NHPC to invest Rs 20,000 crore in private hydropower projects in next five years

New Delhi: In an attempt to revive the struggling hydropower sector in the country, state-run NHPC has decided to take over private hydropower projects and is ready to invest equity worth Rs 20,000 crore in the next five years.

The country's largest hydropower producer with an installed capacity of 5,702 mw, NHPC is eyeing to add another 4,000 mw through equity investments. "We want more projects on nomination basis. We aren't getting projects compatible to our capabilities," said ABL Srivastava, director ( finance), NHPC.

Company officials said that NHPC currently has enough cash reserves for the proposed equity investments.

"State governments have lately preferred private players for harnessing hydro power. But most of them have not taken off. Given the amount of equity with us, we are in a good position to form joint venture with private power companies and may even take over the project in many cases," said Srivastava.

NHPC officials also said that several private companies, especially with projects in the north and northeastern parts of the country, have approached the company to form a joint venture involving the state government as well.

"We are still planning our partnership model with state governments and private players for future projects," Srivastava told reporters.

NHPC has projects totalling 12,240 mw in the pipeline, out of which around 8,000 mw worth of projects are awaiting clearances from the central government. Some of its key projects such as Subahsiri (2,000 mw) and Dibang (3,000 mw) in Arunanchal Pradesh are awaiting clearances from the ministry of environment and forests.

The PSU recently commissioned 160 mw Teesta Lower Dam Power project, phase 3 (TLDP 3) project in Sikkim after a hiatus of six years due to geological challenges. It is building six hydropower projects in Sikkim totalling 4,000 mw. The phase four of TLDP, with capacity of 132 mw, is slated for commissioning in October 2014. Phase five of TLDP (512 mw) was commissioned in March 2008.

The upstream Teesta-3 power project in the state is being constructed by a private entity and is supposed to be commissioned by the end of this year in December but NHPC officials in the Teesta region said that no major work has progressed in it.

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Hyundai-Rotem supplies first coach to L&T Hyderabad Metro

Hyderabad: L&T Hyderabad Metro Rail Ltd today put on display the first rail coach it received from the Hyundai-Rotem consortium.

It announced that the elevated rail system would be fully managed remotely. These trains will have no drivers and run from a central control system. And the ‘driver’ in the metro train coach will only help facilitate entry and exit of passengers and ensure their safety.

This coach is part of the large order the metro project placed on the consortium for supply of rail coaches for the 72-km elevated metro rail project being developed by L&T.

The coach was formally unveiled here today by the Chief Minister, N. Kiran Kumar Reddy, in the presence of officials of L&T and metro rail officials.

Each air-conditioned coach will have capacity to seat about 330 people and a train of six coaches is expected to carry about 2000 passengers. While these trains have the capability to manage a top speed of 80 km per hour, the average speed is likely to be 38-40 km per hour. Initially, 171 coaches for 57 trains will be supplied by Hyundai-Rotem and the rest in a phased manner, said N.V.S. Reddy, Managing Director of Hyderabad Metro Rail Ltd. L&T had placed the Rs 1800-crore order with Hyundai-Rotem last year.

V.B.Gadgil, Chief Executive and Managing Director of L&THMRL, said that the coaches will be run on centralised radio frequency from a central operational control system. “We have made good progress so far, but the pace of work can get better,” he felt.

Initially, it is proposed to run each train with three coaches and later this will be ramped up to six coaches for one train.

The gap between each train will be 90 seconds. All the trains will have CCTV cameras in and outside of the cars, mobile and laptop charging sockets inside the cars. The supply of coaches will be in a phased manner as the project is ready for commissioning.

First phase will be operational by March-April 2015.

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UK, AP to share tech, work on energy conservation

Hyderabad: The UK Government has agreed to collaborate with Andhra Pradesh in sharing latest technologies and best practices in energy conservation and efficiency, according to a statement from the State Energy Conservation Cell.

The State has set up an internal target of achieving energy savings of around 15,000 million units per annum worth about Rs 7,500 crore.

Andrew McAllister, British Deputy High Commissioner at Hyderabad, along with his team, met P.K. Mohanty, State Chief Secretary and assured him that the UK is willing to extend technical support to the State in bringing best practices in energy efficiency and energy conservation.Mohanty said the Bureau of Energy Efficiency has identified Andhra Pradesh as high potential State for energy conservation and the Central Electricity Authority has recognised the recent energy conservation initiatives across various sectors including industry, agriculture and Government.

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Cognizant buys France’s Equinox

Chennai/ Bengaluru: Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp on Wednesday said it had acquired France-based Equinox Consulting, a financial services consultancy, for an undiclosed sum. The acquisition will strengthen the company’s global consulting capabilities and presence in Europe, it said.

The company expects around $40 million annualised revenue from the acquisition but declines to share financial details of the deal.

Under the terms of the agreement, around 160 consulting professionals will join Cognizant, which is known for making small-ticket tuck-under acquisitions to bridge the gaps in its offerings. The company has made seven such buyouts in the last three years of which three have been in consulting related.

Francisco D’Souza, chief executive of Cognizant, said with the deal, Cognizant is better positioned to help European clients challenge the status quo and unleash new potential across their organisations by creating new business and information technology models.

Equinox Consulting provides business consulting services across investment banking, asset management, retail banking, insurance, and specialised financial services. Founded in 2004, the company is known for its regulatory consulting expertise.

Cognizant Business Consulting (CBC) contributes approximately six-seven per cent to Cognizant’s total revenue and the company has been trying to further expand its presence in the service area as it is considered to be a high-margin business.

India’s second largest IT firm, Infosys Ltd, which already gets over 30 per cent of its revenues from Consulting, also acquired Switzerland-based management consultancy firm Lodestone Holding AG last year in $350 million deal.

France, Europe reach
Experts also believe that the acquisition of Equinox Consulting will also help Cognizant strengthen its presence in France, a non-English speaking geography, and aid in cracking the European market. While the European market offers huge potential, the penetration into the geography is currently much lower.

In an interview with Business Standard after the announcement today, Cognizant's Senior Vice President and Head of Continental Europe and Asia-Pacific Santosh Thomas said, European clients are looking to buy a broader range of services — consulting, applications, infrastructure, and business process services. They are seeking partners who can drive cost-savings and innovation on one integrated platform.

The acquisition will also add to the company’s existing presence in the financial services and insurance sector — the largest industry segment for Cognizant — which contributed around 42 per cent to its top line.

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Electrosteel Steel gets nod for Rs 6181 crore CDR package

Kolkata: Electrosteel Steel, part of Electrosteel Castings, a leading producer of ductile iron pipes used for water transportation, has received a nod from the Corporate Debt Restructuring (CDR) cell for its proposed Rs 6,181 crore CDR package.

Recently the Corporate Debt Restructuring Cell of RBI has approved the CDR package of ESL. ESL, which has set up a 2.5 million tonne per annum integrated steel plant in Jharkhand at a project cost of Rs 11,000 crore, had approached bankers for corporate debt restructuring recently.

Incidentally, the company has already invested nearly Rs10, 000 crore in the project.

"While an overwhelming majority of participating banks have confirmed their mandates to the CDR package, there are few banks that are still to come on board. It is expected that seeing the large support from the lead bank and the other banks, the remaining banks that are also likely to provide their confirmation to the CDR proposal," the company said in a statement issued on Monday.

"The banks are also expected to clear the working capital proposal pending with them. This would also be in line with the RBI Circular on the matter," the ESL statement added.

Commenting on the development, Ashutosh Agarwal, executive director (finance) expressed his special appreciation for the initiative in the matter taken by Anil Swarup additional secretary in the Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, who also heads the sub group of Cabinet Committee of Investment (CCI), for the success of the CDR package.

In January, 2013 a high powered Cabinet Committee on Investment (CCI) was formed at the initiative of the Prime Minister with the objective of fast tracking large projects with an investment of Rs 1,000 crore and above. In the case of Electrosteel Steels Ltd. (ESL) the CCI has proved to be a major catalyst.

Addressing a meeting of bankers in Kolkata in July 2013, Finance minister P. Chidambaram had impressed upon the bankers to clear the pending issues of large projects especially where substantial investments have been made by the promoters and the bankers. Subsequent follow up by Mr Anil Swarup, has taken forward successfully many projects which were facing various hurdles including loan disbursements from banks.

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Bilateral trade target of USD 90 billion between India and Africa achievable by 2015: Anand Sharma

New Delhi: The Union Minister of Commerce & Industry Shri Anand Sharma and Mr. Rob Davies, Minister of Trade and Industry, South Africa today co-chaired the third meeting of India-Africa Trade Ministers in Johannesburg. The meeting was attended by Chairperson of African Union Commission Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma and 11 trade ministers from Africa, representatives of New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), and regional economic communities like Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), Economic Community Of West African States (ECOWAS) and Southern African Development Community (SADC).

In his opening remarks Shri Sharma mentioned that the trade ministers meeting was a significant event in the annual calendar of exchanges between India and Africa. He said that the partnership between India and Africa was distinct and different and a strategic relationship. The robust economic growth of both India and Africa provided new opportunities of forging a development partnership which would not just be focussed on transactional trade but subsume capacity building, institution building, human resource development and productive investments. Shri Sharma mentioned that the governments of India and Africa were confronted by challenges of currency volatility, high inflation, commodity volatility, and similar issues of underdevelopment and poverty. He further added that the India Africa Forum Summit declarations have given a blueprint of the partnership between these two regions covering a wide range of sectors. A large number of regional and pan-African institutions have been established in Africa for capacity building and skill development, which enable development of rich human resource. He mentioned that 22,000 scholarships were being administered for African students. He said that the economic engagement has been a buoyant one as investments from India to Africa has crossed USD 50 billion in the last decade and trade has crossed USD 70 billion. He mentioned that the bilateral trade target of USD 90 billion by 2015 is a modest one and is certainly achievable.

Chairperson of African Union Commission Dr. Zuma in her remarks mentioned that GDP of BRICS economies is set to overtake that of G-7 countries soon. She mentioned that the rich resource base of Africa have driven the economic growth of the world. The plan of industrialization aims to increase value addition, enhance regional economic integration with an aim to achieve a pan-African free trade area. Dr. Zuma appreciated “Indian investments in infrastructure, mining, energy sector which enabled significant value addition in Africa and skill upgradation which would lead to sustainable development and help in poverty eradication.” She sought greater diversification of Indian investments with greater thrust on joint ventures and participation of women. She said that interest of developing countries and LDCs are safeguarded especially in the area of food security in the forthcoming Bali Ministerial Meeting on WTO. She further said that the current trade facilitation package had certain implementation challenges for African countries as it entailed huge resource commitments and therefore urged for a balanced outcome at Bali.

In his remarks Mr Davies spoke about the need of ushering in an age of industrialization in Africa with a greater thrust on value addition, moving away from commodity led export models. In this context, he appreciated the engagement with India which was in the nature of a true developmental partnership. He mentioned that “Indian investments into Africa had seen a phenomenal growth” and appreciated that “these had led to considerable value addition and employment generation in Africa.” He also stressed upon the need of greater regional economic integration in Africa through the architecture of regional free trade agreements, which would be building blocks for a continental free trade agreement in Africa. Intra -African trade is barely 12% contrasted with other dynamic regions of the world. He mentioned about the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA) which aims to strengthen infrastructure development in Africa. Indian imports from Africa have risen by 14% but there was need to shift to value added exports. He recalled the BRICS Summit and said that the BRICS development bank idea should become a reality to ensure investments not only in each others’ economies but also in Africa.

Intervening in the ministerial meeting, Shri Sharma said that “the forthcoming Bali ministerial meeting was an opportunity to give momentum to the Doha development round, which has its heart a strong development agenda.” He mentioned that there is a need to address the genuine concerns of food security of the developing countries. The interests of subsistence farmers must be protected and a multi lateral trade regime must address livelihood concerns of small and marginal farmers of the developing countries. He was of the opinion that public stock holding for food security must be accepted as this is essential for assuring food security of millions of poor in the developing countries. He also said that the LDCs would also need resources to meet the commitments on trade facilitation including for infrastructure upgradation at ports. He said that India has supported the need for a package of LDCs in Bali. He informed the Trade Ministers about the Duty Free Quota Free Market Access Scheme for LDCs introduced by India which provides a huge opportunity for market access for African LDCs to the Indian market.

The second meeting of the India-Africa Business Council co-chaired by Shri Sunil Bharti Mittal from the Indian side and Dr. Bright Chunga was also convened and the industry leaders collectively identified priority sectors of private investment and presented a report to the Trade Ministers.

Yesterday, Shri Sharma had a bilateral meeting with his counterpart Minister Mr. Rob Davies where he urged for an early conclusion of the India- Southern African Customs Union (SACU) Preferential Trade Agreement negotiations. They also discussed the whole range of bilateral issues, expressing satisfaction on the healthy growth of trade which had touched USD 14 billion and investment flows from India had crossed USD 7 billion. They also reviewed the progress of negotiations in the Doha round and preparations for the Bali ministerial meeting.

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Infosys, IBM bag over Rs 2,500-cr UK bank deal

Bengaluru: IBM and Infosys have won a major deal from UK-based bank Williams & Glyn’s, which is a part of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group.

The deal, which is valued at Rs 2,535 crore, is for building a new technology system for Williams & Glyn’s, a bank that has been defunct for 30 years but has seen fund infusions to the tune of £800 million from a group led by private equity firm Corsair Capital and a consortium of investors.

The new bank will have 314 branches with a customer based of 1.7 million customers, located mostly in north-west England and is scheduled to start operations in the London market in late 2015, according to reports.

Core banking
While the details of the nature of work are not public, Infosys will be developing some aspects of core banking systems for Williams & Glyn’s, which would include mobile banking applications, that will help bank customers do transactions on the mobile phone, said a source in Infosys, who was involved in this process and could not be named due to protocol reasons. When contacted, an Infosys spokesperson said: “We do not comment on client engagements.”

On its part, IBM will extend its work on electronic bank account management service, which it had piloted with RBS in 2011. This work involves setting up and creating account openings using an XML standard (an encoded digital format that can be read by both humans and machines) before sending them to RBS via the electronic bank account management portal.

Industry watchers feel that this marquee deal has come at a time when Infosys is undergoing a lot of changes since its iconic co-founder N. R. Narayana Murthy has taken charge at the helm of the company.
‘More to come’
However, analysts feel that more such deals need to be won in order to get growth momentum back.

“The company has been clearly struggling to bag marquee deals which it has been losing out to competitors and more such deals need to be won to bring growth back,” said A.K. Prabhakar, IT analyst who formerly the Vice-President of Equity Research with Anand Rathi, a Mumbai-based brokerage firm

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