Lower floor price on imported steel
New Delhi : The government has reduced the minimum import price of seven steel items, including HR coils and sheets, tinplate waste, tinplate, electrical sheet, plates, alloy steel bars and rods. The downward revision has been attributed to the declining trend in international prices. The reduced floor price will remain effective for two months.

The minimum CIF (cost, insurance and freight) value for HR coils is $254, for HR sheet $269, CR coils and sheets $351, tinplate waster, and tinplate $620, electrical sheet $657, plates $370 and alloy steel bars and rods $580.

The lower floor price is expected to affect pricing by domestic steel producers like the Tata Iron and Steel Company, the Steel Authority of India Ltd, Essar Steel, Jindal Vijaynagar, and Ispat.
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Encouraging trends in FDI flow
New Delhi : The inflow of foreign direct investment has shown an encouraging trend in calendar year 1999, touching $3.28 billion between in the nine-month period January-September, and expected to reach $4 billion by the year-end. This compares favourably with inflows in 1998, when India received $3.2 billion in the full year. September 1999 saw an inflow of $715 million, while the peak was in March, with $1 billion.

A major chunk of the FDI inflow this year is attributed to the foreign offering by ICICI. A number of projects waiting in the wings include those of ING to put in about Rs 33 crore and increase its stake in Vijaya Bank, AES Corporation for infusing Rs 50 crore into its joint venture with Jyoti Structure, and the CMS and P&O Ports projects.
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Phones on demand
New Delhi : Phones will be available on demand in all state capitals by March 2000, and all villages will be connected by telephone by the year 2002. This assurance was given by Union communications minister Ramvilas Paswan, who said an appropriate technology was being selected to enable connecting of 45,000 villages. Presently only 3,000 villages had been connected.

The department of telecom services, which will oversee the implementation, will also replace all electro-mechanical exchanges with electronic exchanges by January 2000 in order to improve network quality. The billing system will be streamlined, allowing consumers to pay their bills through the nationalised banks.
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Corporatising DoT
New Delhi : A number of moves have been initiated under the National Telecom Policy towards corporatising the department of telecommunications, including the appointment of a consultant for devising the strategy for corporatisation. The DoT, which at present is a department, will assume a new corporate identity under the name, India Telecom, by 2001.

As a forerunner to the corporatisation of the DoT, roles and functions have been split, and a new arm has been set up under the name department of telecom services, or DTS. The DTS’s function is to provide services, while the Telecom Commission will look after licensing and policy formulation.
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Plan to cut government stake in banks
New Delhi : Amendments are being made to the Bank Nationalisation Act in a bid to reduce the government's stake in public sector banks to levels below 51 per cent. The proposal is to formulate broad policy guidelines for the entire industry, after which it will be up to individual banks to chart their own course of action. The proposal will be placed before Parliament during the winter session for discussion and political consensus.

Given the government’s role as a major shareholder, its unwillingness to invest fresh funds is affecting banks' balance sheets. Banks have to comply with higher capital adequacy of 9 per cent by March 2000 and 10 per cent by March 2001, for which they need the additional funds. Insufficient capital is also hampering their expansion plans.
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New strategy for PSU disinvestment
New Delhi : A new strategy is being developed to facilitate faster disinvestment in public sector undertakings. Companies identified for disinvestment will be taken out of their administrative ministries, and a new nodal agency with decision-making powers will be entrusted with the task of executing the sale of government holdings in these companies.

This could also be a newly reconstituted Disinvestment Commission, which, at present, only has the powers to recommend.
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Quality standard for software
New Delhi: The Bureau of Indian Standards has formulated a set of standards for software, IS:14639:1998 Quality Requirements and Testing of Information Technology Software Packages.

This set of standards is based on the global standard ISO/IEC 12119:1994, and applies to software packages like text processors, spreadsheets, data base programmes, graphic packages, programmes for technical or scientific functions and utility programmes.

The new software standard establishes the quality requirements for software packages and instructions on how to test them against these requirements.
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Software exports soar
New Delhi: India exported software worth Rs 8,060 crore during the first half of the current financial year, or 58 per cent more than in the corresponding period last year. Software exports now account for 10 per cent of the country's total $17.4 billion exports. For the same period last year, the share was 8.5 per cent.

New areas like e-commerce solutions and IT-enabled services make up for 16 per cent of the software export revenues.
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