The government has rolled out an expanded farm debt waiver scheme, which will cost the exchequer a whopping Rs 71,600 crore, 20% higher than the initial estimate of Rs 60,000 crore. The scheme will now include more than four crore farmers and will also cover those with land holdings in excess of two hectares.
The expanded loan waiver scheme, which was announced in the Union Budget 2008-09, will now include farmers engaged in allied activities such as poultry, dairy farming. Direct agricultural loans taken under a Kisan Credit Card, as well as loans of self-help and joint-liability groups would also be covered. Farmers in drought-prone areas covered under the Prime Minister’s relief plan have also been included in the scheme. While small and marginal farmers are eligible for debt waiver, others are eligible for a one-time settlement (OTS) scheme. The government has also decided to waive off restructured loans, including those under the Vidharba package and calamity relief, whether or not they were overdue.
In a separate development, RBI has asked banks to take necessary steps to complete the debt waiver scheme by June 30.
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Reliance Communications (RCOM) is all set to acquire UK-based global mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) Vanco. According to sources, RCOM is learnt to have emerged as the highest bidder and both the companies have already finalised 100% buyout deal, in which, RCOM may also take over Vanco’s £123-million debt. Earlier this month its CEO and founder Allen Timpany parted ways with the company, after it came out with a major profit warning, it was put on the block. Trading in the shares was also suspended earlier this month. RCOM will have to pay a very small sum for the troubled telco, which was at its peak (about two years ago) and had a market cap of close to $800 million. The deal is likely to be inked today, sources added. Like in earlier acquisitions, RCOM is expected to retain the workforce including the top management of Vanco.
Vanco is among the leading MVNOs in the world with its services available in over 200 countries.
An MVNO does not own any network assets, but leases infrastructure and bandwidth from others to serve its customers. This acquisition would bring under RCOM’s fold a virtual network in 230 countries across the world with over 800 new product offerings that Vanco has developed over the last 20 years. The ailing telco also has over $650 million worth of secure long-term contracts from its customers that would be accrued over the next 3-5 years.
With Vanco’s business model revolving around virtual networks, RCOM would be able to cut significant costs through routing the traffic on its own network which will result in considerable enhancement in EBIDTA of its global business, which has been looking towards forging alliances with regional and domestic carriers. Vanco has alliances with 700 carriers across the world. The acquisition is also in line with RCom's strategy of becoming one of the world's top five data communications players.
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As global auto majors go for more intelligent cars, the benefits are being reaped back in India by Tata Elxsi, which has the automobile sector as a key vertical in its product design services domain. The research and development of a number of path-breaking features that mark new vehicles are being developed at the company’s development centres, which presently have staff strength of roughly 700. Typically, the high-end cars of the world have as many as 70 little computers, or electronic control units (ECUs), which also mean that about 60% of the cost of automobiles are contributed by the electronics that they feature. This is in contrast to 10 ECUs in high end Indian cars at present.
The company is engaged in some of the cutting-edge work including bending the beam of vehicle lights while taking curves, night vision, elevating or dipping the beam as required and adaptive front lighting system (AFLS) which enabled drivers to prevent light from vehicles coming in the opposite direction blinding them temporarily. Some of the product designs undergoing development included censors that would automatically measure body temperature and pulse of the driver and accordingly adjust air-conditioning in the vehicle, adjust air-conditioning levels according to personal comfort levels of each passenger, and airbags that would open to the levels required for passengers of different weights.
Tata Elxsi has seven global development centers in the country, besides one centre in Japan. The centre here is targeted to have strength of 2,000 software professionals within the next two years. The increasing electronics constituent in automobiles means more business for Tata Elxsi, which has a strong presence in the automobile vertical.
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