DLF, Nakheel in $10 bn townships venture

To develop 40,000 acres in Gurgaon, Maharashtra.

DLF Ltd is forging a 50:50 joint venture with Nakheel, a large property developer of the UAE, for two integrated townships in India at a whopping investment of $10 billion.

Set up under the auspices of the Dubai government, Nakheel functions as a private commercial enterprise and is currently developing 17 major projects worth more than $30 billion, and also has projects like The Palms, Dubai Waterfront and The World to its credit. This will be its maiden foray into India.

Interestingly, Nakheel’s main competitor in residential development in Dubai is Emaar Properties. Emaar operates in India as a 50:50 joint venture partner in Emaar-MGF. This joint venture competes with DLF at Gurgaon, the latter’s main market in India.

Even as DLF awaits the green signal from the Securities & Exchange Board of India for its Rs 13,600 crore initial public offering, it has announced a slew of joint ventures in the last one year. Read more at Business Standard

Intra-day call rate touches 9-year high

Hits 60% before closing at 17% as banks see outflows of Rs 40K cr towards tax payments.

Money market rates today touched nine-year highs as the liquidity squeeze in the banking system worsened. The overnight call money rate touched 60 per cent intra-day and some banks, particularly foreign and private banks, used dollars to raise rupee resources for a day at a record rate of 105 per cent, dealers said.

Banks chased rupee resources as they saw outflows of around Rs 40,000 crore towards tax payments. Government bond auctions further squeezed liquidity. A liquidity crunch in 1998 had seen the call rate touch 100 per cent.

The swapping of dollars for a day, by banks which had exhausted their borrowing limits in the call money market, helped the rupee to appreciate 0.7 per cent and close at a 19-month high of Rs 43.74 per dollar. Dollar swapping involves exchanging dollars for rupees. Read more at Business Standard

Liquidity crunch to end in few days: FM

Finance Minister P Chidambaram today said the current liquidity tightening is mainly due to advance tax payments and it will ease in few days as departments spend money.

"Liquidity (tightness) is mainly due to advance tax payments, it will be alright in few days as the ministries, departments start spending money," Chidambaram said on the sidelines of the release of a report by UNEFCAP. The government has collected around Rs 40,000 crore in advance tax payments in the last quarter ended March 15.

Poverty rate drops to 22%

Poverty in the country declined to 21.8% of the population in 2004-05 from 26.1% in 1999-2000, according to data released by the Planning Commission today.

Narayana Murthy opposes SEZ policy

BANGALORE: Software icon N R Narayana Murthy on Wednesday opposed the practice of acquiring farm lands for special economic zones (SEZs), saying that the earlier practice of companies building their own campuses was good enough.

"I agree that we cannot take land from farmers", the non-executive chairman and chief mentor of Infosys Technologies Limited told reporters, who sought his views on the raging debate over SEZs.

"The earlier policy, where individual companies were building their own campuses, was a good one," he said, adding that bringing real estate players in between was probably not the best thing to do.

Read more at Economic Times

Make calls abroad, it's getting cheaper

NEW DELHI: Consumers have all the reason to smile. Their telephone calls abroad would become cheaper beginning April 1. Following a steep cut in Access Deficit Charges (ADC) announced by the Telecom Regulatory and Development Authority (Trai), the telecom operators are bound to bring down the tariff outgoing and incoming international calls across the spectrum.

The ADC on outgoing ILD calls has been abolished completely. The access deficit charge rate on incoming international calls has been slashed to Re one from the prevailing Rs 1.60 per minute.

This will lead to lower telecom tariffs on services provided by the operators. Trai has directed the telecom operators to pass on the reduction in ADC charges to the consumers.

Read more at Economic Times

IBM deal valued up to $800 mn: Idea

MUMBAI: Idea Cellular Ltd, India's fifth-largest mobile phone firm, said on Wednesday its 10-year contract for IBM's Indian unit to develop its business processes and technology infrastructure was valued at up to $800 million.

Earlier ET had reported, Idea was set to close the deal at $600-700 mn.

The value of the 10-year contract could still go up depending on the scope of services to be offered by the Big Blue during the duration of the deal. Sources said the contract would be somewhat different from the one that IBM inked with Bharti in 2004. “This deal is also expected to cover billing, call centre operations, customer care management and data management for Idea,” said sources. A formal announcement is expected shortly.

Read more at Economic Times