Viom bags Chennai airport deal to provide Wi-Fi, Net-based services

Kolkata: Telecom infrastructure company Viom Networks Ltd has bagged a contract to provide Wi-Fi and other Internet-related services at the Chennai International Airport.

Market sources point out that the deal is expected to be in the range of Rs 20–30 crore. Both Viom and AAI refused to comment on the deal size.

This would be Viom’s first foray outside the telecom tower business. With nearly 42,000 telecom towers, the company is currently the second largest operator in the country after Indus Towers.

Viom Networks is a joint venture between the SREI Group of Kolkata and Tata Teleservices.

According to H.S. Suresh, Director, Chennai Airport, services include providing infrastructure to ensure Wi-Fi across the airport. Other “Internet-based services” - that generally include cable TV services (DTH) – will also be provided along with it. Agreements between Viom and the Airports Authority of India (AAI) were signed in July.

“We signed the contract with Viom two months back. As per the contract, Viom would pay us a licence fee of Rs 24 lakh a month (or Rs 2.88 crore annually). This is a seven-year contract,” Suresh told Business Line.

According to him, Viom Networks will develop the infrastructure at the airport and have tie-ups with other telcos (telecom companies) for offering internet-based services.

REVENUE
Market sources point out that Viom would have to partner with a telecom company to provide Internet and Wi-Fi services.

In terms of revenue, the Viom can earn from providing infrastructure services to its telecom service provider. Those aware of the deal say that Viom will provide backend infrastructure services only.

Viom, however, refused to comment on the deal. “As per corporate policy we do not comment on market speculation,” a company spokesperson said.

According to Katyayan Gupta, analyst at Forrester Research, Viom’s decision to opt for in-building solutions shows its intention to evolve from a “telecom infrastructure” company to a “systems integrator”.

“The company has the necessary expertise in telecom infrastructure to leverage itself in other verticals,” he added.

OTHER VERTICALS
Following a surge in data growth and limited opportunities in the tower business, Viom has been trying to move into other revenue generating verticals.

Some of the verticals include third-party managed solutions (managing telecom tower infrastructure for operators) and in-building solutions (improving internet connectivity and Wi-Fi services within buildings).

Viom is already in talks with Telenor for setting up and managing towers in Mynamar.

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Coal production registers 11 percent growth during August, 2013

New Delhi: Ministry of Coal is making concerted efforts to increase the availability of coal in the country. In spite of various constraints, Coal India Limited has produced 31.67 million tonnes in the month of August, 2013 registering a growth of about 11% over the corresponding period of the previous year. This was informed by Union Minister of Coal, Shri Sriprakash Jaiswal to the member of Parliamentary Consultative Committee attached to the Ministry here today. He said that during the period April-august, 2013, the cumulative coal production has been 167.32 million tonnes registering a growth of about 3% over the corresponding period of the previous year. The off-take to the power sector at 25.9 million tonnes in August 2013 from CIL indicates a growth of 5.5% over the corresponding period of the previous year. Similarly the cumulative off-take to the power sector during the period April-August 2013 at 140.6 million tonnes from CIL indicates a growth of 6.6% over the corresponding period of the previous year. Coal Companies are putting their best of efforts in meeting the requirements of different sectors of the economy, he asserted.

Shri Jaiswal said that the exploration is the critical activity in enhancing our coal reserve base. With the efforts of the various exploration agencies in the country, the geological coal resources have reached a level of 299 billion tonnes and lignite resources 43 billion tonnes. However, only about 41% of coal resources and 14% of lignite resources are in the proved category and remaining need to be brought into proved category. He said that the Government is laying emphasis to bring more and more area in proven category so that mining could be taken up in bigger way.

The Minister informed to the members that on amendment of the provisions of MMDR Act, a set of new rules had been formulated for offering the coal blocks through bidding. While it was agreed to offer regionally explored blocks to the Government Companies, only coal blocks explored in detail have been proposed to be offered to private sector. This has enhanced the requirement for exploration in these blocks for which CMPDIL has been entrusted with the job. CMPDIL is carrying out this work both through departmental resources as well as outsourcing.

Participating in the discussion, Members of Parliament suggested that strict monitoring norms should be evolved to regulate activities of outsourced agencies. They complained that most of these agencies violet standard norms and do not provide employment to locals. They also suggested that the social welfare activities should be taken up in bigger way in the interest of local people. The meeting was attended by S/Shri Hemant Biswal, Ganesh Singh, Pshupatenath Singh, Yaswant Sinha, Pradeep Bhattachrya, Sanjiv Kumar, Om Prakash Yadav, Shri Bhishma Shankar Tiwari, Devi Dutt, Ravindra Kumar Pandey.

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UK trade body, Indian biotech cos tie up to collaborate in life sciences

Bengaluru: UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) and the Association of Biotech Led Enterprises (ABLE) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to encourage and develop collaborative opportunities between Indian life sciences organisations and the UK, in Bangalore.

The MoU is a milestone for the UK Oncology Mission, which is on a tri-city tour (Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai). The 12-member UK delegation comprises prominent members from universities, healthcare companies, cancer research organisations and healthcare providers such as diagnostics and drug delivery systems.

The MoU will aim at combining UK’s heritage and leadership in the area of healthcare and life sciences and India’s emerging healthcare ecosystem to promote and develop the sciences sector in both countries.

ABLE and UKTI also run the Core Initiative Groups in different sector strands in life sciences. The partnership will include the participation of UK and Indian experts in life sciences in the areas of industry, research and trade.

It will further promote the UK and India as each other’s partners of choice in life sciences such as drug discovery, bioinformatics, regenerative medicine, clinical research, agri-bio, oncology and regulation. This will be done through ongoing research and discussion and identifying areas of potential business opportunity that can be addressed by Indian and UK firms.

In Chennai, later this week, the delegation will participate in the all-India launch of Healthcare UK and the IBHI-Indo-UK oncology summit. The delegates will travel to Mumbai to participate in a conference on advanced drug delivery system in oncology medicine in India for improving cancer care beyond the metros.

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Vietnam invites Indian rubber manufacturers to set up units in the country

Kochi: Vietnam has invited Indian rubber industry to invest in the South Asian nation and benefit from the vibrant natural rubber sector in Vietnam. Currently Vietnam consumes only 15% of the more than 9 lakh tonnes of rubber produced in the country. A delegation of Vietnam Rubber Association (VRA) led by chairman Mr. Tran Ngoc Thuan visited India recently and held talks with leading members of All India Rubber Industries Association (AIRIA).

India is one of the largest importers of rubber from Vietnam. In fact Vietnam has emerged as the second largest exporter of NR to India after Indonesia. Vietnam's rubber exports to India jumped to 51273.13 tonnes in 2012-13 from 28113.95 tonnes in 2011 -12, representing a 82.38 per cent increase.

Vietnam is fast emerging as a leading producer of natural rubber. The productivity of rubber in Vietnam at 1707 kg/ hectare is only second to India's top ranking productivity of 1823 kg per hectare and is much higher than average of 1442 kg per hectare average in Association of Natural Rubber Producing Countries (ANRPC).

"Vietnam has planned a major fillip to its domestic rubber manufacturing and has targeted 1.2 million tonnes of rubber production and increase in domestic consumption from current 15% to 40% . Vietnam has asked for strengthening business ties with Indian rubber industry and help scale up rubber manufacturing in Vietnam", said Mr Niraj Thakkar, President AIRIA.

Vietnam rubber group has developed many industrial parks and the chairman invited Indian rubber products manufacturers to Vietnam for closer ties in setting up rubber manufacturing units. We are working out the feasibility of a delegation to Vietnam soon,'' said Thakkar.

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Swap window for NRI deposits to boost forex reserves

Mumbai: The Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) move to offer a concessional window to banks to swap fresh Foreign Currency Non-Resident (Bank) or FCNR (B) deposits dollar funds will boost the foreign exchange reserves to the tune of $ 10 billion, rough estimates suggest.

The move will encourage the banks to raise such deposits as their cost of funds will by at least 2.5%. In addition, recently RBI has provided a dispensation to banks that they will not have to maintain cash reserve ratio and statutory liquidity ratio for incremental FCNR (B) deposits. The swap facility is available to the banks till November 30.

“Banks are raising these deposits from NRIs at Libor/swap rate plus 400bp. The cost of FCNR(B) deposit mobilization works out to about 8.5 %. If banks lend at, say, 11%, they will likely make the entire 250 bps spread as FCNR(B) deposits will not attract CRR or SLR for now,” said Indranil Sengupta, India Economist, Bank of America Merrill Mynch.

“The most important near-term move is to allow banks to swap their dollar liabilities against FCNR(B) deposits at 3.5 % per annum for three years. This, along with a few other measures, could attract USD10bn of forex inflows in next three months, on our estimates, and could be a material near-term positive for the rupee,” said economists Siddhartha Sanyal and Rahul Bajoria of Barclays.

The central bank has also increased bank's overseas borrowing limit of unimpaired Tier I capital to 100 %, from 50 % earlier is set to attract dollar inflows into the country. The borrowing mobilization can be swapped with the RBI at 100 bps lower than the market rate.

According to a report by YES Bank, this step creates a potential room for the banking system to raise approximately $30 billion.

So far in the street there were concerns on attracting capital inflows into the country as Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) have been selling their holding in domestic market. This resulted in weakness of the rupee which has already dropped by almost 22 % against the dollar so far in the current financial year.

“On the capital account, the announcement of swap windows for FCNR (B) deposits and banks’ overseas borrowing (up to 100 % of Tier 1 capital) are likely to result in incremental dollar inflows into India. We estimate that $15-20 billion inflows can result from these measures and this can go some way towards plugging the BoP shortfall expected in the current financial year,” said A Prasanna, chief economist, ICICI Securities Primary Dealership in a note to clients.

Data from Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) shows that in the current fiscal so far net FII outflows have been $ 5,973 million from domestic market.

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Hero Group enters green energy biz

New Delhi: The Hero Group would soon create three-four large business units, Pawan Munjal, managing director of Hero MotoCorp has said. He added the new business units would be on the lines of Hero MotoCorp, which contributed the largest chunk of revenue to the group. The group would establish itself as a multinational group, he said.

On Wednesday, the group announced the launch of Hero Future Energies, a company focused on renewable energy. The company, which would initially have wind and solar projects, is being spearheaded by Rahul Munjal, who also heads the group’s Easy Bill Ltd. Rahul Munjal said the company already had a portfolio of projects. It is eyeing 1 Gw of power generation capacity by 2016.

Rahul Munjal told Business Standard the company wanted be within the top three positions in three-four years.

Registered in October 2012, Hero Future Energies has already commissioned a 37.5-Mw pilot wind project in Rajasthan. This year, it plans to develop 100 Mw of wind and solar power and 1 Mw of roof-top solar power.

Currently, Hero Future Energies has a strong project pipeline that includes 400 Mw of wind power projects and 50 Mw of solar power projects across Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Recently, the company was awarded a 10-Mw solar power project in Karnataka, under the state’s solar power programme.

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TCS bags project from Macau telecom firm

Mumbai: Tata Consultancy Services has been selected to deploy a new rating and billing system for CTM, a telecom service provider in Macau.

The solution, which is to be deployed in three years, will allow CTM’s customers to receive faster response to enquiries and enable them to better manage their services and bills, according to a press statement.

“TCS and CTM have an extensive working history and we are excited to expand the range of services TCS is providing to CTM and to develop a roadmap for ongoing future cooperation and success,” said Ravi Viswanathan, President, Growth Markets, TCS.

For the quarter ended June 30, 2013, the company generated 9.6 per cent of its revenues from the telecom sector.

The TCS scrip hit a new 52-week high today at Rs 2,075.85, before settling at Rs 2,065.95, 3.25 per cent higher than yesterday’s closing price.

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