Thread: Indian Economy

Vedanta lines up $3 bn India expansion

Aluminium capacity to go up from 400,000 to 900,000 tonnes by 2010.

Vedanta Resources Plc plans to invest $3 billion for expanding its aluminium, copper and zinc production capacities in India by 2010.

“We have a defined growth path. Of this amount, $2 billion will be spent on increasing the annual capacity of aluminium. The rest will be for enhancing copper and zinc capacities,” said Vedanta Director (corporate strategy) Dhanpal Jhaveri.

After this, Vedanta’s annual aluminium capacity will increase from 4 lakh tonnes to 9 lakh tonnes by 2010.

“We intend to produce 5 lakh tonnes annually at our Orissa unit by the end of the second phase of expansion,” said Jhaveri.

The annual capacities of copper and zinc will go up to 7 lakh tonnes each by the end of 2009. At present, the company annually produces 5 lakh tonnes of copper and 4 lakh tonnes of zinc.

The company, Jhaveri said, had enough funds for the expansion.

It had an initial public offer in 2003, then a bonds issue and recently, a convertible bonds issue. “Apart from this, we have internal accruals and are hopeful that, amid rising prices of metals globally, the company will remain cash-rich in the years to come,” he said.

The company has already invested $2 billion for aluminium production in India after buying Bharat Aluminium Ltd (Balco) and setting up new smelters.

A part of the fresh investment will also be for new technology, which is expected to bring down the aluminium production cost to less than $900 a tonne.

At the Balco unit, the smelter is old and thus the production cost comes to $1,400 a tonne.

At present, Vedanta has 40 per cent share of the Indian market in copper, 17 per cent in aluminium and 15 per cent in zinc.

“Globally, we plan to annually produce 1 million tonnes of aluminium and copper each and 1 million tonnes of zinc and lead put together,” he added.

But Jhaveri expressed concerns over the limited exploration undertaken by Indian mining companies, “inadequate” impetus provided by the government for exploration and the absence of any guarantee to a company getting a mining licence after exploration.

India to comfortably meet 2007 deadline of 250 mn phones

New Delhi, Feb 20 : The centre today said the telecom subscriber base in India will cross 250 million mark before the target date of end of 2007.

"We expect to touch 250 million mark in telecom subscribers a few months before the target date of end of 2007," Secretary in the Department of Telecom J S Sarma said at the inauguration of Globalcomm India here.

He said in the last two months more than five million subscribers had been added each month as compared to two million last year. "We expect the number of subscriber additions to touch six million a month in 2006 and seven million by 2007," he said.

"With this kind of growth we will cross 250 million mark in number of telecom subscribers a few months before the target date of 2007," Sarma said.

India currently has more than 120 million telecom subscribers.

Earlier Minister of State in Prime Minister Office Prithviraj Chauhan expressed concern over the wide difference in teledensity between urban and rural areas.

"Teledensity in urban areas are 31-32 per cent while in rural areas it is still 1.8 per cent and this gap is widening. We expect the industry to address this as there is a huge opportunity there (in the rural areas)," he said.

France asks India to further open its economy

New Delhi, Feb 20 : Committing to raise Indo-French cooperation to strategic partnership, France today asked India to further open its retail, banking and insurance sectors to foreign direct investment to enable double the bilateral trade in five years from the present level of three billion dollar.

"France is committed to strategic partnership as we share same values of democracy, tolerence, freedom and secularism," French President Jacques Chirac told the captains of Indian industry, while asking India to open up its retail, banking and insurance sector further to enable French companies to participate in India's growth story which was a driving force for the world economy.

"We want an open economy... We want companies to be aware of their Corporate Social Responsibility. We want companies to maintain higher standards in labour, environment, human value which guide us in way we approach our partnership," Chirac said.

Noting that India was opening up its services sector, Chirac said France, which was a world leader in the area already had a presence. "Companies like Alcatel, ST Microelectronics, Sanofi were already present in India." Asserting France has always supported India and was first to emphasise India's right to become a permanent member of UN Security Council as well as its participation in G-8 summits, Chirac said civilian nuclear energy was yet another area in which both the countries could deepen their cooperation.

ICRA has predicted thtat the economy would grow between 7.4%-8.2% next fiscal on account of normal monsson expectations, construction growth etc. Hence GDP per capita is expected to grow by 5.7-6.4%.

Hence since 2002, gdp growth has been as follows

8.4%
7.5%
7.7-8.1% (predicted for this fiscal ending very soon)
7.4-8.2% next fiscal.

If the 2007-2008 fiscal is beyound the 7% mark it will confirm that Indian GDP growth rates have shifted to a higher growth plane than the 1990s average of 6%....

Made-in-India brand gets stronger

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Extract from Rediff


Quote:
The Pune factory of Tata Motors has a training wing where one can observe young apprentices at work. Some of them have studied up to Class X, some up to Class XII. Few of those faces have had contact with a razor.

However, their hands move deftly over basic tools as well as laser and computer numerically controlled machines. This focus on skills - the training wing was the first to be set up by the factory's founder, S Moolgaokar, in 1965 - also manifests itself in the company's production engineering wing, which makes dyes for global marquees such as Jaguar, Ford, Toyota and Fiat.

This skill set came to the aid of the company when it found itself driving through uncertain terrain in the 1990s, as it embarked on a three-phase programme to rejuvenate itself by increasing productivity, cutting costs and improving quality.

Nine years ago, Tata Motors had close to 38,000 employees earning an annual turnover of Rs 10,000 crore (Rs 100 billion). At present, its turnover is Rs 21,000 crore (Rs 210 billion) earned by 30,000 employees. Its salary cost has dropped to 5.5 per cent of turnover from 10-11 per cent five years ago.

"The attitude of 'can do' pervades the organisation," says Tata Motors managing director Ravi Kant. Skill, innovation, productivity and cost efficiency are also the leit motif at other Indian manufacturing houses, most of which found themselves wobbling when faced with the challenge of becoming globally competitive in the 1990s – a task made more onerous by the industrial downturn in the decade's second half.

Mahindra & Mahindra's 5,000 employees churned out 60 vehicles a day in 1994. The company now has 2,000 employees rolling out 160 vehicles every day with zero overtime.

Essar Steel has constructed the world's second-longest iron ore slurry pipeline of 267 km from Bailadilla to Visakhapatnam that can carry 8 million tonnes of iron ore a year and bring down transport costs from Rs 550 to Rs 80 a tonne.

Last year, when Japan's automotive giant Honda Motor expressed an intention to use two spark plugs in its 100-125 cc motorcycles to reduce engine friction, a cheer went up in the research and development wing of Bajaj Auto, which claims to be the first to use two spark plugs in motorcycle engines.

Maruti Udyog Limited, during the three years to 2004-05, cut costs by 30 per cent and increased productivity by 50 per cent. It has embarked on a similar programme for the next three years.

These are also companies that have traversed the great distance from the wobbly to the bountiful in just a few years. Tata Motors made a Rs 500 crore (Rs 5 billion) loss in 2000-01. It made a profit of Rs 1,236 crore (Rs 12.36 billion) in the last financial year.

Maruti Udyog has moved from a loss of Rs 269 crore (Rs 2.69 billion) in 2000-01 to a net profit of Rs 853.6 crore (Rs 8.53 billion) in 2004-05.

Mahindra & Mahindra's Rs 512.6 crore (Rs 5.12 billion) profit for 2004-05 marked a steep climb from just Rs 96.9 crore (Rs 969 million) in 2001-02.

Essar Steel has, between 2002 and 2005, reduced its term debt by Rs 1,100 crore (Rs 11 billion). When the two-wheeler market shifted overwhelmingly from scooters to motorcycles, it was expected to claim Bajaj Auto as a casualty.

Today, the company is a strong number two in motorcycles with a 36 per cent share of the market.

As these companies turned around, they also turned economic theory on its head. In general, economies move from agrarian to manufacturing to services. In the 1990s, it was generally expounded that India had missed the manufacturing bus.

It remained untouched by the first wave of industrial offshoring revolution, which gravitated to China, Thailand and other countries in East Asia, helping a vast section of the working population migrate from agriculture to industry.

India's future, they said, lay in services. This gained credence as agriculture's share in India's gross domestic product fell to barely 20 per cent from 32 per cent in 1991, and that of services soared to 52 per cent from 41 per cent.

Industry's share remained flat at 27 per cent and within that, manufacturing's remained stagnant at 17 per cent. The industrial downturn of 1996-97 doused whatever little hopes there may have been of a manufacturing renaissance.

However, services are much less efficient in creating jobs compared with manufacturing. That didn't work for India, 2.5 per cent of whose population is joining the workforce every year, compared with a population growth of 1.5 per cent.

Says Shirish Sankhe, a partner in consultancy company McKinsey: "Without manufacturing, India could not grow. Manufacturing is the best avenue to create jobs that may not be very education-intensive - services need education - and pull people out of agriculture."

There had to be a way to get on to the bus. It could not be done the China way, which was one of China's high-volume low-cost model, since China had already mastered it. Given its thrust on special economic zones and flexible labour policy, it would be difficult to upstage. Why would, say, a Walmart, which sources most of its goods from China, turn to India?

The solution was found in skill-based manufacturing, which increased cost efficiency while keeping quality high.

Says Baba N Kalyani, "India's strength lies in products that require multiple skills, using technology to increase productivity," says Baba N Kalyani, chairman and managing director of Pune-based Bharat Forge.

Over the last five years, the employee cost of Bharat Forge, the world's second-largest forging company, has dropped from 9 per cent of the turnover to 5 per cent, even as wages have doubled.

Bharat Forge was an early bird. Starting in 1989, it overhauled its business model to usher in modernisation. In the subsequent years, a similar wind quietly blew in to other manufacturing companies, dismissed in the 1990s as "old economy".

This was the time when Indian manufacturing was moving from the doomed low technology-low capital-cheap labour model delivering "just about" quality to a combination of high technology, higher capital and a very highly skilled workforce that promised global competitiveness.

Around this time, the business climate too changed. The country had always had a steady supply of technical manpower. Interest rates fell from 19-21 per cent to about 10 per cent and under.

Labour, which used to think of management as the devil's own, began to realise that their interests were not very divergent after all.

Ten years ago, M&M's Kandivli plant, near Mumbai, had a quota system under which each worker's actual work time was under 240 minutes a day. Today, every worker puts in 450-460 minutes a day, excluding the lunch break.

The coming of age of services, especially software, helped. People began to appreciate the technology-driven business model. M&M got into nuts and bolts, literally, to reduce the time taken for each activity in terms of seconds.

Its utility vehicle Scorpio, in the beginning, had about 6,000 welding spots. As the company gained confidence in its product, the number of spots came down to 5,500. Tata Motors' Pune plant alone has 100 robots. You wouldn't find a soul on Essar Steel's shopfloor, except in the electric arc furnace.

Even the public sector - whose prime function once upon a time was to create employment - caught on. In 1998, Steel Authority of India Ltd had 1,77,000 employees and produced 10 million tonnes of steel. Its private sector rivals produced half that amount with a workforce of just 5,000.

Having spent Rs 12,000 crore (Rs 120 billion) on modernisation, SAIL now produces 13 million tonnes with 1,24,000 employees. Five years ago, SAIL was groaning under a debt burden of Rs 15,000 crore (Rs 150 billion). It is debt-free now. "We can withstand the dynamics of the market," says V S Jain, the company's chairman.

Cost efficiency has made it lucrative to do business in India. According to the Confederation of Indian Industry, the average return on investment in India is over 19 per cent, compared with just over 14 per cent for China.

That higher return is a reflection of higher value-added manufacturing. M&M spent a mere Rs 600 crore (rs 6 billion) on the Scorpio project. "For a multinational doing a similar project overseas, the cost would be Rs 4,000 crore (Rs 40 billion)," says the company's president (automotive), Pawan Goenka.

The result is a blow to the old wisdom that in vehicle manufacturing only a very high scale - Detroit pegged it at 1 million - can ensure profitability. The Scorpio is profitable on sales of 33,000 a year. Macroeconomic data too is beginning to show that Indian manufacturing is riding a crest, growing at 9 per cent a year, the highest in recent memory.

But more to the point is the changing world attitude. When Ratan Tata had announced Project Mint, which yielded Indica, in the 1990s, it was greeted with universal scepticism.

Experts thought the project would finally undo the man, whose track record had not been exactly exemplary. Two years ago when Tata said he would make a car that retailed for $2,000, the reaction was one of anticipation. The experts wanted to know how he would do it.

And, as the company's vice-president Rajiv Dube points out, no one uses the phrase "old economy" any more.

Next stage: The world

The once-troubled Daewoo Commercial Vehicles has turned around. Acquired by Tata Motors two years ago and renamed Tata Daewoo Commercial Vehicles, its net profit increased three times to Rs 45.8 crore (Rs 458 million) for April-December 2005. It has a 27 per cent share of the South Korean market.

"We cut costs there, just like in India, and increased exports substantially to South Africa, Middle East and South Asia, where Tata is already an established brand," says Tata Motors' managing director Ravi Kant.

Kant's explanation, though small, tells a big story - an Indian company acquiring a multinational and helping it prosper on the strength of cost efficiency and brand development in India.

India's exports account for just 0.8 per cent of world trade, compared with 6.4 per cent for China. But its share could quadruple in a decade, according to McKinsey.

"Manufacturing exports from India could increase from $40 billion in 2002 to approximately $300 billion by 2015, leading to a share of approximately 3.5 per cent in the world manufacturing trade," says the consultancy.

In part, that will be a result of the downsizing of blue-collar America - such as auto-component giant Delphi - and the subsequent outsourcing to low-cost countries in a way that does not increase exposure to China. But a big role will be played by Indian companies that are making the world take notice of the "Made in India" label.

Close to 5 per cent of Mahindra & Mahindra's turnover now comes from overseas, but it has been growing at 90 per cent. The company hopes to earn a fifth of its turnover from abroad in three years. "We have the ambition to become a truly global company," says M&M president (automotive), Pawan Goenka.

Last year, the company took control of Chinese tractor maker Jiangling, which gave it a foothold in the world's third-largest market and a low-cost base from which to export tractor kits to the US. Starting May this year, it will start selling the Scorpio and Bolero in Spain and Portugal.

Indian automotive component companies have already notched up a number of acquisitions overseas. Pune-based Bharat Forge, which has made six acquisitions in four countries in the last two years, has set a target to become the global leader in its business by 2008.

Tata Steel is the world's lowest-cost producer of steel. Hero Honda is the world's largest motorcycle manufacturer. And Maruti Udyog, in which Japan's Suzuki Motor Corp holds about 55 per cent of the equity, is slated to soon become bigger than the parent.

Infrastructure remains a constraint in India. Most infrastructure services cost 50-100 per cent higher here than in China, with Indian manufacturers paying twice as much for electricity and three times as much for rail freight.

However, according to consultancy firm KPMG, India scores better than either China or Brazil on business regulation, better than either on the burden of tax and customs administration, and better than Brazil on the perceived level of corruption.

According to KPMG, many companies
redihave developed effective "workarounds" to deal with India's infrastructural challenge. For instance, ports are indeed congested. But if you have the right clearing agents, you can ship cargo.
rediff.com

http://in.rediff.com/money/2006/feb/17texas.htm

Texas Power to invest $10 billion in India

February 17, 2006 20:28 IST


Over a decade after United States energy trader Enron Corp first entered India for Dabhol power plant, another Houston-based company Texas Power Generation LLC on Friday announced ambitious plans to invest up to $10 billion in next ten years for setting up power plants in the country.

To start with, TPG has signed an MoU with Chhattisgarh government for a 1,600 Mw coal-fired plant in the state at an investment of about Rs 6,000 crore (Rs 60 billion). The company has also applied for a mining block to the coal ministry which, if allotted, would require investment of another Rs 2,000 crore (Rs 20 billion).

"After signing the MoU in May last year, we are currently in the process of conducting feasibility studies. We hope to start construction by early 2007 and complete the project by 2010-11," TPG Chairman Vijay Jain told reporters in New Delhi.

The project is being set up with a debt-equity ratio of 70:30. The company will invest $400 million (about Rs 1,800 crore -- Rs 18 billion) as equity entirely through internal accruals.

The debt would be arranged from European and US lenders, India-born Jain said, but admitted this is the first time his group would set up power plants anywhere in the world.

The company also plans to invest up to $10 billion over the next 5-10 years for more projects, he said, adding they have initiated talks with various states including Andhra Pradesh for a 2,000 Mw plant.

Texas Power's ambitious plans come at a time when foreign participation in the power sector is very little.

Its more widely-known US counterpart Enron, which was also based in Houston, had set up and later abandoned the 2,184 Mw Dabhol plant in Maharashtra. Enron has since then went bankrupt while the Dabhol plant is now being owned by public sector NTPC and Gail (India) Ltd.

Texas Power Generation LLC has set up a India subsidiary named Texas Power Generation Ltd and already invested about $50 million in Chhattisgarh project. The plant is being set up in Raigarh district and the company hopes to generate power at about Rs 1.70 per unit.

The project, which was initially envisaged to be of 1,320 MW, will now be built with 800 Mw units making it a total of 1,600 Mw. It would later be expanded to over 3,000 Mw, Jain said.

The company has also signed an MoU with trading company PTC India Ltd for selling the electricity generated from the plant. It plans to enter into a formal Power Purchase Agreement with PTC shortly for a 25-year period, Jain said.

The budget speech is comming up soon. It is hoped that the FM will incentivise long term savings, too much short term savings relative to LR savings in the economy.

There is also a danger of a liquidity crisis within the next 12 to 18 months, hopefully the GOI will, in this budget, begin to adress the causes...

Those infrastructure bonds should be helpful and should not be heavily taxed. Infrastructure tends to lag gdp growth by a few years in India, our current rate of growth in infrastructure is enough to maintain previous growth patterns of 6-6.5%, not the projected new growth plane. We still have some urgent work to do, let us hope that the left shuts up or dies in a plane crash.

In a gung ho projection for the Indian economy, the International Monetary Fund has forecast a growth of over 7.5 per cent this year.

A report by the IMF’s Executive Board, released on Tuesday, noted that the Indian economy is “continuing to reap the rewards of more than 15 years of reforms”, but stressed that macroeconomic policies should remain vigilant with further efforts on deficit reduction.

“Notwithstanding high oil prices and a weak monsoon, the economy showed a remarkable resilience in 2004-05, with growth remaining robust and becoming broader-based,” the report said, adding: “These trends have continued in 2005-06, and growth of more than 7.5 per cent for the full year is expected.”

Fund mantra for progress

•Recommends a gradual move towards ‘full pass-through of oil prices’ with targeted support for the poor

•Without further enhancing tax revenues and reducing lower-priority spending, it will be difficult to create fiscal space for planned large and crucial increases in infrastructure and social spending

•Acceleration of tax reform critical to achieve deficit reduction targets

•Steps needed to further broaden the tax base

•Can trim existing exemptions and introduce goods

Stressing a further push on economic reforms, the report said: “With an acceleration of the reform process, India would be able to achieve sustained economic growth of 8-10 per cent, in line with the objectives of the authorities.”
The executive directors felt that the current favourable economic conditions provide a good opportunity to speed structural reforms. They made a particular mention of measures to improve the business climate and reform labour laws, saying these would help foster both private and foreign investment and job creation.

While commending the progress made in bringing down tariff levels, they noted that faster convergence to Asean levels would be desirable. “Broad-based tariff reductions would also help minimise the trade diversion potentially associated with preferential trade arrangements.”

The directors supported the government’s broad economic thrust in addressing infrastructure bottlenecks, alleviating rural poverty and deepening global integration.

While commending the inflation management thus far, the report pointed to the “upside risks” owing to underlying pressures.

With domestic demand remaining strong, the directors recommended that the fiscal policy should counter demand pressures. They highlighted the need to meet the minimum adjustment required under the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1632295,0002.htm

I never understood why wew never had full pass through of oil prices to the average man in the first place. Surely we can target the poor with subsidized prices but the average man and up should face market prices like everyone else because only then will they adapt to the reality of the world. The should consume based on their income level....


As I mentioned before we need to finance infrastructural spending through long term savings which can be channeled in the right places... Infrastructure bonds should be incentivised. There was a proposal for a 1000rs infrastructure bond with a maturity of 10 years or so at a very decent rate of interest...... Of course this is only one solution, lots more must be done...

As per experts we have not seen the peak of economic output as of yet, when this peak approaches, the GOI better be ready, if not, then we will never make it for a long time.

Airbus to set up spare parts base

Having received amongst the highest orders thanks to the aviation boom in the country, European aircraft-maker Airbus has announced that it would set up an aircraft spare parts centre in the capital.

Disclosing this to reporters after signing a contract for 43 Airbus A320 family aircraft with Indian Airlines (IA) in the presence of French President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Airbus Executive Vice President Kiran Rao said that his company was looking forward to selling 900 planes in the next 12-18 months to airline companies in India.

In 2005, the European consortium had received orders for 221 aircraft for airlines in India, excluding Indian Airlines. These were second highest for any country, after China, in aircraft deals. The 2005 orders had amounted to 20 per cent of all the orders that the Toulouse (in France)-based company had received.

Dr Rao said he expected the market to reach a plateau in 2-3 years time in India, but added that the industry would recover and witness a growth after the modernisation of airports in the metros and the construction of new airports in Bangalore and Hyderabad. He said that the healthy competition among the low-cost carriers would continue, and brushed aside safety fears because of the no-frills carriers.

The agreement signed by Dr Rao and IA Chairman and Managing Director Vishwapati Trivedi will be for 20 A319s, four A320s and 19 A321s. The deal marks the first time that an Indian carrier has selected the Airbus A321.

Dr Trivedi said in a press release later: “The acquisition of the 43 aircraft of the A320 family will allow Indian Airlines to step up growth and modernisation, expand its market and further improve the quality of its product offering.” IA, which currently operates 50 aircraft of the A320 family, is now well placed to add other family members to its fleet, he added.

“Indian Airlines’ new commitment to the Airbus A320 family rejuvenates a partnership between our companies that began over 30 years ago, and which is now set to continue into the future,” Airbus President and CEO Gustav Humbert said.

The release added that as the newest and youngest aircraft series in the 100-200-seat category, the Airbus A320 family delivers unequalled comfort and space to passengers, unbeatable economy and reliability to airlines, and unmatched value and longevity as an investment — in addition to the unique benefit of an operational commonality.

GE bags $3bn engine deal from Indian carriers

MUMBAI, FEB 21: General Electric (GE) has bagged orders worth $3 billion for engines to power Indian carriers Air India, Indian Airlines and Jet Airways. The largest valued order was from state carrier Air-India which signed the deal at Asian Aerospace in Singapore worth $2.2 billion at a list price to power its new Boeing 777 and 787 fleets.

"Air India is one of the region's leading airlines, and we are thrilled to be part of its major fleet modernisation," said Scott Donnelly, president, GE - Aviation.

"Our engines have performed extremely well since entering service last year, and we anticipate the GEnx engine to experience similar results when it enters service." The delivery of the 777s is scheduled to begin in 2007, with the 787 deliveries to begin in 2008.

Air India chairman and managing director V Thulasidas said, "The order of 50 Boeing 777 and 787 aircraft all powered by GE engines marks a major expansion of Air India's fleet. This along with the Boeing 737-800 aircraft for Air India Express, the budget airline, is the largest order for aircraft so far in India. We are excited at the prospect of the fuel efficiency and performance of the GE engines that Air India hopes to gain from."

Similarily, domestic carrier Indian, formerly Indian Airlines has signed a $500 million agreement with CFM International, a 50/50 joint company between Snecma and GE for the purchase of the engines to power its recently ordered 43 new A320s. The aircraft are scheduled for delivery between late 2006 and 2010.

Even India's largest private carrier Jet Airways struck a separate deal worth $300 million for GE's engines to power its 10 Airbus A330-200 aircraft. Jet, which confirmed the Airbus order last October, is scheduled to begin taking delivery of the aircraft in 2007.

"Jet Airways has selected the engines after an in-depth technical and economic evaluation of the available options," Jet Airways chairman Naresh Goyal said in a statement.

SpiceJet to buy 10 Boeing aircraft

New Delhi: Low-cost carrier SpiceJet signed a deal on Tuesday to buy 10 737 jets from US aircraft manufacturer Boeing worth $700 million at Asian Aerospace.

The deal includes an option to buy 10 more aircraft. The purchase is for five 737-800 and five 737-900ER models. Deliveries will begin in October 2007 with the handing over of 737-900ER first. Shipments will continue until 2009.

"We are absolutely delighted to be placing a new order with Boeing and we think that this new order reflects the rapid growth in the Indian market," said Ajay Singh, director of SpiceJet.

SpiceJet started operations in May last year and since then says it has filled more than 85 per cent of its available seats.

Singh said India's travel market had been growing at a phenomenal rate as train travellers take advantage of cheaper fares to switch to flying. The number of air trips domestically in India has risen sharply to 24 million from about 18 million in March last year.

Dinesh Keskar, Boeing's senior vice president for sales, said he expected the plane orders to enable SpiceJet to increase its market share.

Keskar said the 737-800 had 189 seats in an all-economy configuration, while the 737-900ER had 215 seats.

Endangered sahab, kamsekam provide link yar or else the moderator will delete these articles...

Now its Las Vegas Casino's that are outsourcing to India

Posted Feb 21st 2006 4:18PM by Vibhav Nuwal
Filed under: India, News, Software and IT

Here's soemthing interesting - Casino's are jumping into outsourcing. It seems increadible that casino's also need to outsourcing; offshoring; outsource; offshore; globalization; Las vegas; USA; America; gambling; casino; Ballys; India; technology; chennai; developmentfocus on cost-cutting now. But on second thoughts - thay are a business too, and if the opportunity is available, why not! Another incredible part of this story is that software development for casino's will now happen in India - a country in which gambling is illegal.

"Bally Systems, the world’s largest casino technology player, is making India its largest and most critical software products and solutions development centre.

Bally Systems India development facility in Chennai, will have 250 engineers by mid-2007, against 70 at present. It was in October last year that Bally forayed into the country. It has hardware and software development centres in Reno in Nevada, Atlanta City, Seattle and Nice in France.

The company vice president & managing director Srinivasan Raghavan told TOI, “An Indian presence will have a significant impact on our global operations as a wide range of technology development activities will be anchored here. We want to drive technology innovation in gaming by tapping what is available in the country.’’

Bally’s India centre will design and develop casino management systems, slot management systems and table management solutions, comprehensive player tracking solutions, fail-safe data capture systems, casino accounting systems, credit and collection systems and casino marketing solutions."

http://www.outsourcereporter.com/200...cing-to-india/

This is big