Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy Wednesday inaugurated here the second phase of Microsoft campus that reflects the IT major's continued commitment to India.
Microsoft would provide 7,000 jobs by 2007 in India as against 4,000 people currently employed in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai and Hyderabad.
The new facility of 395,000 square feet, which was completed in a record time of 13 months, has come up at the 50-acre campus at Gacchibowli.
The campus, which can seat 3,000 employees, hosts three major businesses of Microsoft in the country - Microsoft India Development Centre (MSIDC), Microsoft Global Delivery Centre India (GDCI) and Microsoft Global Services India (MGSI).
The new building will house the teams of GDCI and MGSI. The first phase comprised 360,000 sq. ft. of office space.
The two buildings are five-storey rectilinear structures with a blend of Indian and international architectural styles. It is a reflection of the Microsoft campus in Redmond, equipped with high bandwidth network infrastructure and world-class facilities.
Speaking on the occasion, the chief minister said his government would provide all assistance to the IT sector. He also assured Microsoft of the government's help in its efforts to protect intellectual property rights. 'This state-of-art campus is one of the best I have seen in the world and I am extremely impressed by the amenities Microsoft is providing for its employees,' he said.
Srini Koppolu, vice president and managing director of MSIDC, said Microsoft would provide 7,000 jobs by 2007 in India as against 4,000 people currently employed in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai and Hyderabad.
'The new building reinforces our continued commitment to Andhra Pradesh and our long-term investments in India. All the six business units of Microsoft in India are making strategic and innovative contributions to Microsoft's global business growth and helping India take a leadership position in the emerging knowledge economy,' he said.
Though a star performer in growth levels, Andhra Pradesh has remained a middle of the pack State with regard to measures of human development outcomes and service delivery, the World Bank has said in its biennial Development Policy Review.
Booming urban areas and lagging agriculture had been a major problem. Increasing inequality too has become a major issue
"Lagging regions of Andhra Pradesh are under threat of instability," Mr Lant Pritchett, Lead author of the report, said.
Addressing a press conference after releasing the report here, he said booming urban areas and lagging agriculture had been a major problem. Increasing inequality too has become a major issue.
The report was launched in Delhi last month. It was released here at a workshop in Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI) as part of dissemination. "When poverty numbers are properly adjusted rural Andhra Pradesh looks like Nepal, while urban poverty rates are half as high," he said. Stating that the State made rapid strides, it needed to work hard on delivery of services like education, health and water.
He cited the example of the poor quality of education. Quoting a survey done in five districts, he said just 18 per cent of the students could do single digit addition. Only 12 per cent could do single digit subtractions. "Only 54 per cent of students could correctly report the number of kites in a poster," Mr Pritchett said. Replying to question on bank's alleged role in dictating or directing Government policies, Mr Pritchett and Mr Dipak Dasgupta, Lead Economist for World Bank in India, said the bank never did that.
Talking on how to bring up lagging states, the report said the gaps across states were widening in India, not because growth in the lagging states had decelerated. It was because growth in the middle-income states had accelerated.
The seven poor states that have failed to produce sustained accelerated growth in the 1990s were Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh. Mr Pritchett, however, said there was no panacea for all the problems. Stressing on improving service delivery and inclusive growth, the report said there is a need for systemic reform.
The reforms must improve the relationships of accountability between citizens, the State and the organisations that provided services. While reforms might share common principles, one size didn't fit all. "Reforms must be adapted to the specific circumstances of the sector and State."
Biggies from the IT and telecom industry, including Airtel, BSNL, Reliance Infocomm, Tata Teleservices, HP, Wipro and IBM, are eyeing the Indian Railways call centre operations, which would be outsourced.
Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), which is entrusted with the job, had invited tenders from consortia, including a telecom firm with pan-Indian operations and business process outsourcing (BPO) firm, to set up and operate Railways' call centres. Railways receives about 14-15 lakh phone calls a day for various queries; it generates substantial revenues for the telecom firm in whose network the enquiry number resides, as it gets the termination charges.
The call centre would have to provide basic train enquiry services at the cost of a local call for passengers calling from anywhere in the country.
But it can have premium pricing for value-added services such as hotel booking. About 25 firms have bought the tender document, said sources. They include telecom majors such as Airtel, BSNL, Reliance Infocomm and Tata Teleservices. Players from the IT/BPO sector who have evinced interest include Avaya Global Connect, CMC, HP, IBM, Wipro, MphasiS BFL, HCL Comnet, HCL Infosys, Spanco Telesystems and Intelenet Global Services. Moreover, there are companies such as Jupiter Strategic Technologies, Pagepoint Services, CS Infocomm, Stracon, Matrix Processing House, Cranium Information Technology and IMI Software.
Those who have lost land under the Rs 3,000-crore Outer Ring Road (ORR) project, mainly farmers, have demanded that the State Government provide them land in lieu of their land lost to the project.
Government wouldwork out ways to compensate the farmers better, including the possibility of providing part of the land acquired from them.
Farmers, particularly on the ORR project path around Hyderabad, have expressed anguish over the loss of land on which they have been dependent for ages. Instead of the money as compensation, which they believe is much lower than the market value, they seek land near the ORR path.
Interacting with them, the Chief Minister, Dr Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, assured them that the Government wouldwork out ways to compensate them better, including the possibility of providing part of the land acquired from them.
Dr Reddy said the Government would come up with detailed guidelines regarding land acquisition and compensation afterthe Cabinet subcommittee entrusted with the task of studying various options with regard to compensation, submittedits findings. Sympathising with the land oustees from the Pedda Ambarpet and Hayathnagar mandals around the city, Dr Reddy said they would get a compensation of Rs 10-11 lakh per acre and about one fourth the share of developed land acquired from them.
Such a compensation package will help them acquire agriculture land and also provide them with an option of selling their land from the developed land allotted near the ORR.
Given the backdrop of rapidly spiralling land prices, farmers feel that the compensation is paltry. They need to understand that the sudden rise in land prices is in fact due to the ORR project and without this the land prices will not go up, he explained.
However, the farmers who met the Chief Minister reiterated that only land would help them continue with their vocation.
Opposition parties and some leaders from the ruling Congress party too have been demanding that farmers be paid better compensation as their livelihood is under threat. They contended that land around the ORR project could be allocated to them instead of relocating to a site far away.
Meanwhile, a recent Cabinet decision to allot 5,000 acres of land to a consortium called Satyavedu Reserve Infracity Ltd, headed by Megasoft founder, Mr Ravindra Sannareddy, and NRIs, has come in for criticism by various political parties who have questioned the Government decision in allocating such a large land bank for SEZ.
This is in the back drop of the Tamil Nadu Government recently reversing earlier regime's decision to allot land to Megasoft near Chennai.
Dr Reddy's new drug is good news for patients as it can potentially cut heart attacks by 60% and patient expenditure by 70-80%.
All persons above 55 years and those suffering from heart ailments could be administered the single pill, reducing the threat of mortality due to cardiovascular disease.
"Theoretically, it looks like the drug is useful as the combination without the folic acid could work", says well-known cardiologist Dr PC Rath, director, PathLabs, at Apollo Hospitals. It could be a good prophylactic for people in the risk group, but sufficiently long trials ranging over 5-10 years on adequate number of subjects should be conducted to establish its efficacy, cautions the doctor, a former president of the Cardiology Society of India.
To some, Dr Reddy's therefore may appear to be in a hurry as it wants to launch the Polypill late next year. But it plans to test it on 3,000-5,000 subjects in the final trials. It would have to go through a stringent approval process the Indian authorities before it can introduce the product in India. Though it shows the potential of a blockbuster, the company will not exploit the polypill for profits, says Satish Reddy, managing director and COO, Dr Reddy's. "Of course we will cover our margins, but better public health is the larger concern," he asserts. It would be as affordable as possible across populations and regions. Work on the polypill started in 2003 when company chairman Dr K Anji Reddy's attention was drawn to a research paper in the British Medical Journal, by scientists NJ Wald and MR Law.
It propounds a strategy for reducing cardiovascular disease (CVD) by 80% through a combination of drugs and vitamins for daily use in a single-dosage low-cost combination pill of generic components like simvastatin, hydrochlorothiazide, atenolol, enalapril, folic acid and aspirin - all currently off patent protection. The objective is to reduce four cardiovascular risk factors simultaneously. All persons above 55 years and those suffering from heart ailments could be administered the single pill, reducing the threat of mortality due to cardiovascular disease, it said.
The importance of the new polypill lies not just in the convenience it offers to millions of patients worldwide but also in its implications for public health and overall economics of treating cardiovascular (CVD) disease. According to a Jeffrey Sachs study CVD contributes 30.0% of global mortality and 10.3% of the global burden of disease with about 200 million people worldwide suffering from clinically expressed coronary heart disease, stroke and other vascular disease and diabetes.
Heart disease and stroke kill nearly 17 million people every year worldwide compared to a death rate of three million from HIV/AIDS. More shockingly, 80% of CVD deaths occur in low and middle-income countries, with the ailment accounting for three-quarters of mortality from non-communicable diseases. This disproves the widespread belief that it is a rich-man's disease.
The Report of the National Commission on Macroeconomics and Health conducted by the Ministry of Finance in April, 2005, concurs. CVD cases, estimated at 380 lakh in 2005, will go up to 641 lakh in 2015 while the number of deaths will double, it projects. Compared to this there will be 190 lakh HIV/AIDS cases.
The pill will not have any patent problems as it is composed of off-patent generics, Satish Reddy says. Dr Reddy's will file for regulatory approvals in markets across the globe and markets. Beginning with India, it is looking at Russia, Brazil and Australia initially. The product should be out by this time next year in India and others by 2008-08.
"By January we should have the marketing plans in place while the product itself should be out in the market by this time next year," adds Sandeep Sahwney, executive vice-president and head of strategy and global market, branded formulations, at Dr Reddy's. The current exercise is to find a brand name that is globally acceptable and understood, he adds.
While all eyes are on the four new flyovers coming up at some of the busiest roads in the twin cities, everyone seems to have forgotten about the sluggish work on road overbridges (ROBs) at Seetaphalmandi and Jamai Osmania.
The Work started in 1997 and still going
These ROBs are located away from the main roads. Nevertheless, they are key link to nearby residential localities. But, construction has been painfully slow. Undue political interference, delay in property acquisition, opposition from locals, contractor problems, etc., have led to many stoppages.
Now, the MCH is promising to complete the ROBs in coming months. Jamai Osmania ROB will be completed by October, says Additional Commissioner (Planning and Projects) K. Dhananjaya Reddy.
Seetaphalmandi ROB will take some more time as 32 properties are yet to be taken over. Land acquisition route has been resorted to as owners are not only happy with the compensation package, but want reduction in service road widths.
Work began in 1997 and the ROBs were to be ready within two years. But when the contractor (NBCC) delayed work, the Government cancelled the work order and brought in another contractor two years ago before running into the properties' acquisition issue.
Mr. Reddy says road-widening on the Liberty-Himayatnagar road (26 properties taken under land acquisition, 40 more left) and the Dar-us-Salam-Ek Minar masjid road (19 properties acquired of 40) has commenced.
TATA SKy is the much awaited Tata Sky, the direct-to-home (DTH) venture of the Tata Group and STAR Network, which was officially launched in the Capital on August 8, 2006.
Tata Sky will initially offer 55 channels for Rs 200. The one-time installation and activation charges are Rs 3,999. In comparison, Dish TV is available to its viewers for Rs 180 for 75 channels. The installation cost is Rs 3,290, which also includes three months' subscription.
This will be the third DTH venture in the country. The other two players in the market are the Zee Group's Dish TV and Prasar Bharti's DD Direct. Till date, there hasn't been any direct competition between Dish TV and DD Direct as they both air different content. While Dish TV airs all the private satellite channels, DD Direct beams all the Doordarshan channels on its platform. In fact, their markets were also pre-defined. For instance, while Zee concentrated on and has built a strong market in the metros and bigger cities, DD Direct has penetrated the remote areas and villages across the country to a considerable extent in the absence of cable and satellite (C&S) television.
According to Vikram Kaushik, MD and CEO, Tata Sky will have an easy road to success. He says confidently, "Currently, 63 million Indian homes are connected by C&S television, while 47 million homes receive terrestrial television. In addition, there are around 110 million homes which are yet to buy a television set. So, the potential for another player to step in is huge."
Tata Sky will initially offer 55 channels for Rs 200. The one-time installation and activation charges are Rs 3,999. In comparison, Dish TV is available to its viewers for Rs 180 for 75 channels. The installation cost is Rs 3,290, which also includes three months' subscription.
Another point on which Tata Sky lags behind is in that it doesn't have the Zee bouquet of channels on its network. According to senior executives at Tata Sky, negotiations are on to acquire this bouquet. Dish TV scores here as well because it already has the STAR bouquet of channels on its platform.
Kaushik of Tata Sky claims that the biggest differentiator for Tata Sky will be its interactive services.However, a price war may start as Tata Sky hopes to lower its installation charges when hardware costs become economical.Tata Sky has tied up with LG, ITC (through its e-choupal initiative) and Indian Oil for distribution. The distribution process will be backed by its multilingual call centres at Pune, Hyderabad and Chandigarh and 3,000 trained field service engineers, who will provide customer service across India. Kaushik says that 225 distribution outlets are already in place throughout the country and these will tie up with 10,000 outlets in the top three cities of India by the end of this month.
Adecco India, a HR company, will increase its footprint into smaller towns and rural areas by signing an agreement with Dr Reddy's Foundation (DRF), the corporate social responsibility arm of Dr Reddy's Laboratories, Hyderabad.
LABS prepares the students for entry-level jobs in various industrial sectors. It provides them sustainable livelihood opportunities through a process that includes aptitude test, formal education, career counselling, skills development, apprenticeship and venture support
Adecco will have access to over 1,00,000 rural youth who passed out from vocational courses conducted by LABS (Livelihoods Advancement Business School), created by DRF in 1998.
The foundation enables youth who have been left out of the mainstream to explore emerging opportunities. Being an exclusive staffing partner of DRF, Adecco would help its clients tap these trained youth (many of them are working with various companies) to expand operations into smaller towns, district headquarters and rural areas, Mr Ramesh Hande, Director (Staffing Solutions), Adecco India, said.
Adecco India is part of the Adecco Group, an 18.3-billion-euro Swiss company. The agreement would help Adecco's clients expand their network to towns and rural areas, which would otherwise involve huge investments and infrastructure for them. This year LABS will increase the number of people to 1.25 lakh, he said.
Adecco has over 600 clients, and for many of them the business growth would come from smaller towns like Dharmapuri and Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu and rural areas, he added.
Companies in telecom, banking and finance, BPO, retail and consumer durable sectors would hire youth from LABS. "We have an order book to recruit about 6,500 people for smaller towns and rural areas."
Most of the students from LABS have passed seventh or eighth grade, and a few are graduates.
LABS prepares the students for entry-level jobs in various industrial sectors. It provides them sustainable livelihood opportunities through a process that includes aptitude test, formal education, career counselling, skills development, apprenticeship and venture support, he said.
The LABS training programme comprises three months of classroom training followed by three months of on-the-job apprenticeship training. The classroom training covers academic inputs, theoretical concepts and subject knowledge, other relevant inputs in spoken English and work readiness skills to equip students seek appropriate entry-level positions. Practical training gives them a chance to hone their untapped potential and skills, Mr Hande said.
Over the last three years LABS has grown to 85 centres (in various districts) in six States. It plans to extend the programme to 485 centres in the next couple of years, he added.
Bangalore and Hyderabad's rivalry in the IT space is well chronicled. Both cities are once again competing to finish two of the most modern airports in the country and the target is the first quarter of 2008.
35% of the work at Hyderabad airport is complete and on course for the first flight to land here, 20 months from now.
The 4,260 m long runway at the new international airport in Hyderabad is perhaps an indication that the city is indeed looking ahead. The runway will be the longest at any airport in the country.
Thirty five per cent of the work at the airport is complete and on course for the first flight to land here, 20 months from now.
The present Hyderabad airport handles a traffic of nearly four million passengers every year. The promoters of the new airport believe that this could go up to seven million passengers per year by the time the airport is ready for take-off in March 2008.
Spread over an area of 5,400 acres, the airport project will cost Rs 1,760 crore in the first phase. The project is a joint venture company promoted by the GMR group with Malaysia Airports and the state and the central governments as co-promoters.
"The airports have a very large multiplier effect. We have already seen a lot of interest by companies around the new airport. With the new airports coming up in south India, it will catalyse a lot of industrial growth and generation of jobs," said T Srinagesh, COO, Hyderabad International Airport.
The year 2008 will truly be the year the south will really take-off. Bangalore's new airport spread over 4,000 acres will handle 11.5 million passengers every year.
"We started construction last July and have completed almost 30 per cent of the overall scope. Now we have added an additional scope through a redesign and I am very confident that we will open the airport on April 2, 2008," said Albert Brunner, Chairman, BIAL.
The project, which will cost Rs 1,500 crore, will be ready not a moment too soon, as the city of Bangalore is bursting at the seams. The present airport is the third busiest in the country. There is a landing or take-off in Bangalore every two minutes during peak hours with a total of between 260-300 take-offs everyday.
Hyderabad will soon boast of India's longest flyover. It is learnt that a joint venture between Simplex Infrastructure and Somdatt Constructions has just won a bid for Rs 439 crore project.
With four lanes stretching over 11.63 kilometres, the Hyderabad Urban Development Authority, is calling this new flyover Hyderabad's backbone.
With four lanes stretching over 11.63 kilometres, the Hyderabad Urban Development Authority, is calling this new flyover Hyderabad's backbone.
The proposed expressway will connect the heart of the city to the new international airport at Samshabad; and Simplex and Somdatt plan to build it in just 26 months, using segmented constructions.
"Work will start on August 1, and the new airport will be ready in 2009, by which time, the flyover will be functional," said Jayesh Ranjan, VC, Hyderabad Urban Development Authority.
The proposed flyover will begin at the heart of the city at Medipatanam. It will connect the inner ring road where there will be an underpass and then it will hit the national highway, which is being widened for the purpose. After another nine kilometres it will join the new airport at a trumpet junction.
The entire stretch currently takes an hour and a half to complete once the road is functioning it will take less than 20 minutes because there will be no stops along the way.
The flyover will make the airport more accessible to Hi-Tech City send this article to a friend and Banjara Hills. But there are still some thickly populated areas on the way, where land acquisitions might become a problem. Even so, the Hyderabad Urban Development Authority is confident that the city's backbone will hum with zipping traffic in 2 years.
GMR Infrastructure, a business house with major interests in energy and transportation, is open its IPO for subscription with an initial public offering of 38,136,980 equity shares of Rs 10 each through 100% book building process.
"We recommend subscribe to the issue with an investment view of three years and above, as typically infrastructure projects take long period to provide returns." - Niche Brokerage
The price band has been fixed at Rs 210-250 per share. The issue closes on August 04, 2006. The equity shares of the company have proposed to be listed on the BSE and the NSE.
The company intends to use part of the issue proceeds for investment in the following infrastructure SPVs, which are currently in the development stage:
GMR Hyderabad International Airport Limited (GHIAL)
Delhi International Airport Private Limited (Delhi International Airport)
GMR Ambala-Chandigarh Expressways Private Limited (GMR Ambala-Chandigarh)
GMR Pochanpalli Expressways Private Limited (GMR Pochanpalli)
GMR Jadcherla Expressways Private Limited (GMR Jadcherla) and
GMR Ulundurpet Expressways Private Limited (GMR Ulundurpet)
JM Morgan Stanley, ENAM Financial Consultants, DSP Merrill Lynch and SSKI Corporate Finance are the book running lead managers and Karvy Computershare is the registrar to the issue.
