Daily News Roundup - Oct 25 2010

Sterlite Energy revised the outlay for its proposed power project in Punjab upwards by over Rs30bn, taking the total investment commitment to around Rs130bn. (BS)

Reliance Industries says it plans to shut down one of the crude distillation units at its Jamnagar Refinery for maintenance and inspection. (BS)

Toshiba Mitsubishi-Electric Industrial Systems Corporation is in talks with L&T to build a power drive and motor manufacturing unit in the country. (ET)



NTPC is scouting for tie-ups with global reactor manufacturers for setting up nuclear power projects on its own. (BS)

ADAG Group will invest Rs750 bn in core power, mining and cement projects in the next five years in Madhya Pradesh. (BS)

HDIL Leisure, a wholly-owned subsidiary of HDIL, plans to set up hotels in Versova in Mumbai and Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh. (BS)

Nalco's Rs100bn project in Orissa faces delay. (BS)

Essar Group are in talks to set up an oil refinery in northern Egypt at an estimated cost of about US$3.4bn. (BS)

Maruti Suzuki is planning to ramp up its service centres by a massive 1,500 outlets by 2015 in line with its expansion of production capacity to over 17 lakh units annually. (BS)

Sesa Goa is planning an investment of over Rs300bn in the steel space in Orissa and Jharkhand and may rope in a global company to jointly run the ventures. (BS)

PowerGrid is in talks with the Indian Army and Air Force for leasing out its towers for data transfer purposes. (BS)

Reliance Power says it has awarded a Rs100bn equipment order to GE Energy India for the expansion of its 2,400MW gas-based power project at Samalkot, in Andhra Pradesh. (DNA)

Essar Group plans to invest over Rs20bn to set up a new cement and ferro-alloy unit in Madhya Pradesh as part of its mega-investment programme. (BS)

Essar Bulk Terminal Paradip, part of Essar Shipping Ports and Logistics, has raised Rs4.1bn to partly finance a cargo terminal project at Paradip Port in Orissa, India. (ET)

Piramal Healthcare, which sold off its main formulation business to Abbott for over Rs170 bn, has announced a buyback of up to 20% of the outstanding shares at Rs600 per share. (BS)

Consortium of Alstom Holdings and Schneider Electric, which was expected to come up with an open offer for Areva T&D India, is likely to go ahead with a price of Rs311/ share. (DNA)

Tata Teleservices has raised concerns against a proposal to allocate 2G spectrum first to those operators that already have 4.4MHz, on grounds that operators waiting for start-up spectrum in various circles should be the first to get it. (BS)

Ashok Leyland has aborted talks with Nissan Motor for a low-on-cost compact car. (BS)

Raymond said it had arrived at an amicable solution over the VRS package issue involving the 1,885 workers at its Thane plant, which was closed in 2009. (BL)
Economy Snippets

The RBI is considering changes in the rules governing the overseas players' banking operations in the country. (BS)

Foreign exchange reserves rose to US$296.43bn as on October 15, from US$295.79bn in the previous week. (ET)

TRAI will examine a recent DoT proposal to merge all 22 telecom circles in the country into a single service area, a move that could lead to the end of costly roaming charges. (TOI)

CII has sought three years to implement the structural changes that the companies will have to make, if the proposed Companies Bill, 2009, becomes an act. (BS)

Centre may permit sugar exports of 1mn tonnes beyond the re-export obligations of advance license holders. (BL)

Supreme Court stays the TDSAT’s judgment upholding the DoT order of May 2, 2010, hiking the rates of 2G telecom spectrum. (DNA)