Daily News Roundup - March 26 2012

Reliance Retail plans to raise up to US$900mn from its parent company, Reliance Industries, to accelerate store openings and grow aggressively in select formats. (ET)

Maruti Suzuki India has increased the prices of its vehicles by up to Rs17,000 following the hike in excise duty in the Budget. (ET)

Dr Reddys Laboratories is all set to launch the generic antipsychotic drug Seroquel in the US market this week with Britain’s drug firm AstraZeneca, which earned US$5.83bn on the drug, set to lose its patent on the product on March 26. (ET)



Kingfisher Airlines, which has massively cut down operations, including completely winding up international services, has agreed to pay only up to Rs100mn of its Rs760mn service tax dues this fiscal. (ET)

Karuturi Global is set to seal a joint venture with a leading sugar producer from India as part of its massive expansion in Ethiopia into agri-commodities. (BS)

Two weeks after it threatened to sue the board of directors of Coal India, The Children’s Investment Fund said it was unhappy with the company’s response and had written to coal secretary to change the top management of CIL, saying the company "lacked necessary leadership to develop operationally". (BS)

Essar Steel has used about three million cubic meters water illegally in Chhattisgarh for transporting iron ore slurry from its beneficiation plant to pellet unit in Visakhapatnam. (BS)

The Indian Oil Corporation Ltd has signed an agreement with the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation for setting up Rs45bn LNG terminal in Chennai. The initial capacity of the facility will be 5mtpa. (BS)

Maruti Suzuki India Limited announced an investment of Rs 17bn to set up a new diesel engine manufacturing unit at the company’s facility in Gurgaon, Haryana. The company will invest an additional Rs9bn in Rohtak to beef up R&D facilities. (BS)

SKS Microfinance Ltd securitized its portfolio worth Rs3.21bn. This included two rated pool assignment transactions worth Rs2.21bn and two assignment transactions worth Rs1bn from two public sector banks. (BL)

Reliance Industries Ltd is likely to sell coal bed methane at a price of at least US$10 a unit as the oil ministry feels the company followed the correct procedure of inviting bids on an arm’s length basis but the issue has to be scrutinized by the directorate general of hydrocarbons. (ET)

Economy Snippets
The Central Electricity Authority has said no new gas-based power plants will be set up in the country till 2015-16, as the natural gas output is expected to fall considerably. (ET)

The Government has allocated Rs99mn for the implementation of Voluntary Retirement Scheme in Government undertakings in 2012-13. This is higher than Rs89mn allocated for 2011-12. (BL)

The government will consider waiving the local sourcing requirement for foreign investors in single-brand retail on a case-to-case basis to attract investments. (ET)

World Bank has said it will extend full financial support to India to help enhance the abysmal level of infrastructural development in the country in the 12th Five Year Plan that begins next fiscal. (ET)

The Civil Aviation Ministry has ruled out the possibility of amending the Airports Authority of India (Major Airports) Development Fees Rules, 2011, which allowed the levy of development fee by private airports. (BL)