RIL, ONGC among 48 Indian cos in Forbes’ top global firms list

India asks developed nations to end protectionism

Govt asks MFIs to adopt technology to bring down lending costs

No rise in wholesale prices of vegetables: Delhi Govt study

BHEL full-year net profit up 17 pc; turnover crosses Rs 20k cr

NEW DELHI, Apr 3: Public sector electric equipments maker BHEL today said its net profit rose 17 per cent to Rs 2,815 crore in 2007-08, while its annual turnover crossed Rs 20,000 crore mark.

The company’s turnover rose to Rs 21,608 crore in the year 2007-08, up 15 per cent from Rs 18,739 crore in the previous year, BHEL’s Chairman and Managing Director K Ravikumar said here while announcing the full-year provisional figures for the latest fiscal.

The net profit rose from Rs 2,415 crore in 2006-07 to Rs 2,815 crore in the latest fiscal.

The order inflow also crossed Rs 50,000 crore mark in the year, Ravikumar said, while adding that the capacity was enhanced to 10,000 megawatts per annum. The order inflow rose to Rs 50,265 crore in 2007-08, up from Rs 35,643 crore in 2006-07. (PTI)

Govt clears proposal for setting up ITIRs

NEW DELHI, Apr 3: After IT Parks and IT SEZs, the government has cleared a proposal for creating a much larger Information Technology Investment regions (ITIRs) to give a fillip to the country’s growing IT and ITeS sector.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, which met under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today, cleared the policy for setting up ITIRs, each having an area of at least 40 sq km.

"ITIRs were conceptualised keeping in view the need to boost the growth of both IT/IT enabled services (ITeS) and Electronic Hardware Manufacturing (EHM) units," an official statement said.

These regions would become major magnets for investment, creating employment opportunities and economic growth in the area while reducing the pressure on existing urban centres by enabling growth of new townships, it added.

The ITIRs will be much larger than IT SEZs. Each ITIR is expected to be specifically notified investment region with minimum area of 40 sq km planned for IT and ITeS and EHM units. The minimum processing area would be 40 per cent of the total area of the ITIR.

The regions would be a combination of IT/ITeS and EHM units, public utilities, residential areas, social infrastructure and administrative services.

According to the proposal, while the Centre will facilitate development of national highways, airport and rail links towards the ITIRs, states will help in the local infrastructure like power, water, health, education and state roads.

The ITIRs would be developed in a phased manner through Public-Private Partnership route. (PTI)

Dish TV adds 86k subscribers in March

NEW DELHI, Apr 3: Direct to home television service provider DishTV India Ltd today said it added 86,000 new subscribers in March.

The company said the new subscribers added in March helped it cross the three million mark in terms of gross registered subscribers but after making adjustments for churned subscribers since the launch of the company 3 years back, the net subscriber base of the company stands at 2.5 million.

This compares very favourably with international norms wherein annual churn is in the 15-20 per cent range, it added.

The subscribers who have moved out of the platform are largely those that were acquired in the initial stages of launch, from the rural and upcountry markets, who were at a lower average revenue per user (ARPU).

Restatement of the net subscriber base, after removing churn, will also give an improved ARPU performance.

The DTH market today is estimated to be about five million subscribers and the other major player is TataSky.

Meanwhile, players like Sun and new entrants - Big TV from Reliance ADAG and Bharti group - are set to hot up competition. (PTI)

RIL, ONGC among 48 Indian cos in Forbes’ top global firms list

NEW YORK, Apr 3: After billionaire businessmen, it is the turn of companies from India to shine on Forbes radar with as many as 48 firms making it to a list of the world’s biggest companies compiled by the US magazine.

Led by India’s most valued firm Reliance Industries and PSU major ONGC, all these 48 Indian firms named in the ‘Global 2000 List’ have a billion-dollar size-both in terms of turnover and market value.

The rankings, topped by British banking behemoth HSBC, has been compiled on the basis of a composite score of sales, profit, assets and market capitalisation.

HSBC is followed by industrial conglomerate General Electric, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and ExxonMobil-all four from the US-in the top five positions.

Two Indian firms, Mukesh Ambani-promoted RIL and ONGC are among the top 200 companies at 193rd and 198th ranks.

Earlier in March, Forbes had released its list of world’s richest billionaires that included 53 Indian businessmen, with four of them-Lakshmi Mittal, Mukesh Ambani, Anil Ambani and KP Singh-figuring among the world’s ten wealthiest.

RIL and ONGC are followed by two PSU majors State Bank of India (219th) and Indian Oil (303rd), the country’s biggest private sector lender ICICI Bank (374th) and state-run power generation major NTPC (411th).

The Indian presence is almost evenly divided among the private and state-run companies.

While none of the Indian companies have managed to find a place among top 100, it has two firms run by people of Indian origin. Vikram Pandit-run banking giant Citigroup and Lakshmi Mittal-headed steel behemoth ArcelorMittal are at 24th and 38th positions respectively. Indra Nooyi-run beverage major PepsiCo has been ranked at 131st position.

Other Indian companies on the list include SAIL (647th) and Tata Steel (738th), telecom giants Bharti Airtel (826th) and Reliance Communications (846th), software major TCS (927), housing finance giant HDFC (949th), engineering heavyweight Larsen and Toubro (961st) and state-run oil firm BPCL (967th).

While Mukesh Ambani-led RIL has topped the list of Indian companies, there are also three firms belonging to the group led by his estranged younger brother Anil Ambani-Reliance Comm, Reliance Power (1,597th) and Reliance Capital (1919th).

According to Forbes, the Global 2000 companies have a combined revenue of 30 trillion dollars, 2.4 trillion dollars of profit, 119 trillion dollars in assets and 39 trillion dollars in market capitalisation. Besides, these companies employ 72 million people across the world.

While the list is still dominated by the US companies, the number of American firms has dropped by 61 from previous year and 153 from 2004. "In contrast, China, India and Brazil are rapidly adding companies to the list. India, for example, has 48 companies this year versus 27 in 2004," report said.

In terms of sectors, banking has the largest presence with 315 firms in the global list. Even among the Indian companies, one-third or 16 of them belong to this sector.

Other Indian companies include BHEL (1012), Infosys (1040), HDFC Bank (1093), Wipro (1102), Tata Motors (1111), HPCL (1112), NMDC (1134), ITC (1159), PNB (1166), DLF (1185), Hindalco (1205), GAIL (1249), Canara Bank (1305), Axis Bank (1361), Bank of India (1375), PGCIL (1413), Bank of Baroda (1477), Nalco (1478) and Unitech (1484).

The list also has Grasim (1527), Indian Overseas Bank (1737), IDBI (1744), PFC (1753), Union Bank of India (1759), Satyam (1763), Central Bank of India (1803), Syndicate Bank (1833), M&M (1919), Uco Bank (1935), Oriental Bank (1952), Suzlon Energy (1954) and Allahabad Bank (1996th). (PTI)

India asks developed nations to end protectionism

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 3: India has asked rich nations to end protectionism, which costs developing countries USD 700 billion a year in export income, if the world is to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) aimed at eliminating or sharply reducing several social and economic ills by 2015.

Decrying increase of subsidies by the developed countries in some sectors, India’s UN Ambassador Nirupam Sen asserted that the problem is not lack of resources but little stomach for structural changes.

"We need what (the 19th century German philosopher Friedrich) Nietzsche called ‘capital of spirit and will," he told the 192-member General Assembly yesterday while participating in the review of implementation of the MDGs, which were set in 2000.

He said developed nations should end protectionism which costs developing countries USD 700 billion a year in export income -- 14 times of what they receive in Official Development Assistance (ODA).

Asking the international community to move beyond words to action if it is to make any difference in the lives of the poor, Sen pointed out economic growth alone is insufficient to remove poverty, disease and illiteracy as envisaged in MDGs.

A separate action is required to attack poverty and hunger, promote education, employment and health, science and technology and free the developing countries from aid conditionalities and prescriptive advice, Sen said.

MDGs can create a more just world only if combined with removing the institutional and economic causes of poverty, he emphasised.

Criticising that the poor are offered only debt cancellation instead of economic development enabling debt servicing, Sen said many of the poorest developing nations remain caught in the trap of an agricultural and raw material economy with minimal industry.

"Unless, therefore, the UN and its institutions go beyond MDGs, poverty and hunger cannot be eliminated in an enduring way. MDGs would then run the danger of becoming a kind of permanent disaster relief and even what one economist has called ‘welfare colonialism," he said.

Global partnership, Sen said, cannot be implemented through discussions alone but in action and implementation has to be monitored.

Quoting from the 2003 Human Development report, Sen said world "cannot halve hunger and poverty without restructuring trade and agriculture; the fight against HIV and malaria will be lost without affordable medicines to the poor; fiscal planning is impossible without debt relief" and technology for poverty reduction, public health will not be available without addressing the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) regime.

The UN, he warned, will become progressively less relevant unless it moves from words to action.

India, he said, is conscious of these considerations in its economic interaction with Africa. Hence the emphasis on the dedicated satellite and fiber optics connectivity mission, IT centres, Indian companies in Africa procuring supplies locally, setting up manufacturing plants and exporting capital goods that enable Africa to process and add value for its exports to the EU and US markets.

The destiny of debt relief, Sen said, shows what happens in the absence of an industrial policy.

"In 2003, eight out of 18 HIPC (heavily indebted poor countries) graduated and half of these again relapsed: their debt service was 150 per cent of GDP, unsustainable in terms of the HIPC initiative definition," he pointed out. (PTI)

Govt asks MFIs to adopt technology to bring down lending costs

NEW DELHI, Apr 3: The Government today asked the micro-finance institutions to adopt innovative credit delivery models, like Internet technology, to bring down the costs of lending in the rural areas.

"Though cost of credit delivery is likely to remain higher in rural areas but it can be brought down through better connectivity and adoption of communication technology like e-seva centres," Finance Ministry’s Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Virmani said today.

Presiding over a session at the annual conference of Micro Finance Institutions (MFIs), Virmani said it was necessary

to cover the costs of credit to ensure access to rural population.

"There is no way except to reduce the costs otherwise we will not be able to reach the masses," he said.

Since the population are dispersed in rural areas, the costs would be higher for providing services like education, health as well as banking services, he said adding innovative models would have to be developed to provide access to formal credit system.

Meanwhile, the delegates, gathered at the conference, emphasised the need to provide freedom to fix flexible interest rates to recover high costs of lending in rural areas.

A Micro Finance Institution Bill, 2007, to provide a legal framework to the MFIs is pending in Parliament. The standing Committee looking into the bill, is deliberating on whether there should be cap on the interest rate charged by micro finance institutions.

At present, the borrowers are paying up to 24-30 per cent interest rate on micro-financing provided by the MFIs through NGOs as against 7-10 per cent by farmers. (PTI)

No rise in wholesale prices of vegetables: Delhi Govt study

NEW DELHI, Apr 3: Amid a hue and cry over rising prices of vegetables and fruits in the national capital, a study conducted by Delhi Government has said while there has been no increase in their wholesale rates, the retailers are selling them at higher cost.

"There is no hike in vegetable prices. It’s only the off-season fruits and vegetables such as green vegetables and early crops like lady finger and pumpkin whose prices are on the higher side," the study prepared by Delhi Agricultural Produce Marketing Board (DAPMB) said.

The report which was submitted to Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit two days ago has suggested vigilance on the retail market, saying the retailers were selling vegetables and fruits at higher prices.

"We have recommended to the Government that it should control the prices in the retail market through the Food and Supplies Department as it had been doing some years back," Brahm Yadav, Chairman of DAPMB told PTI.

The report has taken account of the price trend of vegetables and fruits for the last ten days of March comparing it with the same period the previous year.

Attributing rising prices of tomatoes to the vegetable being exported, the Board has sought a ban on its export.

"Prices of tomatoes are on the higher side mainly because of its export. We have asked the State Government to talk to the Centre to temporarily ban the export of tomatoes," he said.

However, Yadav said the situation pertaining to the price of tomatoes is likely to improve within the next week when fresh supplies arrive from Bangalore. (PTI)