IOC, BPCL and HPCL on Thursday afternoon stopped ATF supplies to Air India at six airports - Kochi, Pune, Patna, Ranchi, Vizag and Mohali - over payment defaults. AI flights from these places were tanking up from other airports.
If candidates from the private sector are selected, this will be the first time that these telecom PSUs are headed by chiefs from the private sector.
In a big relief to over a crore retired employees of government and PSUs, a pensioner can now digitally provide proof of his existence to authorities for continuity of pension every year instead of requiring to present himself physically or through a Life Certificate issued by specified authorities.
The move comes at a time when IL&FS Energy has joined hands with SB Energy
Pressing for job quota for SCs in the private sector, the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) has asked the leading business chambers to take steps for reservation of employment to SCs.
The clearance to the proposal of "procurement of VVPAT units" was given by the Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi after a brief discussion. The EC has sought Rs 3,174 crore in all for procuring over 16 lakh paper trail machines to cover all polling stations in the country.
An analysis of the BSE-listed companies shows that as many as 44 out of the 69 stocks are trading below their issue prices fixed after their initial public offers.
'We aren't so unreasonable as to demand that he should have fully reversed Indira Gandhi's worst economic legacy, bank nationalisation.' 'But he could have made a beginning by selling off the two most stressed small public sector banks, and then announced that each year for the next 10, one government bank with the most messed-up balance sheet will be sold.' 'It would have electrified the markets, shocked his other banks into better behaviour, and marked his name among the great reformers,' argues Shekhar Gupta.
Coal India Limited (CIL) proved a virtual gold mine for the government in the year gone by. The spectacular share sale of the world's largest coal miner ahead of Diwali added glitter and spark to the government's fund-raising plans through divestment in key PSUs.
'BSNL employee cost is Rs 14,500 crore and we anticipate that around 80,000 should opt for VRS.'
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee is slated to present the Budget on February 26.
The official broadcaster for the upcoming Commonwealth Games, Doordarshan, is understood to have cut its advertising revenue target by half to Rs 100 crore from the 12-day long event due to poor response from advertisers.
A public sector unit employee on an average received an annual salary of Rs 6.09 lakh (Rs 609,000) in 2009-10, with total emoluments increasing more than 100 per cent in the last four years.
State-owned Indian Oil Corp (IOC) on Tuesday said it is losing about Rs 3 on the sale of every litre of petrol, but will decide on raising prices at an "appropriate" time.
In the last year Budget too, the Government targetted to raise Rs. 40,000 crore through disinvestment in the current fiscal.
The minister said necessary orders have been issued to oil depots asking them to conform to the safety norms.
Aggregate figures for a sample of 43 companies (excluding oil & gas PSUs as well as those in the banking, telecom and software sectors) in the BSE 100 index suggest that operating profit margins (OPMs) were down by 63 basis points (bps) year-on-year in the December quarter and that there appears to be no major causes for concern.
The government holds 85.96 per cent in NHPC.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday alleged that the government's contention of oil companies going insolvent if prices of petro products were not increased was wrong and backed its argument by providing profit figures of the three oil PSUs in the country.
The government has received reports that tainted stock broker Ketan Parekh, barred from the capital markets till 2017 over a securities scam, is still active and has taken positions in oil PSUs like ONGC and HPCL.
12 out of 21 public sector banks reported declines in their loan books in the last financial year against seven such banks in 2015-16 and none in 2013-14.
Overall slowdown in the economy and growing volumes of unbranded generic medicines in the domestic market are behind poor sales.
'The government must provide more funds to enable the armed forces to fight and win tomorrow's wars,' states Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
Given that India will get a huge part of its oil supplies from Iran through its government-owned oil PSUs, any unwelcome shocks in global crude rates could be absorbed well enough.
The agency found that PDS kerosene oil is being diverted to the open market at many places.
Communist Party of India leader Gurudas Dasgupta met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday along with ten union leaders of public sector units and Aganwadis from Jammu and Kashmir and drew his attention to the fact that 10 PSUs, Aganwadis and Asha units have not been paid for last eight months.
The United Progressive Alliance government has initiated a move to revive a 20-year-old controversial bill which seeks to give representation to workers on company boards. As a first step, Union Labour Secretary Prabhat Chaturvedi met human resource directors and other senior officials of 12 'Navratna' PSUs in Delhi.
Disinvestment secretary Sunil Mitra last month wrote to his counterpart in Petroleum ministry R S Pandey seeking comments on 'public offerings from Government's shareholding' in ONGC and IOC. While government has not allowed IOC and other retailers Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum to raise petrol, diesel, domestic LPG and kerosene price in line with the cost, they have not been given the promised compensation.
The government has now made it "practically impossible" for political appointees to find a place on the boards of the public sector units (PSUs) as independent directors (IDs), a top official said.
From automobiles, cement, infrastructure to oil and gas and banking, Indian companies have established themselves as one of the most successful in the world.
With services contributing around 57 per cent to the economic growth, finance ministry advisers have made a case for allowing FDI in the retail sector and selling government equity in PSUs, including telecom firms BSNL, MTNL and TCIL, to achieve high GDP expansion.
The forthcoming public offers of CIL and SAIL can be a roaring success if the debut history of 28 PSUs since 2003 is any indication, as 94 per cent of these public sector companies listed with a premium of at least 10 per cent on the bourses.
The guidelines also point out that it is not advisable to form 50-50 JVs, since such a company is regarded as a private company and functions as such, even though the PSU is an equal shareholder. In many cases these entities are not accountable to Parliament or the state assembly.
Amid a furore over 26 per cent profit-sharing with locals under the proposed new mining law and demands for watering down the provision for PSUs, the Mines Ministry said its final draft will go with the recommendations of the Group of Ministers.
He also lamented that EVMs are being used as a 'football' and some sections are doing a 'motivated slugfest' over their use.
Reliance Industries' Mukesh Ambani, IT honchos Azim Premji and S Ramadorai and Chairmen of oil PSUs will accompany Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on his maiden visit to Saudi Arabia from February 27 when the two countries will ink nine pacts.
A consortium comprising India's telecom PSUs BSNL and MTNL, among others, on Monday said it has started negotiations for acquiring control of Kuwait's biggest phone company Zain Telecom that has presence in 24 countries.
The crisis-riden CWG has received a further jolt with two power PSUs, NTPC and PowerGrid, deciding to hold back their Rs 40 crore sponsorship money out of a combined committed sum of Rs 60 crore for the event.
Committed to keep fiscal deficit under check, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has convened a high-level meeting on Tuesday to push forward the disinvestment programme with a view to achieve the budgetary target of Rs 40,000 crore (Rs 400 billion) in the current fiscal.
NBFCs are facing the heat of a crisis at IL&FS, which defaulted on repayment of its commercial paper dues, leading to a contagion effect in the sector.
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