Daily News Roundup - Sep 19 2011

Coal Indias’ efforts to source coal at a discount from overseas producers and supply it to Indian consumers, including state-run utilities, have come a cropper. (ET)

An environment ministry panel has recommended conditional nod to JSW Steels’ Rs250bn investment proposal for expanding the capacity of steel plant located in Bellary, Karnataka. (ET)

NTPC has earmarked an investment of Rs410bn for setting up four thermal projects in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh in the next five years. (ET)

The sharp drop in production at Maruti Suzuki's Manesar plant on the back of a workers' strike is likely to lead to a delay in the company executing its export orders for the A-Star compact. (BL)



BPCL plans to achieve refining capacity of nearly 42mn tonnes by 2015-16 where the focus will be on low-cost expansions. (BL)

Emami would be investing about Rs20bn in the next two years on the healthcare segment. (BS)

Indian Railways is weighing award of contracts worth Rs260bn to BHEL. (FE)

47 SEZ developers including TCS and Parsvanath SEZ have sought more time from the government from implementing their projects. (FE)

Reliance Power is all set to commission the 600mw Phase II of the Rosa thermal plant in Shahjehanpur district, 3 months ahead of schedule. (FE)

BGR Energy Systems to invest Rs30bn on turbines facility and Rs14bn on boilers’ unit in Tamil Nadu manufacturing facilities. (FE)

Reliance Communications’ President of wireless business is expecting to get commercial bids for its tower business over the next two weeks. (BL)

Bank of Maharashtra may hike lending rates from October 1 following the RBI’s latest move hiking its repo rate by 25 basis points. (BL)

The board of Axis Bank approved the acquisition of Enam Securities in a stock deal worth Rs15.5bn giving the bank control over Enams broking and investment banking businesses. (ET)

GVK Power said it has agreed to acquire Australias Hancock Coal for US$1.26bn which will offer the company option for long-term coal supply contracts. (ET)
Economy Snippets

RBI raises interest rates for the 12th time by 25 bps. (ET)

The government is phasing out low-denomination currency notes and printing more notes of higher denomination such as the Rs1,000 note. (ET)

The India-China business leaders’ forum has decided to concentrate on seven key areas of business such as power and renewable energy, infrastructure, IT services, pharmaceuticals and banking and financial services. (BS)

The Centre has proposed to scale up the capacity of the Paradip port from the present 76 mtpa to 133 mtpa by 2015 at an estimated cost of Rs31.41bn. (BS)

The mining ban in Karnataka is likely to drag down country’s overall iron ore exports prompting Chinese buyers to identify new overseas markets. (FE)