Indian Economy-News & Updates

[cloud_9]

Centre plans to set up four solar UMPPs​

The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy plans to set up four solar-based ultra mega power projects (UMPPs) to bring down the cost of power.

They will come up at Sambhar in Rajasthan (4,000 MW); Khargoda in Gujarat (4,000 MW); Ladakh (5,000 MW); and Kargil (2,000 MW) in Jammu and Kashmir, and will cost around Rs 90,000 crore.

The capital cost per MW has been estimated at Rs six crore against the existing Rs 7-7.5 crore and will be developed in phases. The per unit rate is estimated at Rs 5.50.

The project in Rajasthan will be developed on an engineering procurement and construction (EPC) basis. The government has already commenced ground work on the first solar UMPP in Rajasthan. For this, public undertakings, Bharat Heavy Electricals (26 per cent), Solar Energy Corporation of India (23 per cent), PowerGrid, Hindustan Salt and Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam (16 per cent each) and Rajasthan Electronics & Instruments (three per cent) will form a joint venture company.

The first phase of 1,000 MW of Rajasthan UMPP is expected to be operational in three years, and the entire project in seven years. The land will come from over 18,000 acre in possession of Hindustan Salts near the Sambhar Lake.

The power to be produced from Rajasthan UMPP will be sold to Solar Energy Corporation which will trade it to various distribution companies. Some quantity of solar cells and modules for this phase will be sourced from Bhel, which is planning to set up a facility in Maharashtra.

 

[Skyline]

In Perth I've been getting ~9MBps, but the coverage is sporadic at best.

9MBps? nice speed!

In my area real 4G speeds are between 10-20Mbps (Down) and upload speed is between 4-5Mbps

 

[HariPrasad]

True, Gujarat is simply scorching away competition, Modi on that front is working wonders for Gujarat..!

But from an infrastructural POV, there is no matching Delhi. Simply the sheer amount of money going in Delhi on road infrastructure projects(roads, highways, urban transportation projects,) is unrivalled in the entire country. All credit to Commonwealth Games 2010.

And no official ranking, but Bangalore, considering its supposed to be an IT hub and all that, the star of the south, it has PATHETIC infrastructure, PATHETIC roads, PATHETIC mass trasit systems(actually that was in jest, it has no such thing whatsoever). I was mighty dissapointed in my visit to Bangalore, bloody single lanes over the entire city...

Delhi very off and on gets huge fund. They got more than 60K crore on the name of Common wealth game. MM gave Delhi 25K Crore for agricalture development though the whole area hardly have any agriculture. On other hand central government is highly biased to Gujarat. It do not give Gujarat a cheap gas that they give to Delhi and Maharashtra. Recently High court and Supreeme court ordered union Govt to give Gujarat a gas at the rate of Maharashtra. Even fund collected by way of cess from diesel and petrol at 2 Re a liter for road is retained by Delhi. They say Gujarat Govt that your roads are very good and do not require any fund from central Govt. If they construct any road or bridge, they recover toll tax.

 

[Mujraparty]

We aim to invest 70 billion yen in India by 2016: Hiroaki Nakanishi, Hitachi ..

Read more at: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/opinion/interviews/we-aim-to-invest-70-billion-yen-in-india-by-2016-hiroaki-nakanishi-hitachi/articleshow/25609020.cms
Copyright © Economic Times

 

[cirr]

We aim to invest 70 billion yen in India by 2016: Hiroaki Nakanishi, Hitachi ..

Read more at: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/opinion/interviews/we-aim-to-invest-70-billion-yen-in-india-by-2016-hiroaki-nakanishi-hitachi/articleshow/25609020.cms
Copyright © Economic Times

Only 700 million USD and over 3 years？That's peanut for a country of India's size。

Japan must do more for the Indians，far more。Make Indians rich as soon as possible so that we Chinese might profit more doing business with them。

Thank you。

 

[luckych]

Vodafone India to spend Rs 7,000 crore more to expand 2G & 3G network

Vodafone India, the local arm of UK's Vodafone Group Plc, will spend around 7,000 crore in the country to expand its data network and coverage in addition to its annual capex of Rs 5,000 crore over the next few years, chief executive officer and managing director Marten Pieters told ET while announcing a 16.5% increase in half-yearly revenue on Tuesday.

"The group figure is 7 billion pounds (from Project Spring) and about 10% we will spend in the next few years in India on top of normal capex of Rs 4,000-5,000 crore (annual estimate)," Pieters said and added that the money will be used to improve 3G and 2G network coverage in India, subject tomarket conditions and the regulatory environment.

Flush with cash from selling its US business unit to Verizon Communications for $130 billion in September, the parent company has set up Project Spring to upgrade and improve itsnetworks across markets.

The country's second-largest telecom company saw its total revenue increase to Rs 20,476.3 crore in the six-month period ended September 30 on the back of 76% growth in data revenue over last year to Rs 1,514 crore. Data now contributes to 9% of overall revenue.

The ebidta (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation) margin, an indicator of profitability, widened to 30.6% in the first half of the financial year.

In the first half of the financial year, which included a seasonally weak July-September quarter, the company saw an increase in voice revenue per minutes to 46.7 paise from 44 paise in the year earlier.

Vodafone's numbers contribute to signs of improvement in the telecom sector's financial health as strong margin improvements and pricing power returning after years of cut-throat competition leading to the world's lowest tariffs.

Bharti Airtel's margins improved to 32% in the July-September period, higher than 30.6% in the year-ago quarter, even as net profit fell 29% to Rs 512 crore on the account of continued losses from Africa and forex.

Fast-growing company Idea CellularBSE 3.40 % saw its ebidta margin widening to 38.2% in the second quarter from a year ago while its net profit rose to Rs 447.61 crore from Rs 240.04 crore a year earlier. Operators have cut discounts and raised call prices since last year after a February 2012 court order cancelled 122 licences, forcing smaller rivals to exit or scale back operations.

Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research said that the Vodafone results implied that the larger telcos continued to benefit from a benign competitive environment. "We now see the possibility that Vodafone may increase its incremental market share at the expense of Bharti/Idea if Vodafone follows an aggressive investment approach and consequently benefits more from data than Bharti/Idea and Bharti/Idea are slow in making incremental data investments," the firm said.

Vodafone's Pieters said that the company was ready to acquire more spectrum through auction or acquisitions but said that it may only consider assets that aren't weighed down by debt.

"Even if the merger and acquisition rules are more flexible, it is not a given that it will easily h ..

Read more at: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/telecom/vodafone-india-to-spend-rs-7000-crore-more-to-expand-2g-3g-network/articleshow/25665359.cms?curpg=2
Copyright © Economic Times

 

[kbd-raaf]

9MBps? nice speed!

In my area real 4G speeds are between 10-20Mbps (Down) and upload speed is between 4-5Mbps

Uh nvm I was on 3G+.

Getting 35MBps now

 

[luckych]

 

[luckych]

Six start-ups that reached the Rs 1000 crore club



There are some who dream big...and others who dare to make those dreams come true. Venturing into a start-up is never a cake walk, and one has to have the ability to cope with the various ups and downs that the journey entails. Yet, many emerge with enterprises that go on to become household names.

Deepinder Goyal's Zomato

Zomato, if you have not used it yet, is a restaurant discovery website and mobile app. It lists information on restaurants — menus, photos, reviews curated for credibility and contact info — for 180,500 restaurants in 36 cities.

It is currently in 11 countries (including India) and plans to be in 22 new countries in the next two years. It makes its money from ads restaurants place on their pages. Restaurants advertise with Zomato because of better targeting. They can pay only to be displayed when someone is searching for a location — 'Colaba', for instance — and further narrow it to be displayed only for 'take outs in Colaba'.

Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah started Zomato (Foodiebay, in an earlier avatar) while still working as consultants at Bain & Co in Delhi. A recent deal valued Zomato, the company Goyal started in his bedroom four years ago, at Rs 1,006 crore ($161 million). The founders' equity — the stake held by him, his co-founder and some employees — is now worth Rs 328 crore.

Pardeep Jain's Karbonn

In the mid-1990s, mobile phones were just beginning to make a foray in the country, so Pardeep Jain decided to make the most of it.

In April 1996, he opened a small showroom at Kailash Colony and started dealing in mobile phones from top companies, such as Nokia and Samsung. Two years later, he went into an expansion mode by opting for national distributorship. By 2005, he had a team of 150 spread across the country and became the India distributors for players like HTC, LG and Motorola.

Having a huge dealer network in place, he was able to keep track of the market pulse and this is how he realised that the time was ripe to introduce his own brand. He joined hands with Bangalore-based United Telecoms Limited (UTL) to launch his own brand of cell phones, Karbonn.

The idea was to get into tier II and III cities and eventually move to the metros. The company's current turnover for the year 2012-2013 is Rs 2,400 crore.

Narendra Bansal's Intex Technologies

Back in the 1980s, when computers were just starting to make an entry in the country, Narendra Bansal decided to leverage the contacts he had made in Hong Kong and import small computer accessories. So, he moved from supplying local audio cassettes to imported floppy disks to Delhi based retailers.

In September 1993, he set up my first company, International Impex, and continued to import floppy disks. Then, in 1996, he decided to incorporate Intex Technologies, the new company name deriving from the old one.

He started with just one product, ethernet cards, under the new brand name. In 2000, he decided to look beyond Delhi and entered the Chennai market, prompted by the huge demand. By 2006, he had managed to expand the product repertoire to include consumer electronics, with offerings like DVD players, LED/ LCD TVs.

A year later, he also started producing mobile phones. The company's turnover last year was nearly Rs 1,070 crore.

Anil Jindal's SRS Group

In 1985, Anil Jindal started a financial services business, which was effectively the foundation for the SRS Group. He put in Rs 10 lakh, which came from the accruals in his tuition business. The economy had just entered a new phase of growth and consumption-led spending was on the rise.

Expectedly, the market soon became extremely crowded and fragmented. Jindal then visited international markets and finally decided to step into the lifestyle segment as it was in line with the emerging trend of westernisation sweeping the country.

The first step was the incorporation of the SRS Group in 2000. He then built the SRS Mall in Faridabad, and with that our sub-brands—SRS Cinemas, SRS Value Bazaar, SRS 7dayz and SRS Jewells— came into being. Today, the group is a Rs 5,000 crore brand, employing 2,500 people!

Snehdeep Aggarwal's Bhartiya International

Immediately after completing his post graduation in Economics from the Panjab University, Snehdeep Aggarwal decided to start his own enterprise in July 1978. He had read that there was a huge demand for carpets in Germany, so he started writing to traders and middlemen.

In January 1987, he changed the company's name to Bhartiya International to reflect a new business segment. In October 1994, he successfully listed the company and managed to raise around Rs 6 crore. This helped grow in the leather accessories market in a big way. The company now supplies products to more than 60 global brands, such as Hugo Boss, Zara, Levi's, Mango, Guess, Wrangler, All Saints and Marco Polo.

In 2006, he decided to foray into the realty business, and Bhartiya Urban was born. Another business vertical, Bhartiya International SEZ, was set up in May 2008 with the mandate to develop industrial parks. Bhartiya International currently has a turnover of Rs 1,000 crore.

Rakesh Malhotra's Luminous Power Technologies

nverters were very expensive in the early 1980s and cost around Rs 50,000 a unit. So, in between his corporate jobs, Rakesh Malhotra conducted research on power inverters and tried to develop a cheaper version.

In 1985, when he felt sure that he was on to a good thing, Malhotra decided to quit his job and set up his own venture, which would manufacture UPS (uninterrupted power supply) or battery-powered back-up systems. However, it wasn't till 1988 that he finally launched a company. That's how Luminous Power Technologies was born.

Within 15 months, his inverter, priced at only Rs 15,000 a unit, was ready for marketing. Malhotra managed to offer the low rate because all the parts were procured locally. Today, he supplies products to 34 countries, including China. Back in 2012, the company had a turnover of Rs 1,200 crore.

Rakesh Malhotra's Luminous Power Technologies - Six start-ups that reached the Rs 1000 crore club | The Economic Times

 

[luckych]

India emerges as leader in global vaccine market: Government

India has emerged as a global leader in vaccines with about one-third share of the total market, a senior government official said today.

"India's share in global vaccine market is consistently increasing and at present the country contributes more than 33 per cent in the global market," Additional Secretary in Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers V K Subburaj said.

India's bio-pharmaceutical sector is valued at $ 26 billion and it is one of the fastest growing knowledge based areas with growth of 20 per cent in last few years, he added.

Read more at:
India emerges as leader in global vaccine market: Government - The Economic Times

 

[luckych]

Gujarat’s plastic parks to attract Rs 5000 crore investment

Read more at:
Gujarat’s plastic parks to attract Rs 5000 crore investment - The Economic Times

 

[luckych]

India-Iran bilateral trade likely to top $20 billion

Bilateral trade between India and Iran is expected to soon cross the $20-billion mark, up from $15 billion it logged during 2012-13, according to a trade delegation from Iran.

While imports continue to be dominated by oil, both the countries are keen to bring a balance by increasing exports from India, representatives of the delegation said.

The first six months of the current financial year, April to September 2013, Indian exports have gone up to $2.45 billion from $1.45 billion recorded in the same period last year, Rafeeq Ahmed, President of Federation of Indian Export Organisation.

“With UCO Bank opening letters of credit (LCs) close to $0.5 billion on a monthly basis, this will take the exports close to $6 billion. Once the facility of import for re-export is implemented, we may be adding another $2-3 billion to our exports,” he said.

Yahya Ale-es-hagh, President, Tehran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture, said, “There were some concerns with regard to banking and also visa issues. All these are being addressed and we hope they will be sorted out thereby helping in accelerating trade between the two countries and also expanding the number of goods.”

There is immense scope to boost Indian exports in pharmaceuticals, agriculture produce and mining items, he said.

Mohammed Reza Bakhtiarti, Deputy for International Affairs at the Teheran Chamber, said Iran now is the second largest producer of natural gas and expects to become the largest soon as the available resources indicate.

“The gas availability shows that we have enough gas to supply for 250 years and beyond. India-Iran trade is set to top $20 billion soon,” he said.

S. Chandrasekharan, Executive Director of UCO Bank, said the Ministry of Commerce has initiated several steps to boost and accelerate trade growth. For smoother trade between the two countries, the RBI has approved a rupee payment mechanism which is beneficial to traders.
Representatives from the Iranian delegation and their counterparts see this interactive meet as an opportunity to open up more business channels.

India-Iran bilateral trade likely to top $20 billion | Business Line

 

[luckych]

Glass industry to touch Rs 340 billion by 2015: Assocham ​

• Fuelled by growth in sectors like real estate, infrastructure, retail, automotive and food & beverages, the country's glass industry will acquire a market size worth Rs 340 billion by 2015 from Rs 225 billion at present, according to a study by industry body Assocham.
• "Indian glass market is estimated to increase at a compound annual growth rate ( CAGR) of 15 per cent over the next three years. The glass consumption growth is expected in construction (10-12 per cent), automotive (20), consumer goods (15-20) and pharmaceuticals (15-18) sectors," Assocham Secretary General D S Rawat said.
  
  
• Read more at:

Glass industry to touch Rs 340 billion by 2015: Assocham - The Economic Times

 

[luckych]

UK energy firm to off-shore jobs to India​

NPower, one of the UK’s leading energy providers, is expected to announce plans to off-shore thousands of call centre jobs to India as part of its cost-saving efforts.

The decision to outsource its call centre operations is likely to impact 2,000 staff with job losses of around 1,000.

According to the 'Daily Telegraph', the bulk of the workers are being transferred rather than being made redundant as the company outsources its front-line call centre operations to a third party in the UK with the back-office operations off-shored to India.

Neither Npower nor the workers’ unions, Unison and GMB, are making an official comment on the news at the moment.

However, emails from the company’s HR manager to union leaders three weeks ago had warned that the "coming months would be challenging for all parties".

The restructuring will follow a string of cost-saving announcements from Npower since RWE, its German owner, announced plans to axe 6,750 jobs across Europe earlier this month.

The UK’s energy industry regulator, Ofgem, had recently said that profits at the Big Six energy suppliers rose 75 per cent last year as shivering Britons turned up the heating to cope with one of the coldest winters on record.

Outsourcing continues to be a trend among firms looking at streamlining operations.

Recent reports indicate that British firms such as Thomas Cook, eBay, Sky, Seatwave and Zumba Fitness have all outsourced aspects of their customer services closer home to Bulgaria.

However, India still remains a major back-office destination for Europe.

UK energy firm to off-shore jobs to India | Business Line


Japanese companies planning Chennai’s second integrated township

Even as work is still in progress for the first integrated township in Chennai, Japanese companies have begun the process of setting up the second one in the city.

A joint venture (JV) between Sojitz and Motherson is planning a 200-acre industrial park in Sriperumbudur near Chennai, which will house both Indian and Japanese companies across sectors like automotive, electronics and food processing. The JV is awaiting clearance from the government for the project, says director-general of Japan External Trade Organization (Jetro) Hidehiro Ishiura.

The first one, initially called the Omega industrial township and now renamed as One Hub Chennai, is coming up on the Old Mahabalipuram Road, 55km from Chennai. This 1,600-acre park, built by Ascendas and a consortium from Japan, will house more than 60 Japanese companies when the project is complete.
Recently, three Japanese companies -- Hitachi Automotive Systems, Ajinomoto and Takasago -- announced that they would set up shop in this township. The township will house industrial and business units, residential complexes and other social infrastructure like a golf course.

There are about 360 Japanese companies in Tamil Nadu. More than 700 Japanese expats are living in the state and over $1.8-billion worth of business is being exchanged between Japan and Tamil Nadu. "We feel there is scope for a lot more business which is why we are planning the second township even before the first one is fully operational. We see scope for more such townships both in Tamil Nadu and across the country," said Ishiura.

Japanese companies planning Chennai’s second integrated township - The Times of India

 

[luckych]

Andhra Pradesh to host Cadbury's largest plant in Asia-Pacific

Cadbury is setting up its largest manufacturing plant in the Asia-Pacific in Andhra Pradesh.

The plant is coming up at Sri City in Chittoor district with the first phase expected to become operational by mid-2015 with an investment of Rs.1,000 crore.

Sri City is a special economic zone.

Cadbury India Wednesday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Government of Andhra Pradesh. Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy also laid a "symbolic" foundation stone for the project in Hyderabad.

Cadbury India Managing Director Manu Anand told reporters after the signing of the MoU that the plant will be commissioned in four phases and completed by 2020 with an annual capacity of 250,000 tonnes.

The plant will create direct employment for 1,600 people.

Cadbury India already has six plants in Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh.

Earlier, the chief minister said the state attracted investment of Rs.1.30 lakh crore during the last three years.

He said Japan's Isuzu Motors was setting up a plant at Sri City while Pepsi Co. planned to site its manufacturing facility here.

Industries Minister J. Geeta Reddy said regardless of the atmosphere in the state, major companies were coming forward to invest. She said Procter & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson had decided to set up units in Mahabubnagar district.

She said the state was developing an automobile base and pointed out that Mahindra & Mahindra set up their largest tractor manufacturing plant in Medak district and were also planning to establish a car plant.

She said a chocolate company had also decided to set up its unit in Medak district but declined to reveal its name.