Hindustan Unilever Ltd to pay Rs 27 lakh for misleading customers
Delhi State Consumer Commission has imposed a penalty of Rs 27 lakh on Hindustan Unilever Ltd for “playing a fraud” on its customers by floating a “misleading and fraudulent advertisement” on its product ‘Surf Excel’. A bench of Delhi State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission asked the company to deposit the money while rejecting its appeal against an order passed by a district consumer forum here which had asked it to pay the prize money to one of the winners of a scheme. While upholding the forum’s order to give the prize money to Delhi resident Pramod Gupta, the commission also imposed a cost of Rs 27 lakh on the firm and noted that a large number of consumers “were kept in dark about the terms and conditions of the contract”. Also read: HUL’s ‘Adda’ gives new recipe for biz boost “I am left with no option but to hold that the Opposite Party (firm) in the garb of becoming a philanthropist has befooled a large number of its customers in the country… “In the circumstances, I am of the considered opinion that the Opposite Party (OP) has played a fraud upon its customers by floating a misleading and fraudulent advertisement. It promoted its sales at the cost of causing harassment and mental agony to the customers,” the commission’s judicial member N P Kaushik said, while dismissing the company’s appeal with a cost of Rs two lakh. The bench further said, “As a large number of customers have suffered at the hands of the OP, it is burdened with costs of Rs 25 lakh which is to be deposited in Consumer Welfare Fund of State maintained by this Commission for causing inconvenience, harassment, mental agony to those customers who are not easily identifiable.” In a complaint filed before forum, Gupta had claimed that for promoting the sales of ‘Surf Excel’, a scheme was introduced by the company in which a scholarship of Rs five lakh was offered to the children of a person finding piece of cloth (swatch) inside the detergent packet and bearing the score of 10/10. Gupta, who was one such winner, had contacted the firm and submitted the swatch. However, he was later told by the firm that his claim was repudiated. Thereafter, Gupta approached the district forum, the complaint said. In its reply before the forum, the company claimed that Gupta had furnished the swatch with 10/10 score, but a “unique code” was missing. The bench noted that several customers sent the swatches with 10/10 score, but the without unique code. “After finding the swatch with 10/10 score in the packet, they were enthused to get the prize. They never knew that a further rider of possessing a unique code is put by the OP,” it noted. “Why did the OP play this trick with customers? Obviously it was to make them purchase more and more packets to find a swatch with 10/10 score. Only four swatches were the qualifying ones, out of which only two, as stated by the OP, got the prize. From a large number of litigations all over the country, it is clear that customers with 10/10 scores not only approached the OP by way of correspondence or visited its office in Mumbai but also had to fight long drawn legal battles. Also read: HUL’s ethnic brand exports turnover crosses 1k cr “What was their fault? None. They were the victims of the trick played by the Opposite Party. They were kept in dark about the terms and conditions of the contract. Such a large number of purchasers of detergent have been put to harassment, inconvenience, frustration, sadness, mental agony and anguish. It is not the case of the OP that the complainant in the present case had fabricated the swatch,” the commission said. It also said that “it is not understandable as to why OP did not disclose to customers that a unique code was being used by it, for weeding out the false claimants” and added that “transparency must be observed by contracting parties on terms and conditions of agreement.” The order also said that the firm had taken contradictory stand in its written submission as it admitted in it that the said swatch simply did not have the unique code. Reilly Smith Womens Jersey
Flipkart looks to fill up cart with own brands
Flipkart is taking another stab at selling its own brand of products, with a few tweaks to its earlier private-label business model that had suffered a few setbacks. India’s largest online marketplace is preparing to launch in-house brands in jewellery, mobile and fashion accessories and other categories shortly, according to two people aware of Flipkart’s plans. The Bengaluru-based company will license its private-label brands to sellers whom it deems capable of fulfilling its quality manufacturing benchmarks and product specifications, these people said, declining to be identified. The products will be priced affordably. Also read: Flipkart not blacklisted, it is a valued partner: IIM-A “Flipkart will create brands and those brands can be licensed to various sellers, based on specifications directed by the company,” one of them said. “The ownership of the brand will rest with Flipkart.” But unlike earlier, Flipkart will not own any of its private-label inventory. Flipkart declined to comment on the new launch of its private-label business, which one source said was likely after August. Mausam Bhatt, who was senior director mobile commerce and online marketing at Flipkart, has been elevated to vice president in charge of the private-label initiative. Flipkart’s second attempt at the high-margin private-label business comes three years after it first launched its brands Digiflip in consumer electronics, Citron in home appliances and Flippd in apparels. These brands have had limited or no success; Flipkart has stopped selling its Digiflip tablet computers. Traditional and online retailers launch in-house brands typically to plug gaps in product categories or to improve profit margins. Margins of private-label electronic products can be 20% higher than that of similar branded products, according to industry estimates. Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, sells its own brand of computers, mobile accessories and other products through its private label line called AmazonBasics. Also read: Flipkart taps China to get cheaper products In May, The Wall Street Journal reported that Amazon.com was launching new private-label lines to sell groceries and household items in the US. Flipkart’s new licensing arrangement amounts to being in the private-label business without having to take on the risk of handling inventory or supply chain, said Harminder Sahni, MD of consultancy firm Wazir Advisors. Daniel Sprong Authentic Jersey
Etailers like Lenskart, Pepperfry scaling up physical presence to close in on brick-&-mortar stores
If traditional retailers weren’t so busy creating digital avatars to take on their new-age rivals, they might have noticed online stores gaining a firm foothold in their territory, one store at a time. Some of India’s largest online stores including baby products retailer Firstcry, eyewear brand Lenskart and furniture marketplace Pepperfry are beginning to see significant contributions to revenue and bottomline from their physical stores. “We get significant revenues from our offline business and we are already EBITDA-positive (profitable from core operations) collectively,” said Supam Maheshwari, chief executive of Firstcry, declining to disclose specific numbers. Firstcry was among the earliest online retailers to open offline stores in 2012. Encouraged, online retailers are preparing to rapidly expand their offline presence in the coming years, opening a new front against traditional brick-and-mortar stores that are struggling to wrest similar success online. India’s largest business groups including Reliance Industries and Aditya Birla have launched online apparel stores in the past year, and Tata Group’s jewellery and watches brand Titan Company is acquiring online jeweller Caratlane. Firstcry and Lenskart have opened hundreds of stores through franchisees, boosting their sales. The physical stores of companies like Caratlane and online lingerie retailer Zivame function more like showrooms, tending to be smaller than those of their brick-and-mortar peers as they keep limited products and use a central inventory. Also read: Firstcry to use analytics to boost offline sales More importantly, building a physical presence helps these retailers tap those millions of customers who are still uncomfortable shopping online. Take, for instance, a Firstcry customer who recently posted on the company’s website that ‘Aloe Veda Castor Oil’ was not available at its Ernakulam, Kaloor franchisee in Kerala. She urged Firstcry to make it available at that store so she could purchase it as “I don’t like online shopping.” To capture these customers, Firstcry plans to ramp up its offline presence to 700 stores in 3-4 years from about 170 now. “We have seen that offline customers are also transacting online and vice-versa, so joint cohorts are much higher,” said CEO Maheshwari. Cohorts is repeat customer purchase, which helps measure if a company is making a profit on each acquired customer, a metric closely watched by investors. Firstcry’s offline network is already bigger than its competitor Mahindra Retail’s Babyoye, which was known as Mom & Me before Mahindra group acquired online baby products retailer Babyoye in 2015. Babyoye, which runs 115 owned stores, has announced plans to open new stores through the franchisee route like Firstcry. Mom & Me made revenue of Rs 210.5 crore and net loss of Rs 118.9 crore in fiscal year 2015, according to Mahindra & Mahindra’s annual report. Firstcry reported revenue of .Rs 118 crore and loss of .Rs 63 crore for the same year. As for Pepperfry, which plans to double its store count to 16 this year, “offline stores are the best marketing channel we have started,” said CEO Ambareesh Murty. “It helps us provide that reassurance to customers that we are a specialised player and translates to trust in the brand.” Also, customers walking into physical stores tend to purchase more often than online buyers and at a higher average price, he said. Pepperfry opens stores based on customer purchase data of the previous 24 months, which helps it zero in on pin codes with high customer density. By opening stores in such areas, it is also able to drive supply chain efficiencies as more orders from an area translate into lower average cost of delivery. Also read: Pepperfry launches experience store in Hyderabad “These players are already established leaders in online space. The question they are addressing is how do you redefine the market to grow be-cause only 5% of Indian customers have bought online,” said TCM Sundaram, managing director at IDG Ventures India, an investor in Lenskart, Firstcry and Zivame. Online shoppers in India are expected to increase from 50 million to 150 million by 2020, according to a recent report by Google and AT Kearney, adding that not having an omni-channel presence in categories like consumer electronics, home furniture and personal care could cause retailers “to lose out on 20-30% of potential buyers.” Experts spout the adage that retailers need to be where the customers are rather than choose one basket. “The retail business is not divided in black-or-white between old-world physical retailers and the upstart online kids – at least the consumer doesn’t think so,” said Devangshu Dutta, CEO at retail consultancy firm Third Eyesight. Some online retailers agree. “The idea is to create an eyewear brand, and channels keep changing. We want a store in 372 towns in India that have a population of over 50,000,” said Peyush Bansal, CEO, Lenskart. The company has 200 stores from where customers can book products and pick up later from the store or get these home delivered. The company charges a franchisee fee and pays a commission to store owners on each sale, while it manages the inventory and customer experience. It plans to expand to 400 stores by the end of the year. Lenskart, with annualised revenue of about Rs 300 crore, is targeting Rs 2,500 crore revenue in the next four years. Bansal expects the physical stores to contribute about half the revenue in the next two years. Lenskart competes with Titan’s eyewear business, which earned net revenue of Rs 372 crore in fiscal 2016 from its 404 stores. Radim Vrbata Jersey
IAMAI says new GST Bill spells doom for internet economy
The new Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill, likely to be tabled in the coming monsoon session of Parliament, seems to have “pushed the internet economy under the bus”, said industry body Internet and Mobile Association of India. The new GST Bill is a missed opportunity to set up a futuristic regulatory regime with focus on the key sectors that are expected to drive growth in the country, IAMAI said on Monday. At the heart of the issue is that the Bill’s extant Service Tax Profile recognises services like advertising and online information services, online information and database access, internet telecommunication services and telecommunication services as separate service categories. This means that services provided by companies such as Airtel/ Vodafone, Google, Facebook, WhatsApp or a Flipkart are identified as the same in the Bill. “The new GST Bill springs an unpleasant surprise: a ‘forward looking’ Bill that is supposed to modernize Indian governance fails to recognize the Internet and digital economy in India. It is ironic that while on one hand the Government is promoting Digital India and Start-up India initiatives, the GST seeks to turn the clock back by decades,” IAMAI said. IAMAI counts companies such as Google, Twitter, LinkedIn and Microsoft as its members in India. Under the new GST Bill, electronic mail, voice mail, data services, audio text services, video text services, radio paging and cellular mobile telephone services have been clubbed under ‘telecommunication services’. “Clubbing all the sectors under telecommunication services reflects a poor understanding of technology, and a wilful renouncement of the existence of these sectors in India. This renouncement is compounded further in the section listing activities to be treated as ‘supply of service’ and also the new ‘Place of Supply of Goods and/or Services’ section under the new Bill,” said IAMAI. Recognising the category of services is key in terms of determining tax liabilities, regulatory compliance and so on. For example, online marketplaces could successfully contest claims of VAT payment by positing their services as digital platforms and not retailers. “The transition to the new GST regime from the existing tax structure is going to be a major challenge for all sectors of the economy (and the regulators as well) and such discrepancies will only add to the woe of the internet sector,” said IAMAI. Marcus Gilchrist Womens Jersey
Government requires Rs 1.4 lakh crore to construct roads in FY’17
Government will need about Rs 1.4 lakh crore to achieve its target of constructing 15,000 kms of road in this fiscal, Niti Aayog said in a report. According to the report on targets for the infrastructure sector for 2016-17, Rs 70,000 crore should be raised through Gross Budgetary Support (GBS) and Internal Extra Budgetary Resources (IEBR), a senior government official said. “Then through various cess, the target for Road Ministry is to raise about Rs 33,000 crore, through tolls Rs 8,000 crore and Rs 27,000 crore from private investment,” he added. The government has set a target of completing 15,000 km of road in the current fiscal from 6,061 km in 2015-16. It also aims to award 25,000 km of road projects this fiscal from 10,098 km a year ago. Of the total length of National Highways targeted, 15,000 km would fall under the NHAI and 10,000 km under the Ministry and National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation (NHIDCL). National Highways Authority of India’s target for construction has been fixed at 8,000 km while for the Ministry and NHIDCL, the target is 7,000 km. For the 2016-17 budget, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has allocated Rs 55,000 crore for roads and highways. This will be further topped up by an additional Rs 15,000 crore to be raised by NHAI through bonds. The total investment in the road sector, including PMGSY (Prime Minister Gram Sadak Yojna) allocation, would be Rs 97,000 crore during 2016-17. The speeding up of road projects has been made possible due to policy interventions such as ministry being empowered to decide mode of delivery, increased threshold for project approval, enhanced inter-ministerial coordination, Exit Policy and innovative models such as the Hybrid Annuity Model. Other steps included amendments to the Model Concession Agreement for BOT projects, segregation of Civil Cost from Capital Cost for NH projects for appraisal and approval, rationalised compensation to concessionaires for languishing NH projects in BOT mode for delays not attributable to them. India has the second largest road network of 5.23 million km in the world and consists of 200 km of expressways, about 1 lakh km of national highways, 1.31 lakh km of state highways and other roads. About 65 per cent of freight and 80 per cent of passenger traffic is carried by the roads. National Highways constitute only about 2 per cent of the road network but carry about 40 per cent of the total traffic. Denzel Ward Authentic Jersey
Kerala seeks inclusion of Thiruvananthapuram, Kozhikode in Smart City list
The Kerala government has requested the Centre to include Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhikode in the Smart City list, state Minister for Local Self- Governance K T Jaleel today said. Jaleel met Union Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu and urged him to include the state capital, along with Kozhikode, in the list. “Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhikode need to fulfill certain requisites to become eligible to be considered in the Smart city list and we have requested the Union minister to include these two cities along with Kochi, which is already in the list,” Jaleel said in a press meet organised at Kerala House here. The Union minister also promised help through the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) or Housing for All Scheme under which homeless urban dwellers who own land in rural areas would be given assistance to construct houses, the minister said. “The state will finalise a list of homeless people in urban areas who have land in rural or panchayat areas and submit it to the Union government soon so as to avail the grant from the Centre,” the minister added. The minister also said the state has requested the Centre to relax the selection criteria of the homeless under this scheme as according to the present norms, a majority from the state won’t be able to avail the benefit. “If you have a scooter or a television or a refrigerator, you are not eligible under the scheme, but in Kerala most of the families own a television or a scooter which makes many of the able beneficiaries ineligible. We have requested the Centre to relax the norms,” the minister said. Jaleel also met Union Minister for Rural Development Chaudhary Birender Singh and sought help for the state under Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY). “The Union minister has agreed to allow grants for 105 roads in the state under the PMGSY scheme and also promised to consider a further assistance for 2,000 km in addition to the present 570 km in state,” the minister said. The Union minister has accepted the state’s proposal of Rs 304 crore in addition to the Rs 11.37 crore under the Prime Minister Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (PMKSY), he said. “Under this project, we plan to formalise methods to recharge the rivers and other water bodies in the state,” the minister said, adding Bharathapuzha in the state is being considered under this scheme. The minister will also participate in the Conference of State Panchayat Raj Ministers and Principal Secretaries which is scheduled to take place tomorrow at Vigyan Bahavan here. Indianapolis Colts Authentic Jersey
Jharkhand CM Raghubar Das seeks Centre’s help in building road infra
Jharkhand today sought Centre’s help in building infrastructure in the state, specially the four-lanes of over 635 km National Highways at eight different stretches at the cost of about Rs 8,000 crore. Addressing the 22nd Eastern Zonal Council meeting held here under the chairmanship of Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Chief Minister Raghubar Das raised the matter and said proposals in this regard have been sent to the NHAI and the Road Transport and Highways Ministry. Asserting that being a land-locked state, Jharkhand requires very good road and rail infrastructure, Das requested the Centre to expedite the projects. For trade and commercial activities, the state is dependent only on roads. Most of the roads maintained by the NHAI have heavy traffic because of the mineral transports, he said. The Chief Minister also requested the Centre to bear the cost of operations of the CRPF deployed in the state to contain Left Wing Terrorism, as it is a national problem and urged that pending bills to the tune of over Rs 4,000 crore on this account be waived off. Das also raised the issue of distribution of liabilities and assets with Bihar, which according to him was not properly distributed during the bifurcation in the year 2000. The Chief Minister also said, “Bihar is like an elder brother to Jharkhand and we can have mutual differences, but that is not going to come in the way of extending development for the people.” Matt Kalil Jersey
Government may guide Electronics, Leather biggies to set shop in coastal SEZs
The government is considering to handhold some big players in the labour-intensive sectors like garments, leather and electronics to set up shops in coastal special economic zones (SEZs). The idea is to help them set up units at two-three ports, which are yet to be identified, so that these big players build an ecosystem where they create jobs and manufacture products that would cater to both domestic and export markets. A senior government official, privy to the recent high-level meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on employment generation, told ET that Niti Aayog has mooted this proposal as part of government’s strategy to speed up job creation. India is adding nearly 12 million people to the job market every year and more than 65% of its population is below the age of 35, a big demographic advantage for the nation that is aspiring to become human resource capital of the world. “Employment generation is one of the top priorities for PM. Hence, the government is exploring all possible ways to push for job creation in labour intensive sectors,” the official quoted above said on the condition of anonymity. According to the official, government’s premier think-tank Niti Aayog through a long presentation explained the scenarios existing in countries such as Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan and outlined the initiatives in these nations that have translated in job creation following which it had recommended for a dedicated employment generation strategy. “The proposal is under consideration and soon the concerned ministries will work out the roadmap to identify the ports and players that could be given incentives to set up manufacturing units at these ports,” the official added. While the contours will be worked out over the next month, the initial plan is to allow products rolled out from these SEZs to be sold in the domestic market as well, unlike the existing provision where manufacturing units in the SEZs are exclusively producing for global market. This would be the first direct intervention by the government to help create jobs. In the last two years, the BJP-led NDA government has liberalised its foreign direct investment policy, indirectly creating opportunities for jobs creation in almost all sectors. Michael Pierce Womens Jersey
Roads, Railways & Power may get Rs 25,000 crore push
The government is mulling an additional Rs 25,000 crore allocation to roads, railways and power sectors over and above the allocation made to them in the Union Budget, potentially providing a mid-year boost to public spending. All three ministries — road transport and highways, railways and power — are currently in advanced talks with the finance ministry to secure additional allocation. The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) is also pushing for enhanced allocation in these sectors, which coupled with recent reforms, would boost the economic growth of the country. The finance ministry has asked the ministries to come up with the final list of projects that would be undertaken with additional budgetary funding, a senior government official said. The road ministry had soughtRs 15,000 crore as additional allocation, a senior official with the ministry said. However, it has been assured of Rs 10,000 crore by the finance ministry. The highway construction target for the current fiscal year has been set at 15,000 km (41 km a day), which would cost aroundRs 1.5 lakh crore. However, total allocation made to the ministry in the budget has been Rs 57,000 crore along with the permission to raise tax-free bonds worth Rs 15,000 crore. The ministry hopes to raise the remaining amount through funding from Life Insurance Corporation and Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) and by leasing out its completed projects to private equity firms and pension funds. Despite 21 policy changes in recent months, private sector investment is yet to pick up in the roads sector. According to the road ministry official, the additional allocation would be used for four laining the existing highways and for upgrading the state highways into national highways. The railways ministry, which is facing its worst ever financial crunch due to falling revenues and increased project costs, is likely to get an impetus of Rs 12,000 crore. “The additional gross budgetary support (GBS) is likely to be used for clearing stuck projects, upgrading and modernizing the safety of railway lines and decongesting some of its routes. Some high traction electrification projects could also be taken up,” a senior railway board official said. The Railways has a target of constructing 7 km of rail lines per day. In the current year, it has received Rs 45,000 crore as gross budgetary support (GBS) and its total Plan outlay for the year is Rs 1.21 lakh crore. The ministry would also have to bear the burden of the seventh Pay Commission and its wage bill would go up by at least Rs 29,000 crore due to this. The power ministry is hopeful of getting Rs 3,000 crore. It has a target of electrifying at least 14,000 villages across the country. Justin Smoak Jersey
Airports Authority of India again rejects Changi Airport plan for Jaipur, Ahmedabad airports
For the second time, state-owned Airports Authority of India (AAI) has rejected Singapore’s Changi Airport proposal to operate and maintain Jaipur and Ahmedabad airports after finding the latest plan “unfeasible”. Now, AAI would move ahead with steps to start the international bidding process for choosing the entities to operate and maintain the two domestic aerodromes. The proposal to rope in Singapore’s Changi airport for the projects was floated during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the island nation last November. The revised plan from Changi Airport, owned by the Singapore government, also sought a “higher” quantum of revenue in managing Jaipur and Ahmedabad aerodromes. This is “unfeasible” and not commercially viable for AAI, a source close to the development said. Oliver Ekman-Larsson Jersey