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New Delhi,Empowered Group of

Ministers (EGoM) soughttelecom regulatory TRAIsopinion on the start or re-serves price to be set forfor thcoming spectrumauction and the authorityhas been asked to give itsrecommendation within 60days.

It was decided that onthe issue of reserve pricethe matter should be re-ferred to TRAI and wewould request the TRAI togive its recommendationsbefore the end of 60 daysbecause government isvery keen to move forwardand sell the spectrum,Telecom Minister KapilSibal told.

The Department ofTelecom DoT is required toconduct third round ofspectrum auction in 20 outof 22 service areas tocomply with the SupremeCourt Order.

The DoT is learnt tohave planned to auction all

TRAI to suggest spectrumreserve price: Kapil Sibal

the spectrum 800 MHzCDMA 900 MHz GSM and1800 MHz 25 GSM in thethird round that were putup for auction in March2013 but remained unsold.

Sibal added that afterreceiving the recommen-dations the EmpoweredGroup of Ministers EGoMwill meet to fix the reserveprice so that spectrums inall bands can be sold.

As and when the Traimakes a recommenda-tions, the EGoM will meetand fix their reserve price,and move forward so thatall spectrums in all bandsshould be sold, Sibaladded. As per initial rec-ommendations of Trai inApril 2012, the base priceof pan India five mega-hertz of spectrumamounted to Rs 18200crore, which was aroundten times high than theamount paid by telecomcompanies in 2008 for thesame.

The key issue at theEGoM meeting was pricefor spectrum in premium

900 MHz which was isfixed at two times higherthan that for 1800 MHz asper recommendations ofTRAI. This band is said toprovide almost double sig-nal coverage than by sig-nals transmitted in 1800MHz band.

The Cabinet has ear-lier this year approved re-duction of 30 per cent re-serve price for GSM spec-trum 1800 MHz band fixedfor November 2012 auc-tion. The final reserve pricefor unsold airwaves inDelhi, Mumbai, Karnatakaand Rajasthan, cumula-tively amounted to Rs11,876 crore.

Sources privy to dis-cussions in the meetingsaid Finance Minister, Ex-ternal Affairs Minister andSibal favoured the EGoMdeciding on spectrumprice. However, PlanningCommission DeputyChairman Montek SinghAhluwalia and Informationand Broadcasting MinisterManish Tewari were forsending the matter to

TRAI, they added.Ahluwalia had already

communicated his viewsto Sibal in a letter in Aprilof sending the pricingmater back to TRAI as lasttwo auctions held in No-vember 2012 and march2013 did not show goodresult.

Defence Minister AKAnthony after discussionagreed to send the matterto Telecom RegulatoryAuthority of India. The de-cision to send the matterto TRAI brings cheers forGSM telecom operatorslike Airtel, Vodafone andIdea Cellular as it may givesome more time to theseplayers in the spectrumrefarming. GSM industrybody COAI Director Gen-eral said that the decisionwill pave way for a robustand exhaustive consulta-tive mechanism i

Canon rejigs businessstrategy in India

Chennai,Entry-level compact cameras may soon be a

thing of the past as companies like Canon Indiaare dumping basic models, in favour of more ad-vanced ones, in a bid to grapple with the rise ofsmartphones and a year of potentially flat growth.

According to Alok Bharadwaj, Executive VicePresident, Canon India, the company’s camerabusiness will see no growth this year on accountof poor consumer sentiment and stiff competi-tion from the smartphone industry.

The industry is caught in a peculiar situation,we cannot compete with the rise of smartphonecameras by lowering our prices. We can only gohigher, in terms of price, and pack in more ad-vanced features, said Mr. Bharadwaj during aninteraction with them. The company receives fiftyper cent of its Rs 1650 crore revenue from thephotography business. We have discontinued ourentry level line of compact cameras, which waspriced at Rs 4995, starting from this year. In afew years, over 80 per cent of the cameras wesell will be in the over Rs 7000 crore segment,he added. The photography industry, he said,needed to be more compact, sleeker and attunewith technology. Over 50 per cent of our modelsalready come with Wi-Fi. Nobody will be sur-prised, that in the future, all digital cameras willbe Internet equipped, Mr. Bharadwaj said. Thesilver lining for Canon India and other digital im-aging firms such as Xerox is the growth of otherverticals such as commercial printing and man-aged print services. The company reentered thewide format printing business in India, with a tieup with Monotech Systems Ltd.

New Delhi,Bharti Air tel, the

country’s largest mobileoperator, has acquired amajority stake in all thefour Indian units ofQualcomm Asia Pacific.

The company boughtan additional two per centstake in all these entitiesfor an unspecified sum.

In May last year, Bhartihad acquired a 49 per centinterest in California basedQualcomm’s India armsfor an investments of $165million.

The four Qualcommarms hold broadbandwireless access 4G spec-trum in Delhi, Mumbai,Haryana and Kerala.

Under the terms of thedeal signed in May, Bhartiwas supposed to assumecomplete ownerships andfinancial responsibility ofthe entities by the end of2014. The buyout comesas part of Bharti Airtel’s fo-cus son value addedbroadband services todrive up profitability.

Qualcomm had won4G spectrum in the fourregions in the auctionsheld in 2010.

To comply with the In-dian foreign investment

Bharti flexes 4G musclerules, the US chip makerlater formed four separatejoint ventures for each ofthe circles it won and soldaround 16 per cent in eachof them to two Indian firms- Global Holding Corpora-tion Pvt ltd. and TulipTelecom Ltd. In the sameauctions, Bharti won BWAlicences in four circles -Calcutta, Karnataka,Punjab and Maharashtra.

The Indian Telecommajor has alreadylaunched 4G services inCalcutta and Karnataka.

Shares of Bharti Airtelreacted positively to thenews. The scrip surged toan intra day high of Rs303.40 on the BSE, beforeclosing at Rs 301.25 up2.38 per cent from tis pre-vious close. On the NSE,the scrip settled 2.19 percent higher at Rs 301.

Bharti has been ac-quiring companies overthe past six months to en-ter and consolidate in prof-itable areas and geogra-phy. In May, Bharti Airtelsold a 5 per cent stake toDoha-based Qatar Foun-dation Endowment foraround Rs 6800 crore byissuing over 199.87 millionnew shares. In the same

month, it picked up a thirtyper cent stake inBangladesh’s War idTelecom to get majoritycontrol of the operator,previously owned by AbuDhabi based Warid Groupat a total cost of $600 mil-lion. In April, Bharti hadentered into a definitiveagreement with War idGroup to fully acquireWarid Telecom Uganda.

Ear lier, Bharti hadbought the African mobilenetworks of Kuwait basedZain for $10.7 billion. Sincethen it is believed to haveshovelled at least $3 billionin investment in the Afri-can continent. Bharti’snearest competitor in 4GTelecom, Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Jio hasBWA licences for all the 23circles and plans to roll out4G services later this year.

Bharti has taken thelead in the Long-TermEvolution Time DivisionDuplex space whereQualcomm is a pioneer/.

LTE TDD offers asym-metric use of unpairedspectrums and is bestsuited for Indian conditionswhere the government of-fered a 20 Mbps pipe in theauction held in June 2010.

Tender InvitationGujarat Urban Development Mission,

Gandhinagar,Gujarat Urban Development Mission is inviting proposal Under USHAprogram-Slum Survey, Livelihood Survey and Household Survey andOn-line/off-line data entry for selected Municipalities of four groups. (1)Saurashtra and Kutch (2) Bhavnagar, Amreli and Junagadh (3) Centraland South Gujarat (4) North Gujarat, of Gujarat State. The proposalwill be in two bid system (Technical and Financial) and will be submittedto the Project Specialist, Guajrat Urban Development Mission,GMFB Building, Sector 10 A, Gandhinagar.Work profile :- Preparation of Slum profile, Household Profile andLivelihood Profile, Conducting Slum Survey, Livelihood Survey andHousehold Survey, to submit soft and hard copy of all three surveys toMunicipalities and also has to upload / feed those data on-line as perguidance. Same work Experienced NGO�’s/Institutions/ firms kindly fillrequested form and submit on or before 24.07.2013. With EMD of Rs40,000/- in the form of fixed deposit.General information for bidders, tender fee, Survey outline (Formatand user�’s training manual, and on-line / off-line manual, financial bid)may be download from web site www.gudm.org and submit proposal.

INF/760/13-14

NOTICESHREE BENZOPHEN IND. LTD.

Regd. Office: Survey No. 306, Vill. Moxi, Dist. Vadodara-391780

Date : 13.07.2013For Shree Benzophen Ind. Ltd.Sd/- B S Sodha, Managing Director

Notice pursuant to section 154 of the Companies Act, 1956 is giventhat member�’s register and share transfer book will be closed on 31stAug�’13 for the purpose of Annual General Meeting to be held at 10.30am on Saturday 31st Aug�’13 at the registered office of the company.

WESTERN TIMES AHMEDABADMONDAY, JULY 15, 2013

ALD Automotive todouble fleet by next year

Mumbai,ALD Automotive, the world’s third largest auto-

mobile leasing company and among the top play-ers in India, said it would double its fleet size inIndia to 17000 by 2014 with more companies opt-ing for vehicles on operating lease rather thanblocking capital to buy cars. The company, a whollyowned subsidiary of Societe Generale Group,started its India operations in 2005, and has beensteadily growing with the operating lease conceptcatching up fast among Indian corporates who aresaving 6-9 per cent by procuring cars and lightcommercial vehicles from leasing companies. Inthe first six months of this calendar year, ALF Au-tomotive has grown by 20 per cent as comparedto 15 per cent year on year growth since 2008. Wehave outgrown the market. Growing at the cornetpace, we expect to double the fleet by the end of2014 from 8500 units at present, Suvajit KarmakarCEO, ALF Automotive Private Ltd. He said the com-pany would invest over Rs 200 crore to increaseits business in India in this calendar year. Lookingat our growth, we are sure that the operating leaseindustry would achieve the growth mark of one lakhunits by the end of 2015 from 35,000 units now,he added. He said due to economic slowdown andcash crunch, many companies took steps to re-duce their operating expenses and made betteruse of their capital which gave a boost to compa-nies like ALD.

MRPL keen torenew pact withSTC Mauritius

Mangalore,Mangalore Refin-

ery and Petrochemi-cals MRPL, a subsid-iary of Oil and Natu-ral Gas Corporationand a mini Ratna is innegotiations for ex-por ting a higherquantity of its prod-ucts to mauritius PPUpadhya, ManagingDirector, MangaloreRefinery and Petro-chemicals MRPL,told that the publicsector refinery wasdiscussing with StateTrading Corporationof Mauritius for en-hancing export of itspetroleum productsmanufactured in itsrefinery in Mangalore.The quantity, he said,is not worked out, it isnot possible to sayprecisely how muchmore the exports willbe worth as prices ofthe products arevarying every month.MRPL had signed thecurrent agreementwith STC of Mauritiusin 2010 to exportpetrol, diesel andaviation turbine fuelto the island for threeyears.

The quantity of allthree exported prod-ucts put together is1.1 million tonnes peryear. Now, the agree-ment is about to end,he said, the currentagreement is valid till31st of this month.Talks are on for con-tinuing the agreementfor the next threemonths, he said, wewant it. It shouldcome from them.

Plan panel approves Rs 47,000crore plan for Karnataka

New Delhi,The Planning Commission approved a plan size of

Rs 47,000 crore for Karnataka for the year 2013-14,which is 11.8 per net hike over the previous fiscal. Theplan was finalized in a meeting between Planning Com-mission Deputy Chairman, Montek Singh Ahluwalia andKarnataka Chief Minister.

We have approved plan size of Rs 47,000 crore. Inaddition to that, through the mal central assistanceprogramme, about Rs 10,000 crore will go intoKarnataka to help engage development, Ahluwalia said.

The new Government should work out a strategy totake maximum advantage when the economy is on re-covery path, Special attention was needed to give nec-essary impetus to education and health section, headded.

State Chief Ministry Siddaramaiah said several ini-tiatives are being take aimed at impacting the lives ofthe poor and marginalized people. These include en-hancing the milk subsidy form Rs 2 to Rs 4 per litre.