THREE NEW DELTAGRAM SERVICES LAUNCHED

  The Union Minister of Law, Justice and Company Affairs and Shipping,  Arun Jaitley unveiled three new messaging services of Deltagram, country’s only satellite messaging company called Net2Home at a function here today. This group of services consists of three options that bring the convenience of internet communication to the home of Indian population who do not have access to a computer. The services are, Call India, Gram India and Tele-mail. These three services are intended to bridge the digital divide between the people that have access to computers and those without it.

Speaking on the occasion,  Jaitley said that the Deltagram services would bridge the communication gap and enhance country’s tele-density considerably which was about 2.6 per cent at present with the help of satellite. He further said this would be of great significance for education and medicare in the country.

Giving an overview of the Deltagram satellite mail services, the Managing Director of the company  R. Kothandaraman said that 350 towns with 15000 population and more and all villages in the country would be covered initially by 27000 PCs. ,each connecting a cluster of villages with the help of satellite dish-antenna would bridge communication gap apart from providing a substitute for PCO.

This would also be integrated with voice-mail. Call India service enables anyone who doesn’t have access to a computer/internet, living anywhere in India, to receive messages from anywhere in the world over phone, fax or pager. Gram India service enables a person living anywhere in India, to receive messages at his or her doorstep. Tele-Mail service will provide a unique phone connectivity to e-mail service .All the three services are also reply enabled, meaning that confirmation of the delivery of the message can be sent to the sender. All Deltagram services can be availed through pre-paid cards or through a membership scheme.

ROAD SHOW FOR NELP-II IN SINGAPORE RECEIVES OVERWHELMING RESPONSE

 Ram Naik, Minister for Petroleum & Natural Gas, said that Government would come with the third round of offer of oil exploration blocks under New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP) by the end of December 2001. Speaking to the Media in Singapore after the successful completion of the Road Show for NELP-II,  Naik said that the country was making intensive efforts to increase domestic oil and gas production by providing one of the most attractive terms for participation by the Public Sector and Private Companies (from India and abroad). India presently, imports about 70 per cent of its oil requirements.

With this, the Road Show in Singapore was fifth and the final in the series initiated by the Government to aggressively promote the 25 oil exploration blocks offered for bidding under the NELP-II. This Road Show was attended by more than 30 international oil and gas companies, including Pertamina of Indonesia and British Petroleum. The bidding for the oil blocks under the present round closes on 31^st March 2001.

The Minister emphasised that an attempt will be made to further compress the time taken in awarding blocks in the present round. It may be recalled that in the first round of NELP as many as 25 blocks were awarded within a period of just 7 months. Referring to the improvement in the procedure to award blocks he said that under the previous government 22 blocks were offered in 10 years. “India will move to an open-acreage system once all the seismic data has been gathered”,  Naik added.

He further informed that the Government is planning to invite bids for coal bed methane projects in the next three months for exploitation of this source of hydrocarbon. There are rich coal streams in four Indian states, namely West Bengal, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat which the country could tap for energy.  India will soon complete the acquisition of a stake in Russia’s Sakhalin offshore oil exploration project. It also has entered an exploration agreement on block 8 in Iraq, has a memorandum of understanding for exploration and production with Indonesia’s Pertamina and holds a 40 per cent share in a gas field in Vietnam.

Qatar to host WTO Ministerial meeting ]in  November 2001

The General Council, on 8 February 2001, agreed that the Fourth WTO Ministerial Conference in Doha, Qatar, will be held on 9-13 November 2001.  The offer of the Government of Qatar to hold the Fourth WTO Ministerial Conference was accepted by the General Council on 30 January 2001, when it also authorized its Chairman, in cooperation with the Director-General, to start consultations on both organizational and substantive matters related to the preparations of the Conference and to report back to the General Council.

NDIAN  PRIME MINISTER TO HEAD NATIONAL COMMITTEE ON DISASTER MANAGEMENT

At the all-party meeting on the Earthquake in Gujarat, held on February 3, 2001 with Prime Minister,  Atal Bihari Vajpayee in the chair, it was decided to set up a National Committee on Disaster Management.

The proposed Committee will:  i.suggest short-term, medium-term and long-term steps for relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction in the earthquake-affected areas of Gujarat;

ii.Deliberate on the necessary institutional and legislative measures needed for an effective and long-term strategy to deal with national calamities in the future; iii.Look into the parameters that should definite a National Calamity.  The composition of the Committee is as under the Chairmanship of Prime Minister,  Atal Bihari Vajpayee. While Sharad Pawar, Member of Parliament will be Vice-Chairman L.K.Advani Minister of Home Affairs,   George Fernandes Minister of Defence Yashwant Sinha Minister of Finance K.C.Pant Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission   Nitish Kumar Minister of Agriculture Kashiram Rana Minister of Textiles   Jagmohan Minister of Urban Development  Dr.A.P.J.Abul Kalam Principal Scientific Adviser are members.

The Representatives of the National Parties are - Smt. Sonia Gandhi, President Indian National Congress;  Bangaru Laxman, President Bharatiya Janata Party;  Kanshi Ram, President Bahujan Samaj Party;  Harkishan Singh Surjit, General Secretary, Community Party of India (Marxist);  A.B.Bardhan, General Secretary, Communist Party of India; Cabinet Secretary – Member Secretary.

Representatives of State Parties are - Ms. J.Jayalalitha General Secretary, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam; Ms.Mamata Banerjee Chairperson, All India Trinamool Congress (She is also a Member of the Empowered Group on Gujarat);  Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, President,Asom Gana Parishad;  Naveen Patnaik, President, Biju Janata Dal; M.Karunanidhi, President, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam;  Om Prakash Chautala,Acting President, Indian National Lok Dal; Dr.Farooq Abdulla, President,Jammu & Kashmir National Conference;  Sharad Yadav, President, Janata Dal (United);  Vaiko, President, Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam;  Zoramthanga, President, Mizo National Front;  Syed Mohammadali Shihab Thangal, President, Muslim League Kerala State Committee;  G.K.Mani, President, Pattali Makkal Katchi;  Laloo Prasad Yadav, President, Rashtriya Janata Dal,  Mulayam Singh Yadav, President, Samajwadi Party;  Prakash Singh Badal, President, Shiromani Akali Badal,  Balasaheb Thakeray, President, Shiva Sena,  Pawan Chamling, President, Sikkim Democratic Front,  G.K.Moopanar, President, Tamil Manila Congress (Moopanar) and  N.Chandrababu Naidu, President, Telugu Desam.  

SALE OF 14 YEAR GOVERNMENT STOCK FOR RS.3,000 CRORES

Government of India have announced the sale of a 14-year Government Stock for Rs.3,000 crore by a yield based auction. The auction will be conducted by the Reserve Bank of India at Mumbai on February 10, 2001(Saturday). Bids in the prescribed from obtainable from the Regional Director, Reserve Bank of India, Public Debt Office, Fort, Mumbai – 400 001 should be submitted to him on February 10, 2001 during the banking hours. On the basis of bids received, the RBI will determine the maximum cut-off rate at which offers will be accepted. The results of the auction will be announced on February 10, 2001 and payment by the successful bidders will be during banking hours on February 12, 2001(Monday).

POWER TRADING CORPORATION WEB SITE LAUNCHED BY  PRABHU

TO ENABLE POWER TRANSACTIONS ON LINE

The Minister for Power  Suresh Prabhu launched the web site of the Power Trading Corporation of India Limited (PTC) here today. The web site is part of the initiative for transparency which the Power Minister has started. Buyers and sellers would now be able to approach PTC for power transactions through this web site at www.ptcindia.com. The special feature of the site is that it has “Standard Formats” for buyers and sellers to submit their requirement by registering on the web site. Users would be authorised by PTC through a log in name and password. Regional co-ordinators have also been identified to respond promptly to the user’s queries/feedback and suggestions. PTC officials will regularly monitor the site for updates and also attend to the requirements of the buyers and sellers. Various formats and information can also be downloaded. Users can also get information on how to transact power through PTC.

The web site also contains information on the PTC’s corporate profile, vision and objectives, stakeholders and payment security mechanism amongst other things. Details and the progress achieved so far on various Mega Power Projects developed by PTC, various power exchanges and trading activities undertaken by PTC are also highlighted. Links have also been provided to connect the site to the web sites of the Ministry of Power, the Central Electricity Authority (CEA), the Power Grid Corporation of India Limited (PGCIL), National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) and the Power Finance Corporation

(PFC).

With the launch of the site, a beginning has been made towards developing a vibrant power market. PTC has already stepped into the field of inter-state trading of power by identifying surplus and deficit states and regions and providing commercial payment arrangements. PTC traded power from Maharashtra to Karnataka for Jindal Vijaynagar Steel Limited to the extent of 28.35 million units of energy during 1999-2000 and 1.44 million units during 2000-01. In addition PTC traded about 42 million units of energy from Punjab to Gujarat this year. In the immediate future, a number of projects and states for trading opportunities have been identified. These include trading activities with Nepal and Bhutan. Development of power projects like Hirma of 6 x 660 MW capacity, based on domestic coal in the state of Orissa and the LNG based Ennore power project of 1,850 MW capacity in Tamil Nadu is also being facilitated by PTC.

THE PROPOSED NATIONAL SPATIAL DATA INFRASTRUCTURE TO COST Rs. 2,000 CRORE

The proposed National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) is estimated to cost anywhere in the region of Rs. 1,000 to 2,000 crore. This is as far as encapsulating mainly the existing spatial data holdings are concerned. In addition any new data generation and encapsulation would require additional funding, estimates of which are yet to be made. This is contained in the action plan document prepared by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) for the Department of science and technology’s (DST) Task Force on NSDI. The National Spatial Data Commission (NSDC) to be set up to oversee and regulate the NSDI will workout the mechanism of obtaining fundings for the NSDI.

This could be a mix of options ranging from Government-funding, public-private -partnership-funding, public investments and international aids/loans, etc. However, it is envisaged that the Government will have to take the lead and provide the enabling mechanism for NSDC to generate the finances for NSDI. With a national commitment obtained for NSDI each NSDI committing agency could build-up a NSDI-fund base for its respective commitment. The funding mechanism proposed in the action plan for NSDI also suggests that access to NSDI could be driven by commerce, but only at an appropriate time after the operationalisation of the NSDI. Cost recovery mechanisms could also be built into the NSDI. However, the NSDI nodal agency would have to be assisted with an annual budget for its support-operations to NSDI. As stated earlier, the draft of the Bill for setting up the NSDI is ready and its secretariat has started functioning. The establishing of NSDI assumes greater significance especially for disaster management.