GMR group wins bid to implement Holi Bajoli hydro electric project
Bangalore: The GMR group has received the bid for implementing the 180-mega watt (MW) Holi Bajoli Hydro Electric Project, across the river Ravi in Himachal Pradesh.

Industry sources said the company won the project against stiff competition from qualified bidders that included, Reliance Energy, Jaiprakash Hydropower Ltd, Lanco, Moser-Baer India, Torrent-Gammon Consortium, and engineering major Larsen and Toubro Ltd.

About 18 bidders had pitched for the project for the request for qualification floated by the HP State Electricity Board and only 13 bidders were technically qualified for the request for proposal.

Once financial closure is completed the project is expected to go into commercial operations in 2014, the sources said.

The tentative project cost is estimated at Rs1,050 crore. A final estimate would be made only after finalisation of the detailed project report, the sources added.

Sources said based on the current flow pattern of the river, the power generation from the project would be at least 664 million units a year.

The sources said that the GMR group would have a concession of 40 years from the date of commercial operations.

According to the funding norms prescribed by the Ministry of Power, the funding for the project is likely to be done on a debt equity ratio of 80:20. This would mean that GMR would have to bring in at least Rs210 crore as equity. The remaining Rs840 crore would comprise the debt component of the project finance.

Under current norms of the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission investors are permitted to have tariffs on the basis of 14 per cent return on equity. Interest costs and variable costs are fully passed through items, implying that it could be loaded to tariffs.
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Simplex Infra gets into oil drilling
Mumbai: Simplex Infrastructure is foraying into the oil-drilling sector, as part of its plans to consolidate its presence in different mining segments. The company has entered into a two-year drilling contract with Oil India Ltd for on-shore oil exploration.

With its main area of work being civil engineering with special focus on foundation engineering and concrete structures, Simplex had recently announced its plans to foray into various mining segment.

The company has forged an alliance with an on-shore oil drilling entity, which will provide the operators, manpower and technical expertise to execute the Oil India contract.

The company reported a net profit of Rs17.79 crore for the quarter ended March 31, as against Rs10.63 crore reported in the corresponding quarter of the previous fiscal. During the quarter, its net sales touched Rs550.49 crore, as against Rs396.27 crore in the year-ago quarter.

For the whole of the fiscal, the company's net profit rose by 29 per cent to touch Rs53.71 crore from Rs41.64 crore in 2005-06. The net sales during the year registered an increase of 27 per cent to Rs1,710.96 crore from Rs 1,344.58 crore.
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RCoM ties up with Taiwanese co for handsets manufacture
New Delhi: Reliance Communications is entering into a joint venture with Taiwan's Cal-Comp Electronics to manufacture CDMA handsets in the country. The manufacturing plant is slated to be operational during the first half of 2008. RCOM is also learnt to have placed an order of nine million additional handsets with Cal-Comp.

Cal-Comp officials said the company plans to set up a joint venture with the client to manufacture handsets in India, with the planned investment project likely to be carried out in the first half of 2008.

With the entry of Cal-Comp into handsets manufacture 51 million handsets likely to be made in India this year. India produced nearly 31 million mobile phones in 2006 worth about $5 billion.

The move to place a large handset order and enter into a JV with an established player will help RCOM preempt Vodafone-Essar, which plans to launch a series of ultra low-cost bundled handsets (mobile connection and a handset) in collaboration with China's ZTE to get a bigger pie of rural India and increase its market share. Vodafone's low-cost handsets are expected to be priced between Rs1,000 and Rs1,600.

RCOM sold over a million units of the Classic range within a week of its launch. RCOM followed it up with the launch of colour handsets beginning at Rs1,234 and sold over a half a million in the first 10 days. Subsequently, RCOM introduced FM radio mobiles at Rs1,888 and Rs1,919.
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IT industry to withstand rupee appreciation challenge: Infosys CEO
Bangalore: Kris Gopalakrishnan, CEO, Infosys Technologies has said the IT industry will find a way to withstand the challenge posed by the rapid appreciation in the value of the rupee.

He however agreed that the rapid change in the value of the rupee was a concern.

Gopalakrishnan said that appreciation was good for the country, as imports will become cheaper..."that too when India needs a lot of infrastructure development. Also, oil becomes cheaper. It is good for the country, but this trend definitely affects exports," he told reporters today.
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Tata looks at merging TCS arms
Mumbai: Tata group company Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is exploring the option of merging some of its group companies.

Addressing the company's second Annual General Meeting (AGM), Tata Group chairman, Ratan N Tata, said it made sense to merge some of the group companies. However he singled out Tata Elxsi and said it was into animation and would be a standalone business.

TCS has earmarked a capex of Rs1,400 crore for FY'08 an increase of Rs235 crore from the Rs1,165 crore spent during the previous financial year. TCS managing director and chief executive officer S Ramadorai said that Rs300-350 crore would be spent on technology and the remaining for IT infrastructure.

TCS has filed nearly 200 patent applications over the last five years and continues to strengthen its intellectual property (IP) portfolio in areas such as development and design, business systems and cybernetics, embedded systems, performance engineering, broadband and broadcasting.

During 2006-07, the company filed 25 patent applications and was granted three patents. Some of the patents it has filed comprise a method to include virtual ads in video presentations; a system for calculating vehicle insurance premium; method to encrypt a video sequence; and a system for the time of arrival (ToA) estimation in wireless communication systems.

The company is also planning to launch a software program for enterprises called TCSInstantApps. Styled on the likes of GoogleApps, TCS InstantApps features multi-tenancy capability, which implies the hosted application is capable of servicing all customers (treating them like tenants). This enables it for a software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering too.
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Eli Lilly divests Distaclor antibiotic to Pharmalink
Mumbai: Eli Lilly and Company, which is the Indian subsidiary of global pharmaceutical major Eli Lilly, has sold off one of its premier antibiotic brands in India - Distaclor (Cefaclor) to Pharmalink, a subsidiary of Quintiles International, for an undisclosed sum.

Lilly has been marketing Distaclor in the country since 1993. The brand had annual sales of about Rs22 to 23 crore. The divestment was in accordance to Eli Lilly's global policy of phasing out legacy products, and to concentrate on core speciality areas like diabetes.
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Tata Steel puts Corus' aluminium business on the block
Mumbai: Tata Steel has put the foreign company's aluminium business on the block.
The aluminium business, comprising two smelters in the Netherlands and Germany, is expected to fetch over $1 billion (Rs4,000 crore).

Sources close to the development said German aluminium producer Trimet had shown interest in the business but added that it might not be sold to a single buyer. The smelters are in Delfiz in the Netherlands and Voerde in Germany.

A Corus spokesperson said the company was evaluating the best strategic option for the aluminium business but declined to comment on the identity of the buyers.
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RCom ties up with Bangladesh telecom firm for global roaming
Kolkata: Reliance Communications has tied up with Pacific Bangladesh Telecom (PBTL), which offers CDMA service in Bangladesh under the name CityCell, for international roaming.

With this, Reliance postpaid customers can stay connected using the same Reliance mobile number and handset, both in India and Bangladesh.

Reliance customers can now avail of the roaming facility in 200 countries with 350 CDMA & GSM operators.

For getting the roaming facility in Bangladesh, a subscriber will have to pay Rs18 a minute for any local or national call and Rs29 to call India.
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