Govt may concede oil firms' hike demand

NEWS DIGEST

The government is likely to partially concede oil companies' demand for an increase in the retail prices of diesel and petrol.

The oil marketing companies are demanding a Rs 3.80 per litre hike in petrol and Rs 3.50 increase in diesel prices, besides another Rs 1-1.50 increase due to the supply of clean fuel in most parts of the country from April 1, 2005.

Senior officials told Business Standard the increase would not be more than 50 per cent of what was being demanded by the OMCs, though it might partially offset the under recoveries likely to be faced by them due to the non-revision of petrol and diesel prices.

However, part of the increase is required due to the 50 paise increase in road cess on a litre of petrol and diesel. The Cabinet may take up the issue of increase in petroleum prices next week.

Telecom operators fail Trai test

Most basic service providers, especially, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd and Mahanagar Nigam Telephone Ltd, have failed to meet the quality of service (QoS) benchmarks prescribed by the Trai.

For fixed services, 40 of the 63 operators have not met the benchmark of 100 per cent new connections to be provided within 7 days. "BSNL has registered the worst performance "" 0.98 per cent in Uttar Pradesh (East), 3.34 per cent in Punjab, 4.28 in Jharkhand and 5.05 per cent in Bihar.

All private players have crossed the 90 per cent mark, except Bharti in Tamil Nadu and Delhi." Trai said.

Against the benchmark of "three faults per 100 subscribers per month", BSNL and MTNL have not the benchmark in any of the circles, while Tata Teleservices are below par in three circles. MTNL, Delhi has the highest fault rate (17.06 per cent) in the country.

Sixteen of the 26 circles of BSNL, MTNL in both Delhi and Mumbai and Tata Teleservices in Andhra Pradesh have failed to have more 90 per cent of the faults repaired by the next working day, the report said.

Again, 19 BSNL circles, MTNL and Tata in AP have also failed to meet the parameter that the mean repair time be less than eight hours.

BSNL, RIL and Tata bag rural contracts

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), Reliance Infocomm and Tata Teleservices have bagged the contract for providing rural household direct exchange lines (RDELs) in 274 secondary switching Areas (SSAs) under the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF), the department of telecommunications (DoT) said in New Delhi on Friday. BSNL has bagged 171 SSAs, while Reliance Infocomm and Tata Teleservices have got 61 and 42 SSAs respectively.

Bank staff plan to meet Sonia

Bank employees on Friday threatened to go on strike on March 22 to protest the government policy on mergers of PSU banks and FDI hike in private ones.

The United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) general secretary, Shantha Raju, said the unions are actively taking up the issue with MPs of Left parties, the BJP and even Congress.

"We have sought an appointment with UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi. The issue will be discussed at the next UPA-Left coordination committee," he said.