Rs 1,400 crore provided in the stimulus package was due under TUFS anyway.
Recession-hit retailers in the US and Europe are increasing their purchases from Bangladesh as it is able to supply garments at a relatively less price due to low labour cost and better economies of scale, experts said. Data collected by the Apparel Export Promotion Council, the body for the promotion and facilitation of garment-manufacturing and their exports, show Bangladesh overtook India after August 2008.
The industry, which has complained of widespread job losses along with a sharp decline of about 30 per cent in its expected export target for the current fiscal, wants a quick action from the government. Industry sources say that even if the government releases the funds, the banks would take another month to disburse them.
The draft Companies Bill 2008 has identified the three key managerial positions as chief executive officer, chief finance officer and company secretary. By recognising these three key managerial positions, the Bill is fixing responsibility to bring out a system which is more accountable, transparent and workable, according to an official at the Ministry of Corporate Affairs.
A limit on compensation paid to top executives is preferable in the context of what has happened in developed nations, Minister of Corporate Affairs Premchand Gupta told Business Standard.
This comes in the background of claims by the Confederation of Indian Textile Industry, an industry body, that about 700,000 jobs have been cut in the last six months. The industry lobby group has also forecast a further loss of half a million jobs in the next five months.
According to top sources, the government is all prepared to lower the prices of diesel, petrol and cooking gas after the polling is over for the last phase of Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections on December 24. As the global crude prices have dipped to $55 per barrel now, petroleum ministry officials say even a Rs 2 to Rs 3 per litre cut in diesel prices would bring down inflation 60 to 70 basis points (100 basis points is equal to one percentage point).
Indian Oil raised prices of commercial LPG, sold in 19 kg cylinders, to Rs 1,108.5 per cylinder on Nov 1, from Rs 1,095.24 per cylinder on Oct 1. Commercial LPG is not subsidised and oil companies revise their prices in line with international prices on the first of every month. "Commercial LPG prices are expected to go up in December too," said an IO official. But prices of automobile LPG have come down by around 5.34 per cent on Nov 1 compared with prices on Oct 1.
The govt is not keen to fill the vacancies as it will be replaced by the CCI. Officials say the government is not keen to fill the vacancies as the body will be replaced by the CCI. However, even after CCI is notified, the MRTPC will function for two more years to clear the cases it is hanling at present. The MRTPC is still taking fresh cases.
These so-called 'negative crack spreads' have huge implications for India, which imports crude oil and exports petroleum products. Brent crude oil, the international oil benchmark, was trading at $62 a barrel on Thursday.
Under the scheme for integrated textile parks, the government provides up to 40 per cent of the cost of setting up a textile park with a ceiling of Rs 40 crore (Rs 400 million). Till now the ministry has contributed Rs 450 crore (Rs 4.5 billion). The industry has pitched in with nearly double this amount.
The decision comes after Australian mining major BHP Billiton said it would not improve the terms of its bid. BHP Billiton, the largest mining company in the world, and new entrant GVK Oil and Gas were the sole bidders for five deepwater blocks and hence the provisional winners after the bidding closed on June 30 this year.
Eighteen candidates from state-owned companies have applied for the post of chairman and managing director of the country's largest gas marketer, GAIL India, nine months before the incumbent retires.
After nearly two years, the state-owned oil companies have started making profits on petrol sales, but not diesel or cooking fuel, with the Indian basket of crude oil falling below $60 a barrel on Friday, the last date for which data is available.
The board of GAIL India, the country's largest transporter and marketer of natural gas, on Wednesday approved a proposal to pick up to 19 per cent stake in Oil and Natural Gas Corporation's (ONGC) petrochemical project in Gujarat.
As crude oil prices rose sharply, private companies like Essar Oil and Reliance Industries closed their retail outlets as they found it difficult to compete with state-owned oil companies, which were selling fuel below the production cost with support from the government. While Essar Oil has drawn up plans to re-open its retail outlets, Reliance Industries has decided not to go ahead with the retail plan
With international crude oil prices dipping to last year's levels, the government has put the issue of cutting motor and cooking fuel prices back on the agenda to tame inflation, two senior oil ministry officials have said.
Cairn India, which found India's largest oil field in Rajasthan in over 30 years, has discovered a saline water reservoir near its oil field that will help pump crude oil to the ground level and enhance production.
OVL, along with global oil majors such as Royal Dutch Shell, ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, British Petroleum, Total and China National Petroleum Corporation, is one of the 35 companies short-listed by the Iraqi government for the auction, which includes six oil-producing blocks with recoverable reserves of 40 billion barrels of oil, making it the largest such auction in the world.
The rupee, which fell 8.88 per cent since the beginning of September to an all-time low of less than 49 per dollar last week, has negated much of the impact of an over 45 per cent dip in crude oil prices since early July. As the value of the rupee falls, the companies have to pay more for crude oil in rupee terms, resulting in increased under-realisation on the fuels that they sell.