Cement cos to shut down kilns to cut glut
Mumbai: Leading cement companies have agreed to shut down kilns for a period of 15 days to prevent cement prices from crashing in view of the oversupply situation.

The production will stop throughout the country but the shutdowns would be conducted in a staggered manner to escape the criticism that accompanied a similar initiative in November last year.
In November of last year, cement manufacturers had undertaken a similar move, which helped to boost cement prices by Rs 30-55 per bag.
The move had drawn considerable flak from the government as all the kilns had shut down simultaneously leading to a considerable shortage of cement in the market.
Sources said that the production cut would commence later this month.
The demand situation, analysts say, has deteriorated sharply following the step-up in dispatches last month by leading manufacturers of cement. Companies, in a bid to meet their targets, pumped cement into the market despite poor demand. Cement dispatches in March rose much higher than expectations to reach 9.23 million tonnes, up 26 per cent over the previous month.
As a result, the inventory level in the system, analysts say, has risen to as high as 20-25 days, as against 10-15 days in normal circumstances.
Back to News Review index page  

Govt to introduce 'digital signature' by 2002
Jaipur: Digital signature would be available in India to Internet users latest by June 2002.
This is a step towards eliminating paper work and red tapism in offices, banking and postal services.
Controller of Certifying Authorities in the IT ministry K N Gupta said the signature would not be expensive and would be dependable and secure and no user can repudiate it at any level.
Gupta, who has been touring different states to explore its market potential, said digital signature is not like a signature on a document, check or any legal paper but it would be an inscription of cash value by a user privately on the internet for the purpose of transaction of business matters and cash like money-orders secretly.
The digital signature outlet on internet would help the Department of Posts and an individual bank to save at least Rs 100 crore on money orders, and Rs 10 crore on cheque clearing per year respectively, Gupta said.
India is 12th country in the world obeying the IT policy and having 4 million Internet users, would open floodgates for the business and e-governance, he claimed.
Back to News Review index page  

Inflation dips to 5.43 percent
New Delhi: Annual inflation rate plunged sharply by over 1 per cent to 5.43 per cent for the week ended March 24.
The inflation rate based on the wholesale price index (WPI) for all commodities (base year: 1993-94 = 100) fell by 1.07 per cent from 6.50 per cent the previous week and the index was 6.49 per cent a year ago.
The WPI, unlike point-to-point inflation rate, rose by 0.1 per cent to 159.1 as against 158.9 a week ago. The index was 150.9 in the previous year.
Showing a reverse trend from the previous week, primary products became cheaper by 0.1 per cent and manufactured items became costlier by 0.3 per cent, while fuel products continued to stay firm at the previous week's level.
The index for primary articles' group fell to 161.9 from 162 due to cheaper food articles. The index was 159.2 in the previous year.
Back to News Review index page  

Dabhol talks tough on guarantee
Mumbai: The Dabhol Power Company is talking tough with the Union government over the counter-guarantee issue.

Although it has sent a notice of arbitration and conciliation to the Centre, it has stated that it would prefer to go in for arbitration proceedings right away.

Senior officials in the Maharashtra government say that this is extremely high handed. Under the terms of the counter-guarantee, when such an arbitration notice is served, two options are available.

The two sides can set up a dispute resolution panel, which can arrive at a solution within 60 days of the issue of the notice. In this case the notice was served on April 4, 2001.

If the two sides cannot come to a solution even after this, they can approach the London Court of Arbitration. Each side will then appoint an arbitrator, besides another from a neutral country.

Industry observers say this could take a maximum of six months.
Meanwhile, in a communication to the Centre, the Maharashtra government said the Centre could pursue either the conciliation or the arbitration route.
Back to News Review index page  

Bureaucratic stranglehold hold on railways sought to be broken
New Delhi: The recommendations of the Rakesh Mohan committee on railway restructuring state that the Railway Board should be replaced with an Indian Railways Executive Board (IREB) comprising of members from the government, railways, private sector or academia.
This in effect means that the bureaucratic stronghold over the working of the Railways will have to be broken, which will require revision of the Railway Act and the Railway Board Act.

The committee will shortly submit its report to railway minister Nitish Kumar.
As per the final draft of the report the Indian Railways must be corporatised into the Indian Railways Corporation (IRC) with the government’s role limited to setting policy directions.

Besides, as per the report, the government will also appoint members for the IREB and Indian Railway Regulatory Authority (IRRA), on similar lines as for the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

"The functioning of the Indian Railways as a government monopoly for long makes it necessary to induct new managers, who would act as ‘change agents’ in the restructuring process. Its management needs to be allowed a degree of autonomy that is comparable to any other commercial organisation by creating an arms length relationship with the government," says the report.

The committee has suggested that IREB should consist of 15 members initially headed by a chairperson who will also be the chief executive officer of the Railways.

The expert group is of the view that the appointment of a chairperson should be through a global selection process for a person with a proven record of managing a large multi-location, multi-divisional organisation.
The plan envisages that the Rs 5-core business of the railways — freight transportation, passenger transportation, suburban transportation, fixed infrastructure and other infrastructure — will be headed by chief operating officers (COOs). Besides, these there should be two vice-presidents for human resources and finance/planning.

While the vice-president human resources will see to the implementation of a voluntary retirement scheme, the vice-president planning will be responsible for the revamp of accounting policies and financial systems.
While the eight posts of chairperson, COOs and vice-presidents will be permanent with a minimum tenure of five years, there will also be temporary posts of two COOs heading non-core businesses and five executive directors. The temporary posts will be initially for three years to be extended, if necessary.
Back to News Review index page