NEW DELHI, May 8: Reliance Industries’ eastern offshore KG-D6 gas fields are likely to see output drop to all-time low of 20 million standard cubic meters per day in 2014-15, Oil Minister S Jaipal Reddy said today.
KG-D6, which had hit a peak output of 61.5 mmscmd in March 2010, is currently producing less than 34 mmscmd from Dhirubhai-1 and 3 (D1&D3) gas fields and MA oilfield.
The output from the fields this fiscal would average 28 mmscmd, Reddy said in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha.
A larger than anticipated drop in reservoir pressure coupled with water and sand ingress in well led to D1&D3 gas fields output declining since the second half of 2010.
Reddy said KG-D6 gas production in 2013-14 is projected to drop to 24 mmscmd.
RIL is the operator of the deepsea KG-DWN-98/3 or KG-D6 block with 60 per cent interest while BP plc of UK holds 30 per cent stake. Niko Resources of Canada has the remaining 10 per cent stake.
The Mukesh Ambani-run firm had started gas production from KG-D6 in April 2009 with an output of 30 mmscmd. This hit a peak of 61.5 mmscmd a year later but has since then been declining.
“As the domestic gas availability is projected to decline in the next two to three years, the additional demand will have to be primarily met through imported liquefied natural gas (LNG),” he said.
India’s demand for natural gas is projected to rise to 254.2 mmscmd in the current fiscal from 166 mmscmd in 2011-12. It is further estimated to increase to 284.27 mmscmd in 2013-14 and to 356.16 mmscmd in 2014-15.
“The domestic availability of natural gas during June 2011 was around 120 mmscmd while imported LNG comprised 46 mmscmd, totalling 166 mmscmd of domestic consumption,” he said.
Reddy said state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) would produce 55 mmscmd of gas in the current financial year and in 2013-14. Its output is projected to rise to 58 mmscmd in 2014-15.
Oil India Ltd (OIL) would produce between 8-10 mmscmd of gas during this period while other fields would contribute 13-24 mmscmd.
Total availability of natural gas from domestic sources in 2012-13 would be 104 mmscmd, which would inch up to 105 mmscmd in the following year. It would rise to 133 mmscmd in 2014-15, he added.
Reddy said the gas produced by RIL and ONGC is sold at USD 4.2 per million British thermal unit while the same from Niko Resources-operated block CB-ONN-2000/2 in Gujarat is sold at USD 7.03 per mmBtu. (PTI)

NEW DELHI, May 8: Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia today pitched for raising fees by universities and providing easy finance for students to complete higher education.
“Stop funding the universities and just fund the students..Then they go to universities that are worth paying for,” he said addressing a function here to unveil a report on corporate sector participation in higher education.
“I am in favour of raising the fees across the board and giving scholarship that will enable students to go to universities which actually do a good job,” he added.
Ahluwalia said after making allocation for primary and secondary education which are high priority areas, there will be limited resources left for higher education and thus private sector investment would be required.
“Public resource need to grow in areas of highest priority and in education sector, primary and secondary education is much more important. You cannot have world class universities unless you have world class university entrance,” he added.
On private sector investment in higher education, he said: “Corporate sector should be taking interest in setting up educational institutions because the amount of public resources available for health and education is limited. If you don’t bring the private resources, you will not get the end result you want”.
Speaking on the occasion, Human Resources Minister Kapil Sibal said: “Private sector is not going to invest unless you give them appropriate environment and the fundamental (requirement of private sector) is land”.
Pointing towards the litigations over land given to private sector for setting up educational and health institutions, the minister said there is enormous opposition to the idea of giving free land to private players for these purposes.
Sibal also emphasised on the need for giving soft loans for the private sector for setting up educational and health institutions in the country.
“The banks must be asked to give long term loans to educational institutions for 20 to 25 years to set up institutions as nobody is going to borrow at 12 per cent or 16 per cent for 7 years, “ he added.
The minister also expressed resentment over the Planning Commission turning down its proposal to set up education finance corporation to provide easy finance to students. (PTI)

NEW DELHI, May 8: The country’s largest car maker Maruti Suzuki India has raised the prices of the new diesel variants of its sedan DZire by up to Rs 12,000 from this month, citing input costs pressure.
“The company is feeling the pressure of input costs. To mitigate the impact, we have hiked the prices of only diesel variants of the new DZire with effect from May 1,” a senior Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) official said.
The company has increased the rates of the model between Rs 8,000 and Rs 12,000, he added.
In February this year, MSI had rolled out a shorter version of its entry-level sedan DZire at an introductory price between Rs 4.79 lakh and Rs 7.09 lakh (ex-showroom, Delhi).
The company priced the petrol variants of the new DZire between Rs 4.79 lakh and Rs 6.54 lakh, while the diesel ones come for Rs 5.80 lakh to Rs 7.09 lakh.
The new model is available in both petrol and diesel options and it qualifies for the excise duty of 10 per cent enjoyed by small cars as it is shorter than 4 metres.
While the petrol version is powered by a 1.2 litre engine, the diesel one has a 1.3 litre engine. An automatic transmission variant is also available in the petrol version.
MSI continues to produce the old DZire in some specific entry-level variants to target the fleet segment. The prices of the existing DZire ranges between Rs 4.94 lakh and Rs 7.29 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi).
In March, the company had increased the prices of its entire range of vehicles by up to Rs 17,000 following the hike in excise duty in the Budget for 2012-13.
Prior to this, MSI had raised the prices in January this year for its all vehicles, except for DZire, by 0.3-3.4 per cent due to rising input costs. This translated into a minimum increase of Rs 2,400 on the SX4 sedan and a maximum of Rs 17,000 on the diesel variant of its Swift hatchback. (PTI)

NEW DELHI, May 8: Public sector lender Dena Bank today posted 62 per cent jump in net profit at Rs 254.79 crore for the fourth quarter (Q4) ended March, 2012.
The bank had a net profit of Rs 157 crore during the January-March quarter in the previous financial year.
Total income of the bank in Q4 rose to Rs 2,166.36 crore, compared to Rs 1,588.2 crore in the same quarter a year ago, Dena Bank said in a filing on the BSE.
The bank has proposed a dividend of 30 per cent, or Rs 3 per share, on the face value of Rs 10 per share for 2011-12, it said.
For the full financial year ended March, 2012, Dena Bank reported a net profit of Rs 803.14 crore, up 31 per cent, as compared to Rs 611.6 crore of previous fiscal.
Total income of the lender rose to Rs 7,376.30 crore in the financial year 2011-12 from Rs 5,567.3 crore in the last fiscal. (PTI)

MUMBAI, May 8: India’s largest sugar maker Bajaj Hindusthan today reported 88 per cent decline in its standalone net profit to Rs 8.78 crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2012.
The company had posted a net profit of Rs 72.82 crore in the year-ago period.
The standalone net sales of the company fell by 4 per cent to Rs 1,201.03 crore during the quarter under review from Rs 1,252.49 crore in the same quarter of 2010-11, the company said in a filing to the BSE.
Bajaj Hindusthan follows October-September financial year in line with the sugar marketing season.
In the filing, the company said it has utilised Rs 969.25 crore as of March 31, 2012, from the total amount of Rs 1,495.75 crore raised through rights issues that came out in October last year.
“Pending utilisation, the balance proceeds have been temporarily used to reduce the exposure of working capital borrowings from banks, which will be redrawn as and when necessary to meet the obligations as per the object of the issue,” it added.
Bajaj Hindusthan has 14 sugar mills with cane crushing capacity of 1.36 lakh tonnes per day.
(PTI)

NEW DELHI, May 8: The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas is demanding an increase in excise duty on diesel cars with a view to discouraging consumption of subsidised fuel by personal vehicle owners.
“A proposal was received from Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas for levy of additional excise duty on diesel cars along with their suggestions for Budget 2012-13,” Minister of State for Finance S S Palanimanickam said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.
In order to discourage consumption of subsidised diesel by personal vehicle owners, the Petroleum Ministry had suggested imposition of higher duty on purchase of diesel cars.
Diesel is the most consumed fuel in the country but is sold at a discount to its imported cost. Luxury cars and SUVs also run on diesel and so do power generators at malls and telecom towers.
It has long been argued that the rich should not get subsidised fuel. According to Oil Ministry estimates, 15 per cent of diesel consumption is accounted for by personal cars and SUVs.
Petrol prices were de-regulated in 2010 but the government is yet to take a decision on freeing diesel prices. The government has budgeted Rs 40,000 crore as fuel subsidy for the 2012-13 fiscal.
In a separate reply, Minister of State for Finance Namo Narain Meena said the government is targeting better management of subsidies under the public distribution system (PDS) so that it reaches the intended beneficiaries.
As per a Planning Commission report using a particular method of measuring leakages, the government spends Rs 3.65 through budgetary food subsidies to transfer Rs 1 to the poor. (PTI)

NEW DELHI, May 8: Realty firm Sobha Developers has set a target of Rs 2,000 crore in sales booking this fiscal, up 18 per cent from 2011-12.
The Bangalore-based company posted 50 per cent growth in the sales booking at Rs 1,701 crore in the 2011-12 fiscal as against Rs 1,133 crore in the previous fiscal.
For 2012-13, Sobha is targeting a new sales volume of 3.75 million square feet and sales value of Rs 2,000 crore, the company said in a statement.
“This year the growth momentum will continue. As we move forward, the sales we have achieved for the last financial year will reflect on our income statement in 2012-13,” Sobha Developers Vice Chairman and Managing Director JC Sharma said.
“We have already witnessed a decline of interest rates in the first quarter, which is a positive sign. Although the headwinds remain, Sobha is confident of achieving new sales of 3.75 million square feet valuing at Rs 2,000 crore,” he said.
Yesterday, Sobha reported 14 per cent rise in consolidated net profit at Rs 206 crore for 2011-12. The total income rose marginally to Rs 1,414 crore in FY’12 as against Rs 1,400 crore in the previous fiscal. The company has recommended a dividend of Rs 5 per share.
It had also announced the succession plan by elevating Ravi Menon as co-Chairman of the company. Ravi Menon (31), who is son of Sobha’s founder Chairman P N C Menon, was earlier Vice-Chairman of the company.
Sobha has so far completed 79 real estate projects and 209 contractual projects covering about 51.80 million sq ft.
The company has 38 housing projects aggregating to 23.04 million square feet of developable area and 47 contractual projects aggregating to 10.05 million sq feet in various stages of construction.
Sobha has presence in 21 cities and 11 states. (PTI)

MELBOURNE, May 8: IT giant Infosys is likely to sign a deal with National ICT Australia (NICTA) for joint research work and exchange programme, says a news report.
Three areas of common research interest have been identified with NICTA—software engineering, process management and “platformisation”, adapting applications for myriad platforms, said ‘The Australian’ report quoting Infosys Labs global head Subu Goparaju.
“As a research group we do a disproportionately higher number of things in Australia compared with the business we do (there),” Goparaju said, adding, “We have been a member of CRC for several years and in that CRC model we work with many universities and NICTA is another very important chain.”
Infosys co-founder and chief mentor N R Narayana Murthy is on the board of NICTA—Australia’s Information and Communications Technology Research Centre of Excellence.
Goparaju said if NICTA already had interesting intellectual property, Infosys would look at “leveraging those in our solutions”.
He said the Australian Government’s Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) programme and NICTA are “major vehicles” for Infosys to work with many universities and organisations in the country.
Infosys had talks with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia’s national science agency, about a similar initiative but NICTA was a “better fit”, he said.
Disclosing some of the research projects that included “virtual try-on” for the retail sector, Infosys Labs associate vice-president Krishnan Narayanan said the project used Microsoft’s Kinect for Xbox 360 to help shoppers try on clothes.
In the demonstration, a shopper could “select” the size of a dress and even change colours by standing in front of the Kinect console and tapping on icons, he said.
The try-before-you-buy concept eliminated the need for changing rooms. The products of Infosys Labs can be seen across industries such as mobility and financial services, he added.
Key software developed by the labs is at the centre of an ambitious 145 million Australian dollar plan to modernise India Post.
Infosys is also developing products with industry leaders under a “partner co-creation” concept.
Fabric, a subsidiary of WPP, and Infosys have developed a cloud-based platform for digital marketing dubbed as Infosys BrandEdge that uses a pay-as-you-go model. (PTI)

SHANGHAI, May 8: China’s daily crude steel output hit a record high of 2.026 million tonnes in April, industry data showed on Tuesday, as the country’s steelmakers sustained high production despite a slow recovery in demand.
The latest estimate trumps the previous daily average record of 1.986 million tonnes in March, based on data released earlier by the National Bureau of Statistics.
Chinese steelmakers have lifted production on expectation of a seasonal rebound in demand between March and May, but the rebound had so far been slower than thought, and the rapid growth in production has been weighing on steel prices.
‘The previous rise in steel prices has lured steel mills to unleash capacity, and it seems there are no immediate signs that mills will cut production soon,’ said a researcher with a large-sized state-owned steel mill in northeastern China.
Benchmark rebar steel futures on the Shanghai Futures Exchange fell for a third straight week last week. Construction-used rebar was off 3 yuan at 4,218 yuan ($670) a tonne by the midday break on Tuesday.
China’s daily crude steel run also reached a fresh record on a 10-day period, hitting 2.035 million tonnes between April 21-30, versus the previous record of 2.031 million tonnes achieved in the first 10 days of April, data from the China Iron and Steel Association (CISA) showed.
CISA estimates the country’s overall data based on its major members – consisting of around 80 medium- and large-sized steel mills, which produce around 80 percent of the total.
Several steel mills are producing on the brink of making losses amid weak demand and high raw material cost, said the researcher from the Chinese mill.
‘Orders remain relatively weak, and the fall in iron ore prices is just symbolic,’ he said.
At around $144 a tonne currently, benchmark 62-percent grade iron ore has fallen nearly 4 percent since hitting a six-month high in mid-April.
The following table shows changes in daily output since the beginning of the year based on data from CISA. (AGENCIES)