CNG filling stations in 3 cities
Five Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) filling stations each will be set up in the cities of Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi, and Kozhikode within the next one year to bring out a fuel change from diesel to the less polluting CNG. A decision to this effect was reached in the talks State Transport Commissioner Tomin J. Thachankary had with representatives of the oil majors IOCL, HP, BPCL, and Gas Authority of India Ltd (GAIL) here on Monday. The meeting was in the wake of a directive of the circuit bench of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) and the State government’s policy to bring down the pollution caused by vehicles. CNG has already started flowing from the Puthuvypeen terminal to the outlet of IOC at Pathadipalam. The IOC is making available CNG at the five filling stations through pipes. As the pipes have not been laid to other cities, CNG will be transported in cryogenic tankers to the filling stations to be set up in the existing petrol pumps in government and private sector. The CNG at present costs Rs.39 a kg compared to the Rs.59 a litre for High Speed Diesel (HSD) and Rs.69 for a litre of petrol. Kelvin Beachum Womens Jersey
Gujarat Gas gets nod for Ahmedabad
Gujarat Gas Limited (GGL) has been granted permission to develop city gas distribution network (CGD) in Ahmedabad district. The authorization by The Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB), however, is for providing natural gas, to urban regions in the district excluding Ahmedabad city areas, where Adani Gas Limited (AGL) already holds the licence to supply PNG and CNG. GGL will supply natural gas, both piped natural gas (PNG) and compressed natural gas (CNG), to residential, commercial and industrial consumers in urban centres like Sanand, Viramgam, Bavla, Dholka, Dhandhuka, Mandal and Detroj-Rampura. Luke Opilka Womens Jersey
Narendra Modi’s $27 billion oil quest gives services firms a lifeline
India is offering global oilfield service providers starved of new contracts a $27 billion lifeline as the government’s ambition to cut fuel imports drives fresh investment. Spending plans are ratcheting up and stalled projects restarting after the government in March announced pricing freedom for natural gas from deepsea fields that begin production this year. Coming at a time when the cost of rigs and services has halved, that’s prompted India’s largest explorer Oil and Natural Gas Corp. to launch its biggest development campaign yet. Reliance Industries Ltd. is preparing to restart work at four offshore oil and gas blocks. The flurry of activity is providing some respite to services companies including Schlumberger Ltd., Technip SA and Halliburton Co. that were stung last year by more than $100 billion in slashed spending by explorers as oil collapsed. Investments in India are growing to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s target of cutting import dependence by 10 per cent over six years as increased consumption puts the nation on track to become the world’s third-largest oil consumer. “In India, there are two to three major identified projects and they are probably bigger than anything else going on in rest of the world,” Technip India’s Managing Director Bhaskar Patel said in an interview. “India is a place where there is work available.” India’s hydrocarbon resources still remain highly undeveloped and the government’s new liberal approach is nudging companies to invest in tapping them. The measures are expected to boost gas output by 35 million standard cubic meters a day and unshackle projects worth 1.8 trillion rupees ($27 billion), Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan had said when the policy changes were announced. About 90 per cent of the new spending would go to companies that provide services from drilling to testing and the laying of infrastructure. Halliburton is positioned to participate in “the country’s ambitious plans to increase its domestic production,” the company said in an e-mailed response to questions. “India plays a crucial role for sustained development in the region for Halliburton.” The Indian government’s initiatives will increase the pace of exploration, ONGC Chairman Dinesh Kumar Sarraf said. ONGC will contract deepwater drill ships and dozens of jack-up rigs for a $5-billion development program in the Krishna-Godavari Basin, he said. The company intends to spend 11 trillion rupees by 2030 to raise output. Reliance has held meetings with oilfield-services companies to restart work at four offshore oil and gas blocks, including one of India’s biggest natural gas discoveries, people with knowledge of the plan said in May. It plans to drill 21 wells in four offshore areas, including the deepwater KG-D6 block in the Bay of Bengal, the people said. ONGC shares were up 0.2 per cent to 210.50 rupees as of 12:25 p.m. in Mumbai on Tuesday, while Reliance gained 0.2 per cent to 957.15 rupees. India’s exploration binge still won’t be enough to compensate for canceled projects around the world as oil prices settle below 50-a-barrel of crude from more than $100 two years ago. Worldwide, the oil and gas industry will cut $1 trillion from planned spending on exploration and development because of the price slump, consultant Wood Mackenzie Ltd. said this month. Investing during the current down-cycle ensures lower costs for explorers as well as future returns over four or five years once oil recovers, Technip India’s Patel said. Read more on planned spending in the oil and gas industry here. ONGC has reduced the cost of its Krishna-Godavari basin block by almost a third from earlier estimates of about $7 billion as prices slide for the contract rate for rigs and oilfield equipment and services. Offshore jack-up rigs, which used to cost $80,000 to $90,000 a day, are now available for less than $50,000, ONGC’s Sarraf said. “We could say there is 20 per cent to 50 per cent reduction in the cost of goods and services.” Despite the price competition, service providers are finding that an India strategy is critical given the scarcity of spending elsewhere. Finnish company Wartsila OYJ’s Indian unit sees opportunity here given the tough global environment. “In the exploration segments, if projects are coming up of course it’s an opportunity for us,” Kimmo Kohtamaki, president and managing director of Wartsila India, said. “We have matching products and no one else is investing. Everyone is laying off, it’s a tough market.” Vince Dunn Authentic Jersey
IOC, BPRL & OIL to pay $3.3 billion to Rosneft in September
Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Oil India (OIL) and Bharat PetroResources (BPRL), among themselves, will pay Russia’s Rosneft $3.3 billion for buying equity stakes in the latter’s two oil and gas projects in September, two officials privy to the deals told Siddhartha P Saikia in New Delhi. In one of the deals, IOC, OIL and BPRL are picking up 29.9% in the Rosneft-operated Taas-Yuryakh oil and gas fields in East Siberia for $1.28 billion. Besides this, the consortium would fork out another $2.02 billion for 23.9% stake in Rosneft arm Vankorneft that runs the Vankor oil field in East Siberia, the sources added. “The deal size includes acquisition cost and share of 10-year capital expenditure programme. The Taas-Yuryakh fields are under development, while Vankor is a developed asset,” said the first official. Talking about risk in investing in oil and gas assets, the official said that due diligence for the “economic viability” of the projects have been carried out in different price scenarios in the range of $40 to $60/barrel. Of the total cost, IOC would shell out $1.2 billion; its board has given the go-ahead for the same. The oil refining and marketing company is likely to borrow funds to pay for the acquisition. On the other hand, OIL could out fork out from its cash reserves, which is in excess of Rs.100 billion as on March 30. Petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan, along with top executives of these firms, visited St Petersburg in early June to ink final agreements. New Delhi’s interest in increasing economic cooperation with the Kremlin was reflected in several rounds of talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin. “The diplomatic relations with Russia has reached such heights that it will ensure India’s energy security for a long term,” Pradhan said. “Indian companies are investing in various oil projects in Russia and the investments are expected to reach $5 billion to $6 billion.” Rosneft’s chief executive Igor Sechin visited New Delhi in March to sign the preliminary heads of agreement for these acquisitions with Indian companies. Rosneft, impeded by US and European financing bans over the conflict in Ukraine, is eyeing investments from Asia to fund expansion. India, the third biggest oil importer, is seeking to enhance energy security amid low oil prices by tying up new sources of crude oil. State-controlled Rosneft is the world’s top listed oil producer by output. Currently, the Taas-Yuryakh asset is producing 20,000 barrels of oil per day with expected peak production of 100,000 bopd by 2021. The Vankor oil field in East Siberia produces more than 4,42,000 barrels of oil per day, double the output of Barmer, India’s largest onshore field, which is operated by Cairn India. Khris Davis Womens Jersey
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