Gail commissions Dabhol-Bangalore gas pipeline project

February 19, 2013

Gail_commission

Bangalore, Feb 19: Bangaloreans on Monday came a step closer to having piped gas connections at their houses, with the State-owned Gas Authority of India Limited (Gail) formally commissioning the 1,000-km Dabhol-Bangalore gas pipeline project.

The first volume of gas arrived at Bidadi from the recently operationalised liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal at Dabhol in Maharashtra. Bangalore may be the next destination, although it will take over six months for the pipeline distribution network in the City to be ready.

The supply at Bidadi was meant for Toyota Kirloskar Auto Parts Pvt Limited, Gail’s first customer after an MoU was signed earlier. Toyota will use the gas for captive power generation. Karnataka Power Corporation Limited (KPCL) became Gail’s second customer on Monday. Gail signed an agreement to supply 0.6 million tonnes of LNG to KPCL’s proposed 1,400 MW power plant at Bidadi.

The first phase of the project, with a capacity of 750 MW, will be built in the next two to two and a half years at an estimated cost of Rs 2,800 crore, said M R Kamble, KPCL?Managing Director. About 170 acres was acquired for the project and all clearances obtained. Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) will supply water to the unit.

With 1,400 MW from the upcoming Bidadi power plant, Bangalore will have a captive power generation capacity of 1,750 MW as against a demand for 1,500 MW, Kamble said. The pipeline gas will also help the government save costs at the 350 MW Yelahanka power plant by using gas as its fuel.

Eventually, the Rs 4,500 crore Dabhol-Bangalore pipeline project will benefit households and road transport, besides boosting power generation for Bangalore. It will also cater to industries in Belgaum, Dharwad, Gadag, Bellary, Davanagere, Chitradurga, Tumkur and Ramanagaram.

Maharashtra and Goa will also benefit from the 1,000-km pipeline, which passes through these states.

Inaugurating the project, Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas M Veerappa Moily described the initiative as a “game changer” for the City. “With the gas coming in, the devil of pollution will disappear from the garden city,” he added.

The pipeline will be extended to Mangalore and then to Kochi in Kerala by next year. Karnataka can save power generation costs by Rs 800 crore annually.

There will also be improvement in power efficiency and the clean energy will cut down pollution caused by the existing liquid fuels, Moily said.

However, households in the City will have to wait for at least six months. A senior Karnataka State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation official said the corporation has signed an MoU with Gail to establish a piped gas network for Bangalore and other cities in Karnataka.

“We are preparing a business plan for setting up piped gas network, which will go before the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board. If we get the licence soon, the first phase of the network for Bangalore can be set up within six months,” he said.

Moily said 73 km of the gas pipeline has already been laid in the City, most of it passing through Outer Ring Road. The state government should accelerate works to set up a pipeline network and feeders in the City so that compressed natural gas (CNG) supply for automobiles and piped cooking gas supply for households can begin.

Gail could get the licence for operating gas units here to supply CNG for automobiles.

“To start with, four such units can be started in the City and the first CNG?station might come up in two months,” he said. However, modifications need to made to the vehicle engines to make use of the facility, Moily added.

B C Tripathi, Chairman and Managing Director, Gail, said the company had imported two shiploads of LNG at Dabhol and a third would be imported within 10 days.

Gail has also signed agreements with Jindal Aluminium Ltd and Indian Petrochemical Corporation Ltd for LNG supply.

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News Network
January 30,2020

Mumbai, Jan 30: The Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (STF) has arrested Dr Kafeel Khan from Mumbai airport for allegedly making inflammatory statements at AMU during protests against the Citizenship Amendments Act (CAA) last month, officials said.

Khan was arrested on Wednesday night with assistance from Mumbai Police at the airport when he arrived in the city to attend anti-CAA protests, an official said.

"Officials of the UP STF arrested Dr Kafeel Khan in a case which was registered at Civil Lines Police Station under section 153 A (promoting enmity between different groups) of IPC. Our police team helped our UP counterparts on their request," said an official from Mumbai Police.

He claimed that Khan had made inflammatory statements on December 12 last year during the protest near Bab e Syed Gate outside the Aligarh Muslim University in front of more than 600 students.

The official also alleged that the Gorakhpur doctor had made objectionable comments against Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

The FIR against Khan mentions that Swaraj India's president Yogendra Yadav was also present during the speech at AMU.

Following the arrest in the case, Khan was taken to the Sahar Police Station and after completing formalities he will be taken to UP on transit remand, the official said.

Khan, a paediatrician, had come to the limelight in 2017 when a controversy broke out after the death of over 60 children in less than a week at the BRD Medical College in Gorakhpur, UP.

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News Network
March 16,2020

Mar 16: An investigation into Coffee Day Enterprises Ltd., initiated by its board after the death of founder V.G. Siddhartha, is likely to conclude that at least Rs 2,000 crore is missing from its accounts, according to people familiar with the matter.

The months-long probe following the suicide of Siddhartha in July examined the financial transactions of India’s largest coffee chain and its dealings with dozens of private companies owned by the entrepreneur. The draft report, running more than a hundred pages, points to thousands of rupees that have gone missing, said the people, asking not to be named because the details aren’t public. It also details hundreds of transactions between the founder’s listed and personal businesses that were not conducted at arm’s length, they said.

Though the report is in its final stages, the precise details could change before its release, expected as early as this week, the people said. The missing funds could total more than Rs 2500 crore, one person said.

“The investigation report is still a work in progress, and not finalized,” a spokesman for the company said. “The board of directors and the company are unaware of its content at this point of time. Hence it would be premature to speculate on the investigation findings.”

The priority for management and Siddhartha’s family “is to keep the business running in a challenging environment and meet all stakeholder commitments, including 30,000 jobs associated with the group,” the spokesman added.

The disappearance of the 59-year-old founder last year stunned India’s business community. He had last been seen telling his driver he was going for an evening walk along a bridge in southern India; his body was found by local fishermen two days later. A letter delivered to Coffee Day’s board and employees, which appeared to be signed by Siddhartha, described massive debts and complained of pressure from lenders and tax authorities. It claimed he bore sole responsibility for the company’s financial transactions.

The probe began about a month later when the company brought in Ashok Kumar Malhotra, a retired senior official from India’s federal enforcement agency, to investigate. A senior lawyer practicing in India’s top court is assisting, the company said in a regulatory filing at the time.

The publicly traded Coffee Day was supposed to be India’s answer to Starbucks Corp. More than 1,500 of its Café Coffee Day outlets blanketed cities and highways, with affordable options for the country’s aspiring middle classes. The chain’s tagline: “A lot can happen over coffee.”

But the empire has been battered since the founder’s death. Its shares plummeted about 90% and its market value dropped to about $80 million. Trading was suspended in February.

India’s regulators are tracking the situation and may use the company’s final report as part of a deeper dive into its internal affairs, the people said. Coffee Day showed about Rs 2400 crore in cash and cash equivalents on its balance sheet as of March 2019, the most recent figures the company has issued.

After the death of Siddhartha however, the company faced a severe liquidity crunch and had “zero cash in the bank,” according to one of the people. It struggled with day-to-day expenses and paying salaries has been a strain, the person said.

The draft report details personal guarantees by Siddhartha for loans taken by Coffee Day, and his unsecured loans at high interest rates from local money lenders, the people said. It also probes Coffee Day’s defaults to coffee growers and other vendors, they said.

A related issue is that coffee estates owned by Siddhartha and several employees had been used as collateral for bank loans. The report found that valuations for properties were inflated to get the loans, one person said.

Investigators have examined several theories about what happened to the company’s money, including whether Coffee Day was manipulating its finances to show cash and profit and whether Siddhartha was taking cash out of the listed company to pay off a large investor to whom he had guaranteed a return, the person said. From the filings of his listed and private companies, the entrepreneur’s loans had totaled more than Rs 10,000 crore, and he had been squeezed by borrowing to repay interest on earlier loans, the person said.

In the letter purportedly from Siddhartha, the entrepreneur said he had tried his best but failed as an entrepreneur. “I am solely responsible for all mistakes,” the letter read. “Every financial transaction is my responsibility. My team, auditors and senior management are totally unaware of all my transactions. The law should hold me and only me accountable, as I have withheld this information from everybody including my family.”

As the report nears release, Coffee Day is finalizing a deal with Blackstone Group Inc. for real estate assets. A large tranche of the payment is due in about a week, one person said.

Coffee Day said it is working to reduce its debt load by divesting non-core enterprises.

“The aim is to save employment and preserve this iconic Indian brand,” the spokesman said.

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News Network
May 22,2020

Bengaluru, May 22: Amazon.com Inc’s India unit said it would hire 50,000 temporary workers to meet a surge in online shopping in the country, where customers have been stuck indoors for two months in a lockdown to fight the coronavirus outbreak.

E-commerce firms faced massive disruption in the initial days of the lockdown in India, but a slow easing of the stringent regulations has allowed them to resume large parts of their operations.

"We want to continue helping customers all over India get everything they need so they can continue to practice social distancing," Amazon senior executive Akhil Saxena said in a statement on the company's blog. (bit.ly/2A1Wv7O)

“(The move) will also keep as many people as possible working during this pandemic while providing a safe work environment for them,” said Saxena, Amazon’s VP for customer fulfillment operations in APAC, MENA & Latam.

The temporary hires will work in Amazon’s fulfillment centers and as part of its delivery network, the company said, making the announcement at a time when various other companies in the country have been forced to cut jobs as they try to tide over the health crisis.

Amazon itself has pushed its annual global Prime Day event, traditionally a summer affair, to September, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

In India, where the Jeff Bezos-led company faces stiff competition from Walmart Inc’s Flipkart, Amazon earlier said it plans to create 1 million jobs by 2025.

The company also said on Thursday it plans to enter the food delivery business in India, pitting itself against well-established startups such as Swiggy and Zomato.

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