Dharwad LCV plant on Tata Motors’ roadmap
Economic Times BANGALORE - Gabriel Vaz
BANGALORE:
LEADING automobile manufacturer, Tata Motors, is planning to set up a Rs 1,500-crore plant for bus and light commercial vehicle manufacturing plant at its existing unit in Dharwad.
The company has already submitted a proposal envisaging an investment of nearly Rs 450 crore for bus building and chassis preparation. Another project for manufacture and assembly of LCVs at an additional investment of over Rs 600 crore has also been mooted, according to Karnataka’s large and medium industries minister Mr Katta Subramanya Naidu.
The total investment envisaged by Tata Motors at its Dharwad plant, Mr Naidu told ET, would be in the region of Rs 1,500 crore with roughly Rs 200 to 300 crore coming from the company’s vendors.
About 30,000 buses and LCVs are expected to roll out from the new units, which are also likely to provide direct employment to 20,000 people with ancillary units coming up in the vicinity contributing another 10,000 indirect employment opportunities, Mr Naidu said.
Though the Tata Group’s Telco Construction Equipment (Telcon), which has been operating in the twin cities of Hubli-Dharwad for almost 10 years now, had about 600 acres of land, it had sought an additional 300 acres of land for the new projects. The additional land is also proposed to be utilised for setting up vendor parks.
Both the industries and finance department had given in-principle clearance to Tata Motors to go ahead with the project, the minister said pointing out that the company had sought specific concessions in land acquisition and conversion of the VAT amount repayable over a 30-year period at 0.1% interest per annum and the supply of water at concessional rates in view of the location of the project in the backward region.
Another major concession demanded by the Tata Motors was sanction of additional soft loan amount of about Rs 100 crore repayable over a 30-year period towards the enlarged scope of the project to bring the fiscal incentives at par with other states.
However, Karnataka’s deputy chief minister and finance minister B S Yediyurappa, who had met the company’s top executives along with Mr Naidu, is understood to have agreed to extend the benefit of stamp duty exemption for land acquisition besides providing the land at concessional rates in view of the large employment potential and development of the Hubli-Dharwad region. He has also agreed to extend entry tax and special entry tax for new investments waiver for the first five years as the same has been incorporated in the new industrial policy for the period 2006-11.
The industries minister has made out a strong case for allowing states like Karnataka with large pockets of backward and arid zones in Hyderabad-Karnataka and Mumbai-Karnataka regions to extend the benefits of waiver of income tax and excise duty for a period of five years to attract investment as is being done in the case of states like Uttaranchal and Himachal Pradesh.
In addition to the new industrial policy, Karnataka will be launching a major initiative for skill development and job training for unemployed youth as part of the ambitious programme of creating a lakh jobs annually in the IT/ITeS and BT sectors, apparel, hospitality, security, building and construction sectors. MoUs will be signed on November 23 with trade and industry organisations like CII, FICCI, BCIC and KASSIA for providing training, the minister said.
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Auto gas station in twin cities soon
Auto gas station in twin cities soon
Source: HDMC Website
The first LPG auto gas dispensing station (ALDS) in the twin-cities will be ready for commissioning in two months.
Taking the lead in this regard is the Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (HPC), which is setting up the first ALDS in Hubli. "The ALDS would be ready by January or February," an HPC official informed, adding that the next such facility would be established at Dharwad.
The Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) has also set its sights on a prime location to set up its first auto fuel-dispensing centre in the city, which it plans to set up by April 2007.
It has begun hectic efforts to secure centrally-located spots. Last week, senior IOC officials from Belgaum and Hubli met and held discussions with Hubli-Dharwad Municipal Corporation (HDMC) commissioner P Manivannan and sought his help in finding such prime plots.
Endorsing his dialogues with IOC officials, Manivannan said: "The HDMC is keen on promoting LPG auto fuel stations in Hubli-Dharwad, in view of the high pollution levels recorded in the twin-cities. But we are not sure whether we have such prime lands in the heart of the city. However, I have directed my officials to find out and report and that may take one or two weeks."
Moved by the initiative' taken by oil companies, Sunil Nalvade, a resident, said: "When all major cities are switching to LPG, why should Hubli-Dharwad be left behind? Taking into consideration the pollution level in the city and that CNG is still a distant possibility, we have no option but to fall back on LPG."
Supporting his views, State Pollution Control board officials said auto gas units would facilitate installation of the required conversion kits in vehicles on a large scale.
Hubli-Dharwad already has over 10,000 private cars and auto rickshaws that run
on LPG and the setting up of auto gas stations may see a ten-fold increase in such cars.
Highlighting the significance of auto LPG stations, S R Kulkarni, an IOC officer, said LPG, which is commonly referred to as the "green fuel", reduces air pollution to a great extent because of its lead-free characteristic.
Moreover, he said auto LPG gas is very cost-effective as it operates at one-third the cost of conventional fuel and is increasingly becoming popular with automobile owners.
The saving for vehicles running on auto gas works out to around 40 per cent, he said. While one litre of autogas is priced ataround Rs 25, the same quantity of petrol is around Rs 57.
"The consumption of LPG is approximately 10 per cent more than petrol to obtain equivalent mileage," he added
Source: HDMC Website
The first LPG auto gas dispensing station (ALDS) in the twin-cities will be ready for commissioning in two months.
Taking the lead in this regard is the Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (HPC), which is setting up the first ALDS in Hubli. "The ALDS would be ready by January or February," an HPC official informed, adding that the next such facility would be established at Dharwad.
The Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) has also set its sights on a prime location to set up its first auto fuel-dispensing centre in the city, which it plans to set up by April 2007.
It has begun hectic efforts to secure centrally-located spots. Last week, senior IOC officials from Belgaum and Hubli met and held discussions with Hubli-Dharwad Municipal Corporation (HDMC) commissioner P Manivannan and sought his help in finding such prime plots.
Endorsing his dialogues with IOC officials, Manivannan said: "The HDMC is keen on promoting LPG auto fuel stations in Hubli-Dharwad, in view of the high pollution levels recorded in the twin-cities. But we are not sure whether we have such prime lands in the heart of the city. However, I have directed my officials to find out and report and that may take one or two weeks."
Moved by the initiative' taken by oil companies, Sunil Nalvade, a resident, said: "When all major cities are switching to LPG, why should Hubli-Dharwad be left behind? Taking into consideration the pollution level in the city and that CNG is still a distant possibility, we have no option but to fall back on LPG."
Supporting his views, State Pollution Control board officials said auto gas units would facilitate installation of the required conversion kits in vehicles on a large scale.
Hubli-Dharwad already has over 10,000 private cars and auto rickshaws that run
on LPG and the setting up of auto gas stations may see a ten-fold increase in such cars.
Highlighting the significance of auto LPG stations, S R Kulkarni, an IOC officer, said LPG, which is commonly referred to as the "green fuel", reduces air pollution to a great extent because of its lead-free characteristic.
Moreover, he said auto LPG gas is very cost-effective as it operates at one-third the cost of conventional fuel and is increasingly becoming popular with automobile owners.
The saving for vehicles running on auto gas works out to around 40 per cent, he said. While one litre of autogas is priced ataround Rs 25, the same quantity of petrol is around Rs 57.
"The consumption of LPG is approximately 10 per cent more than petrol to obtain equivalent mileage," he added
Investors shy away from IT Park
Investors shy away from IT Park
TIMES NEWS NETWORK - M L Kapur
21 Nov, 2006 2256hrs IST
HUBLI: The government's initiatives to take information technology (IT) to Tier-II cities may well seem halfhearted if one goes by the fate of the state-of-the-art IT Park here. There are virtually no takers for more than 2 lakh sqft of space ready for occupation.
The Hubli IT Park, developed at a cost of Rs 45 crore, is managed by Keonics on behalf of the Software Technology Parks of India and attempts to sell the idea to potential IT/ITeS investors have come to naught. Sources attribute this to lack of imaginative marketing strategy. While inaugurating the IT Investors' Meet here on May 20, chief minister H D Kumaraswamy had announced a conditional offer to attract new investors. The package envisaged competitive rates comparable with neighbouring states.
The offer was valid for a period of six moths, which lapsed earlier this week without attracting a single new investor. Neilsoft, a Pune-based engineering software solutions firm, had set up base here a day before the investors' meet.
Sources said what worked against attracting potential start-up ventures was the condition that concession would be given to firms which take a minimum of 10,000 sqft of space. Not many new ventures need that kind of space.
Keonics deputy manager H Devanand said that many firms, including the BPO arm of ICICI, made inquiries about the facilities available here, but no deal has been struck so far since the package was announced.
Meanwhile, certain other investors like Bangalore based Sankalp Semiconductors, who need limited space to expand to this Tier-II city, have set up their development centre on the BVB Engineering College campus.
It is learnt that both Neilsoft and Sankalp Semiconductors are satisfied with their decision to set up base in Hubli. Both companies have plans to expand their capacities here in the near future.
According to sources, the state government is learnt to have put its final seal of approval on HDMC's proposal to allot 25 acres of its land in Rayapur to five IT/ITeS companies. Another 25 acres is also on offer to some other IT companies in the queue.
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