Centre may impose cess to bail out oil firms

By ANI


New Delhi, May 27 (ANI): A cess or surcharge on income tax and corporate tax may be the next option with the Central Government to bail out oil firms reeling under high global oil prices.

Earlier, a proposal by the Petroleum Ministry to raise petrol price by Rs 10 a litre, diesel by Rs 5 per litre and that of LPG by Rs 50 per had not gone down well with the UPA Government.

The new proposal comes after Finance Minister P Chidambaram's reluctance to slash duties on crude oil and petroleum products unless alternate source of revenues were identified.

Petroleum Minister Murli Deora met Chidambaram today but could not convince him of the urgency to cut import and excise duties to avoid the Rs 2,00,000 crore revenue loss expected on petrol, diesel, domestic LPG and kerosene this fiscal.

BPCL and HPCL can buy crude oil only till July while Indian Oil can afford imports till September. The three firms face huge liquidity crisis as they fail to recover full value of the products sold.

"We don't want to see scarcity of petroleum products particularly kerosene and LPG," Deora said. "Oil companies are in a precarious state and we need urgently find solutions." He informed that some proposals were discussed but "nothing has been agreed."

Sources said a cess or surcharge on income and corporate tax similar to one levied after the Kargil war, may be on the cards to balance the cut in customs duty on crude oil to zero from 5 per cent and an excise duty cut on petrol and diesel. (ANI)

New Bangalore airport handles 331 flights on launch day

Image via WikipediaBangalore: The newly launched Bengaluru International Airport said it handled 341 air traffic movements, including 172 arrivals and 159 departures on Saturday. This was a phenomenal achievement given that it was the inaugural day of the launch of commercial operations.

"It was business as usual on Day 1. Though a weekend, we have been well prepared to handle the heavy traffic from the new airport. The air traffic control guided about 100 aircraft in landing and take off during the first 24 hours of commencing the operations," a spokesperson of the airport operator, Bangalore International Airport Ltd (BIAL) said.

The Rs 2,500-crore airport at Devanahalli, located about 40 km from Bangalore, launched operations in the early hours of Saturday, thanks to a Election Commission imposed moratorium on operations in place because of the ongoing State elections in Karnataka. India's flag carrier, Air India, had the privilege to fly out the first aircraft - to Singapore - 15 minutes past Friday midnight (00.15 IST).

The city's old HAL airport, located in the city, simultaneously closed operations.

"The first 18 hours of day one operations have been satisfactory in comparison to other such transitions the world over. Teething problems apart, the operational take-off has been smooth. The glitches will be tackled within a week," BIAL said in a statement later.

Source: domain-b.com

Reliance Mart Coming to Bannerghatta Road...

Reliance bought a convention hall (kalyana mandapam) located in Arekere signal, bannerghatta road and converted it to a mall. It is ready to open in few days. It will be a threat to the other players in this area - FoodDays, .more (fabmall), nilgiris and Food World.

First FoodNet was running their business nicely in this area and when fabmall was started it took good business. But when foodworld started their branch, FoodNet and .more (fabmall) lost their business.

Hope this competition will give benefit to the consumers!

Startup City - Platform to connect with the start-ups

I was thinking that we don't have a platform to promote startups and know about startups. Thought of building a company like TechCrunch and VentureBeat. Recently came to know about this event in bangalore and registered for this event. Waiting to connect to people and know more about the startups.


startup city
May 24, 2008 Nimhans Convention Center, Bangalore.

Check here for more information.