Indian Oil restores refuelling services in Andaman & Nicobar
Kolkata: Indian Oil Corporation has restored its refuelling services in the tsunami-affected areas of the Andaman & Nicobar Islands. Normal fuel supplies were being made to the Indian Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard and the state administration. In the Andaman & Nicobar Islands, IOC is the only oil company that has storage and marketing infrastructure.

According to a press release issued by the company, IOC has moved aviation fuelling facilities to parts of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, such as Nellore, Nagapattinam and Myladuthurai. Fuel storage facilities have been set up in these places to facilitate fuelling of aircraft involved in search and rescue and relief operations.

Till the situation is normal, IOC will continue to enforce a "non-stop" refuelling system with the required manpower and material support. Fuels for transportation and cooking have also been moved to the disaster-struck areas. Joint teams of IOC and IBP Ltd are co-ordinating the relief efforts, according to the release.
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Tata Power not to hike tariff this fiscal
Mumbai: Tata Power Company (TPC) will not increase electricity tariff for its retail and bulk customers in financial year 2004-05.

In its annual revenue requirement, which documents the company's proposed income and expenditure for the New year, filed with the Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission on Thursday, TPC has said it will reduce fuel costs and operation expenses to improve financial performance.

The company has however, warned that it may have to increase tariff by 2.4 per cent in year 2005-06 if the regulator does not stop TPC's rival and bulk customer Reliance Energy from drawing power from a standby connection at Borivali in Mumbai.

According to a TPC spokesperson, REL has been regularly drawing power from the 220- kilovolt standby connection in the Mumbai suburb. Standby power is cheaper than regular supply. "It (Borivali connection) is an arrangement for meeting REL's emergency needs only. But REL has used it as a regular supply point.

"It should either pay standby charges for using this connection or TPC may have to pass on the deficit it has to bear because of difference in standby and regular tariff from the ordinary customers as pass through," the spokesperson said. The State regulator had directed REL to restrict drawing power from the Borivali supply point to emergency needs, according to TPC officials.

The problem is part of the ongoing standby charges dispute between the two companies about how much REL should pay TPC for using the standby arrangement. The eight year-old dispute has led to innumerable cases in the Regulatory Commission, Mumbai High Court and even the Supreme Court.
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Sify setting up outlets in tsunami-hit areas
Chennai: Sify Ltd is establishing Internet centres at the tsunami-affected areas of Cuddalore, Nagapattinam, Kanyakumari, and Chennai in response to the need for reliable communications between these areas.

These will offer free Internet access facilities to the public, NGOs, officials and anyone who wishes to use the Internet to communicate to their loved ones, according to a company release.
The first centre in Cuddalore is up and running, and the centre in Kanyakumari is expected to be on stream from Friday evening.

Nagapattinam is posing a challenge in terms of connectivity for both telecom and Internet access still, but the situation is being closely monitored and connectivity will be established as soon as possible, the release said.
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ONGC pays record interim dividend
New Delhi: Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) has paid a record interim dividend of Rs2,114.32 crore to the Government for the 2004-05 fiscal. The interim dividend represents the highest ever payment by any corporate entity in the country, according to an official statement.

ONGC had declared an interim dividend of 200 per cent (Rs20 per share).

Last year, the company had paid an interim dividend of 140 per cent (Rs14 per share) which amounted to Rs1,679 crore as Government share on its equity in ONGC.

ONGC, which has highest market capitalisation amongst the corporate entities amounting to Rs116,206 crore as on December 29, 2004, has so far paid total dividend of Rs14,459 crore to the Government against its total capital investment of Rs342.85 crore till date.

The company recorded a profit after tax of Rs5,692 crore during the first half of 2004-05 and sales revenue of Rs22,290 crore.
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Raha: ONGC spending ninety three per cent CAPEX on E&P
New Delhi: Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) has said it is spending ninety three per cent of its total capital expenditure of Rs10,850 crore in the current fiscal on its core activities of oil and gas exploration and production.

In a presentation to Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar last week, Chairman and Managing Director Subir Raha sought to dispel the notion that ONGC was "diverting money from E&P to other businesses" like fuel retailing, LNG, petrochemicals and power generation.

Raha stated that of the Rs12,915 crore CAPEX in 2002-04, non-E&P activities got only Rs1466 crore, mostly for acquisition of MRPL. In the current 2004-05 fiscal, only Rs730 crore was being spent on activities to integrate its core E&P business with other segments of the hydrocaron value chain.

Next fiscal, ONGC has planned Rs10,740 crore of CAPEX, of which only Rs170 crore would be for integration purpose.
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Godrej may go for third interim dividend
New Delhi: FMCG major Godrej Consumer Products has said that it is planning a third interim dividend. The company's board is expected to finalise it at a meeting scheduled on January 22, 2005.

The agenda of the meeting would also include accounting for the unaudited financial results for the quarter ended December 31, 2004, the company has informed the Bombay Stock Exchange.

Godrej has already announced two interim dividends for its shareholders and plans another one subject to the board approval.
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Chidambaram: VAT to be implemented from April 1
Chennai: Describing the Value Added Tax (VAT) as the most important tax reform measure attempted in the last ten years, Finance Minister P Chidambaram has asserted that the system will be implemented from April 1, 2005.

"All states are on board. Eleven states have already sent their Value Added Tax bills and other states are expected to send their bills soon. We are on the right path and the VAT system will be implemented from April 1, 2005," he said, addressing a national conference on 'State VAT for a common Indian market - issues and challenges' organised by ASSOCHAM in cooperation with Madras Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Stating that there would be four types of tax rates - 0 per cent, 1 per cent, 4 per cent and 12.5 per cent, he said about 530 items have been identified for VAT and 250 of them would attract only four per cent tax. The Empowered Committee has agreed to fix the threshold limit of turnover at Rs. five lakh.
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allAyurveda.com bags best health portal award
Kolkata: The Kolkata-based allAyurveda.com, stated to be the world's first portal on ayurveda, has been adjudged the best health portal in the country by the judges of The Digit Web Awards, Mumbai. It has also been rated as the third-best health portal in the world by the US-based rating agency alexa.com.

According to a company press release issued here, allAyurveda.com, which was launched in 2000, has been attracting over three million hits per month. Eighty five per cent of these hits are from 135 countries spread across the globe. Besides natural holistic lifestyle solutions, the Web site provides for online consultations by ayurvedic doctors who provide answers to medical problems that are posed to them.

The portal provides details about the fundamental methods of treatment by ayurveda, lifestyle improvement techniques through food and diet planning, vastu shastra and spiritual remedies like mantras and meditation, according to the press release.
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