Daily News Roundup - March 1 2011

The Government will infuse Rs9bn as equity capital into two PSU lenders - Andhra Bank and Allahabad Bank as part of its recapitaliszation scheme. (ET)

SRF Ltd received board approval to invest Rs6.65bn for expansion, including setting up of a packaging film plant in South Africa.(BS)

Tata Motors to unveil a new compact car, Pixel on its micro-car Nano platform exclusively for the European market. (ET)



Punjab National Bank and Bank of Baroda raised fixed deposit rate up to 50bps across select maturities, while HDFC hiked lending rate by 25bps. (BS)

RBI to sell stakes in NABARD and NHB to government for Rs14.3bn and Rs4.5bn respectively. (ET)

Cement makers are likely to hike price of the commodity by around Rs5 per 50-kg bag to pass on the proposed effective hike in excise duty. (ET)

State-run Oil firms proposes to raise petrol prices by upto Rs4 a litre to offset rising crude oil costs. (ET)

The Maharashtra revenue department has slapped a Rs2.23bn notice to Balaji Telefilms for allegedly violating the tax norms. (BS)
Economy Snippets

The Indian economy grew by 8.2% in the third quarter of the current fiscal, up from 7.3% in the corresponding period a year ago.(BS)

India's wholesale price index rose 8.23% in January from a year earlier, compared with 8.43% in December.(BS)

The Union budget claimed fiscal deficit at 5.1% of GDP against targeted of 5.5%. (ET)

Corporate tax surcharge reduced by 2.5% to 5%. (ET)

Tax on iron ore increased to 20% from 15% earlier. (ET)

Government will provide a direct cash subsidy on kerosene and fertilizers to the poor from March next year. (BS)

The government to levy Minimum Alternate Tax (MAT) of 18.5% on the book profits of Special Economic Zone (SEZ) developers and units. (BL)

Budgetary allocation for rural development programmes remained unchanged for the fiscal 2011-2012 with a total allocation of Rs741bn and the government's flagship MNREGA scheme getting the bulk of it at Rs400bn.(BS)

The government will give Rs 140 to the banks for every no-frills account opened by them as part of its initiative to expand the reach of banking services in the country. (BS)

The government expects to raise Rs150bn from the sale of airwaves in FY12. (ET)

Money market and debt funds to pay a higher dividend distribution tax of 30% for investments made by firms. (ET)

Allocation to infrastructure sector has been raised by 23% to Rs2.14tn. (ET)

Government to provide capital support to the tune of Rs60bn to public sector banks during the next fiscal to strengthen their capital base.(ET)

The Finance Minister announced creation of an equity fund of Rs1bn for micro finance institutions (MFIs), which will help the cash-strapped sector to continue lending to small borrowers. (BL)

Centre has hiked the foreign institutional investors investment limit in corporate bonds to US$40bn.(BL)

The ninth auction round of oil and gas exploration blocks will not see an extension of the seven-year tax holiday available to the prospective bidders on production of mineral oil. (BL)