Dabur to relaunch Samara personal care range
New Delhi: Dabur is planning to relaunch its Samara range of personal care products in the mass market category, after the brand has failed to take off as a complete high-end premium cosmetic solution. Samara range was first launched by Dabur four years ago but it failed to make its mark because Dabur was not geared to marketing a whole basket of luxury products.

Dabur had launched some 33 products under the Samara umbrella. Two years later, several of products had to be taken off the shelf, as Dabur felt it had not positioned them properly. Dabur could not match up to high profile cosmetic boutiques like Shehnaz’s herbal and Biotique, which the Samara brand was initially slated to take on.

The company has now identified skin care products as an important growth category along with oral care and has planned to make headway in these segments at the earliest.
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Sterlite Optical to set up $300-m unit
Mumbai: Sterlite Optical Technologies Limited (SOTL) has announced plans to invest $300 million in setting up a greenfield project for optical fibres. The proposed facility would have a capacity of 10 million fibre km and will be set up in two equal phases of $150 million each.

According to Mr. Anil Agarwal, chairman and managing director, SOTL, more than three-fourths of the proposed investment would come from internal accruals. The first phase of the new facility is expected to go on stream by 2002. This plant would be in addition to the existing three-mfkm capacity that SOTL has at Aurangabad.

The expansion will enable SOTL to offer large export volumes to its strategic international customers on a long-term basis, apart from consolidating our domestic presence. The company has more than 60 per cent share of the 1.2 mFkm domestic segment.
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Tata Power to acquire Tata Petrodyne
Mumbai: Tata Power Company (TPC) is planning to acquire Tata Petrodyne, an oil and gas exploration company from the Tata group to further consolidate its energy business. The TPC Board will meet on December 20 to consider proposal for purchasing TPL shares, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tata Industries.

With this acquisition, Tata Power would be expanding into energy and broadband business in a big way, Mr. Adi Engineer, chairman and managing director of TPC has said.
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Ranbaxy Labs to tap rural markets
New Delhi: Ranbaxy Laboratories has embarked on a major strategic marketing initiative to tap the rural market demand on a countrywide basis. The rural marketing programme was primarily initiated as a promotional activity, but the company now wants to convert it into a stand-alone profit centre and help company achieve a turnover of Rs 100 crore by 2002, from the rural markets alone.

Ranbaxy's rural marketing effort started in January this year with the setting up of a special task force to expand on its marketing reach. The division is expected to end the year with a turnover of around Rs 16-18 crore. Turnover in the second year is expected to shoot past Rs 40 crore and Rs 100 crore in the third full year of operation.

Ranbaxy also plans to give a major push to this activity by expanding its horizon from the current six states to virtually every nook and corner of the country. The company is planning to more than double its sales force from 80 to around 200. The rural push will help the company extend its brand lifecycle substantially of a number of products, which are, otherwise, not doing too well in the urban market.
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Alcatel, Tata Telecom bag $12 m Birla AT&T contract
New Delhi: Alcatel, the French telecom company and Tata Telecom have bagged a $12 million contract from cellular service provider Birla AT&T for expansion of its mobile backbone network in Maharashtra and Gujarat. Alcatel and Tata Telecom have been awarded a $12 million contract by Birla AT&T for the expansion of its mobile backbone network in Maharashtra and Gujarat.

Under the contract, Alcatel would supply its state-of-the-art microwave radio equipment and add drop multiplexers (ADMs) based on synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH) technology to increase the network capacity by four times, it said. The French telecom company will also provide its network management system to provide continuity of transmission along the backbone.

The Tata Telecom will supply local hardware support - antennas, other installation materials - and will also carry out the site survey, civil construction and other maintenance related activities.
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TISCO talks with auto majors for supplying CR sheet
New Delhi: The Tata Iron and Steel Company (TISCO) is discussing with major automobile manufacturers including Maruti, TELCO, Ashok Leyland and Ford to supply cold rolled sheet from its new Rs 1,600-crore mill at Jamshedpur.

TISCO, in technical collaboration with Japan's Nippon Steel, set up the mill at an estimated cost of Rs 1,600 crore to produce cold rolled products, a major input for automobile industry. The new cold rolled mill, which went on stream in May this year, hopes to produce 0.4 million tonnes during the current fiscal which would be increased to its full potential of 1.2 million tonnes next year.

According to Mr. J.J Irani, managing director, Tisco while a few auto companies had accepted the quality of the product, Tisco is yet to start supplying the specific steel on a commercial basis.
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