To promote the agro-based industries that lack government support, state Industry Minister Kailash Vijayavergiya met a few industrialists last week for setting up a food park in each district.

Two years back, the state government had created a horticulture and food processing department that was supposed to develop new food parks.

The department of industry was asked to maintain the existing food parks.

However, following some changes in the government's strategy, the state industries department will develop new food parks through its arms.

Source: business-standard Madhya Pradesh plans food parks on PPP model

The palace was declared as a protected monument in the 1980s by the state archeological department. The monument was recently denotified before it was handed over to the luxury chain operator.

EIH said it has obtained a long lease licence in addition to all the necessary permission from the government for the project.

The Rajgarh palace, built by Maharaja Hinu Pat Shah of the Bundela dynasty, is situated on the slopes of the Managad hills near Chandranagar village Madhya Pradesh's Chhatarpur district. The palace is about 25 km from the famous town of Khajuraho.

Known for its huge rooms and elaborate paintings of exotic birds, the palace, on 60 acres, also has its own private lake.

Source: Business-standard Oberois to convert Rajgarh palace into a luxury hotel

During a three-day meetstarting January 27, newly appointed Industry Minister Kailas Vijayvergiya will review the progress on various MoUs and will hold discussions with the representatives of leading companies like Reliance Power, Hindalco and Essar.

The state government has launched the `Destination Madhya Pradesh' campaign to attract investment, in association with industry body Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

The state has attracted more than Rs 3.5 lakh crore investment during the past few years. Most of them were from the power sector.

However, the industry leaders have reportedly faced problems in getting clearances from various departments of the Centre and the state government.

In a move to quicken the pace of infrastructure development on the DelhiMumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC), the government has identified twelve early-bird projects in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana, which will kick off before the master plan is put in place. These include an international airport, a knowledge city and mass rapid transport system (MRTS) links for which the government is on course to invite bids at the request for qualification stage (RFQ). The investment required for these projects is expected to be an additional Rs 20,000 crore over and above a similar amount announced earlier for railway projects on the DMIC.

Projects identified for Haryana are an MRTS link between auto hub Manesar and Delhi, logistics hub at Manesar, exhibition centre in the national capital region and a few rail connectivity projects. The latter will be awarded by the Indian Railways in PPP mode.

The government has already appointed international consultants for various phases of the DMIC. While Halcro has been appointed consultant for projects in Gujarat, another South-Asia consultant, Lea Associates, has been appointed to prepare a detailed report for infrastructure projects in Madhya Pradesh. However, the master plan for the entire project spanning six states is expected to come over the next 8-10 months. International consultant Scott Wilson has been appointed to prepare the draft master plan by the commerce and industry ministry out of a list of sixteen consultants.

The DIPP, under the Commerce and Industry Ministry, has proposed that while determining if a company has breached the sectoral FDI ceiling, the indirect foreign investment in an investing Indian company should not be included if it is owned and controlled by resident Indian companies.

To illustrate the point better: Consider HDFC Standard Life Company, an insurance joint venture (JV), promoted by India's HDFC and UK-headquartered Standard Life. In insurance, India allows 26 per cent FDI, so technically Standard Life can hold 26 per cent in the JV. But, Standard Life originally held a partial stake in HDFC itself and this translated into an indirect foreign holding in the insurance JV. So, it had to restrict its holding in the insurance JV to 18 per cent. Subsequently though, Standard Life sold its stake in HDFC, and the insurance regulator allowed it to pick up the entire 26 per cent in the insurance JV.

Under the new norms proposed by the DIPP, Standard Life could have taken 26 per cent in the JV and still retain its holding in HDFC. In fact, this issue became quite controversial in the case of many Telecom JVs in India, Essar-Hutch being one. A pyramid holding structure, with foreign equity participation in layers of Indian companies, can technically take the total foreign holding in the operational company much beyond the prescribed sectoral levels.

Quoting industry body Nasscom, Scindia said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha, "Most companies are working to increase their levels of utilisation of resources and look to redeploy personnel within the organisation where possible."

He further said that the meltdown being a global phenomenon, there is only a limited amount of measures that individual companies are able to take.

Organisations are focusing on productivity, efficiency, resource utilisation, wage moderation, optimal lateral hiring, increasing levels of efficiency for asset utilisation like real estate, IT infrastructure and others, he added.

As per the NASSCOM, the total software and services exports in 2007-08 was $40.3 billion and the sector targeted to achieve an export revenue of $60 billion this year.

The total amount of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows in Telecommunications and IT sector in 2007-08 has been Rs 111,587.69 million.

To another query, Scindia said DoT has suggested the telecom regulator TRAI to undertake a review of mobile termination charges based on present and projected cost and traffic.

As per TRAI, the Telecommunication Interconnection Usage Charges Regulation, call originating operator pays 30 paise per minute as termination charge which is applicable for all types of calls--local, national long distance and international long distance.

The project will be completed with an investment of Rs 20,000 crore. The project will be completed in four phases.

The first phase will create an aviation facility, the second will have an air-cargo and logistics hub, the third will develop an industrial or agro-processing park, while the fourth phase will create a township, medical tourism, a biotech university and a leisure destination.

"The state government has joined hands with the company as an equity partner against a land area, which has been impounded under the Ceiling Act and a case is pending in this regard at the High Court," said Kailash Vijayavergiya, government spokesperson and cabinet rank minister, adding, "the project will provide jobs to thousands of people".

The Project Clearance and Implementation Board (PCIB) had given in-principle clearance to the project. This project also involves foreign direct investment of Rs 6,000 crore.

The political class, on the other hand has been rather ambivalent on the matter. Union Commerce Minister Kamal Nath, who so far has maintained that this was an internal matter of the West Bengal Government, is now making an open offer to the TATAs to come and set up the plant to manufacture Nano in Madhya Pradesh.

"The Central Government can't do much about it, as it matter of state government and the company. If TATAs want to come to Madhya Pradesh, we will give them full assistance," Nath says.

While Nath may have making a pitch keeping in mind the Madhya Pradesh elections, no other leader of the Congress has spoken out so far on the matter.

Meanwhile, the West Bengal's Left Government is blaming Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee for TATA's decision to pull out its staff from the Singur plant.

The West Bengal Industries Minister Nirupam Sen said, "If TATAs pulls out of Singur, it will send a wrong signal about West Bengal."

The Gwalior SPU will produce TMT bars in 8 mm to 25 mm diameter from billets supplied by Steel Authority of India's Bhilai Steel Plant (BSP). Being built at a cost of around Rs 83 crore, the unit will have a mill of 100,000 tonnes per annum (tpa) capacity.

Other major facilities will include a pusher-type reheating furnace, mill trains, crop-cum-cobble shear, TMT line, cooling bed, dividing shear, cut-to-length and bundling and tying facilities for TMT bars. The SPU will also have warehousing facility. The entire project is expected to be completed in 18 months.

This will be SAIL's third SPU in Madhya Pradesh. Mr Paswan had earlier laid the foundation stone for an SPU in Hoshangabad district, which will produce angles, channels, beams/joists and TMT bars, being set up with an investment of around Rs. 154 crore.

The other SPU at Ujjain, being set up with an investment of around Rs 100 crore, will produce TMT bars in 8 mm to 25 mm diameter.

State chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan, Union minister of state for telecommunications and IT Jyotiraditya Scindia, Gwalior MP Yashodhara Raje, members of the Vidhan Sabha, SAIL chairman SK Roongta and MD of BSP R Ramaraju were also present on the occasion.

The company, which had signed a deal with the state government in this regard in Gwalior, has asked for 300 acres. It also has reportedly, plans to set up a maintenance facility and a technical training institute in Tamot village of Raisen.

"The apex empowered committee on investment today cleared the proposal and has offered a customised package for the company and others in accordance with the industrial promotion policy. The company will have to acquire land, for which the process is going on," said Praveen Garg, managing director of Madhya Pradesh State Industrial Development Corporation.

Hero Associate Managing Director Pankaj Munjal had in Gwalior confirmed setting up the facility but declined to divulge details on the project.

The committee has also cleared SPJ Steel Ltd's Rs 2,250 crore integrated steel plant project in Damoh district, Rs 2,800 crore integrated steel project of Rashmi Metaliks, Rs 674 crore expansion plan of Bridgestone Tyres in Pithampur (near Dhar), Rs 26 crore proposal of Parakh Industries in Nimrani Food Park (district Khargone), Rs 91 crore food park project of SKM Infrastructure near Mandideep (Raisen district), Rs 121 crore ethanol project of Dollex Industries in Sagar, Rs 300 crore polyfilm project of Nahar Polyfilms and Rs 60 crore project of Surya Roshni in Chhindwara district.

The committee also extended the deadline of registration for investment promotion incentives till March 31, 2009. The company may apply for incentives and concessions till next year.

Further, the committee has also approved a proposal of awarding `C' category to Sehore district (near Bhopal) to offer maximum concessions to industrial investment.

Companies that make investment in the `C' category backward district are offered more concessions and sops. This was the last meeting of the empowered committee on investment. The Election Commission will declare the code of conduct next month.