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According to official sources, nearly 57 small companies from Delhi, Gurgaon, Faridabad and Ghaziabad have been allotted 1,000 sq metre plots each at Haridwar and Pantnagar industrial estates. The move follows the clearance of nearly 100 industrial plots by a high-powered committee in Uttarakhand on December 22, which include top companies like ITC, HUL and Sterlite.

The committee, under the chairmanship of Chief Minister BC Khanduri, cleared the proposals, which were invited by the SIDCUL in July this year.

All these companies were given land under the new allotment policy recently formulated by the government for Haridwar, Pantnagar, Kotdwar and Selaquie industrial areas, which are being developed by the SIDCUL. In the allotment process, the companies were kept in three broad categories.

In the first category, the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) were given preferences with 25 percent of land being reserved for them. The main rush for the proposals was for Haridwar integrated industrial estate. In view of the heavy rush, the committee tried its best to accommodate the maximum number of companies in the final allotment.

Vishal has been able to negotiate lower rentals for at least 50 stores across the country helping the retailer to bring down rentals by as much as 35 per cent. "We told the store owners that we will relocate our stores to other places if they don't bring the rentals down. We managed to get rentals down between 20 and 35 per cent," said Ambeek Khemka, president, Vishal Retail.

A decelerating economy, coupled with job cuts, has forced several retailers and companies to stall their expansion plans, leaving mall developers and other real estate companies with surplus stock. "Today the market situation is exactly the opposite of what it was a year ago. Supply of retail space far exceeds the demand and we have an upper hand," Khemka added. Vishal Retail has 178 stores across India and most of them are standalone.

According to Purunendu Kumar, associate vice-president, Tecknopak, "the current market situation is tilted towards retailers and they are having their say while negotiating with the store owners." The fall in rentals will also help retailers increase their bottom line.

"Fall in rentals in the range of 20-50 per cent will add up to 4 per cent up to the bottom line," said Kumar. Vishal Retail is working on different strategies to reduce rental costs. The company has decided to open all of its new stores under the franchisee model. Vishal is focusing on small-format stores and it also plans to re-size around 25 of its stores.

The company plans to increase number of stores from 178 to 200 in the next three months.

But the UPA government diluted the policy and converted it into a policy for real estate opportunities. Many less-than-honest real estate players ventured into SEZ development and got approval, and they will now be the first ones to exit those zones in the midst of the present economic meltdown.

This has been happening because of the wrong handling of a worthwhile concept. The government has talked about fantastic employment and investment numbers. But that's not going to happen. What has happened to Reliance's Haryana special economic zone?

My point is that we need to go back to the original idea on special economic zones. The policy needs to be changed. SEZs should be allowed along the coast line, and should come up in land-locked states as exceptions.

Many non-genuine investors and land sharks will now exit SEZs blaming the economic downturn. We need to restrict the number of SEZs in the country, say one in every state.

Though some states handled the SEZ quite effectively, others gave it a bad name as they tried to acquire prime agriculture land in the name of SEZ and industrialisation. The state of West Bengal is a classic case here, which created a mess around Salim SEZ.

"We have been asked to reformulate our package and send a fresh proposal to the expenditure finance committee (EFC). This is a major set back as the country lacks over 100,000 budget hotels," says a senior official at tourism ministry who declined to be named. "This is when we helped creation of 2,000 budget hotel rooms in 2007-08 by extending capital subsidy."

The committee, a part of the finance ministry, approves allocation of money for government projects.

The tourism ministry had proposed an incentive for a new one-star hotel at Rs2 lakh per room, subject to a cap of Rs30 lakh for the hotel, Rs3 lakh per room for a two-star facility subject to a cap of Rs75 lakh for the hotel and Rs3 lakh per room with an upper limit of Rs1 crore for a three-star hotel.

"The package was a combination of capital subsidy (or a grant) and loans from the bank, which ever will be lower, Now that our proposal has been turned down we are not expecting any money coming for this project in 2008-09", said the same official.

But this is not just a lone historical monument in the region. Both Noida and Greater Noida have a rich historical past and are replete with temples and forts of the era gone by Only, all this information is not documented. It would have died a natural death had the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) not come to its rescue.

With a view to preserving the cultural heritage of the twin cities of Noida and Greater Noida, INTACH created a separate chapter for the region last week.  

"At present, we are in the process of locating various monuments of historical importance. For this, we are taking the help of the local popu- lace. says former Chairman of Nuida and Greater Noirla Authorities. Briiesh Ku- man who is the [N- TACH convenor for Noida-Greater Noida.

"But heritage doesn't lie in monuments alone. It also includes the natural resources, lifestyle, music and dance forms, the language and rituals, folklore and the type of jewellery and clothes worn by the locals. We aim to protect and nurture all this," he says.

For this, INTACH is also forming heritage clubs in different schools of the two cities. "Children are an important part of society They can act as an important tool to create awareness and encourage restoration of the region's culture and heritage. Hence their involvement," says Kumar

INTACH has already had its first meeting with rep- resentatives of 10 Greater Noida schools. The her itage clubs in these schools will be actiity based. Students lululfibe re< nirect toonlist sites and areas that give a unique flavour to the area. They will also be involved in documentation of natural, built and living heritage and research activities. "The objective is to instill a sense of pride and beloging among the people towards the heritage and sensitising the future generations towards preserving their rich legacy" says Ktunar

The NA chief has appealed to the citizens to come forward on their accord to pay their dues. As per Singh, all those who pay up by December 31, 2008, will get a 40 per cent per cent rebate on the surcharge, if dues are paid between January 1, 2009, to January 31, 2009, then a rebate of 30 per cent will be granted and if arrears are cleared between February 1, 2009, and March 31, 2009, a discount of 20 per cent will be allowed. A 50 per cent rebate can be availed by citizens from the EWS, LIG, Shramik Kunj and rural areas. Moreover, unauthorized water connections will be charged for a period of five years i.e. from April 1, 2003, for making their water connections regular.

The Haryana government has decided to hike the external development charge (EDC) by almost 100 per cent for all projects developed after 2005.

Developers say existing customers will have to pay between Rs 150-200 per sq feet extra for an apartment and Rs 1,500-1,750 sq yard for a plot. For a three-bedroom apartment of about 2,000 sq. ft for instance, the buyer would now have to pay between Rs 3 lakh to Rs 4 lakh extra.

Senior Town and Country Planning officials maintain the government had to introduce the hike because of the steep appreciation in infrastructure costs. "The costs of laying infrastructure have gone up," Town and Country Planning Director SS Dhillon told Hindustan Times. H R Bangia, who bought a 300 sq yard house in 2006 said he would move court if he was asked for more EDC. "I don't understand why developers don't include it in the total cost of the property initially." Real estate developers, too, would have to pay hundreds of crores in arrears to the government. "The charges developing civic infrastructure for developers have been hiked from Rs 1.04 crore per acre to Rs. 2.27 crore for all projects that got licences after 2005," said Raheja Group of companies CMD Navin Raheja.

Said N K Sehgal, senior vice president Ansal API: "Since 1991, the EDC has seen a dizzy rise of 1,300 per cent as against a 200 per cent increase in the CPWD wholesale price index in the same period." Some developers have even threatened to withdraw applications for future projects. Haryana Chief Minister BS Hooda met DLF vice chairman Rajiv Singh, Unitech MD Sanjay Chandra and Parsavnath Developers' Pradeep Goyal on November 19.

Both the Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party, the main opponents in five out of six states going to polls in this round, are depending on the internet and other wireless technologies to campaign.

Vijay Kumar Malhotra, BJP's chief ministerial candidate in Delhi, was quick to launch his website, with help from his daughter and grand-daughter, to open anew route of communication with voters.

"Frankly speaking, we got the idea after Lalu Prasad's and Omar Abdullah's speeches during the Parliament Trust Vote received the most hits on YouTube," said a senior BJP functionary. Zealous supporters had uploaded news channel clippings of the two speeches, which received enormous applause in Parliament, on the site.

Malhotra's prime competitor in Delhi, Chief Minister Sheila Dixit still believes that traditional ways of campaigning are the best suited for her. While the twotime CM roams around her constituency in a car, her colleagues in Rajasthan have chosen the internet to reach out to voters.

Two video advertisements have been prepared by professional agencies and released on websites like Rediff, Yahoo! and MSN. "This medium is commendable in its versatility -- from blogging, commenting and debating on an array of topics related to the Rajasthan elections to uploading videos for the youth. It allows a one-on-one communication channel with the voter, which is very effective," says Atul Hegde, the CEO of Ignitee India, the agency behind this campaign.

The draft policy, prepared for the first time since independence, proposes making agriculture the largest employment provider by making it more remunerative. It also calls for government investment in social sector to make it a great enabler for employability by building human capabilities and skills. The state has a major role in the development of these sectors and public investments in these should be stepped up, it adds.

The draft policy also seeks a revision of some existing policies. "Policies that are likely to hinder expansion of employment and encourage insecure and exploitative conditions of work need to be reviewed and changed," it says.

The draft policy, which is likely to go to the Cabinet in a month after receiving comments from various ministries, calls for an employment impact assessment for every policy decision.

Station officer of Sector-39 police station Anil Samania said Col. (retd) R.S. Malhotra lodged a complaint with the police alleging that Col.(retd) Madhukar Sharma had forged the agreement to occupy the rented property for a period more than originally agreed.

Sharma and two of his associates, Brahm Prakash and Atul Kapoor, had rented his house in Sector-37.

On Wednesday when Malhotra notified the tenants to vacate the house they refused, forcing him to take a legal action.

"We have registered a criminal case under sections 420, 467, 468 and 120B of IPC and have arrested Col. Madhukar Sharma," said the police officer

If those rendered unemployed are to be given the NREG equivalent of Rs 60 per day for, say, 300 days in a year, this works out to an annual payment of Rs 18,000. For every lakh persons rendered unemployed for the full year, this means an outflow of Rs 180 crore. Bring in the actuarial probability of this happening in each industry, divide the premium over the large work force, and the scheme could even be self-financing. If that proves to be a stretch, the government could offer to make a matching contribution, so that the sum available for distribution doubles. If one assumes 5 per cent frictional unemployment at any given point of time (the total figure, according to the official statistics, is about 7 per cent), a monthly contribution of Rs 15 by an employed person, matched by a similar contribution by the government, should be able to do the trick. And since Rs 60 will not be enough for all income categories, the unemployment dole can vary with the rate of contribution that a person has been making, with a cap designed to ensure that people do not lose the incentive to look for work. When it comes to operational issues, there will be large databases to deal with, but since agricultural workers will necessarily have to be kept out of the scheme's purview (they are supposed to benefit from the NREG programme), the total numbers should not be unmanageable. After all, companies like Tata Consultancy Services have shown that they have the ability to handle the task without difficulty.

In a fragrant example of Gandhigiri, the constabulary presented a rose to each of 500 motorists, who violated traffic rules near the official residence of Noida police chief R K Chaturvedi.

As part of the measures being taken by the police, in observance of the Traffic Month which began on November 1, police coordinated with the local boys' college to have members of their National Cadet Corps (NCC) distribute roses to traffic offenders.

Noida traffic police chief Ajay Sahdev, whose idea the Gandhigiri was in the first place, said, "It was amazing. When a motorist jumped a traffic light, and was ordered to stop by strategically-stationed policemen, you could see the puzzled look on his face when a uniformed cadet handed him a rose, saying, "Uncle, please try and be more careful next time."

One even told Sahdev, who was standing by, that, "No challan could have done this. But your rose may have changed the way I look at traffic regulations."

Sahdev told this correspondent, "Some motorists felt sheepish and embarrassed. Some even thanked the cadets warmly and apologized for the traffic transgression. And some others were too ashamed to say anything, before they set off again. However, what we really wanted was that motorists should not forget that following traffic rules is not a nuisance, but a means to make the roads safer for all."

In another measure, the Noida traffic police have been taking school and college students to some crossings to get them to issue challans. A few dozen drivers have, indeed, been booked by students.

Builders are not buying land from the farmers. Three years have passed since hundreds of crores of people's money is lying locked with the builders while not a brick has been laid on the sites of the projected twin cities.

Initially builders had bought large chunks of land from farmers in village Bamhota for the twin-integrated cities. The builders sold a large number of plots in pre-launch for developing separate townships. They set up their offices, but of late these offices have also vanished.

One of the builders who had deposited Rs 176 crore with the GDA is understood to have taken his money back.

Nagarjuna Constructions made the announcement despite recently posting a 26 per cent rise in profits.

The company, which is involved in infrastructure and commercial and residential developments, becomes one of the biggest Indian firms to wind down activity.

Hindustan Construction Co and IRB Infrastructure have both already said they will be slowing down their real estate plans.

Subba Raju, Nagarjuna vice president for finance, said:

"We are not planning any investment in real estate projects. All our real estate projects are fully capitalised.

    "We have put all other projects on hold. We are not launching them because of adverse market conditions."

India's real estate market has been experiencing a slow down as high interest rates have created a major squeeze on lending which has hit both developers and mortgage applicants.

Back in September Nagarjuna announced a 26 per cent rise in profits to 423 million rupees.

Many Indian builders have recently begun slashing prices and offering add-ons to investment property units in a bid to shift unsold stock.

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Now what came as a stock shock to the rest of the world in actual terms is an opportunity and it is a leveler? This recession, or I would call it `the fall in the confidence levels of people on the so-called banking supremacy held high by super powers'  is more and opportunity than a calamity. If at all it turns out to be a calamity, it is just for the few in the society who have always had enough not to worry about and to worry about with regard to their wealth. So they are going to the ones hit hard by this blessing in disguise. Wealth in whatever forms we find it in cannot be concentrated on a particular place or community for long. It has to go the deserving at times, and the mounting comfort levels, and the out of the world life being pursued by a select few of the community around the world gets an opportunity to understand the value of money and how volatile its ways are.

So what is this fall keeping in store for the fallen?

• Inflation slumps
  
• Prices may stabilize or fall
  
• Money is likely to stay less powerful for quite sometime.
  
• Supremacy of the rich over the poor will get a low.
  
• Consumer market will promote: `consume what you want or a little less than what you want'.
  
• Life, health and wares insurance as a cash cow will fall sick
  
• Organizations like LIC will make headway
  
• Real estate giants will go for buy one get one free.
  
• The landed properties that had been sold in square inches, will be sold at least for square feet.
  
• Bank loans will invite smaller interest rates.
  
• Upcoming banking products and services will look more people friendly than bank friendly.
  
• Share harvesting and Sensex manipulations will burn the fingers of those ones who have been doing the same for ages.
  
• Automobile manufacturers and marketers will have more offers than products.
  
• Consumerism will come to take a new name: consumsome.
  
• Buying and selling whatever you have will be an opportunity to learn a thing or two with regard to the value of money and it needs to be in places of need.
  
• Private education corporate managements will have to sell their seats for take one get one free or take it for much less that its tag price. Who is going to take medical seat spending a million dollars: 50 hundred thousand Indian rupees.
  
• IT sector will face pay cuts, lay offs and down sizing.
  
• Five figure salaries starting with three and four and five and above will come down to four figure salaries with the same beginning digits.
  
• The loan payback the IT and engineering professionals had had for their education will teach Indian banks a lesson.
  
• Those ones who had been leading five and six figure lifestyles may unleash anarchy in the society or make amends in their ways.
  
• Those endangered small-scale businesses, like petty shops and provision stores, endangered by the corporate retail bulls, will have a comeback.
  
• Small-scale agriculturists will come to get fair market for their produce. And more and more one-time farmers will go back to their back yards and farms to raise essentials either for themselves or for a living.
  
• Hoardings, imaginary supply shortages and the resultant price manipulations will have a severe beating of sorts.
  
• The sound and fury generated by the chimes of dollars and pounds and euros in our Indian market place will echo smaller decibels for quite sometime and this may lead the ordinary life of the majority back to their normal track.
  
• The government employees, who had been vying hard to compete with the private sector executive salary giants, will be able to lead a fairly decent life as the government is not going to down size or lay off or pay cut.
  
• Corporate costumer exhibitions will turn out to be condolence meets for sure. Who wants wares when there is no way to survive?
  
• More domestic business will naturally add more to the treasury and the exchequer will have comfortable breathers in the coming days compared to the past.

The event will comprise an international conference, annual technical meeting, an international exhibition and celebration of National Metallurgists Day, in all of which about 1,000 delegates are likely to participate.

The theme of the conference is `Towards global leadership in minerals and metals'.

Experts will make presentations on diverse topics -- covering steel, non-ferrous metals, raw materials, infrastructure, energy, sustainable development, HRD and so on.

The National Metallurgists Day on November 14 will be an occasion to recognise outstanding contributions made by distinguished metallurgists.

Several awards instituted by the Ministry of Steel are expected to be given away by the Union Minster for Steel.

There are market talks of company facing severe cash crunch and is borrowing at over 30% interest rate. The management said borrowing costs are currently about 15.5-16.5%.

Sanjay Chandra, Managing Director of Unitech clarified there are no defaults in Noida as reported, the company didn't get one plot due to farmer agitation. There is a group spreading rumours and the company has decided to approach the regulators for the same.

Chandra said the company has met all debt servicing obligations. He expects significant cash inflows over the next few weeks from some private equity transactions. "All residential projects are totally funded and will be on time. The lower area apartments demand is high and larger apartments is not as much. We have witnessed some stress in shopping mall rentals."

The company has reduced gearing by 0.15x over the last quarter and hopes to cut gearing significantly post telecom divestment, PE deals.

MEASURES ON THE ANVIL

• Strengthen onshore market and enlarge position limits on derivatives market
  
• Re-examine the rationale of levies such as STT, stamp duty
  
• Ensure full range of currency and equity derivatives are traded on exchanges
  
• Ease eligibility rules for FIIs and sub-accounts
  
• Reduce one-time transaction costs for FIIs and sub-accounts
  
• Bring in the Qualified Foreign Investor framework
  
• Depository participants to open accounts for customers from all over the world
  
• NSE, BSE broking firms should have global presence to book foreign orders

Three alternative approaches under consideration envisage addressing flaws of the domestic market, broadening the foreign institutional investor (FII) framework and replacing the FII regime with a Qualified Foreign Investor (QFI) framework.

The discussion centres around enhancing the role of FIIs and their sub-accounts in the Indian capital market. By reducing the complexity of obtaining permits, foreign investors would be encouraged to utilise onshore Indian stock market platforms.