This is the second project in the country in which a metro rail project is being undertaken through a PPP model after the 71-kilometre Hyderabad metro project was won by Maytas Infrastructure. According to industry sources, infrastructure major Larsen & Toubro had also initially shown interest for the project, but backed out finally.
Highway users will have to shell out more toll for using the roads that are constructed under the build-operate-transfer (BOT) scheme.
India is not convinced that the new texts on agriculture and non-agricultural market access released by the World Trade Organization last Saturday would lead to consensus among members, though some of its concerns have been addressed with caveats.
Only 13 infrastructure companies attended the pre-bid conference at Rail Bhawan, compared with over 25 companies that had earlier submitted RFQs to the railways. Out of those 25, the railways had prepared a list of 13 companies which were technically qualified for the project. However, the RFQ was cancelled and a new set of documents was prepared.
The government aims to make highway projects more attractive to the private sector by raising the approved or sanctioned cost of all projects to be implemented under the private-public partnership mode by 15 per cent.
Over 50 per cent of the fishing vessels operating near the major ports on the country's western coast are unregistered, posing a threat to India's maritime security.
The proposal will also include providing loans at below market rates to real estate developers. But the loan disbursed under this will come with a number of conditions like an upper ceiling on selling price of flats and individual homes.
The zones will be required to register themselves with www.sezindia.nic.in. Currently, developers have to send SEZ-related applications to the Department of Commerce, after which the inter-ministerial Board of Approval (BoA), headed by Commerce Secretary Gopal K Pillai, takes a call on them.
Indian economy is expected to grow between 7 and 7.4 per cent in the three months up to September 2008, as against 9.3 per cent in the year-ago quarter, five top economists of the country told Business Standard. The government is slated to release the quarterly numbers on Friday.
'We have discontinued or replaced certain contractual staff, total number not exceeding double digits, in the north India operations involved in activities under the discretionary cost head,' a Reliance Industries spokesperson said in reply to an e-mailed query sent by Business Standard. According to some employees, who claimed to have been retrenched, the number of laid-off people is much higher. However, the company denies this.
Data with the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion reveals that between April 2005 and July 2008, Japan Inc pumped in 50 per cent of the total investments inflows between April 2000 and July 2008. In fact, between June and October this year, Japanese companies said they would pump in $8 billion. Experts say this is not a knee-jerk reaction by the Japanese, who are known to be very meticulous with their investments.
The government's ambitious highway projects under the public-private partnership mode are in serious trouble. Construction companies have either not put in bids or have withdrawn from 20 such projects, which fall under the build, operate and transfer scheme.
The government and Reserve Bank of India are working on measures that include relaxing norms for Non-Performing Assets (sticky loans) and prudential lending to kick-start key infrastructure projects.
External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who heads an Empowered Group of Ministers on Special Economic Zones, is likely to consult Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to resolve the dispute between finance and commerce ministries over tax exemption for export profits from the zones.
The implementation of the ambitious India-Asean Free Trade Agreement is likely to miss the target date of January 1, 2009. Negotiators from both the countries had closed talks this August, after six years of painstaking dialogue.
This decision will come as a relief to Essar's multi-product port-based SEZ project in Hazira as well as of Adani Group's zone in Mundra, which the revenue department felt was not built on vacant land when it was notified, and hence it had violated the law. Both the zones are in Gujarat.
According to sources, last week's talks between the two countries had hit a roadblock as Japanese trade envoys were unwilling to grant market access to Indian pharmaceuticals and allow professionals, including nurses, to work in the island nation. The talks were held in Tokyo.
Commerce Secretary Gopal Krishna Pillai speaks to Business Standard on the impact the Tata Motors decision to pull out of Singur will have on the investment climate in the state.
In effect, the government proposes to relax the norms with regard to foreign participation in multi-brand retail by opening up these specialised sectors, while keeping grocery and consumer goods retail out of bounds. The move comes months after the Left parties, which were opposed to any relaxation of FDI norms for the retail sector, pulled out of the United Progressive Alliance government.
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