The Hindu Business Line : Wednesday, March 24, 2004

PREFERENTIAL ALLOTMENTS
Reliance Energy gets Rs 2,000 cr from preference issue
RELIANCE Energy Ltd has said that it has received nearly Rs 2,000 crore ($421 million) on Tuesday from the preferential allotment of equity shares of Reliance Group, domestic financial institutions and foreign institutional investors and the ... More

ECONOMY
Shourie for long-term view on economy
THE Union Government will become an enabler of enterprise rather than a supporting entity in the coming years. Its focus after the elections would be on governmental processes and tackling the impact of change, according to Mr Arun Shourie, Union ... More

Economic growth may be underestimated, says Kamath
INDIA'S economic growth is perhaps underestimated because the index used to measure it has not been fine-tuned to capture the increasing importance of industries such as consumer durables and electronics, according to Mr K.V. Kamath, Chairman & . More

Annual credit plan for Coimbatore district up 10 pc
THE annual credit plan (ACP) outlay for Coimbatore district has grown nearly 14 times from Rs 241.28 crore in 1993-94 to Rs 3,182.96 crore for 2004-05. The outlay for 2004-05 is 10.06 per cent more than that of the previous year - an ... More

EXCISE AND CUSTOMS
Kerala to set up Excise intelligence bureau
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Excise Minister, Prof K.V. Thomas, has said that the State Government would set up a State-level Excise Intelligence and Investigation Bureau with a mandate to detect abkari offences and expedite ... More

HEALTH
`India moving fast in controlling TB'
ON the eve of the World Tuberculosis Day, India's campaign against the dreaded disease seems to have been quite successful. According to a global TB report released on Tuesday, India is moving ahead rapidly in its fight against TB while ... More

Sushrushah Hospitals acquires Mobile CT system
HYDERABAD: Sushrushah Hospitals at Nagercoil has acquired a Siremobile Iso-C 3D, a mobile 3D CT-C-arm image intensifier system with facility for computer-aided navigation surgery from Siemens, Germany. Claimed to be the first of its kind ... More

PETROLEUM
`IOC top trading co in Asia - Pacific'
INDIAN Oil Corporation (IOC) has emerged as the No 1 company in oil trading among national oil companies in the Asia-Pacific region. According to an IOC press release issued here, a survey conducted in this regard by Applied Trading Systems of ... More

Govt issues special bonds to liquidate oil pool account
THE Government has announced the issue of `5 per cent Oil Companies-Government of India Special Bonds, 2009' for liquidating the outstanding claims of oil companies aggregating Rs 348.63 crore against the Oil Pool Account. The special bonds ... More

POWER
APERC cuts power tariffs for industries
THE Andhra Pradesh Electricity Regulatory Commission (APERC), which finalised the electricity tariffs for 2004-05, has reduced energy charges for industries in HT-I category from Rs 3.60 per unit to Rs 3.50 per unit and for industries in LT-III ... More

TEXTILES
NTC mills report Rs 672-crore loss in Oct-Dec period
EVEN as eight out of the nine subsidiaries of the National Textile Corporation (NTC) mills are currently in the midst of a revival package, the net loss sustained by the operating mills during the quarter October to December 2003 amounted to Rs ... More

SSI
Kochi, UK agencies in pact to offer consultancy to SMEs
THE Institute of Small Enterprises Development (ISED) and BESO, an international developmental agency in UK, that offers professional expertise to entrepreneurs and firms around the world have joined hands to help organisations, which cannot ... More

WATER
Govt to prepare DPRs soon for river inter-linking scheme
THE Government will soon start preparing detailed project reports for different links under the Rs 5,50,000-crore national river inter-linking scheme. The pre-feasibility studies for all the 31 proposed links have been completed and the reports ... More

Face-to-face programme on water supply in Hyderabd
HYDERABAD: The Hyderabad Chapter of the Public Relations Society of India is organising a `Face to Face' programme between the top management of Hyderabad Metro Water Supply and Sewerage Board and customers on March 27. The meeting would ... More

EDUCATION
Satoli education experiment — Exploding myths of rural expectations
If Satoli in Uttaranchal is any pointer, the aspirations of the rural Indian have changed during this decade of explosive consumerism and development. The government may like to impart candle-making and cane-weaving skills to its rural poor, but this population may now be dreaming of manning IBM computers and owning mansions. It is this aspiration that the government's education plan should try to meet. More

GLIM set to deliver `CEOs of tomorrow' — Seeks to combine western values with Asian ethos
GLIM would be offering a course in Chinese language since the Asian Tigers' market consisting of Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and southern China was going through a boom and for anyone who wanted to reach out to that market, knowledge of the local language would be an asset. More

AP project to give a facelift to 511 schools
SEEKING to give a facelift to Government schools in around the State capital, Round Table and M V Foundation have joined hands to find donors for Project 511. The project, originally planned to help out 511 schools that were found lacking in ... More

BEVERAGES
Cola majors sweating it out in Kerala
THE onset of a sweltering summer is the time when soft drink makers go overboard, but Coca-Cola and Pepsi, the big two, are unusually low-key in sultry Kerala. A string of controversies involving bottling units and anti-American sentiments ... More

REAL ESTATE & CONSTRUCTION
Buildingblocks
If the rise in the cost of cement and steel is not curbed, the average cost of freshly developed real estate would end up 8 per cent to 10 per cent higher than original estimates. More

INDUSTRY ASSOCIATIONS

New CII Pune chief

DISINVESTMENT
`NRI investors not getting public issue forms on time'
NRI investors are being denied a great opportunity to participate in the disinvestment programme in India merely because they are not receiving public issue application forms on time in order to meet the deadline, according to a NRI welfare ... More

Plea not to privatise BSNL
THIRUVANANTHAPRAM: The Employees Union of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) has urged the Centre to abandon moves to privatise the company. The union made the plea in a statement issued in connection with its founding day on Monday in the ... More

EVENTS
`Tech upgradation a must for refractories'
REFRACTORIES in Andhra Pradesh in particular, and the country in general, will have to upgrade their technologies to face the competition in the domestic and global markets, as most industries are trying to cut costs, Mr Y. Sivasagara Rao, ... More

Global print meet in Manipal
MANGALORE: The Department of Printing and Media Engineering of Manipal Institute of Technology will conduct the biennial international print convention `Vectra 2004,' at Manipal in Udupi district from March 25 to 27. A release said here ... More

Thiruvananthapuram engagements

Training on Good Manufacturing Practice

Meet on business outsourcing in Coimbatore

ENTERTAINMENT & LEISURE
Music industry having it good
THE domestic music industry is in a revival mode with a few of the majors expecting to close the current fiscal with higher turnover and lower losses, according to sources in the Indian Music Industry (IMI). This was confirmed by Mr Vijay ... More

ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Future Institute tech, biz incubator concept to boost entrepreneurship
TBI was an innovative system designed to assist entrepreneurs in the development of new technology-based firms, both start-ups and fledglings. More

EXPORTS & IMPORTS
Coir products exports up
EXPORTS of coir and coir products have gone up by over Rs 50 crore during April - February 2003-04 on increased demand for natural products in the world market. Total exports during the period stood at 90,076 tonnes valued at Rs 366.57 crore ... More

ECONOMIC OFFENCES
SFIO authorised to get information from I-T Dept for its probes
THE Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO), a new agency charged with investigations of corporate frauds, can now tap the Income-Tax Department's information base for its probes. The Central Board of Direct Taxes has authorised the SFIO ... More

PEOPLE
Rao is BMTPC Executive Director
Mr D.B.N Rao has taken over as the Executive Director of the Building Materials and Technology Promotion Council (BMTPC) under the Ministry of Urban Development and Poverty Alleviation. He has joined the council from Sanghi Industries Ltd. Set up ... More