L&T Metro to take up trial runs by July next

L&T Hyderabad Metro Rail Limited expects to commence trial runs for the phase one of the elevated metro project in Hyderabad by July 2014.

The rail coaches from the Hyundai Rotem consortium are expected to arrive in Hyderabad by May next and the trial runs for the first phase of 8-km stretch between Nagole and Uppal of the 72 km metro project will be taken up by July. While the trials will go on for few months, the phase one will be ready for commercial operations by March 2015, N.V.S.Reddy, Managing Director, Hyderabad Metro Rail Limited, said.

Reddy said that the progress of the project has been thus far very encouraging in spite of facing several hardships on course. So far, the concessionaire L&T and Hyderabad Metro have invested about Rs 4,000 crore. This includes Rs 3,100 crore by L&T and Rs 900 crore by Hyderabad Metro.

The project has gathered momentum and more than a third of the piers have been erected. The pace is expected to go up next year as various elements of the project have now come together. The right of way issues too have been addressed, he said.

Referring to the land acquisition for the project, he said of the 269 acres of land assured to be handed over to L&T, 267 acres of land has been handed over so far. Only two acres of land is held up due to a court case and we expect that this would also be resolved shortly. The land acquisition in terms of providing ‘right of way,’ that is providing access for project development, is also being addressed in couple of busy areas.

TREE PLANTATION

“So far more than 1800 trees have been translocated with 98 per cent survival rate. We have also taken up massive tree plantation drive involving colleges and students. All these will ensure that there is good greenery for the project,” he explained.

Referring to the possibility of issuing smart cards to passengers, which will potentially double up as multipurpose cards, Reddy said several banks have evinced interest in taking part of this initiative. At least two banks will be chosen at the appropriate time, he hinted.

No shortage of life insurance products from January 1: IRDA

HYDERABAD, DEC. 27:
There will be no shortage of life insurance products from January 1 when new norms come into effect, according to T. S. Vijayan, Chairman, Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA).

“Every life insurer has a minimum 10 to 15 products ready to be launched or already launched. We have cleared about 500 products so far,” Vijayan told newspersons on the sidelines of an interactive session organised by the Federation of Andhra Pradesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry here on Friday.

Life insurers have been barred from hawking old products starting next month. They can only sell products that are compliant with the new product design norms brought in by the insurance regulator early this year.

“As all products have gone to the shelves of the insurers (from IRDA after approval), their exact launch would depend on their market strategies,” he added.

SERVICE TAX

Earlier, while addressing participants at the meeting, the IRDA chief said the imposition of service tax or its removal was not in the purview of the insurance regulator.

The premium on life insurance products, especially those by the Life Insurance Corporation, is likely to go up from January 1 as the market leader would collect service tax separately. Several private insurers have already started doing so.

BANCASSURANCE

Referring to the permission being given to banks to act as insurance brokers , Vijayan said: “Banks should represent the customers. We want banks to sell the best policies of 24 life insurance companies. We are pushing for it.”

The Finance Ministry had issued a circular last week asking banks to turn into brokers of multiple insurance companies.

As of now, banks are only permitted to act as corporate agents of insurers

Vineet Nayar retires from HCL Technologies’ Board

NEW DELHI, DEC 27:
HCL Technologies (HCLT) on Friday said Vineet Nayar, Director of the company since 2008, has decided to retire from the Board. However, he will be a Senior Advisor to HCLT and HCL Corporation, it said in statement.

The company said Nayar has decided to devote more time to his Foundation.

“Vineet has been a friend and a colleague for over two decades now. His contribution to HCL and the Board has been a benchmark for others to follow and we all are very proud of him. I look forward to his continued association with HCL as a Senior Advisor,” Shiv Nadar, Chief Strategy Officer and Chairman, HCLT said.

As a Senior Advisor, Nayar will advise HCL Corporation on key strategic issues and also work with the Board of HCLT on initiatives such as driving a high performance culture amongst senior managers and new strategies for growth, the company said.

“As I pursue my dream, of creating a ‘Million Smiles’ through Sampark Foundation, I carry with me goodwill, best wishes and lots of learning. I also hope to continue to add value to both HCLT and HCL Corporation through my continued association,” Nayar said.

HCLT’s shares closed at Rs 1,256.20 on the BSE on Friday, up 0.80 per cent from the previous close

Kejriwal takes charge, promises to change Delhi

NEW DELHI, DEC 28:
Thousands gathered at the historic Ramlila Maidan here on Saturday to witness the swearing-in of Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal, the new Chief Minister of Delhi.

Reiterating that his Government is not taking oath to assume power but to serve the people, Kejriwal urged other parties in the Delhi Assembly to work together with his team and set aside their political opposition.

Manish Sisodia, Girish Soni, Rakhi Birla, Satyendra Jain, Saurabh Bharadwaj and Somnath Bharti also took oath along with him. A meeting of the Cabinet, which was held soon after the swearing-in ceremony, decided the portfolio of the Ministers.

Ministers' portfolio

Kejriwal will take charge of Home, Finance, Vigilance, Power, Planning and Services departments. Power price in the State was a major political issue raised by the AAP during the elections. The party has promised that charges will be reduced by 50 per cent immediately.

His first lieutenant Manish Sisodia will be the new Education Minister. He will also keep the PWD, Urban Development, Local Bodies and Land and Building departments.

An IIT graduate, Somnath Bharti, was given the charge of Administrative Reforms, Law, Tourism and Culture.

Rakhi Birla, the lone woman in the seven-member Cabinet, got Social Welfare and Women and Child Development departments.

Girish Soni, a along-time associate of Kejriwal, will handle Labour and SC, ST departments and Satyendra Jain will have Health and Industries departments.

Primary healthcare facilities

AAP has promised to improve the primary healthcare facilities in the city State. Saurabh Bhardwaj was given the charge of Transport, Food and Civil Supplies and Environment. He will have to soon take a decision on increasing the auto fares in the State as the Centre has hiked the CNG prices recently.

Thunderous applauses

Emotions run high as every word of Kejriwal was welcomed with thunderous applauses by the enthusiastic crowd.

“The whole fight is not to make Arvind Kejriwal a Chief Minister but it is for a change of governance in Delhi,” Kejriwal said in a brief speech.

Action against corrupt public servants

He promised that action will be taken against corrupt public servants. “I don’t claim to have a magic wand or remedies for all the ills but if the 1.5 crore people of Delhi join him, there is no reason why all the problems can’t be solved,” the Chief Minister said.

'No arrogance'

He said that he and his team will show no arrogance and will work for the people with service as the goal.

Kejriwal said that AAP is not born to come to power but to remove the arrogance of other parties. Asking his party men to serve the people, he said people should not have to think of another party to correct AAP in the future.

Vote of confidence

He added that he does not mind about the result of the vote of confidence scheduled for next week. He said even if his party does not manage majority, people will vote it back to power with a thumping majority.

People, who participated in the function, hoped that Kejriwal will work to fulfil their aspirations.

Aam Aadmi Party's ideals

“He has given a clear message. Implementation of AAP’s ideals is now just a matter of time. He has silently worked so far for the benefit of people and we hope that he will continue to do so and bring changes in Delhi,” said Sanjay Kumar, who has come from Dwaraka to attend the function.

Swati, a housewife from Model Town, said she was attracted by the AAP’s ideals after it took an initiative to hold protests on the increasing violence against women. “I hope that public transport will be more secured in Delhi now,” she said.

A Delhi Government servant, who wanted anonymity, said things in Delhi will change on its own now.

“80 per cent of the public servants are good. Now they will be empowered as our Chief Minister is an honest man. We are sure that good officers will get more authority in decision-making. There will be pressure on the 20 per cent corrupt officers to change. At least 15 per cent of them will change on their own now. Five per cent will remain unchanged, but they will be in no position to influence the system,” the senior officer said.

Lok Sabha elections

There were slogans that the next aim of AAP is the Prime Minister's chair and Kejriwal will be able to reach that position in the next Lok Sabha elections.

Earlier, Kejriwal took the Delhi Metro from his house at Kausambi to reach the venue. Kejriwal said that all his party’s promises will be implemented in a time-bound manner.

Google expands Chromebook school programme in India

Hyderabad: Google is expanding to India an initiative to popularise the use of its Chromebook laptops in schools, starting with a pilot in four schools in Andhra Pradesh.

The internet search company that makes the world's most popular software for smartphones and tablets will initially make available 25 Chromebooks to each school and train the teachers and instructors in the use of the required software applications.

"The school instructors will teach core subjects using applications and software. We believe with interactive learning, the student will understand better and will take interest in the subjects," Ponnala Lakshmaiah, the state's minister for information technology, said.

Chromebooks require an internet connection to use, and most of the data, such as files that users work on, are stored on Google's storage network connected to the internet. Earlier this month, Samsung released a Chromebook model specifically for the Indian market. Schools are among the most popular market segments for the Chromebooks.

Google is running this programme in some 3,000 schools in the US, Singapore and Malaysia, a Google executive with direct knowledge of the plan to expand it to India told ET. The executive requested not to be named as Google was yet to announce the plan.

"Google aims to increase access to information and knowledge for all students, and encourages tools that support effective teaching and learning in the classroom, but we have nothing to announce at this time," a company spokeswoman said in an emailed statement.

The pilot project, in collaboration with Andhra Pradesh department of information technology, will start next month, a senior government official said. It will be launched in three government schools and one private school in Jangaon in Warangal district.

After the pilot, which benefits students of grades nine and 10, discussions are on to expand the programme statewide, the government official said.

The state's IT department will provide the schools with Wi-Fi internet connectivity with 1 Mbps speed and power backups for unhindered use. Each school will be assigned dedicated mentors who would train the teachers and instructors, the official said.

Training will include using the Google Apps Training Center, an online learning environment that offers six modules including Google Apps Education Edition, Apps Mail, Calendar, Docs, Sites, and other tools

Morgan Stanley to open Bangalore centre to service US parent

Bangalore: Morgan Stanley will open a new Global In-House Centre (GIC) in Bangalore that will provide outsourcing services to the multi-billion dollar company’s parent in the US.

This new centre will be opened in 2014 and will complement Morgan Stanley’s GICs in Mumbai, the company said in a statement.

Commenting on the firm’s plans to grow its GIC capabilities and footprint in India, Bill Strong, Morgan Stanley’s Co-CEO Asia Pacific, said the company had reviewed global options for building a new GIC that can provide a mass of employees to support its global functions and saw value-add in expanding further our on-the-ground teams in India.

While this is a new investment, the company did not quantify the exact amount of investments.

However, it added that this new site in Bangalore is aligned with its continued focus on leveraging India’s skilled and diverse talent pool for the company.

Morgan Stanley has been present in India since 1993 and the back-office provides investment banking, asset management and research, capital markets-related research and sales and trading advisory services to its global clients that include high net worth individuals from 1,200 offices across 43 countries.

The firm will continue to grow its existing Mumbai-based centres, in addition to the new Bangalore centre, officials added.

Establishment of National Cancer Institute (NCI) at Jhajjar campus of AIIMS, New Delhi in Haryana state

New Delhi: The Union Cabinet today approved the proposal for setting up of National Cancer Institute at a cost of Rs.2035 crore. NCI will be set up in the Jhajjar campus of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) New Delhi located in Badhsa village, Jhajjar, Haryana. The project is estimated to be completed in 45 months.

This is a landmark step in the arena of cancer research in the country and shall lessen the deficit of tertiary cancer care in the Northern region. Cancer is emerging as a major public health concern in India, where every year 11 lakhs new cases are diagnosed, with a mortality rate of 5.5 lakhs per year. There has been a lag of cancer treatment facilities in India, compared to WHO standard; which requires one radiotherapy machine per million population. India at present has 0.41 machines per million population. Hence, setting up of this institute will herald a new chapter in the government initiative against cancer.

NCI will operate on the lines of NCI, USA and DKFZ, Germany as a nodal center for indigenous research, promotive, preventive and curative aspects of care and human resource development. This institute is aimed to plan, conduct and coordinate research on cancers which are more specific to India; like tobacco related cancers, cancer of the uterine cervix, gall bladder cancer and liver cancers. The focus will be on understanding, analyzing the cause and genesis of the above cancers. This will further translate the knowledge gained to develop feasible strategies to improve cancer care services by improvement in detection, diagnosis, treatment and quality of life of patients.

The proposed institute will broadly have clinical division, research divisions, and disease management groups (DMGs). These DMGs will go in to the details of all issues pertaining to management of various cancers, site wise, besides other facilities. NCI will have 710 beds for different facilities viz. Surgical Oncology, Radiation Oncology, Medical Oncology, Anesthesia and palliative care, Nuclear Medicine etc. It will have a Tissue Repository which is the first of its kind in India.

HSCC (India) Ltd, a public sector enterprise under the administrative control of the Health & Family Welfare Ministry has been appointed as Project Consultant by AIIMS New Delhi. The Project Consultant is responsible for concept, detailed design & engineering, contracting, project management and medical equipment procurement, installations and commissioning.

CCEA approves road projects worth Rs 2,000 crore in Gujarat and Bihar

The Japan International Cooperation Agency will provide a loan with 100% financing for civil construction and supervision works for the project
New Delhi: The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) on Thursday approved two road projects worth Rs 2,000 crore, to be undertaken in Bihar and Gujarat. The project in Bihar is expected to cost Rs 1,408 crore, while the project in Gujarat is expected to cost Rs 503 crore.

“The CCEA has approved the project for the development of four laning of the (approximately) 93 km-Gaya-Hisua-Rajgir-Nalanda-Bihar Sharif section on the National Highway-82 in Bihar. The total project cost is estimated at Rs 1,409 crore, including Rs 1,216 crore as civil construction and supervision works and Rs 193 crore as the cost of land acquisition, rehabilitation and pre-construction activities. The project will be completed within three years of signing of the contract agreement,” a statement from the roads ministry said.

The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) will provide loan assistance for the project in Bihar. JICA had earlier sanctioned loans worth Rs 1,300 crore for undertaking road projects in Bihar this year.

CCEA’s decision to award more road projects comes at a time when the road ministry has been struggling to award projects during the current financial year. So far, the ministry has awarded projects worth 500 km, while it had set itself a target of 9,000 km at the beginning of the financial year. The inability to fast-track the awarding of road projects during a crucial election year also had the prime minister allowing the road ministry to award more projects under the government-funded mode as against the public private partnership or PPP mode.

The ministry is now looking at awarding 2,000 km of road projects before the end of the financial year through the government-funded mode, after the private sector decided to stay away from undertaking infrastructure projects. The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has also been allowed to tap the bond market to raise Rs 3,500 crore through a bond issue, while the government will invest the remaining Rs 12,000 crore to construct 2,000 km of roads during the year.

OTHER DECISIONS
Proposal to amalgamate State Farms Corporation of India with National Seeds Corporation cleared, both wholly owned public sector undertakings
Pension proposal cleared for 43,000 employees of Mahanagar Telephone Nigam who joined the public sector company from the department of telecom, which would the government an estimated Rs 500 crore
Proposal for non-Plan budgetary support of Rs 116.9 crore for liquidation of statutory dues and pay from April 1 to August 31 this year for 11 central PSUs which are financially ailing cleared
Proposals to establish a National Cancer Institute at a cost of Rs 2,035 crore on the Jhajjar (Haryana) campus of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences and a Rs 640-crore welfare scheme for fisherfolk cleared
Proposal for the sale of Air India’s five long-haul Boeing 777 aircraft to Etihad Airways cleared
Industry experts have often slammed the government for the lack of a single window clearance policy for the mess in the road sector after private sector participation hit a record bottom in the past year. In addition, private companies have also been requesting the government to restructure their premium payments, due to NHAI over the next 20 years to relieve their financial burden as the economy goes through a slowdown. A policy allowing private developers to exit projects is also being considered currently.

The roads ministry is looking to award road projects worth Rs 5.8 lakh crore during the 12th Five-Year Plan and the setting up of a road regulator to address issues concerning dispute resolutions. Earlier this year, the NHAI had to scrap projects worth Rs 3,000 crore due to land acquisition troubles in Kerala and Goa.

Govt clears Rs 3-lakh cr investments in public enterprises

Hyderabad: The Government has so far cleared pending projects involving Rs 3 lakh crore of investment by Public Sector Enterprises, according to O.P. Rawat, Secretary, Department of Public Enterprises.

To drive growth
“This has been done in several of rounds of the Cabinet Committee on Investment. The total pending projects of PSEs involve about Rs 30 lakh crore,’’ Rawat told newspersons on the sidelines of Golden Jubilee Celebrations at Institute of Public Enterprise (IPE) here on Thursday.

Pointing out that this was expected to drive growth in public sector, the official said the business figures of the first six months of the current financial year ended September 30, 2013 showed positive growth though the performance of PSEs was not up to the mark during 2012-13.

Going by the present trend, it was expected that public sector enterprises could grow by 15 per cent this year, he added. When asked on the performance of Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL), he said it was making losses due to pending projects and building up of huge inventory before receiving actual orders.

AUTONOMY
To improve the performance of public sector enterprises, the Government is considering allowing Maharatna and Navaratna companies to take independent decision involving investments up to Rs 10,000 crore, Rawat said. At present Rs 5,000 crore is the upper cap in this regard.

More funds needs
Earlier, addressing the gathering, P. Rama Rao, President, Board of Governors, IPE, said there was a need for greater investments in education, research and development. “The only group of companies which can show the way forward in this regard are public sector enterprises,’’ he said.

Mytrah Energy adds 150 MW wind power capacity

Hyderabad: Mytrah Energy Ltd has added wind power generation capacity of about 150 MW in the three southern States of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. This has increased its installed wind power generation capacity from 309.9 MW to 459.9 MW.

The wind power generation company, based in Hyderabad and listed on the Alternative Investment Market of (AIM) of the London Stock Exchange, is implementing wind farms with total capacity of 238.2 MW at three locations — Burugula (37.4 MW) in Andhra Pradesh, Savalsang (100.3 MW) in Karnataka and Vagrarai (100.5 MW) in Tamil Nadu.

It has commissioned additional capacity at these sites. All the three projects are being commissioned on a rolling basis with the stabilisation process conducted throughout the first quarter of 2014.

Burugula and Savalsang are Mytrah’s first two self-development projects constructed on the company’s land with Gamesa. This provides the company with diversification when combined with its turnkey agreement with Suzlon.