Tata Power’s Karnataka wind farm registered under UN clean project

Mumbai: Tata Power said its 50.4-MW wind power project at Gadag in Karnataka has been registered under the clean development mechanism (CDM) programme by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The wind farm was commissioned in July, 2009. It has 63 wind turbine generators of 800 KW capacity each.

The Gadag plant helps in reducing an annual average of 99,100 tonnes of carbon-dioxide equivalent, by producing 107,064 MWh per year (average) equivalent amount of clean energy.

The plant is Tata Power’s fourth CDM-registered project after the 50.4-MW wind project at Khandke, Maharashtra; 50.4-MW wind project at Samana, Gujarat and 25-MW solar project at Mithapur, Gujarat.

Tata Power currently has 397 MW of operating wind power and 28 MW of solar generation capacity. The company proposes to add 150-200 MW of wind and 50 MW of solar power capacity every year.

CDM is an instrument established under the Kyoto Protocol to achieve both sustainable development and contribute to the cost effective mitigation of climate change

Read More

Share of luxury cars to touch 4% by 2020

Kolkata:Share of luxury cars to the total passenger car market is likely to increase to four per cent from the current levels of two per cent by 2020.

The total number of passenger cars in the country is likely to touch around 8 million (80 lakh) units by 2020, said Boris Fitz, Director, Sales and Network Development of Mercedes-Benz India.

Passenger car sales stood at 1.89 million (around 19 lakh) units in 2012-13. Sale of new luxury cars stood at 29,000 units in 2012.

“At present, luxury cars account for just about 2 per cent of the total passenger car market which is far lower than that in China (5 per cent) and Hong Kong (15 per cent). The next 3-4 years will be decisive for India,” Fitz said at the launch of new A-Class in the city on Monday. Mercedes-Benz plans to invest Rs 250 crore on its manufacturing facility at Chakan in Pune to double its annual production capacity to 20,000 units by the end of this year.

The luxury car maker, which sold 7,138 units in 2012, expects a double-digit growth in sales in 2013.

While the growth in passenger car segment had been southwards, the growth in the luxury car segment has been just the opposite. During the January-March 2013 period, the company’s sales grew by about 5.3 per cent to nearly 2,900 units.

Read More

World Gold Council sets up full-fledged unit in India

New Delhi:A separate private company has been set up with effect from April 1.

A corporate structure will help WGC take up activities on a larger scale in the Indian market including entering into commercial arrangements with banks and gold industry players in the coming years, it is learnt.

Legally, the setting up of a corporate structure will help remove the disadvantages of operating as a liaison office.

As a liaison office, WGC could only promote the existence of parent entity and not any individual products of any Indian entity.

Currently, Reserve Bank of India norms forbid a liaison office set up in India from entering into any commercial activity in the country.

The liaison office will have to maintain itself from remittances received from abroad through the normal banking channel.

WGC had in 2011 signed a memorandum of understanding with India Post for promotion of gold medallion across India through the postal network.

Read More

Essar Oil to double refining capacity of Vadinar plant

Mumbai: Essar Oil plans to increase the capacity of its Vadinar refinery in Gujarat from the present 20 million tonnes to 40 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) in the next five years. This would involve an investment of about Rs 35,000 crore. Another investment of about Rs 40,000 crore would be made to set up an integrated petrochemical project.

“We have the land and environment clearance is available with us. But we would put the expansion plans in place sometime down the line, only after we have achieved a reasonable certainty on our leverages and have certain cash flows. We have to show to the world for the next year that we are on a comfortable footing,” Lalit Kumar Gupta, managing director and chief executive, told Business Standard.

Gupta had written to the oil ministry last month, seeking tax exemptions for the expansion plan. He did not divulge the contents of the letter but sources said the letter sought extension of the investment allowance in Section 32AC of the Finance Act 2013-14.

The new section was inserted to provide additional deduction to an assessee (company) engaged in the business of manufacture of an article or thing and investing a sum of more than Rs 100 crore in new assets during the period beginning April 1, 2013, and ending on March 31, 2015. Gupta is said to have sought extension of this provision till March 31, 2018.

The assessee would be for assessment year 2014-15, allowed a deduction of 15 per cent of aggregate amount of actual cost of new assets acquired and installed during the financial year 2013-14, if the cost of such assets exceeds Rs 100 crore.

“Right now, we want to optimise the refinery operations further. We have to run it for nine months and we are performing well. Our focus is to sweat the asset now,” added Gupta.

“Though we have a good certainty on our Ebitda, whatever we earn is spent on interest and depreciation. So our major focus this year is to convert our rupee borrowing into dollar and reduce overall cost of debt to 6.5 per cent from 12 per cent,” said Gupta.

As on March 31, Essar Oil’s debt stood at Rs 22,380 crore, with a market capitalisation of Rs 1,758 crore. During the January-March quarter of FY13, Essar Oil posted a net profit of Rs 200 crore, against a loss of Rs 515 crore in the same quarter last year. However, it paid Rs 920 crore towards finance costs during the quarter. For 2012-13, finance costs were Rs 3,424 crore, from Rs 1,387 crore in 2011-12.

The company commissioned its Vadinar refinery in 2008, increasing its capacity from 10.5 mtpa to 18 mtpa and then to 20 mtpa last year, at a total investment of Rs 24,000 crore. The refinery accounts for about 10 per cent of the country’s refining capacity.

It produces liquefied petroleum gas, naphtha, light diesel oil, aviation turbine fuel and kerosene. It can handle a diverse range of crude — from sweet to sour and light to heavy

Read More

MSME share in exports was 43% in 2011-12

Chennai:The share of exports by micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) in India's total exports has been provisionally estimated at 43 per cent in 2011-12, according to the ministry of MSME. Besides, the ministry estimates total fixed assets of MSMEs in India at Rs 689,000 crore and the number of people employed by the sector at around 80 million.

Minister of State (Independent Charge) for MSMEs K H Muniyappa said in the Rajya Sabha recently that "under a revised method of estimation, the share of MSME product exports in total exports of India has been provisionally estimated at 43 per cent in 2011-12".

According to Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics (DGCI&S) data, in the last three years, MSME exports increased by almost 60 per cent - from $82,494 million in 2009-10 to $131,483 million in 2011-12.

The main markets for the 20 most-exported MSME product groups, which accounted for more than 90 per cent of MSME exports from 2009 to 2012, include the USA, European Union (EU), UAE, Turkey, Singapore, Hong Kong, Israel and Saudi Arabia. (TOP-10 STATES BY MSME FIXED ASSETS)

The product groups include pearls, precious stones and metals; electrical and electronic equipment; textiles, apparel and accessories; pharmaceutical products; machinery and mechanical appliances; items made of iron or steel; organic chemicals; vehicles other than railways and tramways; plastics, rubber and articles made from them; footwear, leather and leather products; travel goods; tools, implements and cutlery; tanning and dyeing extracts, tannins, derivatives and pigments; essential oils, perfumes, cosmetics and toiletries; stone, plaster, cement, asbestos and mica; carpets and other textile floor coverings; furniture, lighting, signs and prefabricated buildings.

"The MSME sector of India has been repeatedly mentioned as the growth engine of the Indian economy, but the depth of its achievements is often not fully appreciated," Muniyappa said on another recent occasion.

The MSME sector, with 36 million enterprises having fixed assets of Rs 689,000 crore and 80.5 million employees, contributes around nine per cent of India's GDP and accounts for around 45 per cent of manufacturing output. It has been continuously growing at a rate far above the large sector.

Read More

Kapil Sibal launches e-governance application store

New Delhi: In a major step towards curbing the inefficiencies plaguing the functioning of the government in terms of providing services online to its citizens, IT and Telecom minister, Kapil Sibal launched an e-governance application store today.

This appstore will allow citizens to receive information in an efficient and a much-simplified manner. It is hosted by the DeitY and has been designed and developed by the NIC.

The appstore will start with 20 apps, of which 'roughly half' will be directly accessible to the public (g2c). The number is expected to rise to 100 within three years.

They are categorized into 'runnable' and 'downloadable' apps in which citizens can directly use all he runnable apps but maybe restricted in using the downloadable apps.

The 'government to government' (g2g) apps can be open to the public if it is made runnable by the concerned department.

The criteria for the applications included a 'citizen-centric focus' with high transactional value in which private players are allowed to host. Broadly the downloading of apps is categorized into 'freely-downloadable apps', 'downloadable with cost apps' and 'restricted apps', which can only be used by the government and the judiciary.

""Within three months, policies based on the usage of these applications will be formed', Sibal said.

The features provided in the appstore site include sharing of applications, search for applications, basic information about an application when selected, user feedback and rating of an application, downloading of an application after authentication of user and a 'two level approval process' for contributing applications.

This appstore will be a part of the GI Cloud and its mechanisms will provide for a complete ecosystem in which applications developed by the Centre, States and private players will feature in the appstore with the inclusion of aspects such as funding and contract management.

The concept of the functioning of this 'e-Gov appstore' was summed up by Kapil Sibal as 'What Apple provides its customers, the Government of India is providing its citizens.'

Read More

Aditya Birla Chem buys Solaris Chemtech’s chlor-alkali business

Chennai: Aditya Birla Chemicals (India) Ltd has bought the chlor-alkali and phosphoric acid division of Solaris Chemtech Industries for Rs 153 crore.

The deal will help Aditya Birla Chemicals, a part of the Aditya Birla group, to enter the southern market and also add phosphoric acid to its product portfolio, the company said in a statement to the stock exchanges.

Solaris Chemtech Industries’ chlor-alkali and phosphoric acid division has a 60,000-tonne-a-year caustic soda manufacturing plant and a 24,000-tonne-a-year phosphoric acid plant, both in Karwar, Karnataka.

It also has 3,000 acres of salt works in Gujarat. The division produced 33,747 tonnes of caustic soda and 21,379 tonnes of phosphoric acid in 2012-13 and had a gross turnover of Rs 244 crore.

New technology
The statement said the caustic soda plant was not operational since December 31 because the mercury-based technology had to be shut down as per statutory requirement.

Aditya Birla Chemicals proposed to convert the mercury plant into one using membrane-based cell technology.

The statement quoted Kumar Mangalam Birla, Chairman, Aditya Birla group, as saying that the acquisition bolsters caustic soda supply, a critical input for the group’s aluminium and VSF businesses.

Funding
The acquisition cost and proposed capital expenditure would be funded through own funds and debt, the statement quoted Lalit Naik, Business Head for Chemicals, Aditya Birla group, as saying.

Aditya Birla Chemicals has a caustic soda capacity of 242,725 tonnes a year. Solaris Chemtech Industries is a closely-held unlisted company with its registered office in Delhi.

Read More