Andhranews

London, Oct. 10: India on Tuesday said it will further open up its financial sector to foreign investors, just as it had removed barriers to FDI in most other sectors, after forging a political consensus.“I cannot report that I have consensus on it. But I remain hopeful that this is an idea whose time has come. It is only a matter of time before we can move forward with regard to liberalisation of financial sector,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told British investors at the India-UK Investment Summit.

Dr Singh said he had held discussions with the coalition partners regarding the need for further opening up banking and insurance sectors — a key demand of most developed nations, including the US and UK. But such a move has been strongly resisted by the UPA’s main prop — the Left parties.

Dr Singh said the government remains committed to liberalise trade in services, financial and legal sectors included. “I do believe we need to promote a widely held pension fund system. We need a much larger insurance sector, with a higher capital base with more diverse products.

It is these which will generate the necessary long term funds for investing in a debt market and make available resources for investment needs of our country, particularly in the vital infrastructure sector.” Dr Singh said the country had already removed most barriers to foreign direct investment in the manufactuting sector, but would like to see higher FDI inflows in infrastructure.

Hyderabad, Oct. 10: Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories said on Tuesday that it has settled patent litigation with GlaxoSmithKline relating to sumatriptan succinate tablets, the generic version of GlaxoSmithKline’s Imitrex tablets

The terms of the settlement, which remain subject to government review, provide that Dr Reddy’s may exclusively distribute an authorised generic version of sumatriptan succinate tablets (in the 25 mg, 50 mg and 100 mg strengths) in the US with an expected launch date late in the fourth quarter of 2008 ahead of the expiration of the pediatric exclusivity on 5037845 patent on February 6, 2009.

Additional terms of the settlement agreement were not disclosed, a Dr Reddy’s statement said. GlaxoSmithKline’s Imitrex® tablets, which are indicated for the acute treatment of migraine attacks in adults, had US sales of $890 million for the 12-month period ending June, 2006.

New Delhi, Oct. 10: Union commerce minister Kamal Nath has called for increasing the inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI) from UK into India. The commerce ministry info-rmed that Mr Nath, in his address to the “India-UK Investment Summit” at Lancaster House in London on Tuesday, said that the total outward investment by UK is of the order of £35 billion annually, of which only about £80 million flows into India.

Pointing out the attractiveness of India as an investment destination, Mr Nath said that global corporations understood the value of leveraging India’s advantages. “In fact, India has achieved levels of European productivity at 20 per cent of the cost. It continues to remain competitive vis-à-vis its South Asian neighbours in labour costs,” he said.

The cumulative FDI inflow from UK is about £1.1 billion. Mr Nath said that corporations from the UK have primarily flowed into the areas of electrical equipment, fuels and service sector. British companies like Castrol, Thomas Cook, ECOM Communication and Scottish and New Castle have been some of the largest British investors in India.

He also pointed out that (citing the latest issue of European Investment Monitor of E&Y), India has also emerged as the second largest foreign investor in the UK. Giving an example of cost advantages in India, Mr Nath said that a US-based auto component manufacturer would increase its potential return on sales by 3-6 percentage points by shifting its manufacturing to India. “India has already put itself on the radar of every investing entity in the world. The world recognises that it would be impossible to do business without India,” he said.

Mumbai, Oct. 10: The Sensex started off with a 100 point gain in line with the positive sentiment in the Asian markets, but as the day progressed was like a yo-yo shifting between positive and negative territory and finally closed down 2.06 points. It touched a low of 12,341.34 and a high of 12481.93 to close at 12,363.77. The Nifty was up 3.90 points and closed at 3571.05, after touching a low of 3563.10 and a high of 3597.20 in intra-day trade.

In contrast, the Asian markets all classed in the green with the Hang Seng up 148.48 points, the Kospi 8.97, Nikkei 41.19 and the Straits Times 26.15. The turnover was also low at Rs 26,860.2 crores compared to the last one week with the F&O sector accounting for Rs 17,575.9 crores. The number of stocks that went up were 465 compared to 462 that ended in the red.

Some market watchers felt punters were cautious as Infosys is declaring its results on Wednesday and were waiting to see if they were above market expectations or not and then take positions. Infosys is usually seen as the leader setting the trend for what may be expected during the earnings season. Infosys was up Rs 8.70, while TCS gained Rs 8.60, Satyam Rs 1.10 and Wipro Rs 4.40.

Among the heavyweights that pulled the Sensex down were ONGC which lost Rs 4.65, RIL Rs 3.95, SBI Rs 3.75, Tata Steel Rs 8.55 and HLL Rs 4.85. Among the gainers were HDFC Rs 22.40, Grasim Rs 16.35, MUL Rs 12.35 and Tata Motors Rs 10.10 and HDFC Bank Rs 7.20.

Time flies and it really seems like only yesterday that economic reforms and liberalisation were introduced. But it has been 15 years since the 1991 crisis that saw the then government take measures that were to open the floodgates to development and growth of a different kind. India is the flavour of the year and every global player who is not here is yearning to be here and finding ways and means to get here.

15 years on...

While there will be many studies done of the achievements of the 1991 economic and financial reforms in the last 15 years in the coming days and months, the Prime Minister has given his considered view on the subject. It is very interesting and one can see it as the way one wants like the case of a glass half full or half empty.

Everyone knows about the achievements and fruits of reforms as they scream from every billboard in big cities and smaller towns. But interestingly the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh said he wanted to point out to a “greater concern for the long term well being of the nation.”

He said that and I quote him verbatim “millions of our fellow citizens are still deprived of the benefits of a growing economy. While the belief in a market economy is certainly justified it must be remembered that markets serve those who are part of it. They have no relevance to those who exist on the margins of subsistence and who have neither the physical nor the human resources to participate in them.” He said the growth had not been able to generate employment opportunities on the same scale.

Reforms need a new paradigm

There is much being said about the Soviet-type economy of India of the 50s, 60s, and 70's and the damage it did to economic growth but there's a lot to be learnt from what happened then and what led to 1991. One thinks that it’s time for the policy makers, whom some refer to as the dream team (earlier they were three but now two more have been added) to read The Indian Economy -Problems and Prospects edited by former RBI governor and now Rajya Sabha member Dr Bimal Jalan. He says “In the 1950s and 60s we engaged in learned debates on import substitution versus export promotion policies and industry versus agriculture.

In the 1970s we had similar debates on outward-orientation and inward-orientations and on the monetarist vs structuralists approaches to balance the payments and inflation.
In 1991 the country began debating the supremacy of the markets over government and the private sector. However the historical lesson was that most of the successful cases of development were those that had managed to combine the virtues of conflicting paradigms rather than rely exclusively on a single set of preordained theoretically ‘right’ policies.”

2006 could be the 1970's

From what one sees, the present policy makers are getting bogged down in the same way as their predecessors did in the 1970s. It is time to move on. As Dr Jalan points out reforms were undertaken after a particular crisis, namely an empty foreign reserves kitty — and they have succeeded tremendously. We have enough forex reserves to stand many a crisis, not just one.

Market forces cobwebbed

So it is time to relook at the nature of the economic and financial reforms and see whether they have outlived their use in their present avatar. They have as Dr Manmohan Singh who is considered the architect of the reforms, says not delivered the goods to the majority of the population.

Apart from the millions who have been sidelined, agriculture is sluggish and as he says it supports two-thirds of our population. He says there is need to expand reforms to include health, education and agriculture. If any reminder is needed, it is the present epidemics of dengue, malaria and chikungunya that are calling for the shift that Dr Singh spelt out at the Economic Times function.

Even as Chennai appears to have become the first metro in India with WiMax access citywide, launched by Aircel Business Solutions, the world of WiMax has new disruptive technologies taking a bow every other day. WiMax (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) is a wireless industry coalition whose members organized to advance IEEE 802.16 standards for broadband wireless access networks. WiMAX 802.16 technology aims to enable multimedia applications with wireless connections.

WiMax also has a range of up to 30 miles, presenting provider networks with a viable wireless last mile solution, according to SearchMobileComputing. We will talk about one such development in WiMax today. But first, Aircel's WiMax push in Chennai. Aircel’s Internet services through Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMax) enables enables ‘last mile’ connectivity using ‘near line of site’ (NLOS) wireless equipment.

On the technology front, meanwhile, Navini Networks, a US-based firm, has launched a solution called Smart WiMax, which purportedly optimises mobile WiMAX. According to Sai Subramanian, Navini’s VP of product management and strategic market, Smart WiMAX combines the Smart Beamforming technology currently in commercial service around the world, with beamformed MIMO (multiple input multiple output), which can double the data throughput for mobile WiMAX subscribers.

“Navini’s beamformed MIMO, called ‘Smart MIMO’, extends the range over which typical MIMO signals can be received and enhances the received signal power, so data can be transmitted as much as six times faster,” he says. “While some vendors have taken an “either MIMO or beamforming” approach to advanced antenna systems for mobile WiMAX, Navini's unique app-roach combines them to improve the performance of mobile and stationary users,” Mr Subramanian says in a posting on Navini Networks’ web site.

“Beamformed MIMO and Smart Beamforming together create a very powerful solution called Smart WiMAX. Delivering both is better!” “We’ve seen beamformed MIMO signals demonstrating over 12dB gain (16 times increase in received power) compared to standard MIMO. In many locations where standard MIMO signals are not receivable, the enhanced beamformed MIMO signal is not only received but decoded using 16 QAM (fast) or 64 QAM modulation (very, very fast). Additionally, Beamforming delivers over 9dB gain (8 times increase in received power) on the uplink, which is critical to getting broadband performance from low powered devices.”

London, Oct. 10: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday assured British investors that India had excellent standards for information protection, days after a UK-based channel made damning allegations about data theft from Indian call centres. “India adheres to all international codes and regulations pertaining to safety and protection of investments and Intellectual Property Rights. We also have in place excellent standards for data protection,” he said addressing the India-UK Investment Summit here.

The allegations by Channel-4, which have the potential to hurt the country’s booming BPO industry, prompted a police investigation. “We have signed an MoU with Britain to strengthen our cooperation in IPRs,” Dr Singh said. “Investment in India is both safe and profitable,” he said, adding that the country offers tremendous new opportunities in manufacturing, particularly in automobiles and auto components, pharma, biotech and food processing.

Channel-4 last week claimed to have unearthed a racket where Indian call centre workers, handling outsourced work, were selling classified data. The allegations were reminiscent of a similar fraud involving an HSBC employee in June and another call centre worker in Mumbai in September.

Hyderabad, Oct. 10: Most remote workers, or tele workers, say they are aware of security issues, but their behaviour with regard to sharing work computers with non-employees, opening unknown mails and hijacking wireless networks suggests otherwise, a new study says.

The global third-party study commissioned by Cisco Systems took a sample of 1,000 workers in 10 countries, including India. It spotlights the challenge that behavioral and cultural tendencies create for IT security teams as more employees work outside of traditional offices — a business practice that can enhance productivity yet jeopardise corporate and personal security.

“Whether they work at home, at a café, or in a hotel,numerous findings indicate that remote workers aggravate network security concerns because of a false sense of awareness. In fact, while two of every three teleworkers surveyed (66 per cent) said they are cognisant of security concerns when working remotely, many admitted behavior that under mines and contradicts their awareness,” the CiscoSystems-funded study says.

Their reasons offer valuable in sight for IT and security managers around the world, fueling a need for tighter, proactive relationships with end users. The study found that more than one of every five remote workers surveyed (21 per cent) allow friends, family members or other non-employees to use his or her work computer to access the Internet.

“One of the most glaring contradictions in the study’s results involved non-business activity: Only 29 per cent of remote workers surveyedin the 10 countries admitted that they use their work computers for personal activities. However, 40 per cent - 11 percent more - admitted that they use their work computers foronline shopping. This discrepancy occurred in eight of the 10 countries(excluding China and India).

For example, in the United Kingdom, only 27 per cent admitted usingtheir work computer for personal reasons, but 53 per cent said they shop online whenworking remotely,” it says. “Hijacking wireless networks or sharing corporatedevices with non-employees is a significant risk for the global IT community,” saidJeff Platon, Cisco’s vice president of Security Solutions Marketing.

London, Oct. 10: India is fully supportive of Tata Steel’s bid to take over UK-based steel giant Corus, industry and commerce minister Kamal Nath has said. Asked about his response to the proposed Tata-Corus deal, Mr Nath said “Why not? Tata is one of our leading companies and they must go global. It’s not merely a story today of trade flows — it’s a question of investment, both ways.”

It was his intervention on behalf of Lakshmi Mittal earlier this year — basically telling the French not to be so racist if they wanted to do business with India – which probably assisted Mittal Steel’s successful bid for Arcelor, The Daily Telegraph newspaper reported on Tuesday.

This year, for the first time, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into India —amounting to between $7 billion to $8 billion —will be exceeded by FDI going out of the country to finance acquisitions by Indian companies. There are plans to create a “family of 100 Indian companies”, each worth 1 billion dollars, which assist one another. “And that is before
Tata Steel’s proposed $10.4 billion purchase of Corus,” Davinder Singh Brar, who heads the Confederation of Indian Industry’s committee on Indian multinationals said.

Chennai, Oct. 10: International Finance corporation (IFC), the private sector arm of the World Bank group, would invest $500 million in the agri-business and infrastructure sector in India in this fiscal.

Announcing the investment of $11 million equity in Suguna Poultry Farms Ltd in Chennai on Tuesday, IFC’s executive vie-president Lars H. Thunell said, the IFC would invest $500 million in agri business and private infrastructure projects in India. He said the multi-lateral institution is bullish on the India’s infrastructure development, adding he said IFC would provide funds to firms in small towns to improve the productivity and the rural economy.

Chennai, Oct. 10: Dena Bank has chalked out an aggressive plan to take its total business from Rs 42,000 crores to Rs 50,0000 crores at the end of the current fiscal and Rs 100,000 crores by 2010. It has also planned to reduce its net non-performing assets (NPAs) from 5 per cent to 3 per cent by the end of this fiscal.

“We have identified Rs 600 crore worth of non-performing assets (NPAs) to sell in a bidding process. PricewaterhouseCoopers is conducting a process to find out the asset value of the assets,” said Mr P.L. Gajrola, chairman and managing director of the bank.

The PWC is expected to submit the report in a month. The bank expects to close the deal by the end of this year. He said that the bank is expected to clock a deposit growth of 15 per cent and advance growth of 25 per cent in 2006-07 and is targeting a business mix of Rs 50,000 crores.

He added that the bank is deploying core banking solutions (CBS), which will be implemented by a consortium comprising Wipro and Infosys with a total cost Rs 300 crores. “In the current year, CBS will be implemented in 25 branches and in the next two-and-half years it will be implemented in 850 branches,” he added.

The bank has adopted a totally outsourced model for its CBS programme. The entire hardware and software will be outsourced from the consortium, he said. Mr Gajrola said the bank would increase its ATM network to 500 from the present 280 and would also add 25 additional branches in this year.

A profitless website started by three 20-somethings after a late-night dinner party is sold for more than a billion dollars, instantly turning dozens of its employees into paper millionaires. It sounds like a tale from the late 1990’s dot-com bubble, but it happened on Monday.

Google, the online search behemoth, agreed yesterday to pay $1.65 billion in stock for the website that came out of that party — YouTube, the video-sharing phenomenon that is the darling of an Internet resurgence known as Web 2.0. YouTube had been coveted by virtually every big media and technology company, as they seek to tap into a generation of consumers who are viewing 100 million short videos on the site every day.

Google is expected to try to make money from YouTube by integrating the site with its search technology and search-based advertising program. But the purchase price has also invited comparisons to the mind-boggling valuations that were once given to dozens of Silicon Valley companies a decade ago. Like YouTube, those companies were once the Next Big Thing, but some soon folded.

Google, with a market value of $132 billion, can clearly afford to take a gamble with YouTube, but the question remains: How to put a price tag on an unproven business? “If you believe it’s the future of television, it’s clearly worth $1.6 billion,” Mr Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive, said of YouTube. “If you believe something else, you could write down maybe it’s not worth much at all.”

In a conference call to announce the transaction on Monday, there were eerie echoes of the late 1990’s boom time. There was no mention of what measures Google used to arrive at the price it agreed to pay. At one point, Google’s vice-president David Drummond, gave a cryptic explanation: “We modelled this on a more or less synergistic kind of model. You can imagine this would be hard to do on a stand-alone basis.”

The price tag Google paid may simply have been the cost of beating its rivals — Yahoo, Viacom and the News Corporation — to take control of the most sought-after website of the moment. It was also perhaps the only price that two YouTube founders, Chad Hurley, 29, and Steven Chen, 28, and their big venture capital backer, Sequoia Capital Partners, were willing to accept.

Kadapa, Oct. 10: Irregularities have come to the fore in the implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREG) scheme during the social audit conducted by the AP Vyavasaya Karima Sangham and State resource persons in Kajipet mandal of Kadapa district.

The social audit report alleged that the contractors in connivance with officials and politicians siphoned off funds to the tune of Rs 11 lakh under the scheme in the mandal. The district administration sanctioned Rs 11 lakhs for taking up desiltation works in irrigation canals and provide 100 man days to landless poor in Shantinagar, Muthuluripadu and Boyyayapalle villages in the mandal. However, the contractors, field assistants and officials completed only 75 per cent works and did not pay the amount to labourers.

AP Vyavasaya Karima Sangham district secretary Anvesh submitted a memorandum in this regard to collector M.T. Dhana Kishore on Tuesday. The collector who took the issue seriously, called up the District Water Management Agency (DWMA) project director and directed him to probe into the alleged irregularities.

He also called up the Kajipet mandal revenue officer over phone and directed him to probe into the alleged irregularities in works taken up under NREG scheme and submit a report, Mr Anvesh said. The collector reportedly issued orders to stop the payment of cheques for Rs 50 lakhs worth works taken up under the scheme.

Nellore, Oct. 10: Hindu Temples Protection Committee would file a contempt petition against endowments department for auctioning the temple lands despite a High Court stay order dated May 30, 2006.
Addressing a media conference here on Tuesday, State general secretary of the committee M. Kamal Kumar came down heavily on the endowments department for turning a blind eye to the court order.

He said that the endowment authorities have auctioned 10 acres belonging to Chalamaiah Satram in Guntur on August 28 besides another piece of land situated five-kilometre from Sattenapalli on the plea that it is located in an urban area.

He said that the department had also issued a notice on September 5 to auction four acres of temple lands belonging to Giddaperumallu Swamy, on the outskirts of Karimnagar town. Stressing that the land is located adjacent to the temple, he ridiculed the department for its failure to protect the land.

He criticised endowments minister J.C. Diwakar Reddy for favouring the auction of temple land located in urban areas. “Large extent of temple lands located in rural areas fall under the jurisdiction of urban areas following the formation of new civic bodies and corporations,” Mr Kamal Kumar said, alleging that endowment department is taking advantage of this to auction these lands.

He said that half of the 3.76 lakhs acres of temple lands in the State would disappear if the government continues to encourage the auctions.

Nellore, Oct. 10: The Institute of Electronic Governance (IEG) of Government of Andhra Pradesh has identified Dr Bezwada Gopal Reddy Women’s Academy (local women’s degree college) for campus placement mission through Jawahar Knowledge Centre (JKC).

The JKC would extend training to the final year students of the institution on industry-related technical and soft skills. Hitherto the JKCs are established in reputed engineering colleges spread across the State to increase the standards of higher education. Jawahar Bharathi Engineering College in Kavali and Audisankara College of Engineering Technology in Gudur are the only two colleges which have the JKCs in the district so far.

According to Mr J.V. Reddy, correspondent of the academy, for the first time a degree college was selected for JKC in the district. In JKC, students are trained in technical skills, soft skills, project management skills and communication skills by employing accelerated learning strategies with a mentor-student ratio of 1:5. A team of qualified and skilled individuals from JKC, an offspring of IEG, will select students for the training, who scored above 65 per cent marks.

The training includes promotion of curriculum improvement to meet the needs of the industry as well as the government. The 100-day intensive training would be followed by 20-day placement activity for the graduates. Selected students have to pay Rs 1,000 for training as per the guidelines of the JKC.

Explaining the programme to this newspaper, Mr J.V. Reddy said that a team from IEG inspected the college two months ago and selected it to establish the JKC, as it was satisfied with the infrastructure. He said that many final year students have shown interest in joining the programme after listening to the salient features when Nithin Reddy of IEG delivered a lecture recently.

College principal S. Raghava Reddy thanked the government for extending the programme to the degree colleges while stressing the need for exposure on the needs of the industry to the students.

Ongole, Oct. 10: The Ministry of Environment gave its nod to the fisheries department to construct a jetty (landing stage for boats) at the Gundayapalem in the mandal for the benefit of fishermen community. Earlier, the fisheries department has sent proposals to the Centre for permission to construct a jetty at a cost of Rs.1.63 crore.

Gundayapalem, where river Gundlakamma meets the sea, is a suitable place for the construction of jetty. The proposed jetty would benefit hundreds of fishermen, who could anchor their boats even during cyclone disasters. As per the proposals concrete platforms and buildings will be constructed in a five-acre land at Gundayapalem.

Speaking to this newspaper, Mr Lakshminarayana, assistant director, department of fisheries, said that for the first time a jetty would be constructed in the district. Fishermen could repair their nets, boats and sell their produce at the landing stage.

Prakasam district has a vast coastline of 102 km with 72 fishermen habitations. The fishermen in the district possess 3,500 country-made boats and over 1,300 mechanised boats which help them catch over 12,000 metric tonnes of fish, prawn and other sea products every year.

Unfortunately, these fishermen don’t have basic amenities for several years. They don’t have facilities to sell their catch, to repair their boats and nets. During the cyclones, boats anchored near the sea are getting damaged.

Fishermen from not only Prakasam but from other districts also catch sea products along the district coast. Some of their problems could be resolved with the construction of a jetty. Fishermen from Nellore, Guntur, Krishna, East and West Godavari also get benefited from the jetty. The department of fisheries is now waiting for release of funds from the State government for construction of jetty.

Rajahmundry, Oct. 10: In order to contain the spread of viral fever dengue, medical and health personnel in East and West Godavari districts took up an awareness drive among the general public on the symptoms of the fever to help them seek medical help from the nearest health centre without delay.

The people who suffered the sting of Aedes mosquito will develop symptoms like high fever, rashes on the skin, body and joint pains, vomiting, nausea, post orbital pain in the eye balls and also suffer dehydration. Infected people develop dengue fever at the first instance and later they suffer haemorrhage and at the final stage, they suffer shock syndrome.

West Godavari district medical and health officer D.S. Sarma said that they had equipped all the health centres including primary health centres (PHCs) in the villages with the necessary antibiotics to distribute to the patients who approach them with dengue symptoms.

He said that to tackle the water and vector-borne fevers like malaria, dengue and chikungunya, they were roping in anganwadi workers and school teachers to bring about awareness among the general public and students to avoid falling prey to the diseases.

Administration in both the districts initiated measures to give widespread publicity on dos and don’ts to avoid the spread of the dengue fever. They advised the general public not to allow the stagnation of fresh water in flower pots, air coolers, broken coconut shells, abandoned tyres for long time as they could become breeding ground for the mosquitoes.

As a part of the action plan to contain vector-borne fevers, malathion was being sprayed in three phases at various parts covering plain, upland and Agency areas in both the districts. The general public are also advised not to approach quacks for any medical help. Meanwhile, in East Godavari there were no reports of fevers even in Agency areas thanks to the regular spraying of malathion.

According to district malaria officer Y. Mallikharjuna Rao, on an average they used to receive a minimum of 20 cases of fever for 1,000 persons in the Agency villages. But with the regular health measures, the number of cases dwindled further. Meanwhile, a seven-year- old boy A. Sairam from the city suspected to be suffering from dengue was referred to a hospital at Visakhapatnam by the health officials.

Kakinada, Oct 10: The non-availability of water and changing agricultural needs prompted a search for alternative resources in upland areas in East Godavari district. In this backdrop, the State government has taken up a special programme in 10 upland mandals of East Godavari to ensure effective usage of available water resources. The District Water Management Agency (DWMA) has taken up this programme by promoting micro irrigation and watersheds.

Under this programme, integrated wasteland development, enterprise promotion in watershed programme, productivity enhancement in watershed programme were taken up in the district. For effective management check-dams, staggered trenches, percolation tanks and farm ponds were taken by DWMA.

Under this programme water from ridge to valley would be managed at different places en route. The water thus saved would be let in to tanks in the final stages for agriculture purpose.The DWMA which took up the programme in 2002 considers 500 hectares as one unit and in total 50 such units were taken up in the upland area of East Godavari.

The DWMA adopts ‘less water more productivity’ concept in these areas. The water through these sources would be effectively diverted to the needs of horticulture crops and for pulses which are economically viable.

Warangal, Oct. 10: Despite the raging controversy over the proposed sale of lands belonging to the Azam Jahi (AJ) Mills, the Kakatiya Urban Development Authority (Kuda) is going ahead with its plan.

The Kuda, as part of its proposed sale of lands, is learnt to have got some soil samples tested from the now defunct mills site. Though the authorities stated that the sample testing was for the construction of the textile park, actually it was aimed at establishing the withstanding capacity of the land for huge constructions.

The Kuda authorities are tight-lipped about the soil testing and refused to comment. A senior official, on condition of anonymity, said that the Kuda had planned to sell a total of 165 acres land allotted to it by the State government in the first phase.

He said that more than Rs 100 crores would be raised at one go by the sale of AJ Mills lands and the city development would get a shot in the arm from the funds. In a new development, the Kuda has also stepped up its lobbying to get the government’s nod for acquiring the lands belonging to the central jail and Mamnoor aerodrome. The urban body is proposing to allot alternative lands for the central jail and the aerodrome.

Warangal, Oct. 10: The Telugu Desam (TD)’s technical team headed by Choppadandi MLA Sana Maruti on Tuesday squarely blamed the poor quality of construction works for the Gundlavagu project washout.

The three-member technical team, which inspected the Gundlavagu project site, demanded that the Congress government take the total responsibility for the project washout. The TD team also said that it would file a private criminal case against the project contractor for ignoring the quality norms in the construction.

“Not even a single quality norm was adhered to in the construction of the project. Any engineer would be shocked at the poor quality of the construction. We are ready for any open debate on the project,” said Mr Maruti.

Refuting the claim of the contractor that the unprecedented rainfall was the main reason for the project washout, Mr Maruti questioned if that was the reason why no other tank or project in the area got washed out. He said that the construction samples from the project washout would be sent to the National Institute of Technology and AP Research Laboratories for quality testing.

The retired chief engineer-turned-MLA also cautioned against the proposed “repairs” by using the project washout remains. Mr Maruti said that only entire reconstruction with better quality would ensure the strength of the project.

He demanded stringent action against the erring contractor and other officials involved in the construction and supervision of the project that resulted in the loss of Rs 11.5 crores of public money. Expert engineers Hanmai Shinde and Ramana Naik and the district TD unit leaders took part.

Suspends sanitary inspector

Vijayawada, Oct.10: Minister for panchayat raj and endowments J.C. Diwakar Reddy on Tuesday paid a surprise visit to Kanaka Durga temple. The minister went around the temple, taking note of conditions and grilled the officials on the temple’s state of affairs.

The minister, who found a heap of garbage at the temple entrance, immediately suspended sanitary inspector T. Venkateswara Rao for his negligence in discharging the duties. Mr Diwakar Reddy reiterated that no move was being made to confine Tirumala seven hills to two hills and said he was misquoted by the media. “I said according to the British records, the diameter exists up to only two hills. The seven hills belong Lord Venkateshwara and it is an undeniable fact,” he told the reporters.

Mr Diwakar Reddy said that efforts were being made to save temple lands in and around Krishna district that were encroached. “The lands that are left vacant would be soon identified by Urban Development Authority (UDA) for development and will be sold at a later stage. We are not going to forgo even a small bit that belongs to the temple,” he said.

Mr Diwakar Reddy also enquired about the long pending gold work to the main temple mandap. “The government has identified a few temples in the State for which Rs 2,500 is being granted for maintenance. Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy is aware of poor living conditions of archakas and that is why we did not introduce any kind of reservation in Indiramma scheme.

The economically poor would be benefited,” the minister said. The Minister also took part in scholarship distribution to poor in another programme.

Guntur, Oct. 10: The Amaralingeswara temple of Amaravathi is unable to take control of its abundant assets in Tamil Nadu, thanks to the recalcitrant attitude of officials in that State. It is learnt that TN officials have been using one pretext after another to avoid discussions on the issue.

Recently, a team led by additional secretary (revenue) Sudha Rani went to Chennai to discuss the issue with top TN officials including the chief secretary. But it too turned out to be a futile exercise. Executive officer of Amaralingeswara temple Veera Reddy, who was a member of the team, said the TN officials said that talks could only be held after the local bodies’ polls.

The team apprised the TN officials of the details of the assets and urged them to speed up the process of handing them over. The Sadavarthi Choultry of Amavarathi, which is under the control of the temple, has abundant land assets in Tamil Nadu.

Some crucial documents related to the lands were found a few years ago and after making relentless efforts, district endowment officials found out that the choultry owned 471.65 acres of land at Thalambur village near Chennai.

Since then, endowment officials have been requesting TN officials to surrender the land, but in vain. Endowments minister J.C. Diwakar Reddy visited Tamil Nadu twice with all the documents but nothing happened.

It is learnt that much of the land in the village had been allotted to several groups, including some ex-service men. Nearly 100 acres were given to software development organisations and leading engineering colleges.

Thalambur village is situated next to Semmancheri and Navalur villages on Old Mahabalipuram Road. “Cost of land in that area has gone up to Rs 4 to 5 crores per acre,” said Mr Veera Reddy. TN is reluctant to hand over and is initially suggested providing land at a different location. Later, it changed its mind and proposed to pay the price of the land at government rates. At present, its strategy is to postpone the talks citing various reasons.

Meetings to be organised on child labour issue

Visakhapatnam, Oct. 10: With the ban on employment of children as domestic servants taking effect from Tuesday in the entire country, the office of deputy labour commissioner here swung into action and organised a sensitisation programme.
Deputy commissioner of labour M.N. Varahala Reddy said that officials from 13 departments were drafted to identify and rescue children below the age of 14 years who are engaged as labourers.

“We will take the help of non-governmental organisations and women’s organisations to conduct meetings in apartment complexes to create awareness against employing children below the age of 14 as domestic helps,” he said. As per the ban imposed under the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986, child labour is prohibited in houses, dhabas, restaurants, resorts motels, teashops, spas and other recreational centres.

Under the Act, if anyone employs children below 14 years as domestic servants, they could be imprisoned up to one year or made to pay fines ranging from Rs 10,000 to Rs 20,000. Similarly, officers of the Central and State government department violating the act would be dismissed from service or imprisoned for a year and penalised.

Talking to this correspondent, Mr Reddy said the programme was launched in three phases in the district. This includes, vigorous campaign in the electronic and print media, conducting raids on suspected homes and hotels employing children and in the last phase rehabilitate the rescued children and admit them in schools.

Mr Reddy said from January to October 2006, a total of 3,759 child labourers were rescued in Srik-akulam, Vizianagaram and Visakhapatnam districts and they were being rehabilitated. But prior to this, the officials began setting their own houses in order to prevent employment of child labour.

“I my self had to fight with my father on entry of our maid’s 15-year-old daughter today. I suspected she could be below 14 and asked my father not to allow her for work. But he ran to school and checked her date of birth and called from there to say she crossed 15,” the deputy commissioner said. Mr Reddy said to begin with all the officials in the district were being asked to educate their own family members so that others could take a cue from them.

Vizianagaram, Oct. 10: Over three lakhs devotees attended the annual Sirimanotsav of Goddess Paidithallamma from north coastal Andhra districts and from neighbouring districts of Orissa here on Tuesday. Serpentine queues were seen at the temple since midnight for darshan of the Goddess and all roads leading to Three Lanterns were jam-packed.

Temple chief priest B. Bhairagi Naidu performed special puja at the temple. Later, the Sirimanu chariot made three rounds between the temple and Vizianagar fort where hereditary trustee P. Ashok Gajapathi Raju and other VIPs sat.

Since the temple trustees present at the fort belong to Opposition party, minister for marketing Botsa Satyanarayana, zilla parishad chairperson Botsa Jhansi Lakshmi, district collector B. Kishore and others witnessed the event from district co-operative central bank premises.

While the municipality took up measures to maintain total sanitation under the direct supervision of commissioner S.S. Varma, the endowments department has deployed staff summoned from other temples.

District superintendent of police Vik-ram Singh Mann made elaborate band-obust arrangements and traffic diversions by deploying sufficient number of police personnel. The RTC too has plied special services from various parts of the district and Visakhapatnam.