Daily News Roundup - Apr 16 2012

The government is working on a proposal under which Coal India Ltd would engage private sector companies to undertake mining on behalf of the public sector undertaking. (BS)

The ministry of petroleum and natural gas has opposed a proposal of Reliance Industries Ltd for an increase in the price of gas, saying that would lead to an additional burden of US$8bn on the exchequer. (BS)

NALCO is looking to set up a new aluminum smelting facility with a capacity of 0.5mn tons and 1,250-MW captive power plant in Odisha’s Sundargarh district at an investment of Rs180bn. (BL)

The Export-Import Bank of the US has approved US$80.3mn direct loan for Reliance Power’s purchase of solar power technology from American companies. (ET)



Maruti Suzuki plans to invest Rs20bn in diesel engine manufacturing facility at Gurgaon plant to meet the demand for Swift and Desire models. (BL)

Henkel is planning to consolidate its operations in India with an eye to achieve a turnover of Rs15bn in the next five years. (ET)

Neyveli Lignite Corporation got government approval to set up a 1980-Mw power plant in Uttar Pradesh. (BS)

IDBI Bank is setting up its second infrastructure debt fund with authorised capital of ~Rs10bn through the NBFC route. (BS)

Apollo Hospitals Group will invest Rs15bn for increasing the number of beds to about 11,500 by March 2014. (BL)

PFC is in discussions with GVK and Videocon to fund their coal mine acquisitions overseas, with a rider that majority of the coal will be imported back to India. (BS)

Oriental Bank of Commerce has slashed fixed deposit rates by up to 0.5%. (BL)

Essar Group real estate company Equinox Realty would invest about ~Rs6bn on construction of its first housing project in Bangalore. The company has appointed Larsen & Toubro to build the housing project. (BS)

LIC Housing Finance is planning to borrow ~250bn in the current financial year, about 13.5% higher than FY12. (ET)

IL&FS Transportation Networks Ltd, through its Singapore-based subsidiary, is looking to raise money by issuing Yuan-denominated bonds. (BS)

Jubilant Bhartia Group will invest Rs13bn in life sciences, energy, food and oil gas in the next few years. (BL)

Economy Snippets
Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) has maintained its GDP growth forecast for FY13 at 7.6%, against the estimated 6.8% in FY12. (BL)

CMIE has said the production of sugar will fall by 9.8% in FY13 due to lower availability of sugarcane. (BS)

Foreign direct investment inflows into the services sector went up by 62% during April-January 2011-12. The financial and non financial services sector had attracted FDI worth US$4.83bn during the 10-month period of 2011-12 against US$2.98bn in the same period of previous year. (BL)

State-owned oil companies announced a reduction in jet fuel prices. The price of aviation turbine fuel in Delhi was reduced by ~169.3 per kl to ~67,631. (BS)