on non-discriminatory common carrier principle for all users. The regulator will also approve pipeline tariff for the common carrier pipelines. The Government also proposed to set up a "national advisory council" to promote and develop the gas sector, which will consist of stakeholders of gas grid system including State Governments. The council will advice the Government, and if desired, to the regulator also. The draft pipeline policy has features, which would promote investment in gas pipelines and will provide a policy framework for the systematic development of gas sector. He said there is a need to provide a proper linkage between gas sources and its market centres along with inter-connectivity between regions, consumers and producers. With the recent major discoveries of gas in the Kg basin on the eastern coast and other discoveries on the western coast and in Rajasthan, it is expected that the domestic production of natural gas will increase substantially. LNG imports will also become a reality when India’s first LNG terminal being set up by petronet LNG Ltd at Dahej starts its operations from January 2004. The proposed policy is also expected to give an impetus to the development of CNG projects for supply of gas to the vehicles in different cities on the lines of CNG projects in Delhi and Mumbai and lead to significant reduction in vehicular pollution bringing environmental benefits. The growth of these sectors will galvanize the economy of the nation as a whole. (UNI) |
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Hero Honda sales cross 2 lakh for second consecutive month NEW DELHI, Dec 1: The country’s biggest bike maker Hero Honda Motors today said it clocked sales of over 200,000 vehicles for the second month in running with November sales jumping 26 per cent to 2,04,533 bikes against 1,61,865 in the same month last year. The company expects sales to rise in the band of 15-20 per cent in the year to March 2004 following its good run so far. In October, it had sales of 2,07,472 units on a growth of 26 per cent against 1,65,066 sold in the same month last year. The company, in which India’s munjal family and Japan’s Honda Motor hold 26 per cent stakes each, recently launched enhanced versions of its popular splendor and passion models which also contributed to the sales growth. Speaking on the future outlook, Hero Honda motors managing director Pawan Kant Munjal said, "going forward, we would aim to further strengthen our leadership in the entry and executive segments, and also augment our product offering in the premium segment. "Following this incredible performance, the company’s outlook for the year looks to be great." Strong demand in the rural market following good monsoons this year is one of the major factors in the rising bike sales in India. (UNI) |
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Infosys’ chairperson to receive Pinnamaneni and Seeta Devi Award VIJAYAWADA, Dec 1: Infosys Foundation Chairperson Sudha Murthy has been selected for the prestigious Pinnamaneni and Seeta Devi Foundation Award for 2003, for her distinguished social work in the fields of education and health care. Announcing this at a press conference here today, foundation managing trustee C Nageswara Rao, said the award, comprising a purse of Rs one lakh and a citation, would be presented to Mrs Murthy at a Gala function here on December 7. He said the foundation was impressed by her library projects, the first of its kind, under which more than 10,000 libraries were set up and over 600 computers were donated to village schools, besides the massive development programme in various hospitals across the country. Mrs Murthy has authored ‘wise and otherwise,’ an English compilation of 51 columns written for various newspapers, and several stories in Kannada, which have been translated into a dozen Indian languages, Mr Rao said. He said a cheque for Rs 25,000 would be presented to Vignana Vihar Residential School at Nutakki, near here, on the occasion. The past recipients of the award included President Dr A P J Abdul Kalam and noted woman police officer Kiran Bedi. (UNI) |
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OMCs asked to set up a non-PDS kerosene network NEW DELHI, Dec 1: The Petroleum Ministry has asked all the public sector Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) to create a national distribution network for non-PDS kerosene in the wake of Government’s decision to scrap the ten year old Parallel Marketing Scheme (PMS), which had led to large scale adulteration in other liquid fuel due to price differentials. "The non-PDS network will cater to the need of small businessmen as well as users of generators, who are not eligible to get the kerosene at controlled rate, supplied through the Public Distribution Scheme (PDS)," officials of the Petroleum Ministry said. The oil companies were also asked to ensure that supplies of kerosene was not disrupted in the open market and "genuine" demands of consumers were met. OMCS were also expected to ensure that the kerosene was not used as adulterant and mixed with diesel, they said. The Commerce Ministry’s decision to scrap the PMS will go a long way in ensuring quality supply of diesel, officials said and added that the decision is a timely one because now big exports houses including Government trading companies had also entered into the kerosene business. However, the Government trading companies are importing the fuel on behalf of private companies. "If the PMS was not scrapped, the total import of kerosene in the current year would be nearly 12 lakh tonnes as against nearly five lakhs tonnes in 2002-03 and less than two lakh tonnes in 2001-02," oil industry officials said. Officials said the actual demand of kerosene, other than PDs, was nearly two lakh tonnes for usage by generator owners and small businessmen. But in last two years, the demand suddenly rose to more than one lakh tonnes every month as the white kerosene was used as transport fuel. All coastal states have seen a sharp rise in demand and state agencies failed to check adulteration, causing massive revenue losses to state exchequer. Though a few states have taken certain measures, there was not much affect on the consumption pattern because of economic reasons. A Parliamentary panel also asked the Government to take measures and hike the custom duty but no steps were taken by the Central Government. (UNI) |
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NEW DELHI, Dec 1: The country’s largest carmaker Maruti Udyog Ltd today said sales grew 29 per cent in November to 39,745 vehicles, which includes 3,608 units of exports. The company’s sales in the domestic market stood at 36,137 units, a growth of 42 per cent over November last year when it sold 30,752 vehicles. (UNI) |
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Computer service introduces in SBI Parnasri branch KOLKATA, Dec 1: ‘Single window computer’system was introduced in the Parnasripally branch of State Bank of India in south 24 Parganas district today. Inaugurating the system, Anil Chandra Das, Regional Manager, region V of the SBI, Kolkata, said that with this, 34 of the 45 branches under this region covering the entire south 24 Parganas district had been brought under computer banking services. The remaining 11 branches would be computerised by January next year. Under the single window computer service, the account holders would have the facility of banking services for depositing cheques, with drawing money, purchasing bank draft easily, Das said adding that the Parnasri branch would have soon ATM services also. He said that this branch would be brought under SBI core banking net work system very soon which would provide its account holders to deposit and encash cheqeues in SBI branches all over the country with such facility. (PTI) |
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Tata steel wins ‘Mohta National Award’ for value engineering MUMBAI, Dec 1: The ferro alloys minerals division of Tata steel has been awarded the coveted ‘Mohta National Award’ for the year 2003 for the best value engineering project. The award-winning project is "study on business process outsourcing of ferro chrome". This is the sixth year in succession that Tata steel is winning this prestigious award, stated the company press release here. The award was given at the 19th invest national conference on "enhancing eva through value engineering - the express highway to profitability" at Bangalore. P Roy, executive in-charge, ferro alloys minerals received the award on behalf of Tata steel. The other members of the winning team include Romeo Kumar Das (head - ferro alloys conversion), Gautam Kumar (chief, sales), K K Paul (customer accounts manager, ferro alloy sales) and B P Tripathy (financial controller). The short-listed contestants for the prize were Tata motors -Jamshedpur, L T and Tata motors - Pune. (UNI) |
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TVS bike sales drop 30 pc in November NEW DELHI, Dec 1: TVS motor company today said motorcycle sales dropped as much as 30 per cent to 48,052 units in November while overall vehicle sales went down 13 per cent. The country’s third-largest bike maker attributed the decline to drop in sales of two-stroke max motorcycles. "This trend is expected to continue even in December," the Hosur-based automobile maker said in a statement. It sold 68,631 motorcyles in November last year. The company said it plans to launch a four-stroke model — TVS Centra — and an upgraded version of its top selling model TVS Victor in 2004. The statement said scooter sales in the past month jumped 42 per cent from a year earlier to 16,827 units against 11,815 units in November ‘02. The sale of TVS moped also continued to maintain market leadership, registering a growth of 13 per cent by clocking 20,601 units in November, as compared to 18,285 units in the same month last year. Overall, the sale of two-wheelers declined 13 per cent. Compared to 98,713 units recorded in November 2002, it was 85,480 last month, the statement added. (UNI) |
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Australia wants Kuwait assurance on tainted sheep CANBERRA, Dec 1: Australia will not export 70,000 sheep fed illegal pork by animal activists unless they clear veterinary checks and Kuwait provides a written assurance it will allow the animals to be unloaded, the Government said on Monday. Australia wants to avoid any repeat of the Cormo express incident, when nearly 58,000 sheep were stranded at sea for two months after Saudi Arabia rejected them on health grounds, a spokesman for Agriculture Minister Warren Truss said. The plight of the Cormo Express sheep, 5,000 of which died before impoverished eritrea eventually accepted them for free in October, has strengthened opposition to Australia’s a 1 billion ( 720 million) live export trade. The 70,000 sheep now stuck in the state of Victoria are worth about a 5 million in Australia or about 7 million on a landed basis in the Middle East. They remain in a holding facility where animal activists fed them pig meat that had been rendered, or boiled down, two weeks ago. The activists hoped a Muslim religious ban on pork would mean that middle east markets would reject the sheep. To prevent the spread of diseases such as mad cow or foot and mouth, Australia bars animal products from being fed to other animals. Truss’s spokesman said the Government was waiting for a final report from Victoria’s Chief Veterinarian, but indications were that health and safety were not expected to be a problem and the fate of the sheep would rest on cultural and religious issues. "The key issue is whether the Kuwaitis decide to offer a written assurance," the spokesman said. "We are not asking that they just blindly accept the sheep, but we are asking that if they are sent, then at the very least they are able to unload in Kuwait, even if they decide they don’t want them after the sheep have left Australia." Australian officials have said the 21-day trip to Kuwait would mean no residue of pork would remain in the sheep on arrival, and that they would not contravene halal requirements. A spokesman for the Victorian State Government said it hoped to received a final report from its Chief Veterinarian later this week. (AGENCIES) FCG India gets SEI CMM level 5 tag BANGALORE, Dec 1: Bangalore-based FCG software services India, the wholly-owned subsidiary of the US-based first consulting group, today announced that it had been assessed at level 5, the highest level of the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) of the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) in carnegie Mellon university. "FCG India has been assessed for SW-CMM level 5 (excluding software subcontract management) for design, development and maintenance of software carried out at Bangalore centre," a press release said here today. FCG provides outsourcing, consulting and systems integration services to companies in the health care, pharmaceutical and life sciences sectors in north America, Europe and Asia. FCG India provides global outsourcing services to FCG. (UNI) |
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