Apollo Hospital ties up with Marconi
Chennai: Apollo Hospital has formed an alliance with Marconi, an international communications giant to jointly market Apollo’s eHealthstat telediagnostic network and telemedicine offerings.

Ms. Suneetha Reddy, director, finance, Apollo Hospitals has said that alliance will jointly market connectivity solutions for domestic and international health care organisations and support video conferencing and high resolution image transfer applications for medical diagnosis and consultation, especially for patients in remote areas. The network will also support several simultaneous video conferencing sessions, voice and data convergence as well as instant high resolution digital microscope image transfers between multiple remote sites.

In May 2000, Apollo had launched eHealthstat (its patented telediagnostic network) for enabling health care providers to access the network and make diagnoses in real time, thus cutting cost and time to begin patient care. Its pilot project in Aragonda Apollo Hospitals in AP has been a huge success and the second project is now coming up in Bilaspur (Bihar).

Marconi, which is a leading provider of hardware and software for communications and enterprise network, will provide its expertise in telecommunications technology and internet network management services.
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Glaxo, SmithKline boards to finalise merger
Mumbai: Glaxo India and SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceuticals India boards are meeting separately to approve the merger of the two companies. The decision to bring together the two pharma companies follows the global level merger of the two companies late last year.

Glaxo and SmithKline expect their merger process to be concluded by the end of the year. For Glaxo India, the SmithKline portfolio would mean a foray into the high-margin vaccines business and a presence in fast-growing segments like diabetes

The new merged entity GlaxoSmithKline India will be a market leader with a 7 per cent share of the over Rs 14,000 crore domestic formulations market.
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Lafarge plans new cement unit in West Bengal
Kolkata: Lafarge, the French cement major which commands a production capacity of around 4.5 million tonne in India, mainly through acquisitions of existing plants is now believed to be planning to set up one.

The cement major is reportedly scouting for land in West Bengal for setting up a new cement plant. Lafarge is believed to have contacted West Bengal government seeking a 60-acre plot near any coal-based thermal power plant.

Lafarge began its Indian operations by acquiring the cement division of Tata Iron & Steel Co. It later bought Raymond’s cement plant.
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Borregaard in a sourcing deal with Hikal
Mumbai: Borregaard, a Norwegian chemicals company is negotiating with Hikal Chemicals to sign up as a contract research and manufacturing company. A Borregaard official has confirmed that discussions had commenced with Hikal over the latter supplying pharmaceutical intermediates on a contract basis to Borregaard.

The Norwegian company has sourcing arrangements with several other Indian pharma and chemicals companies like Suven Pharma, Zandu Chemicals, Nicholas Piramal India, Ipca Laboratories and Amrutanjan. The total value of intermediates sourced from India is about $10-15 million in the year 2000

Hikal currently manufactures a post-harvest agrochemical on contract from another international pharma company and will be diversifying into pharmaceuticals as well. Recon, research arm of the Hikal would undertake contract research on the intermediates.
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Tatas seek approval for creating SEZ in Gopalpur
Kolkata: The Tata group, which had acquired over 3,500 acres of land in the shore-based town of Gopalpur for a 10m tonne integrated steel complex, is now seeking the permission from the government to set up a special economic zone (SEZ) on the acquired land.

Mr. Ratan Tata, chairman of the Tata group has reportedly met Mr. BK Tripathy, union steel minister and informally discussed how such a large steel project was not feasible and why a SEZ makes a viable alternative for effective utilisation of the acquired land. The Tatas have apparently been told to submit a detailed plan for the proposed SEZ at Gopalpur.

The SEZ proposal is expected to change the terms of MoU, the Tata group has signed with the Orissa government. The MoU states that the land acquired could only be used to set up a steel plant. The Tatas have spent more than Rs 150 crore to acquire 3,500 acres of land and rehabilitate the displaced land owners.

Mr. Jamshed J Irani, managing director of Tata Steel too had earlier met Mr. Navin Patnaik Orissa chief minister to put in the proposal to set up a SEZ on the land acquired for the mega steel project.
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Fujitsu venture launches ACs
New Delhi: Fujitsu General Ltd. Japan has announced the launch of its window and split-type airconditioners in India, through its Indian joint venture, ETA General Pvt. Ltd. The company was set up in February, 2000 has made investments of Rs 35 crore so far.

It rolled out its first AC at its Kalitheerthalkuppam (Pondicherry) facility in September 2000. The plant has a capacity to manufacture 100,000 units per annum and initially will be used for assembling CKD kits of General air-conditioners with 90 per cent import content.

The company plans to cover the Indian market in two phases. In the first phase, 100 dealers have been appointed to cover south India and in the second phase, proposes to cover the western and northern and eastern regions by March 2001.
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Bhushan group’s steel plant in Maharashtra okayed
Mumbai: The Maharashtra government has cleared the Delhi-based Bhushan group’s proposal to set up a Rs 750-crore, 3 lakh-tonne cold-rolled galvanising sheet steel plant at Rasayani in Maharashtra.

The government has also cleared the company’s plan to set up a captive power unit of 29 mw of which the company intends to sell 5 mw to the Maharashtra State Electricity Board.

The company had also expressed its intention to set up a 2.8 million tonne integrated steel plant next to Jindal Vijaynagar Steel in Bellary. The group has said that the proposed plant is part of its plan to diversify to the western zone as it has plants in the northern region.
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