July 16, 2009, New Delhi (ANI): Inflation on Thursday rose marginally to (-) 1.21 per cent for the week ending July 4 against (-) 1.55 per cent in the week before according to official data released here on Thursday.

The marginal rise was mainly due to government decision to raise fuel prices of petrol and diesel by Rs 4 and Rs 2 per litre, respectively.

Following the decision, effective from July 1, prices of naphtha rose 15 per cent, furnace oil 11 per cent, petrol 10 per cent, high-speed diesel 7 per cent and light diesel oil by 4 per cent.

The index for ‘Basic Metals Alloys & Metal Products’ group rose marginally due to higher prices of lead ingots, foundry pig iron and basic pig iron (1 per cent each). However, the prices of other iron steel (2 per cent) and ms bars & rounds (1 per cent) declined.

The wholesale price index during the corresponding week a year ago was as high as 12.19 percent.

Inflation had turned negative for the week ended June 6 for the first time since the new wholesale price index (WPI) series started in 1995.

Negative inflation implies that the average wholesale price level was lower during a given week, than it was in the corresponding week a year ago. (ANI)

New Delhi, July 16 (IANS) Both houses of the Indian parliament were adjourned Thursday following chaos over the arrest of Uttar Pradesh Congress chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi and the arson attack on her house.
Congress MPs were on their feet as soon as the house convened in both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. The Lok Sabha was adjourned twice.

MPs from Uttar Pradesh’s ruling Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) defended the state government.

Joshi was arrested after midnight Wednesday in Ghaziabad for allegedly insulting Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati. Around the same time, her house in Lucknow came under attack from BSP supporters.

Joshi was Thursday sent to judicial custody for 14 days.

Mumbai, July 15 (IANS) The Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC) Wednesday stayed its June order permitting Reliance Infrastructure to hike power tariff charges for various categories of domestic and commercial users.
The order passed by MERC panel comprising chairman V.P. Raja and members A. Velayutham and S.B. Kulkarni, will provide relief to the 2.7 million consumers of Reliance Infra, who will now pay their bills at the old rates till further orders.

The ruling came Wednesday evening in a matter filed by the Maharashtra government directing MERC to probe whether Reliance Infra had imposed any avoidable burden on consumers.

The state move, in the form of a letter by Energy Minister Sunil Tatkare, came in the wake of agitations by consumers and political parties against the power tariff hike last month.

Tatkare had directed MERC to take appropriate steps relating to the government’s policy with 15 days to protect consumers’ interest in a monopoly situation and to ensure that no unreasonable and unjustified bills were collected during the intervening period when the regulator’s investigation was on.

In its order Wednesday, MERC said that “since the Commission needs to undertake a detailed investigation on metering, power purchase expenses and transactions undertaken by Reliance Infra, as well as capital expenditure schemes, the tariff increase as approved by the Commission for the consumers in the earlier order on tariff hike will be stayed till the Commission issues further orders.”

Chennai, July 13 (IANS) After attracting global automobile manufacturers to the state, Tamil Nadu is now targeting sectors like financial services and aviation with special schemes.
Responding to the discussions for the demands for grants for the industries department, Deputy Chief Minister M.K. Stalin Monday said in the assembly, a financial city will be built near Chennai with private participation to attract insurers, banks, mutual funds and others.

In order to attract investments from aviation sector he said the government will also set up an aero park.

The state government will also be developing country specific industrial parks to attract investments from business units located in those countries.

According to the industries department policy note submitted by Stalin in the state assembly earlier in the day, the government has identified certain countries as having higher potential to make investment in the state.

Orders have been issued for the development of country specific industrial parks for Japan, Korea, Finland, Germany and France.

Each industrial park will be of 100 acre size and will be developed by State Industries Promotion Corporation of Tamil Nadu Limited (Sipcot).

The policy note states the state government is developing industrial parks and special economic zones (SEZ) in different parts of the state to disperse the industries.

Approval and final notification for multi product SEZ at Nanguneri in Tirunelveli district has been obtained while a similar project is being developed in Perambalur district.

With 49 notified SEZs Tamil Nadu is ranked third among the other Indian states in terms of number of approved SEZs.

According to the policy note the 49 SEZs have a total area of 3,972 hectares with the average hectare per SEZ working out to 81.

Claiming that the government is not resorting to compulsory acquisition of and for development of SEZs the policy note states each SEZ allots lands to a number of manufacturers in the related area.

The state government has also issued administrative sanction for development of new industrial parks in Madurai, Perundurai and Cheyyar by Sipcot.

Referring to the global economic slowdown affecting the state’s manufacturing sectors like textiles, garments, leather goods, automobiles, auto components, software and business process outsourcing (BPO), the policy note states the Tamil Nadu government plans more investment in infrastructure.

In the last three years the state has signed 23 memoranda of understanding (MOU) in addition to sanctioning structured package of assistance for nine projects separately.

The total investment in the state through these 32 projects would be Rs.39,741 crore.

During the calendar year 2008, the Tamil Nadu government signed 12 MOUs with a total investment of Rs.24,050 crore and issued structured package sanctioning orders for seven other projects for an investment of Rs.5,462 crore.

Chennai, July 13 (IANS) The Tamil Nadu government Monday said Arasu Cable Corp, the multi-system operator (MSO) that it has promoted, has begun setting up cable television infrastructure in the districts.
According to the information technology (IT) department’s policy note submitted to the state assembly, the company has set up digital headends at Thanjavur, Tirunelveli, Coimbatore and Vellore.

Cable television headend is a master facility for receiving television signals for processing and distribution over a cable television system.

So far, the government has sanctioned Rs.25 crore as share capital and Rs.36.35 crore as loan for Arasu Cable.

The policy note said the government promoted the company after receipt of complaints from viewers as well as local cable TV operators and MSOs over non-availability of channels at reasonable cost and poor quality of service.