Agriculture
APEDA credit plan for farmers soon
IN order to encourage export of agricultural commodities by enabling farmers access credit at competitive interest rates, the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) is working on creation of an instrument that will deliver credit to farmers at the same rate as export packing credit is available to exporters, Mr Anil Swarup, Chairman of APEDA said.

More funds for plasticulture in Ninth Plan
AN area of about 3.2 lakh hectares in the country has been covered under drip irrigation, the Union Agriculture Minister, Mr Ajit Singh, said here on Friday.

Hike in oilseeds MSP seen improving profits
THE recent increase in minimum support prices (MSP) of oilseeds is expected to improve profitability prospects for these crops, industry organisations said.

Aquaculture
Sharp fall in shrimp exports to Japan
SHRIMP exports to Japan have fallen sharply from $245 million during January-July 2000 to $206 million during January-July of 2001.

Automobiles
HM clarification on bonus
KOLKATA: Hindustan Motors Ltd (HM) has denied reports that employees of the loss-making Uttarpara unit would not be paid any bonus this year. The company has clarified that a bonus of 8.33 per cent has been offered against the union's demand of a 20 per cent bonus.

Tata Engg car project on target for breakeven
TATA Engineering and Locomotive Co Ltd (Tata Engineering) is ``on target'' to achieve cash breakeven this financial year on its car project, whose fortunes have looked up since the launch of the Indica V2 variant, Mr Rajiv Dube, General Manager (Passenge r Cars) said today.

Labour problem at Ashok Leyland unit
CHENNAI: Ashok Leyland Ltd has informed BSE that workmen have stopped work since the last few days at one of their manufacturing units in Hosur, consequent to initiation of preliminary disciplinary proceedings on an isolated case of misconduct.

Banking and Finance
26% UTI Bank share for CDC at Rs 34
THE board of UTI Bank Ltd on Friday decided to make a preferential allotment of 46.35 million shares, that is 26 per cent of the bank's equity capital to two funds of CDC Capital Partners (formerly Commonwealth Development Corporation) at Rs 34 per share .

Cement
Cement sector declared public utility service
NEW DELHI: The domestic cement industry has been declared as public utility service for six months, requiring employees to give six weeks notice for going on strike.

Commodities
`Jewellery show not hit by attacks'
MUMBAI: Gem and jewellery exports, which have already taken a hit due to the overall sluggish trend in the overseas markets, may suffer further after the recent terror attacks in the US and a possible retaliatory action.

Cotton trade to seek exim registration revival
THE cotton trade is likely to ask the Government to revive registration of cotton export and import by traders with a view to having a proper and timely data for the textile industry.

Economic slowdown hits Asian H1 gold demand
ASIAN gold demand was driven lower by global economic slowdown with both industrial demand and jewellery fabrication sharply lower in the first half, said Gold Fields Mineral Services Ltd (GFMS).

Corporate
ITC Bhadra shareholders short-changed
CORPORATE India has long been witness to one of the questionable practices in which of Indian promoters initially nurture a greenfield project in another group company using monies raised through a public issue. After the operations of the company stabil ize, the company has generally been merged with a flagship company of the group.

SC refuses to lift stay on Duphar demerger
THE Supreme Court has refused to vacate the interim stay granted earlier on the scheme of demerger of Duphar Interfran Ltd (DIL), according to Dr Renuka Datla, belonging to the promoters' family of Duphar, who challenged the scheme.

Lagan Jute back in black
LAGAN Jute Machinery Co Ltd (LJMC), a former Central PSU, has achieved a turnaround, after making losses since 1996-97. The LJMC Managing Director, Mr S.R. Dasgupta, told Business Line that the company was back in the black during the current year.

GM will honour its word, says Daewoo
DAEWOO Motors India Ltd (DMIL), the subsidiary of beleaguered South Korean car manufacturer Daewoo Motor Corporation, today claimed that General Motors (GM) has assured it of honouring all existing agreements and commitments.

Global depository holdings on the decline at Tata Tea
MORE and more holders of Tata Tea's global depository shares are converting their stake into Indian equity shares of the company. This apart, the shareholding pattern has witnessed minor changes with Indian financial institutions increasing their stake a nd foreign financial institutions reducing theirs.

Madura Coats buyback starts
MADURA Coats Ltd started buyback of its shares through the tender process today.

Tata Tea board to meet on Bambino merger
MUMBAI: Tata Tea Ltd's board is meeting on September 27 to consider the merger of its wholly-owned subsidiary, Bambino Investment & Trading Company Ltd. -- Our Bureau

New MD for Insilco
NEW DELHI: Mr Manfred Knoll, former Managing Director of German Remedies Ltd, has taken over as the Managing Director of the Degussa group company, Insilco Ltd, from September 1.

ITC okays Bhadrachalam merger; swap ratio at 16:1
THE ITC Ltd board, at its meeting held here today, has approved, subject to necessary statutory approvals, a scheme for the amalgamation of ITC Bhadrachalam Paperboards Ltd with ITC Ltd. As per a statement issued by the company, the high courts at Calcut ta and Hyderabad will be moved to convene separate meetings of the members of the respective companies to accord approval to the scheme.

IFCI divests part of stake in ICRA to Moody's
AS a first step towards complying with the Securities and Exchange Board of India's (SEBI) norms on rating agencies, IFCI Ltd has offloaded 7,92,500 equity shares out of its holding in the rating agency, ICRA Ltd, to Moody's Investment Company India Pvt Ltd at a negotiated deal at Rs 75 per share. The deal would fetch IFCI Rs 5.94 crore.

Courts
`Proposed changes to speed up justice delivery'
THE Indian judicial system, despite enjoying high credibility, has become ``lethargic'', and the proposed legislative changes pending before Parliament in the form of various Bills, are designed to speed up the justice delivery system.

Economy
Services sector to grow 6 pc: Fitch
FITCH Ratings is of the view that the Indian economy is unlikely to grow more than 5.4 per cent during the current fiscal. It expects the three key sectors -- agriculture, industry and services -- to grow at five per cent, 4.5 per cent and six per cent r espectively.

Centre to launch rural aid package next week
THE Rs 10,000-crore Sampoorna Grameena Swarojgar Yojana (SGSY), which is based on the concept of integrated development of the rural sector in the country, is proposed to be launched by the Prime Minister, Mr A.B. Vajpayee, on September 25.

Terrorism vs economic autonomy
WHENEVER there is a clash between politics and economics, economics has to give way. Marshall defined economics as the study of mankind in the ordinary business of life. The ordinary business of life of mankind involves activities of production, consumpt ion and distribution. These activities involve pecuniary transactions and/or transactions with implicit pecuniary significance. Such transactions are reciprocatory and, among equals, each party is better off than otherwise without the transactions.

Export slide: Maran sends wish-list to Sinha
THE Commerce Ministry has been so rattled by the export downturn during the first four months of the current fiscal, that the Union Commerce and Industry Minister, Mr Murasoli Maran, has presented a wish-list of immediate and urgent action to the Finance Minister, Yashwant Sinha, on Thursday.

3 pc rise in rural consumer index
CHENNAI: The all-India consumer price index for agricultural and rural labourers increased three points each in August to stand at 312 for agricultural and 314 for rural labourers.

Assocham hails hike in FII investment cap
THE Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Assocham) said on Friday that the Government's move to permit foreign institutional investors (FIIs) to invest up to the FDI sectoral cap limits/statutory limit in Indian companies will bring ``fresh leas e'' of life into the domestic capital markets.

Editorial
A weak brew
JUDGING BY THE trends, it seems now that domestic tea producers cannot afford to be optimistic about their operational results for this year. While it may be somewhat comforting for producers to find that contrary to their fears imports have not posed a threat, the none-too-satisfactory auction price levels clearly suggest that buyers are not operating in strength. Between August and the first week of this month, while CTC leaf prices were Rs2-8 lower per kg on the same period of 2000, CTC dust lost Rs 3-9 a kg at the local auctions, where there is usually some sort of balance in the mix of domestic and export buying.

Environment
TAPMA to move court if ban on plastic takes effect
THE Tamil Nadu Plastics Manufacturer's Association (TAPMA) has decided to go to the High Court if the Chennai Corporation implements its decision to ban the manufacture and use of disposable bags, cups, plates and table spreads.

Fast track
`Old economy' stocks battered
THE unfolding events since the WTC bombing have seen a bloodbath in the equity markets. The BSE sensitive index has lost 12.3 per cent since September 11, while the broadbased BSE 200 index has lost 14 per cent. The S&P CNX Nifty has lost 13.06 per cent over the same period.

Financial Performance
10 pc drop in TVS-Suzuki turnover
TVS-SUZUKI Ltd achieved a turnover of Rs 675 crore during the April-August period of the current year, as against Rs 753 crore in the same period last year, the company's Managing Director, Mr Venu Srinivasan, said on Friday.

Impact
Titan: Sticking to time
The possibility of Titan Industries move out of non-core businesses may be a welcome move but with limited influence on the stock price in the near term. The likelihood of a right offer leading to expansion in the equity base may act as a dampener.

UTI Bank: Nothing to excite
The possibility of the Commonwealth Development Corporation (CDC) picking up a stake in UTI Bank may leave the stock price untouched in the near term.

ITC Bhadrachalam: Tilt towards ITC
The swap ratio fixed for the merger of ITC Bhadrachalam with that of ITC is in line with the ratio of the market prices of these two stocks.

Gujarat Gas: Lakshmi to flow
The arrangement entered into by Gujarat Gas with Cairn Energy for supply of gas may be viewed favorably. But the price trends may stay linked to the broad market trends. The stock has declined 16 per cent in the last ten days and this development may hel p cap the downside.

Mutual Funds
SUN F&C moots 7-series fixed-duration scheme
SUN F&C Mutual Fund has mooted a seven-series defined-duration scheme with various fixed-maturity plans within each series.

UTI bid to salvage goodwill with Mastershare scheme
THE market is warming up to the Unit Trust of India's decision to consider income distribution for investors in its Mastershare 1986 scheme.

PSU
New enterprise model for PSUs mulled
AGAINST the backdrop of a tepid record of disinvestment of equities of public sector undertakings and in the interest of public sectors that had done well, a professional enterprise model (PrEM) could be evolved by the Government to tone up the public en terprises of the country.

Divestment norms for IBP may put off bidders: DoD
THE Department of Disinvestment (DoD) has told the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas that several serious bidders would not be interested in actively participating in the IBP Ltd disinvestment process given the guidelines being contemplated by the Mi nistry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.

Petroleum
Cairn Energy ready to take exploration risks
THE UK-based Cairn Energy, which stepped into India in 1997 with the acquisition of Command Petroleum of Australia, has been exceptionally lucky in the Indian upstream oil sector. Acquisition of Command Petro gave Cairn operator status in Ravva offshore field. Cairn has not looked back since. Today, apart from Ravva, the company is the operator in three promising offshore acreages -- in the Gulf of Khambat and off the eastern coast and an onshore field in Rajasthan.

IBP to divest stake in Indian Oiltanking
THE Ministry of Petroleum has asked IBP Co Ltd to withdraw from Indian Oiltanking Ltd (IOTL), a joint venture company in which Oiltanking GmbH of Germany and India Oil Corporation (IOC) also have equity stakes.

Gujarat Gas in purchase pact with Cairn combine
with the Cairns Energy-ONGC-Tata Petrodyne consortium on Friday

Enough tanker capacity for crude supply assured
SUPPLY of imported crude, though at a higher cost, will not be affected in the event of a US military intervention in Afghanistan. ``We will be able to deploy enough tanker capacity,'' the Union Minister for Shipping, Mr Ved Prakash Goyal, said on Friday .

`No immediate hike in petro-product price'
THE Union Petroleum Minister, Mr Ram Naik, has ruled out any immediate hike in prices of controlled petro-products, such as petrol, diesel, kerosene and LPG. Speaking to newspersons on Friday, Mr Naik said that he was banking on the assurance of Organisa tion of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) that they would not cut production and also keep the crude price in the range of $22-28 per barrel.

Meet with Sinha on APM dismantling -- Naik to push for duty cut on petrol, diesel
THE Petroleum Minister, Mr Ram Naik, will push for a cut in the excise duties of diesel and petrol and issuance of petro bonds at tomorrow's meeting with the Finance Minister, Mr Yashwant Sinha, on the crucial issue of dismantling the administered pricin g regime in petro products.

Plantations
Prices drop at ICTA sale
DOMESTIC coffee prices dropped by Re 1 to Rs 2 on all varieties as large amounts were on offer at the ICTA auctions.

Policy
CCEA clears Rs 168-cr account payment to NAFED
THE Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has approved an on account payment of Rs 168 crores to be released to NAFED immediately. This would enable NAFED to procure oilseeds under the Price Support Scheme for providing remunerative prices to the farmers during the Kharif season of 2001.

President's nod for 3 Bills
NEW DELHI: The President, Mr K.R. Narayanan, has given his assent to the Advocates' Welfare Fund Bill, 2001, the Salary, Allowances and Pension of Members Parliament (Amendment) Bill, 2001 and the Two-Member Constituencies (Abolition) and Other Laws Repe al Bill, 2001.

Politics
Make haste, slowly
AT the time of writing, 10 days have passed since the destruction of the World Trade Centre in New York and the attack on the Pentagon. As yet, no overt military action has been launched by Washington. It is clear that the greater the time gap between th e terrorist attacks and the widely-anticipated military retaliation, the stronger will be the international community's opposition to any such action by the Americans. The reason: already the groundswell of public opinion in the developing as well as the developed world against the perpetration of violent retaliatory measures is growing -- something that was totally missing in the immediate aftermath of the heinous deeds of September 11.

SC strikes down Jayalalithaa as CM -- Mantle falls on Revenue Minister
FOUR months after she was sworn in as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Ms Jayalalithaa today resigned from the post after the Supreme Court quashed and set aside her appointment on the grounds that it was a ``clear infringement of the Constitution''.

Power
Undercurrents of power sector reforms
A REVENUE shortfall of over Rs 25,000 crore, more than half the energy handled not accounted for and organisational apathy are reason enough for reforming the power sector. And with the subsidy needs of the sector ballooning year after year and State gov ernment finances under severe strain, the long-overdue reforms cannot be put off further.

Govt legal team for Enron arbitration quits
THE team of senior lawyers representing Maharashtra Government in arbitration proceedings against Enron at the London Court of Arbitration, has walked out of the case citing political pressure and non-cooperation from sections of the State Government.

Rubber
Rubber market resumes trade
THE confusion in the rubber trade after the minimum support price announcement is apparently getting sorted out as normal trading operations have resumed.

Rubber Board export subsidy
KOTTAYAM : The Rubber Board will give subsidy to export 20,000 tonnes of rubber during the current fiscal, according to a press release issued here. Centrifuged latex, block rubber (ISNR) and sheet rubber have a good scope for export.

States
This one for gas
Delhi transporters sitting in dharna against the shortage of CNG filling stations in the Capital on Friday.

Nabard to invest Rs 25 cr on DRIP scheme in AP
THE National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) has chosen East Godavari for implementation of its District Rural Industries Project (DRIP) with an investment of Rs. 25 crores and a survey has been conducted recently to assess the potent ial. DRIP is already being implemented in Kurnool and Medak districts of the State.

AP may invite strategic ally for `financial dist'
MODELLED on similar initiatives to rope in a strategic partner for the proposed Hardware Park, the multi-modal transport systems and the Gangavaram port, the Andhra Pradesh Government is working towards inviting expression of interest (EoI) from a strate gic partner for the proposed `Financial District' project.

Karnataka: Rs 15-cr plan to rehabilitate tribals
MANGALORE: The Dakshina Kannada Zilla Panchayat has chalked out a Rs 15.2-crore plan to rehabilitate tribal population that would be displaced from the reserved forest areas in the district.

Meet on magnetism, superconductivity
MANGALORE: The Mangalore University, in association with Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, will be conducting an international seminar on `Superconductivity and Magnetism: Materials, Mechanisms and Devices' from September 25 to 28.

Karnataka: Fiscal policy approach
BANGALORE: The medium-term fiscal policy approach of the State will now be individually applied to different departments, starting with four departments as a pilot.

Steel
Jindal Strip Vizag alloy unit resumes
AFTER a more than four month lay-off, Jindal Strips Ltd's ferro alloy unit at Vizag has resumed operations from the first week of this month.

New drive to push up steel consumption
THE Institute for Steel Development & Growth (INSDAG) has embarked upon an awareness campaign aimed at increasing the ``specific consumption'' of steel. It is hoped that the campaign would facilitate an annual domestic consumption of 60 million tonnes of steel within the next 10 years. At present, the total annual steel consumption in India stands at around 26 million tonnes.

Essar Steel appoints KPMG for evaluation
ESSAR Steel Ltd has appointed international management consultancy firm KPMG to undertake a study of its entire business including manufacturing, product mix, marketing, logistics, procurement and finances with the objective of emerging more resilient to face future market downturns and enhance shareholders' value.

Stocks
LIC offloads 3.45%
Life Insurance Corporation of India has sold 2.84 lakh German Remedies Ltd equity shares at Rs 650 per share in terms of the open offer made by Recon Healthcare Ltd, a news release said.

Selling pressure at Lyons Range
EQUITIES reacted downwards on selling pressure at the Calcutta Stock Exchange on Friday. The counter of Reckitt Benckiser was among the few which moved up. It closed at Rs 195.80 with an inter-day gain of 5.87 per cent. The top losers were Wipro, Satyam and Reliance Industries. The CSE-50 closed at 89 points against the previous close of 95.23. The total turnover of the exchange stood at Rs 82.18 crore. -- Our Bureau

Pivotals hit new lows on bear stampede
EVEN as the Government (through market regulators SEBI/RBI) is busy introducing measures to boost investors' confidence, the stock market seems to be headed for ground zero level as none of the measures have worked so far to revive the market.

Stocks trip on Black Friday -- Sensex touches another 8-year low
THE nervousness in the global equity markets hit the domestic bourses once again today as foreign institutional investors (FIIs) continued their battering in new-economy stocks and unloaded heavily in prominent blue chips fearing a devastating impact fro m the imminent air-strikes on neighbouring countries by the US.

Changes in BSE trading hours
THE Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) has extended the trading time from September 24 to October 9 in view of the likely disruption of VSAT services due to heavy solar activity.

Sugar
What lower sugar release protends
EVEN with the festival season approaching, the Government has sought to curtail overall sugar availability for domestic consumption through its monthly release mechanism. The aggregate releases of levy and free sale sugar for October-December 2001, annou nced here today, works out to be 41.73 lakh tonnes (l.t), which is 1.8 per cent below the corresponding releases of 42.51 l.t for October-December 2000.

Taxation
Non-competing, non-casual
IF AN assessee receives a receipt accidentally or fortuitously without any stipulation for conduct, then such receipt is not casual income. In Assistant CIT vs A. S. Wardekar (77 ITD 405), the receipt of lumpsum payment to the assessee, as a compensation for not engaging himself directly or indirectly in any activity which competed or conflicted with his earlier year's status, was held as capital receipt not chargeable to tax. In this case, the assessee transferred his holdings in one company to another and obtained a substantial sum as compensation for not holding any activity which competed with his erstwhile company.

Blockheaded assessments
With the Department not often drawing a distinction between regular and block assessments, litigation is piling up before the Appellate Tribunal, says T. C. A. Ramanujam

Containing speculation
A tax on securities transactions could help reduce speculative trading in the secondary market, reports Pratap Ravindran

Misdeeds thru sale deeds
CHAPTER XX-C of the Income-tax Act, 1961 is a nightmare for big-ticket real-estate investors, vesting as it does with the Central Government the power to purchase an immovable property on being asked to do so by the Appropriate Authority (AA) with whom t he agreement for sale must be registered so as to enable it to verify whether the apparent consideration stated therein is the real consideration as well. This chapter, as well as its predecessor Chapter XX-A, owes its origin to the historical reality th at black money plays a powerful and pernicious role in real-estate transactions in this country.

Spanner in works
LML MANUFACTURES scooters and supplies tool-kits with its vehicles. The value of tool-kits was included in the assessable value of the scooters. But the CE, Kanpur, felt that the tools were accessories -- ``that add beauty or render more perfect the fina l product''. However, when the company argued at the Delhi CEGAT that the tool-kits were necessary for changing the wheel of the scooter, the Revenue had no counter contention. The Tribunal's order went against the Department.

Tea
Assam teas ease at Guwahati sale
CTC offerings at Guwahati this week initially met with good general demand but slackened with the progress of sale. With the exception of selected brighter Assam brokens and fannings, which sold irregularly around last sale level, other Assams eased in v alue following quality with plain and bolder sorts suffering withdrawals. Cachars tended to be irregularly lower but witnessed a good demand.

Tea generic campaign yet to gather pace
THE progress of the tea generic campaign launched in July with an outlay of Rs 16 crore has been rather slow.

Technical Analysis
Steep fall
FRIDAY'S trading witnessed a steep fall. Most of the index-based stock hit the circuit breaker. The market opened with a bearish note and remained the same throughout the day. Nifty closed lower with a loss of around five per cent with respect to Thur sday's close. The market sentiment stands strongly in favour of the bears.

Travel & Places
`Cut in monument entry fee boost to tourism'
THE Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) has welcomed the Government's decision to lower the fees that foreigners would be required to pay effective October 1, 2001 for entry into monuments.

Tyres
Steep hike in import duty -- Export of tyres to Tanzania may be hit
A SUDDEN change in the Tanzanian import duty structure for Indian tyres, entailing an additional suspended duty of 50 per cent, has sent the auto tyre manufacturers into a huddle. It is feared that this sudden increase may put a brake on the growing Indi an export of auto tyres to African markets.

Source:Business Line