Enron ordered to compensate villagers with Rs 78l
Mumbai: Enron Corporation has been asked by the Mumbai High Court, to deposit Rs 78 lakh within next seven days to compensate the villagers, whose land was acquired by the company for the power project. In a ruling to this effect, Justice R M Lodha of the Mumbai High Court on Monday directed the company to deposit Rs 18 lakhs with the collector, Ratnagiri, and Rs 60 lakh with the special land acquisition officer (SLAO) Chiplun (Ratnagiri district).

Both the officers have been asked to issue a public notice and hand out the compensation within next three months. The court also directed these officers to refund the unclaimed amounts to DPC after a period of three months from the date of public notice.

The High Court's order came after a petition by the Anjanvel Gramasth Mandal, (Anjanvel Residents Association) alleging contempt by Dabhol Power Company of the High Court's directives issued in previous writ petitions. These directives required DPC to allot 200 jobs or pay Rs one lakh to landholders affected by DPC.
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Engineering exports post 30% growth
Kolkata: Engineering exports have registered a 30 per cent growth in dollar terms in the April-November period of 2000 according to Engineering Export Promotion Council (EEPC). In a statement, EEPC said the value of engineering exports during the period was $3.25 billion, up from $2.51 billion in the previous year. The EEPC had set a target of $ 5.3 billion for the year 2000-01, which given the current trend is now likely to be easily surpassed.

The council has also prepared a medium-term export strategy report and the export target set for 2005-06 was $10 billion.
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Non-life insurance brokerage likely at 20%
New Delhi: The Insurance Regulatory & Development Authority is considering fixing the commission for brokers at a maximum of 20 per cent against the current 17.5 per cent of the premium from non-life insurance business and 15 per cent for individual agents in a bid to make the sector more attractive. The insurance regulator is however, unlikely to change the percentage of commission for life insurance business from the existing 35 per cent on the first premium, as offered by the Life Insurance Corporation, but companies may be allowed to offer a higher percentage for the first 10 years.

The law ministry is now vetting the proposals before finalising the notification in this regard. The government is also expected to amend the previous Insurance Act to change the definition of insurance "agents" to "intermediaries" to entitle brokers to earn commissions.
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Infrastructure sector growing at 7.7%
New Delhi: Lower growth in the cement, steel and electricity sectors led to a slight decline in overall growth at 7.7 per cent in the six core infrastructure sectors during April-December 2000, against a 9.1 per cent growth in the corresponding period last year. In December, the growth rate in production of the six infrastructure sectors -- including coal, steel, crude -- was 2.2 per cent higher at 161.5 compared with 158 in December last year.

Electricity grew at the rate of 3.8 per cent, steel at 4.3 per cent, crude at 1.7 per cent, petroleum refinery products at 7.0 per cent. Coal recorded a zero per cent growth and cement registered a negative growth of 12 per cent. In the period, electricity, coal, steel, crude, petroleum refinery products and cement recorded positive growth rates of between 1 per cent and 25 per cent over the corresponding period last year.
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